Kwik Brain: Performance Hacks With Dave Asprey (Episode 9)

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All right. Hi, Quick Brains, and here's the question: How do you overcome mental fatigue? Fatigue, mental fog, forgetfulness. And we have a very special episode for you today. This is our very first time we actually have a guest and he is the man with the plan, the Bulletproof Plan to activate untapped brain energy to work smarter and think faster. And I'm actually with him at this launch of your new book, Headstrong. Congratulations, Dave Asprey.

Jim, thanks for having me on as your first guest. I'm honored.

Yeah. This is going to be one of the questions we get in our communities. is people are always asking about fog and fatigue and forgetfulness. And you have a brand new book that's out that talks— addresses these specific issues about having energy and vitality, be able to think clearer and think faster. And so our show here is all about quick brain hacks. So what's the keys to being headstrong? What are the keys to overcoming mental fatigue in the short term or mental fog and in the long term?

Head Strong is all about how do you turn up energy throughout the body in these batteries in your brain and in your cells called mitochondria. There's a lot of things I could answer there that would go way beyond this episode, but you said something important there. You said short-term. Let me give you short-term hacks that aren't even in Head Strong. I talk about some of this stuff, but this is what I would do if I had brain fog coming on and I needed to go on stage.

Right. Or you have to take a test or you're going to an important meeting.

Yeah. Like mission critical performance time where you're willing to maybe take some short-term benefits in, in exchange for long-term, I'm gonna deal with this later stuff.

Right.

And when you're dealing with brain fog the way I used to, sometimes you make those decisions. It, it's a meeting with my boss. Like, I can't remember anything. What am I going to do sort of situation? Or I'm gonna fail this test because I feel like crap right now.

Right.

All right. The first one, it's going to drive everyone who knows me nuts. I'm just going to have to say this, sugar.

Wait, wait. So you're the Bulletproof guy and you're saying add some sugar to your coffee or—

I am going to tell you, you should still use Bulletproof Coffee because, well, one of the other substances is caffeine that really helps you. But a little bit of sugar, 5 or 6 grams potentially, can give you a short-term mental boost. You may, if you have blood sugar problems, it may crash a little bit later, but your mitochondria actually do use sugar to make energy. And if you're having energy metabolism problems, adding a small amount of sugar can kick your energy up a little bit. And when I say kick up your energy, I mean your cells make electrons better. Long-term, sugar is not a good strategy for that. Short-term, you made it through the meeting, you got an hour or 2 of focus, and maybe you'll get sugar cravings. Maybe you'll have some other problems, or maybe you fix your biology and you can actually handle 5 or 6 grams of sugar and still feel like yourself. But that little bit of sugar can be good. I'm not saying it's a great thing to do for you. I'm just saying you're going to make it through.

Hmm.

And try it. And if you feel like absolute death after you have 1 gram of sugar, you got some serious stuff going on. But for most people, that's going to help. Second thing, as you'd expect, it's coffee or caffeine, although coffee has polyphenols that do something different than caffeine. So having a cup of coffee without the neurotoxins that cause the crash and jitter can work really, really well. In a pinch, you can have coffee with neurotoxins. They don't hit you for 2 hours after you drink it for most people, so maybe you'll be fine even if you drink whatever you can get. I'm not, actually. If I had brain fog, I wouldn't drink normal coffee because it knocks me on my butt. That's why I made the lab-tested stuff.

That's interesting. Just to be clear, when you're talking about things like sugar, you're talking about things like— this is not necessarily something people want to subscribe to long-term. But if they need a short-term fix—

You mentioned short-term in your question here. Here's what's going to happen. If every morning you wake up and you put 3 big spoonfuls of sugar in your Bulletproof Coffee and you smoke 2 cigarettes, you know what's going to happen. Nothing good. This is not what I'm advocating. I'm saying, OK, I did something wrong today, or maybe I'm just recovering my health, or maybe I'm having problems with my sleep or whatever it is. What am I going to do right now so I can bring I can bring it fully. Like, I wanna express all of my power and my cells are not making energy right, right now. How do I turn them on for the short term?

