Title: The Biohacker's Guide

Author: Anthony DiClementi

Year Published:

Kind of Book: Health/Self-Help

Personal Rating: 9/10

My Impressions: We live in much different environments today that the ones in which we evolved. This causes imbalances and poor health for most people. Though the best solution is to return to an environment that matches the one in which we evolved, this is impractical for most people if not impossible. The solution DiClementi proposes then is to use tech to mimic some of these things we are deprived of in our current environments. The book is designed to help the reader increase his or her energy. DiClementi explains that our energy is determined by 7 things; nutrition, movement, supplements, sleep, stress, water/oxygen/light, and habits/mindsets. Each section of the book looks at ways we can hack our biology to increase our energy in these areas.

Date Read: November 2018

Practical Takeaways

  • Find your target hear rate by subtracting your age from 220

  • Lions sleep 18-20hrs a day

  • Mimic what we evolved to get naturally with biohacks

  • Do the things you know you should, even when you don't feel like it

  • Expose your eyes and skin to natural sunlight

  • Have a clear understanding of why you're doing any health and wellness thing

  • Change your internal and external environment to rapidly enhance the body, upgrade the brain, and create an epic life

  • Have your foundation in place (Nutrition, Movement, Stress management, Sleep, Supplements, Hydration/Oxygenation/Light, Habits & Mindset) //Energy pie

  • Fight for a better life

  • Fight for progress

  • Fight to understand who you are and what you believe in

  • Confront your fears, overcome adversity, and push through the pain

  • Change the way you breathe and move in your body

Nutrition

  • Eat organic green vegetables

  • Follow a whole food, plant-based diet

  • Keep blood sugar stable and be low in sugar, flour, and processed foods

  • Eat mostly plants (roughly 80%plants 20%wild caught fish and oysters)

  • Try to limit toxic chemicals from pesticides, antibiotics etc

  • Eat healthy fats Omega 3s

  • Eat sufficient protein

  • Eat seasonal and local

  • Simplify

  • Eliminate foods that can elicit an immunogenic and allergic response in the body //elimination diet

  • Try eliminating foods that you crave to see if they are causing an allergic reaction in the body

  • Don't eat the same foods every day to avoid allergies

  • Choose a diet that serves your lifestyle not a lifestyle that serves your diet

  • Avoid dried fruit

  • Eat enough to maintain energy levels and hormonal health, but no more

  • Don't limit the amount of green vegetables you eat

  • Don't eat food that didn't exist somewhere on Earth 10,000 years ago and is in its original form

  • Eat high carbs on heavy training days and low carbs on days that are less physically active

  • Eat 65-100 grams of carbohydrates a day for men and 50-75 grams a day for women

  • Drink tea

  • Before meals consume a high quality digestive enzyme

  • Limit your alcohol intake

Movement

  • Get off your ass and move

  • Spend more time each day moving and standing than sitting

  • Sweat everyday for at least 20 minutes

  • Break a sweat every day

  • 80% Cardio 20%Strenght training and resistance (sprint, resistance, high intensity interval training)

  • 20 to 60 minutes of steady-state aerobic exercise 3-5times a week (jogging or swimming)

  • Exercise in the morning in the sunlight

  • When doing cardio don't push past a 7 out of 10

  • Stretch

  • Don't overtrain

  • Use a foam roller and lacrosse ball

  • For steady state cardio don't do it too long or at too high intensity

  • For resistance training push yourself harder and don't rest too long

  • Sit less

  • Take the stairs

  • For every hour you spend sitting, do 50 jumping jacks

  • Get a heart rate monitor and work out in accordance with your resting heart rate

Stress

  • Enjoy your work

  • Meditate at least 5 mins a day

  • Do your cardio outside in the sun

  • Try to spend more time in Alpha brain waves by meditating and calming the mind

  • Use Binaural beats or apps that play different frequencies

  • Experience gratitude, joy, care, and love

  • Spend time in saunas 2x week post work out (work up to 20-30minute sessions) followed by a cold shower

  • Take a bath with 2 cups of Epsom salt and 1 cop of baking soda for absorption

  • Get massages

  • Sensory deprivation tank

  • Spend time in nature camping, hiking

  • Do NLP

  • Take magnesium Glycinate supplements

  • Listen to classical music with headphones

  • Laugh everyday. Watch things that make you laugh

  • Have strong social bonds and relationships that provide feelings of love and connection

Sleep

  • Get 7-9hrs of sleep a night. Preferably 9hrs (unless you're one of the few with a genetic predisposition)

  • Give yourself an extra half hour to fall asleep in bed (to sleep 7hrs be in bed for 7.5 hrs)

  • Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day

  • Don't exercise less than 2hrs before your bedtime

  • Cut out use of blue light producing devices before bed

  • Rise and wake with the sun

  • Eat at the same times every day

  • Have a wind down routine at the end of the day. (Stretching, meditating, journaling etc)

