Alpha GPC or Alpha-glycerophosphocholine (aGPC), as the name implies, is a choline-containing phospholipid isolated from soy. A wealth of research on this compound supports a role for helping  cognitive function and strength, and stimulating the release of growth hormone.

Alpha GPC contains a lipid tail that permits the uptake and incorporation into neuronal cell membranes. The membrane-bound choline molecule supplies the necessary and rate limiting compound for acetylcholine neurotransmitter synthesis.

Though found both within the central and peripheral nervous system, cholinergic neurotransmission is the cornerstone for memory formation that takes place in a specialized brain region known as the hippocampus.

The Benefits Of Regular Alpha GPC Intake

Studies in animal models and humans taking place since the 1990’s have shown administration of aGPC improves memory performance [1]. One of the early human studies on aGPC attempted to replicate trials performed previously in animals.

The study gave subjects ten days of aGPC or placebo before inducing temporary amnesia with a potent drug called scopolamine [2]. AGPC supplementation reduced the scopolamine-induced memory impairments as measured by subjects performed on memory and attention tasks.

Since this study, aGPC has become a focus of research age-related memory decline as well as other causes of memory dysfunction [3]. An interesting study that added aGPC to commonly prescribed memory drug most similar in effect to huperzine A (an Alpha BRAIN® ingredient) showed the additional benefit wasn’t with the drug alone [4].

Recent studies on aGPC have shown a potential benefit to athletic performance. A Japanese study investigated the effects of a single dose of aGCP on hormone release in healthy young males. Surprisingly a single dose of aGCP resulted in a substantial change in growth hormone release within one hour.

At 60 minutes, growth hormone levels acute increased by 290% from the baseline hormone level and returned to baseline by the second hour [5]. Also observed, was the growth hormone’s actions of increasing fatty acid oxidation, as indicated by rises in free fatty acids and ketone bodies. The authors proposed that the increase in circulating choline may briefly block the negative feedback mechanism governing GH release.

Short supplementation periods of 6 days have been shown to improve strength in college-aged athletes directly. A study conducted at the University of Louisianna used a crossover design that measured the force generated in deadlift and bench press style movements.

The study found a significant increase of 3% improvement in lower body strength with aGPC supplementation [6]. The study cited the previous research of cholinergic transmission at neural-muscular as a potential mechanism, however, did not have direct evidence for the mechanism leading to improved strength.

The cumulative evidence from animal model and human studies support the role of aGPC as a well tolerated cognitive enhancing compound with ergogenic properties [7]. The soy lecithin isolate contains a phospholipid that permits incorporation into neuronal cell membranes and utilization as a cholinergic neurotransmitter precursor.

Associated with the increase in circulating choline levels was a transient elevation in growth hormone. Even a short period of supplementation with aGPC proved to be beneficial to muscle strength

Recommended Usage & Natural Sources Of Alpha GPC

Alpha GPC is approximately 40% choline by weight, and as such 1,000 mg alpha-GPC confers about 400 mg of dietary choline. A standard dosage of alpha-GPC is 300-600 mg, according to the most common label doses.

This dose is following the study using alpha-GPC to enhance power output (600 mg) and the two studies noting an increase in growth hormone secretion and is likely a good dose to take for athletes.

For the usage of alpha-GPC in attenuating symptoms of cognitive decline, almost all studies use a dosage of 1,200 mg daily, divided into three doses of 400 mg. It is unsure how lower doses would benefit cognition, but the dose which is consistently associated with benefit .appears to be 1,200 mg.

Rat studies suggest that the effects of Alpha-GPC oral ingestion peak at 300-600 mg/kg, which is an estimated human dose of 48-96 mg/kg (and for a 150lb human, 3,272-6,545 mg daily).

For nootropic stack use, we recommend a dose of 300-600 mg to start out and then to increase from there if you decide you would benefit from more.

When taken at recommended dosages Alpha GPC is well tolerated. For most adults the range of acceptable dosage is relatively broad; a cumulative daily dosage of 300-1200 mg, when taken in one or two doses, is safe and efficient.

