My Top Biohacking Tips for a Limitless Brain | Jim Kwik

Welcome to the Kwik Brain Podcast, everyone. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. And this episode is all about how I biohack my brain. Now, some of you are familiar with the term biohacking. It's been used a lot the past few years. We've mentioned it and had a few notable biohackers on the podcast. For me, it's the process of self-experimentation, tracking, implementing lifestyle interventions to optimize your biology to reach your goals, to achieve peak states of mind and performance.

Now, many of you know I speak at a whole lot of events.

That's kind of my jam the past 30 years, but not everyone could always travel to these conferences. And so, we have listeners everywhere around the globe, students in over 195 countries. And so, occasionally, I want to share some of these talks with you as I'm allowed to our podcast I've been speaking at the biohacking conference for the past 8 years and very fortunate to be a keynote speaker there. I've always enjoyed not only the talk but the event itself connecting with you also. So today, I'm going to share one of my recent presentations. And since this is a biohacking conference, you'll learn about some of my favorite biohacks that I personally use. And again, these are just what I use and you can look into it yourself.

Yeah.

You could use common sense and try the things that make sense to you and give us some feedback. And, in this presentation, I start with the Limitless Model and then I go deeper. I go into consistent challenge. Some of you, if you're watching the video, you can see what my shirt says, daily physical mental exercises to improve your cognitive function. I talk about things like cold exposure for mental performance. I talk about neuronutrition, food, and also supplements, returning back into a natural state, sleep and reporting metrics, and so much Now, if you happen to be listening to this the week that it is aired, you could join me at a next keynote at the next biohacking conference in Orlando, Florida. We will put a link in the show notes as we always do at jimkwik.com/notes. There'll also be a discount code there for tickets. So, enjoy this episode.