  • Don't nap longer than 30minutes (unless you make it one whole sleep cycle 90minutes)

  • Bank sleep in advance if you know you're not going to get it

  • Sleep in a cold room (67-69degrees)

  • Use blackout shades

  • Tape all electronic devices that produce light

  • Turn off electronic devices 1-3hrs before bed

  • Use blue light blocking glasses

  • Don't consume any stimulants within 8hrs of bed (Caffeine)

  • Put your phone on airplane mode when you sleep

  • Don't keep your phone in your room when you sleep

  • Tell yourself that you are going to get the perfect amount of sleep no matter how much sleep you get and that you will feel amazing the next morning //don't tell yourself you should be tired because you got less sleep

  • Expect to feel incredible when you wake up

  • Play music that fires you up in the morning //Nat playing funk or gospel music first thing

  • Take a hot shower and end with 2-3mins on cold

  • Swim in lakes, rives, and the ocean

  • Make sleep a priority

  • Don't sacrifice sleep for working out (do both)

Supplements

  • Avoid eating animals that were fed antibiotics

Hydration, Oxygenation, and Light

  • Drink structured water

  • Drink 32oz of water on an empty stomach when you first wake up in the morning

  • Breath in and out through your nose

  • Breath through your diaphragm

  • Don't take shallow breaths

  • Practice deep diaphragmatic breaths

  • Use the Wim Hof Method

  • Immediately expose yourself to natural sunlight when you wake up in the morning

  • Get at least 20 mins of exposed sunlight to your eyes and skin

  • Only use soap on your most important parts to avoid washing off vitamin D oils

  • Use a dry skin brush to remove dead skin

  • Avoid wearing sunglasses except when the sun is very intense

  • Watch the sunrise or sunset whenever you can

  • Look towards the sun (without staring directly at it) for 15-20mins a day

Mindset & Habits

  • Don't suffocate your inner child

  • Implement daily routines

  • Trigger the new habit

  • Make the new habit easy

  • Turn phone on airplane mode at night and leave it on airplane mode until your morning routine is done

  • Go to work on your most important task first thing in the morning after your morning routine

  • "Don't confuse internet research with taking action"

  • Do what you love

  • Don't spend too much time thinking about it, do it

  • Listen to audiobooks while you jog

  • Make eye contact with people

  • Talk less, listen more

  • Take Improv classes, or public speaking courses

  • Feed your mind

 

Big Ideas

  • There is no area that will have a greater impact on your focus than your nutrition

  • There is no area that will have a greater impact on your energy than your nutrition

 

Unknown Terms

Keystone habit: Habits that trigger a domino effect on other positive decisions you might make throughout the day and in your life. (eg. Getting a good night sleep triggers eating healthy and exercising etc.)

Aerobic Exercise: physical exercise of low to high intensity that depends primarily on the aerobic energy-generating process." Aerobic" means "relating to, involving, or requiring free oxygen",  and refers to the use of oxygen to adequately meet energy demands during exercise via aerobic metabolism. Generally, light-to-moderate intensity activities that are sufficiently supported by aerobic metabolism can be performed for extended periods of time

Anaerobic exercise: a physical exercise intense enough to cause lactate to form. It is used by athletes in non-endurance sports to promote strength, speed and power and by body builders to build muscle mass. Muscle energy systems trained using anaerobic exercise develop differently compared to aerobic exercise, leading to greater performance in short duration, high intensity activities, which last from mere seconds to up to about 2 minutes.

Cardiovascular exercise (Cardio): any exercise that raises your heart rate

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT): a form of interval training, a cardiovascular exercise  strategy alternating short periods of intense anaerobic exercise with less intense recovery periods, until too exhausted to continue. Though there is no universal HIIT session duration, these intense workouts typically last under 30 minutes, with times varying based on a participant's current fitness level.

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP): an approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy created  in the 1970s. NLP's creators claim there is a connection between neurological processes (neuro-), language (linguistic) and behavioral patterns learned through experience (programming), and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life

Delta Brain Waves (0.1-3.9 Hz): These brain waves occur during slow wave sleep. Human growth hormone grows when the brain is in this states and Physical recovery and reenergizing of the body occur.

Theta Brain Waves (4-7.9 Hz): These brain waves occur during REM dream sleep, deep levels of meditation, and trances. Memory and learning production and access to the unconscious mind

Alpha Brain Waves (8-13.9 Hz): These brain waves occurs during the beginning stages of sleep, meditation, and flow state. Relaxed focus, improved learning abilities and access to the unconscious mind

Beta Brain Waves (14-30 Hz): These brain waves are where we spend most of our time. Increased alertness, concentration, cognitive function, also stress & fight of flight