As is the case with all supplements, it is wise to start with the lowest possible effective dose and build gradually as needed.

Side Effects of Alpha GPC

Although, Alpha GPC is both safe and well tolerated in healthy adults,  side effects have been reported.

Users have occasionally experienced headaches, fatigue, nervousness, nausea, diarrhea and gastrointestinal distress; also, this supplement can result in dizziness and low blood pressure in some individuals.

If you know, you are prone to hypotension you should consult a medical professional before taking Alpha GPC.

Adverse side effects may occur more commonly among users taking high dosages.

Little research has been done on Alpha GPC’s effects on pregnant women, so those who are pregnant or nursing are advised to refrain from use.

Conclusion & Summary on GPC

Alpha GPC is a safe, well-tolerated, and highly effective source of choline. It has been the subject of decades of research and is recognized worldwide as a powerful memory enhancer, prescribed by physicians throughout Europe for a variety of memory disorders.

In addition to being a potent nootropic in its right, Alpha GPC is also a perfect addition to many other supplements, particularly those like the racetams which depend on a sufficiency of choline in order to achieve optimal results.

It also stimulates the production of HGH, which can improve strength, and shorten recovery time following exertion, and encourage the building of lean muscle mass, making it an invaluable supplement for athletes or anyone with an active lifestyle.

For anyone who is interested in improving their memory, physical strength and vitality, or achieving the best results possible with nootropic supplements, Alpha GPC is an excellent choice.

References

1. Klein J, Gonzalez R, Köppen A, Löffelholz K. Free choline and choline metabolites in rat brain and body fluids: sensitive determination and implications for choline supply to the brain. Neurochem Int. 1993;22(3):293-300.

2. Canal N, Franceschi M, Alberoni M, Castiglioni C, De moliner P, Longoni A. Effect of L-alpha-glyceryl-phosphorylcholine on amnesia caused by scopolamine. Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther Toxicol. 1991;29(3):103-7.

3. Parnetti L, Amenta F, Gallai V. Choline alphoscerate in cognitive decline and in acute cerebrovascular disease: an analysis of published clinical data. Mech Ageing Dev. 2001;122(16):2041-55.

4. Amenta F, Carotenuto A, Fasanaro AM, Rea R, Traini E. The ASCOMALVA trial: association between the cholinesterase inhibitor donepezil and the cholinergic precursor choline alphoscerate in Alzheimer’s disease with cerebrovascular injury: interim results. J Neurol Sci. 2012;322(1-2):96-101.

5. Kawamura T, Okubo T, Sato K, et al. Glycerophosphocholine enhances growth hormone secretion and fat oxidation in young adults. Nutrition. 2012;28(11-12):1122-6.

6. Kawamura T, Okubo T, Sato K, et al. Glycerophosphocholine enhances growth hormone secretion and fat oxidation in young adults. Nutrition. 2012;28(11-12):1122-6.

7. Traini E, Bramanti V, Amenta F. Choline alphoscerate (alpha-glyceryl-phosphoryl-choline) an old choline- containing phospholipid with a still interesting profile as cognition enhancing agent. Curr Alzheimer Res. 2013;10(10):1070-9.

In the recent movie “Limitless,” Bradley Cooper’s character is shown rather quickly turning from a cognitively average drug addict into a relative genius and rising politician… all from a little pill that lights his neurochemistry up like Christmas Vacation.

While the movie gives a potential perspective on what’s possible through the massive, growing field of psychopharmacology, a personal vignette is in order.

I was diagnosed with narcolepsy in medical school. That’s where one falls asleep abruptly in inappropriate and potentially dangerous situations, and is neurologically verified by clinical data in an EEG directed sleep lab. Yep, it was official and I was given a cousin of Ritalin called Cylert.

Totally worked and I was hooked. For about four years I was tied to it daily, and it only came after another wake up that I decided to take a different approach.

How I Found Nootropics

The wake up came while in my psychiatric residency in the form of my last major concussion. Up to that point I had four major head traumas, one of which included me landing on my crown while diving and breaking my neck. This latest one happened when I got turned upside down on my snowboard in a terrain park and put a 6 inch crack in the back of my helmet.