So, how's your day so far? Amazing. My mission really is to offer hope and help to people who are told that they were somehow limited. Does anyone fall in that category in some area? Or maybe you telling yourself? Because of it, I've spoken here. I'm going to speak on something brand new. For the very first time, I'm going to use slides in my career. I've never used slides in 30 years, ever. But I have a lot to be able to talk about. And this is to answer a question I get a lot in terms of my personal routines and the resources here as we're looking around. the Tech Hall and then the Expo in terms of things that I am investing in, putting my time and my money to help me to be able to uplevel my learning and also my life. I'm gonna start with just very briefly the Limitless Model. Now, how many of you have read my book Limitless? Raise your hand. So this is the framework that I filter everything through. If there's a gap between where you are and where you wanna be, how I look at it is there's some kind of limitation that is learned. Right? There's some kind of constraint or redrawing of the borders and the boundaries of what's possible. And there's only 3 areas that I'm concerned about when I wanna take a client from wherever they are to a new level of themselves. 'Cause I believe there's a version of yourself, a version of yourself that is patiently waiting. And the goal is we show up every single day until we're introduced to that person, right? And so, I'm filtering through 3 Ms. And it's mindset, motivation, and methods. Everything falls into one of those 3 categories. So, if you think about an area of your life where you're not growing, and limitless is not about being perfect, it's about advancing, it's about progressing beyond what you currently believe is possible. And I want you to think about an area where you want to advance, but maybe you're stalled. Where do you feel like you're stuck? So, think about that. Where do you feel like you're in a box? Now, that box by definition is 3-dimensional, right? And the 3 forces that contain you, keeping you stuck, are the same 3 forces that will liberate you out, and these are the 3 Ms represented. And even if you could walk away from my session just with one thing, it's asking yourself, is this my mindset? Is it my motivation? Or is it the methods I'm currently using that's keeping me stuck? And this could also be used as an exercise to work with your family, with— how many entrepreneurs here are aspiring entrepreneurs? To be able to work also with your team also as well. And this could be done at a very micro level or macro. Micro with your children, more macro with your community or even a country also as well. So mindset, motivation, and methods. Now, you'll notice there are 3 I's there also. Where mindset and motivation cross over, you have inspiration. And you hear about inspiring stories, you watch inspiring movies, it changes your mindset about what's possible, and it gives you a little bit of drive and motivation, but you might not have the instruction, the methods, right? And where motivation crosses over with methods, that's a very powerful place to be. That is implementation, right? Because you're motivated and you have the methods, so you're implementing, but you could still be stuck in that box. Because you're only gonna be able to achieve what your mindset believes is possible. And finally, where mindset and methods cross over, you have ideation, right? And it just stays an idea, 'cause it's your mindset, you believe it's possible, the methods, but you're not motivated, right? The goal here for everybody is really to get in that center sweet spot, which is the 4th I, which is integration. It's really just your identity. It's just who you are. And that's really, for me, that's the end goal. But the mindset is something that— are you born with a mindset? It's cultivated through experience, through external environments, right? Through expectations of others also as well. Motivation, if you've read Limitless, it's about purpose, it's about energy, it's about optimizing small, simple steps, and also methods. Because some people want to get healthy, they want to lose weight, they want to be able to focus, they want to be able to remember, but they're using old methods of learning. Right? Old methods of reading. And that's where this comes in. So, this is something new that I don't talk about ever. This is a results model that I, in order to be able to grow, and I tend to alliterate and I use the same letters, right? You saw 3 Ms and 4 Is. Here are 4 Rs. And this is, for me, how you get results in any area of your life, whether it's for your brain, your business, your brand, your bank account, your body. Alliteration again. So, the first step is you reach, and that's where you're stretching, right? But for me, in my mind, if I'm climbing a mountain, for instance, you can't be stretching all the time. You have to stretch and you have to stabilize, right? If you wanna work out your body, you reach and you grow, you give it novelty, right? The replenishment is the nourishment, and I'm gonna stick specifically to nutrients, both from food and supplementation. Restore is about getting back to your harmony. And how can you do that? Through meditation or maybe some other thing that helps you find more balance in your life. And then rest for me is about sleep. All right? Because think about it. If you wanna work out your muscles, you give it novelty and then you give it nutrition, right? And same thing with your mental muscles. If you want to learn, if you wanna grow your mental muscles, you give it novelty. And then you feed your brain the nutrients to be able to grow, and then you give it rest, right? It could be non-sleep deep rest, or it could be sleep also as well. So, let's go into the micro of this. So, reach for me is all about consistent challenge. So, you're making consistent challenge, because with challenge comes what?

Change.