Right.

And there are supplements. I make a bunch of mitochondrial enhancers and the whole Bulletproof supplement line is designed for me to do this because I damaged my mitochondria. My power generators, they're mostly back, but I took really big hits on those when I was young from antibiotics for many years, from living in a house with toxic mold that directly poisoned my mitochondria, turned off the front half of my brain in Daniel Amen's brain scans. I know how to hack these things and I'm so resilient and strong and I can bring my energy all day long. And that was through engineering and that's why I know these things. So when someone comes to me and says, Dave, I don't know how I'm gonna get through the day, but it's a really big day, this is what I would offer them. Okay.

So in the time we have, I also recommend everyone go purchase their copy of Head Strong and they can go to orderheadstrong.com. Highly recommend it. Long-term fitness. When we're talking about just having more energy and vitality, is there one or two things that you would recommend lifestyle-wise, something to add and something to avoid?

One of the free things that you can do is avoid light in your bedroom at night. I don't mean avoid lots of light. I mean avoid any light. This is in Head Strong. All the science is behind this. Go through and tape over all of the LEDs in your bedroom. Get real blackout curtains. When your bedroom is fully, fully, truly dark, you actually allow your mitochondria to talk to each other with light. And when there's some light in the room, they're blind to each other. I also recommend the TrueDark glasses, which are something that block all the spectrum of light that goes into your eyes that messes with your sleep. So I wear those for an hour before I go to sleep.

The—

let's see, you asked what I could avoid, and that would be avoid light.

Which I could add and what you could avoid.

The other thing you can add This is going to sound terrible, but the science is in Headstrong and it totally works. I did it this morning. When you wake up, take a shower. Into the shower, put it on cold. Let it hit your face and chest for just 1 minute. Now, anyone listening who's never done that is like, Dave, screw you. You're a jerk. And they're also saying, I can't do that. Then do it for 5 seconds.

Hmm.

After 4 days, you're like, oh my God, it totally doesn't hurt. In fact, it feels good. What's going on here is the mitochondria in your body are like, we're going to die. Stop that. And then they give you this, oh. And you just tell them, hold still. Hold still. And very quickly, they become more resilient and you become more resilient and you have more energy all day long for like 30 seconds to a minute of cold water on your face. It's really not very painful except for the first 4 days. Just get over the hump.

I love that because these are simple things you could do that don't cost anything to be able to do and to create your life. Dave, I want to thank you. Congratulations on the launch of Head Strong. For those of you who want your Kwik brain, make sure you go. to order headstrong.com and listen to Dave's podcast. And we appreciate all the great work that you do.

Thank you, Jim, and likewise, I am a huge fan of your work. I use it and I appreciate you, so it's my pleasure to be on your show.