Even with the Cylert on board my focus, concentration, and memory were shot, and it gradually dawned on me… am I going to be taking this medication for life, even if it’s not doing the trick? Now, this was all in the setting of watching three out of four of my grandparents die with neurodegenerative conditions. If you’ve ever seen a person with brain issues… it gets your attention. The natural question then arose… Holy crap, is that going to be me?

Thus started my flurry into reparative neurobiology, regenerative medicine and advanced cognitive performance strategies. So, is it really possible to dramatically change the brain for the better, and if so, how does it work and how can I do it? What is the protocol and what are the downsides, if any?

This article is essentially geared to answer these questions, although to be clear, a full discourse in answering the question of how to turn your brain into a racecar engine and drive it as such is another volume of blog posts and multi opinionated examination… we venture forth.

Can Nootropics Really Enhance your Brain

The brief answer is yes, the brain can be driven like a race car in the hands of an Andretti. In fact, it can be driven like a fighter jet on greased lightning!

We’re only scratching the surface of our cognitive potential as there are massively exciting technologies that we’re not even covering here (for example, advanced neuro-feedback, holodynamic cognitive enhancement through sound and light therapies, targeted amino acid therapy specifically tailored to a person’s individual neurochemistry, and accelerated avenues for clearing out the interference in the neural networks). But for now, we’ll settle for the nutrients and practices readily available to the average person.

The ones I’ve included here are all of the ones I’m directly familiar with, both professionally and personally, and by no means is this an exhaustive list. The list provided here can be thought of as a cliff notes version of sorts from clinical research and available experience.

As many of you know from my previous writings, I put myself in the lab in order to understand from a first person perspective the effect, because it’s only then that I can really speak from a place of truth, otherwise I’m just passing on someone else’s perspective.

I also happen to run one of the most effective ortho-molecularly based psychiatric rehabilitation centers in the country, Alternative to Meds in Sedona, Arizona. People of all ages come to detoxify their nervous systems from offending agents (drugs, medications, underlying infections, etc.) and get their Ferrari brains back online. So, I do have a bit of experience from multiple angles.

6 Classes of Nootropics

Nootropics Class #1: Medications

Some pharmaceuticals fall into this arena. Some clinicians in the country even advocate wide and liberal use for the masses in order to boost productivity further.

The downside is the variable frequency of side-effects, especially with the stimulants (think of Ritalin as neurochemically similar to cocaine and Adderall as similar to crystal meth), which for children can be especially significant, including the long term effects on psychological development.

Another class of meds are the eugeroics, which enhance wakefulness. They’re typically used for people with narcolepsy and excessive daytime sleepiness. One such med is Provigil (or Modafinil) that has been getting wider use.

Notably, our culture is ripe with stimulants used daily throughout the workforce, namely nicotine and caffeine. They’re used because they work! The clinical trials show improved alertness, memory and reaction time. The downside is the acidity, adrenal burnout, and in the case of cigarettes the little C problem.

An upgrade that many are switching over to is the theobromine in dark chocolate. Not only does it just make you feel super good, it’s a potent anti-oxidant profile and mineral booster.

Nootropics Class #2: Neuro-Protective Agents

Common supplements used as “brain food” that protect the brain and help it repair; for example, think of healing from a closed head injury, toxic exposures, central nervous system infections, etc.

These include broad spectrum B vitamins, as well as vitamins C, D, and E as well as Omega 3 fatty acids and alpha lipoic acid.

A few notables here for powering up neurogenesis and stimulating neuronal growth: Lion’s Mane Mushroom, SAM-e, phosphatidylserine, inositol, glutathione (massive benefit here), and cannabidiol.

Nootropics Class #3: Blood Flow Boosters

It just plain helps to get more blood circulating in order to think better. First steps are to get hydrated, which most people aren’t, and remineralize. Then for an added support try CoQ 10.

Nootropics Class #4: Specific Neurotransmitter Targets

Dopamine Boosters: Build the “feel good and reward seeking” neurotransmitter in the brain. These are tyrosine, phenylalanine, and macuna puriens.