Change. With challenge comes change, just like with your physical muscles. If you're gonna do curls, Your body adapts, same thing with your brain. And so, the 2 areas that could help, and I'm saying something that you know, and we have some resources here. Physical exercise. When you are physically active and you move throughout the day, you create brain-derived neurotrophic factors, right? BDNF, which is like that Miracle-Gro, that fertilizer for neuroplasticity. Now, I do zone 2 training. Maybe 3, 5 times a week personally. Sparring. I like to do things that use my mind like boxing or kickboxing, those kind of things. And most of the things, by the way, here are free, right? The things that are gonna make the difference, most of the things you do on a regular doesn't take a lot of financial commitment. I'll mention some of the resources here because I think they're really great. I have a Carrow bike. The ARX is great. I don't have one personally, but there's a place close by to me, and you can find out more. I'm not going to go into kind of a pitch for this because I'm not involved in anything there. And then there's physical exercise, but there's also mental exercise. And for mental exercise, for me, you know, people talk about Sudoku and they talk about brain games. For me, you know, the exercises that we do is really measurable, right? You can measure someone's ability to remember names or facts or figures. You can measure someone's reading speed. You can measure their reading comprehension, you can measure their focus, right? So, if you go through our programs, we have these kind of assessments. For me, it's reading. Reading is to your mind what exercise is to your body. And I'm saying a lot of things that you know, and I think sometimes at these events, we're always looking for the brand new thing, and I just want to remind you that I think what keeps us from that next level of expertise, I wouldn't call it mastery, but it's this feeling that I know this already. We fall in this trap, right? You know, and I think the best of the best lean into the basics. They lean into the fundamentals. But how much are we reading each day? Well, actually, I'm asking you. This is not a rhetorical question. How much are you reading each day? How many people are reading a book a month, at least a book a month? Raise your hand. Okay. Anyone reading a book a week? Raise your hand. That's phenomenal, right? And so there was a study done with nuns that were longevity. How many of you want to live longer and live better? living 80, 90, and above. And they found out that this group community of women, part of it was their emotional faith or gratitude, but the other half is they were lifelong learners. And because of it, it added years to their life and also life to their years. And I think reading is one of the best exercises. All right. And then cold exposure. I just posted this on Instagram, if we're connected. How many of you do cold therapy? I have a picture of Wim Hof and I 10 years ago when we were speaking at an event together in Boston. And I never heard of the Iceman before. I don't even know if he had that nickname back then. But since then, I've been using cold therapy, cold showers. I've been doing cryotherapy. My favorite thing is plunge. Does anyone do cold therapy? Raise your hand. Consistently? So, for this, right, you get the hormetic response. For me, it's about doing hard things. I feel like if you get yourself— how you do anything is how you do everything. Right? And it's very difficult. Like, I grew up in the Northeast. I hate the cold, but I really, really hate it. It doesn't get any easier for me, but I do it because if I could get myself doing uncomfortable things— like, if you just do the easy things in life, life gets hard, right? But if you do the hard things in life, life tends to get easier because we adapt and we get stronger. So for me, it's about increasing resilience. For me, You know, I get this dopamine flood. For me, it's even more powerful than coffee. Elevated mood, boosted energy. I always sleep better. Do you have too much to read but too little time? Are your shelves full of books that you haven't read yet and become shelf help, not self-help?

And that's why I created the Kwik Reading Course.