All right, bye for now. Okay, now that you heard from Dave Asprey live from his book party, a few of his quick tips, let me give you a few of my takeaways out of his new book, Headstrong. These are all things you could act on right away, And if you like this kind of format where I do a kind of a book review, if you will, let me know via social media or in our private Facebook group. And I could do some of these for some of my favorite books in the future if you want me to go through and things that you could take away and be able to apply right away, 'cause that's what you need to do to be able to have a quick brain, right? Application. And so one of the things I'm very excited about in science is we've discovered more about the human brain and more in the past 20 years than the previous 2,000 years. And what we know is we're grossly underestimating its capabilities. And one of the reasons why is this area of science called neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, basically saying that we could create new brain cells and create new connections as we grow older. And that's really exciting because this kind of brain degeneration, that means it's not 100% inevitable, that you could create brand new healthy neurons at any age. So you could grow older, but in some ways you could actually grow better. And your rate of neurogenesis, genesis meaning birth, your rate of creating new brain cells or the frequency that you make new brain cells or insulate the ones that you have so that they last longer. Low rates obviously are connected with cognitive decline, memory issues, anxiety, those kind of things that pull you back or hold you back. But a high rate of neurogenesis is associated with just the opposite. We're talking about cognitive enhancement. We're talking about rapid learning, accelerated learning, quick problem solving, a robust emotional resilience against this supervillain called stress and anxiety. And according to Dave's research, he actually finds that Your brain can be 5 times better than currently it is at replacing defective cells or growing new ones. And so what moves the needle for you there, right? The science in this area is evolving all the time with each passing month. So we know that there's some factors, certain lifestyle choices that we make, environmental factors that affect the rate of neurogenesis, and also affect the survival rate of the newly formed neurons that we have. And so one of those things is environmental toxins, right? Right. Your exposure in your environment to neurotoxins like heavy metals, like solvents, like additives, those are things that will slash your rate of neurogenesis and could also hurt your existing brain cells. So that's one. Number 2, the obvious thing is diet, right? Because you can't make healthy, viable neurons without the right raw materials because you are what you eat. So there's certain foods that decrease the rate of neurogenesis. For example, like Dave talks about, oxidative fats, which are an issue. He talks about sugars, that even though we talked about sugar as a short-term fix, that if you need to— I want to stress that short-term, like immediate. You're going into a meeting, you have to give a presentation, you need to solve a problem, you need to do something for your test, and maybe you have to be present and get rid of some fatigue. So he's suggesting sugar as a short-term solution, but it's definitely not a long-term solution, right? So those are things that could, in your diet, that could actually hurt your neurogenesis long-term. But there are foods that can actually increase your rate of neurogenesis. Omega-3 fatty acids are definitely one of them. The third thing out of the book that stood out for me was bioflavonoids. Okay, so these are plant compounds found in citrus fruits and many vegetables that are essential to keep these new neurons alive. So is the plant chemicals called polyphenols, which are found in chocolate and blueberries and grapes. We actually talk— I actually did a whole episode on my 10 top brain foods, so I would definitely listen to that if you haven't listened to it already. Another thing that gets in the way is stress. Right, because chronic stress has been shown to severely inhibit neurogenesis, especially in the hippocampus. And that's memory, for those of you who've studied brain anatomy. Another thing that's gonna affect neurogenesis and plasticity is exercise, right? The more you move, exercise boosts your rate of neurogenesis by increasing blood flow to the brain and putting your brain in a short-term healthy stress state. Just to remind you, you know this again, is having a stimulating, fun environment. Because when they do studies with rats and individuals, having stimulus there, what promotes actually neuroplasticity and neurogenesis is nutrients, certainly, but also novelty. So you need novelty. And then Dave also, as a reminder, talks about the power of water, which obviously your body and your brain is mostly water. So make sure you're staying properly hydrated. And so those are just some really quick reminders to be able to keep in mind. This is Really essential for brain cells to keep working as they become seamlessly integrated, making you smarter, making you faster, making you happier, right? Because that's what you deserve, and you get all that from activating more of your Kwik Brain. Want to double your brain speed and memory power? If you'd like to learn rapidly and get ahead faster, I'd like to give you my brand new Kwik Brain Accelerator program. You will discover exactly what I teach my clients to learn, Read and remember anything in half the time. There is no charge. It's my gift to you for being one of our subscribers. That's kwikbrain.com, or simply text the word podcast to 916-822-7246, and we'll send you a direct link. That's 916-82-BRAIN. Growing up struggling with learning challenges from a childhood brain injury, it's been my life's mission to help you have your very best brain so you can win more every single day. Now. Want more quick brain? Here are four ways to fast-track your results and lock in what you just learned into your long-term memory. Remember fast, F A S T. The F stands for Facebook. You're not alone on this journey. I invite you to join our free private online group. There you can connect with me, your fellow brain lovers, links to resources, and even submit your questions for me to answer in future episodes. Go to quickbrain.com. That's K W I K brain.com. The A stands for apply. Act on what you learned today. Remember, knowledge is not power; it's potential power. It only becomes power when you use it. 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