Serotonin Support: Build the “mood lifting” pathways via tryptophan and 5-HTP.

Acetyl Choline Strengthening: Boosting the memory enhancing neurotransmitter system. This is with alpha GPC, huperzine, sage, and rosemary.

Nootropics Class #5: Targeted Herbs & Foods

Targeted herbs and foods have been used classically for hundreds of years to get the brain juices flowing again, as well as to modulate certain psychological conditions.

Some people like to engage the plant kingdom directly as it can be seen as being closer to nature. If so, here’s your list, just note that in some cases you may need to take a truck load of a given food or herb to get the distilled benefits in one supplement capsule.

Theanine (green tea), resveratrol (blueberries and red grapes), curcumin (turmeric), and the whole class of cruciferous vegetables; all potent anti-oxidants, anti-inflammatory (unless one has an allergy), and performance enhancers.

Nootropics Class #6: Adaptogens

May be the most appreciated and fastest rising class of herbs in use today. They literally help the body adapt to stress, and given the pace we live in our day and age, who couldn’t use their support?

They are generally considered tonifying herbs as well, i.e. those you are encouraged to use daily for strength and vitality. The ones I have chosen to list here are those that are specifically brain and nervous system supportive as well as being restorative to the adrenal glands.

The ones here are a bit more yang and stimulating. Rhodiola, Ginseng (all of them), Ginkgo biloba, Tulsi (Holy Basil), and He Shou Wu. These are a bit more yin and calming. Lemon Balm, Kava Kava, Passion Flower, Valerian Root, Oat Straw.

A Final Word on Nootropics

Wrapping it up, there’s a lot to take into consideration. While it’s fun and exciting to drive a Ferrari to its limit, it’s also a good idea to know how to slow down and stop when desired. And in the case of brain function, that means finding the resting and recovery period of the para- sympathetic system and nightly reparative sleep.

The downside to high octane brain performance is running a bit hot through overstimulation, symptoms like anxiety, insomnia, teeth grinding, perpetuating the “more, more, more” attitude of the rat race and eventually blowing a fuse.

In order to do it all right takes time, thoughtfulness, experimentation, and ideally support from someone knowledgeable in the field. It’s a craft, an alchemy of sorts; and when in doubt, find someone to point you in the right direction before just throwing a bunch of stuff at your fairly delicate brain matter and psychological makeup.

You may choose to meditate to sharpen your mind for the day ahead, or merely to calm it down, but sneaking in even a short session in the middle of a busy morning can pay more dividends than you imagine.

Why Meditate In the Morning?

Science is beginning to prove what yogis, monks, and Kung Fu masters have known for centuries: that meditation can help to relieve stress and even serious medical conditions.

A 2014 review of 47 trials that observed more than 3,500 people concluded that meditation practices reduced subjects’ anxiety, depression, and pain. Another study that same year demonstrated benefits for patients with chronic insomnia.

According to Cory Allen, a meditation coach in Austin, TX, and the author of the upcoming book, Now Is The Way, meditation is beneficial at any time of day, but he personally does it in the morning in order to prepare himself for a more productive day. Doing it in the morning, he adds, will also increase the likelihood that you do it at all. Get it out of the way early, and you won’t forget to meditate later, or blow it off.

“People often tell me they want to meditate,” says Allen, “but it never ends up happening because they look at it as a chore.” To establish meditation as a habit, you have to build it into your schedule just as you do showering, drinking coffee, and brushing your teeth.

Exactly when you do it is entirely up to you, but Allen suggests treating meditation like an appointment and keeping it. “Make it a non-negotiable,” he says. Aim to meditate at the same time every day. If you think it will be easier to do it first thing upon waking up, before your day starts getting hectic and rushed, simply sit up in bed and do it right away. “The more you do it, the more the benefits will compound,” says Allen. Some meditation is much better than none at all, but if you can, aim for five sessions a week (varying lengths each session is OK). “If you can do it Monday through Friday, by the time Friday rolls around, I bet you’ll feel way different,” says Allen. The more consistently you meditate, the more you’ll get accustomed to it, and the more you’ll want to keep doing it. Meditation will become something you desire to do, and not another task you feel obligated to complete.