15 minutes a day, 21 days will absolutely transform your life. Just go to Use the code PODCAST15, and you'll get instant access. Okay. So, let's talk about the second part, which is replenish. So, once you reach, you have to nourish yourself. And this is an area of science called neuronutrition. I'm not gonna go through the brain foods. I do believe— I've known Naveen a very long time. I've taken a test. Not everything is for everybody. I believe people are bio-individual. And obviously work within your— what works best for you. We've done many episodes, and I've talked a lot about my favorite brain foods. And how many of you remember that memory trick on how to remember your brain foods? Raise your hand. And so, well, what are they? What are some of them, by the way? Avocados, blueberries, broccoli, and so on. And so, that's one thing, because your brain is only 2% of your body mass, but it requires 20% of the nutrients. 20% of the oxygen. It is an energy hog, right? But you have to feed this machine, because what you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. Here's something I've never put out in public ever. Here are some of the supplements that are some of my favorite ones. Obviously, I don't have any of these available, but you could get them. I don't even recommend specific brands. Omega-3, your DHAs, Huperzine A, Phosphatidylserine, bacopa, alpha-GPC, DMAE. And I'm not gonna go into all the reasons, but supplementation, if you're not getting it through your diet, then you might want to add what they call those nootropics. The 3rd R for me is restore, and that's restoration. And I'm defining restoration as that return to that natural state, the return to that natural state. Free things you could do, meditation, staying hydrated. Just, if you're dehydrated even 2%, there's a big drop in your reaction time and your thinking speed. So, if you're suffering from brain fog or mental fatigue, we spend a lot of time on our screens, and your eyes are only part of your brain that's outside of the skull, right? And a lot of visual fatigue leads to mental fatigue as well. But sometimes when we're fixated on a screen all the time, we forget to breathe, We forget to hydrate. And these are free, right? Getting your sunlight first thing in the morning, also at noon as well, your vitamin D, being grounded. Like, a lot of— I have a podcast coming out about the elements, right? And elemental, there's the word mental in the word elemental. And it's just every morning I get out, even if it's cold out, I put my feet on the ground, I'll do some deep breathing exercises, but I get Earth, right? I get oxygen from breathing. I'll hydrate because you could lose up to a pound of water while you sleep through respiration, through perspiration as well. So, I have water there, I have air, I have oxygen, and I'm getting sunlight, which is, for me, is fire, right? I just incorporate the elements and it's absolutely free. Some of my favorite biohacking tools that I use, NuCalm. Anyone use NuCalm? So, I'm a big fan of that. I do this way of doing to restore, and I just like 20 minutes of it, usually around this time of the day, and it just gets me back on track. Sometimes you have to slow down to be able to speed up. I'm a big fan of NanoVi also. They have a booth here. I wrote, I think, half my book at my desk having one of those units there. I do have a Sunlighten. How many of you do some kind of heat therapy? Saunas? And I'm a fan of that. The heat shock proteins. I'll actually, even when I'm in a sauna, maybe at the gym or something, I'll rehearse things. I tend to remember things better because of the stimulation when you're actually in those kind of units. And again, it's one of those things where you're developing resilience, right? Become antifragile where you're doing difficult things and then you take You know, when you have to have that difficult conversation at work or with your family, it's a lot easier to be able to step up. A higher dose, they have— I don't know if they're here, but it's like a mat that I lie on, you know, towards the night. It helps me to be able to sleep also because your core body temperature, you take a warm bath, and then when you get out, or if I go onto one of their mats, I get out and then all of a sudden, my core temperature drops. Because remember, for sleep, The triggers for melatonin is a drop in lighting, a drop in temperature. Big fan of HAPI, Muse, and also hyperbaric chamber. I know OxyHealth is here. Has anyone had experience pressurized oxygen also for wound repair, for stem cells? And it's not all readily available. And you don't have to— this sounds like a lot. I don't do all this stuff every day.

Right?

Nobody has— there's not enough time in the day to be able to do all these things. The idea here is, in my book, I have a quote that life is a C between B and D. B is birth, D is what?

Death.

Death. Life, C, choice, right? And these are little choices that you make. And part of your productivity, we just launched a brand new Kwik productivity course, is asking yourself, what's the best use of this moment? What is the best? Because that's truly the only thing that's equal. Not everybody has equal connections and networks. Not everyone has an equal level of education. Not everyone has equal level of income, but we all have 24 hours in a day. And how are we leveraging that? It's not about time management. For me, it's really about mind management. It's about priority management as well. Also, something that's free is community. That's why I love this. I mean, how many people here, you come here for the content, But you also come because of the great connections that you've made, right? Look around, because it's not just your neurological networks, it's your social networks, and who you spend time with is who you become. But how many of you have friends or family members that you left to come here and they don't understand why you're here? Right? And, and you go to try to explain this to them and that makes it worse, right? And so it's interesting, this being around people who encourage you. Like, we all need people to encourage us, to be able to challenge us, to be able to, you know, to be kind to us. And if you haven't found that person, then my recommendation is to be that person. Be that person for somebody else, especially be that person for who?

For yourself.

For yourself, right? And so these bonds are so very important. I met some of my best friends You know, including Dave, at events. And I think that's very understated. And the last one, the R, and I apologize, I've been speaking a whole lot, is rest. Now, how many of you have problems with your sleep? This is the reason why I'm so passionate about this subject. I don't talk about this a lot, but there was a time in my adult life for 5 straight years, I was averaging 90 minutes of sleep. sleep a night, 90 total, very interrupted, 90 minutes, 2 hours. And with the help of some of the speakers here and some of you in the room, it's, you know, I have to be able to repair it. And it wasn't because my mind is busy. I have a very practiced mind. I fall asleep within 10 minutes. I don't ruminate over things. But it's not that I don't have things to worry about, but— I have sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea. You're familiar with that? I stop breathing 250 times a night. Each time is 10 seconds. So I wake up suffocating. And I've tried CPAP, dental devices. You can imagine, like, you know, most people when they have a problem, they say, I've tried everything. And you give them a piece of paper and ask them to write it down, and they've tried like 3 things, right? But I could make a comprehensive list of 300+ things. that I really gave fair shots. I ended up having surgery. It's called a UPPP, where they take out your uvula, your soft palate, your tonsils, and make room there. And my sleep jumped up to 4 hours, which is not a lot, but it's a huge jump from half of that, right, or 90 minutes. And this was all going on while I have my career and I have my mission. But the reason I bring this up, my sleep is normalized now, you know, with all the help of a lot of the friends and, you know, again, a lot of people in this community. That's why I think we're not here to do it alone. And that's how we become limitless. Limitless. How do you become limitless in a limited world? We do it together and we ask for help and we're vulnerable for that. But, you know, what gets me to it, I'm very introverted for people who know me, right? So getting on stage is not easy for me. You know, for me, doing videos and everything, but I feel that purpose in terms of motivation, going back to the limitless model, Is I feel a moral obligation to do what I do, because if somebody's suffering and struggling the way I did, then shame on me if I didn't do something to be able to support that person, right? And that's part of, you know, our journey, but I think that through our struggles, we get strength. How many of you feel like adversity has led to an advantage in your life? We hear a lot about post-traumatic stress, but we don't hear a lot about post-traumatic growth. You know, this phenomenon where you wouldn't wish what you went through on anybody, but you also wouldn't change what happened to you or for you because you found strength, you found clarity, you found a deep mission or values or some kind— something happened through that struggle and you became, you know, a better version of yourself. And so for me, like, my challenge was learning as a kid, for, you know, traumatic brain injury, learning challenges. And public speaking because of it, because I never knew the answer. And the universe has a sense of humor, because what do I do? I public speak on learning like every single day. But with the sleep, I've learned to ask myself a question like, where's the gift in this? Just like it was my learning challenges. And I'll tell you 2 things that came out of it. Number one, it forced me to double down on everything I teach. I'm becoming extremely congruent. The reason I don't use slides and I don't prepare for talks is not because I'm so amazing and I have a great memory. I do have a great memory. But it's because I just document what I do and I just share with you what has worked for me, what I wish I would've known. And same thing with sleep. It forced me to— I couldn't be productive if I'm sleeping a couple hours a night, right? So it's forced me to double down on all the things and the resources that I mentioned here. And that's a benefit in itself. And it forced me to another thing, which I offer to you as a gift. It forced me to be very selective in terms of where I put my focus and my commitments. Some of you are just too tired and you're burnt out, not because you're doing too much. Some of you burnt out because you're not doing enough, or you may be doing too little of the things that make you come alive. And so when opportunities come, or invitations come, everything was a heck yes or a heck no. And that's everything for me. And it frees up a whole lot of energy. Talking about sleep, you know, if you don't sleep, what happens. And so, here's some of the resources I use. TrueDark is one of my favorite products. BrainTap, they have a great sleep track. Somatic, ChiliSleep. How many of you use cold when you sleep? That's one of my favorite. And also Apollo. I keep it on my ankle, and when I wake up in the middle of the night, I'll just tap it, and then it'll just kind of vibrate to be able to go back to And that's some of my favorites.

So, I really hope you enjoyed watching or listening to this episode. And remember, you can summarize all of these activities into 4 simple Rs: reach, replenish, restore, and rest. So, what of these suggestions do you think you're going to try this week? It could be as simple as meditation, moving more, adding a healthy brain supplement or smoothie to your menu this week. The options are limitless and so are you. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube, over a million brain enthusiasts, where we put more of this content there. We put actually full-blown, not just podcast episodes beyond 20 minutes, but also some of my other talks. So make sure you subscribe there. Join our private Facebook group. All this information is— the link is usually Updated in our Instagram. So you could go there and the biggest compliment you could give us is by leaving a rating or review by sharing your stories. And that allows us to grow this brain performance army. So I appreciate you and I can't wait to see you in our next episode.