“I meditate in the morning because I want to have the most clear-focused and present mind I can have for my day,” says Allen. (See “The Best Morning Meditation Routine for Clearing Your Head” below for step-by-step instructions for a great meditation.)

How Long Do I Need to Meditate For?

According to Allen, any amount of meditation is beneficial. If five minutes is all you can spare, that’s fine. Of course, longer sessions will allow you to relax more and get into a deeper meditative state. “When people ask me how long to meditate, I just say, ’Until the peace comes,’” says Allen. If you’re rushed, set a timer for as long as you can spare, but, ideally, you’ll meditate until you feel your body and mind let go. “I like 20 minutes,” says Allen, “which can let you get a really deep meditation, but still doesn’t take that long.”

If 20 minutes seems like a lot, and more time than you can spend “doing nothing,” take a moment to consider how much time you already spend scrolling through pictures on Instagram (of people you don’t even know¦).

The Best Morning Meditation Routine for Clearing Your Head

Allen’s morning routine is as follows: Wake up, drink coffee, run three to four miles, shower, dress, and meditate. Contrary to what you might believe about coffee, Allen says it helps him meditate. “People think you shouldn’t be wide awake when you meditate, but don’t confuse sleeping with meditation,” he says. “You can have a present and energized mind while being relaxed and dialed in—and that’s the state you’ll find you get to with practice. Your mind is very active and present, sharp and clear.”

Allen says that using caffeine to aid meditation is a practice that long predates Starbucks. He points to a legend of a bodhisattva whose monk disciples kept falling asleep while meditating. “So he ripped his eyelids off and threw them on the ground, and from them grew green tea leaves,” says Allen. The bodhisattva then brewed tea from the leaves and served it to the monks before they meditated so that they stayed awake and focused.

Of course, it goes without saying that Allen doesn’t advise drinking tea made from eyelids, and cautions that caffeine (er, from any source) may not work for you as well as it does for him, so pre-meditation coffee is optional.

At any rate, when you’re ready to meditate, follow these steps.

1. Get quiet.

Get away from noise, distractions, and electronics. However, particular kinds of music can be helpful, such as binaural beats—music that directs one tone into one ear and a different tone into the other. The difference in the frequency of the two tones stimulates your brain and guides it to the state of mind the music is designed to lead you toward. There are binaural beat tracks for various different goals, such as better sleep or relaxation, and Allen sells them on his website. Binaural beat music may seem strange, but it doesn’t sound that way. Tracks are usually packaged as nature sounds, such as falling rain, and are pleasant to listen to.

Allen recommends the Opening Eye beat on his site for beginning meditators, which is $5 (but you can use the code word “Astral” for a discount).

2. Get comfy.

Find a comfortable position to sit in. You could be in a chair, on your sofa, or on the floor. Allen recommends the half-lotus position—sitting on a pillow with legs crossed in front of you, one foot resting on the opposite thigh and the other foot tucked under (you’ve seen it in yoga class). Keep a long spine and rest your hands on your knees.

If you suffer from lower-back pain, an even more comfortable posture might be seiza, a Japanese style of sitting where you kneel on the floor and sit on your heels (again, place a pillow under your butt for greater comfort).

3. Breathe.

Close your eyes and try to relax. Take slow, deep breaths, and do your best to keep your mind on the rhythm of your breathing. Of course your thoughts will wander, but Allen promises that the more you practice the easier it will become to keep your mind clear. When you catch yourself thinking, “just acknowledge that the thought got your attention and it will go away,” says Allen. Gently refocus on your breathing. Trying hard to think of something else or exploring that train of thought will only make it worse. “There’s a Zen saying,” says Allen, “that you can invite your thoughts in, but don’t serve them tea.”

Most importantly, don’t get frustrated and think you’re wasting your time. Keep breathing and trying to relax, and you’ll improve over time.

4. Let go.

Allen says that you should breathe in meditation the way you do when you sleep—fluidly and softly. You need to relax every muscle, and this goes double if your main goal with meditation in the first place is to reduce stress and promote peace of mind.

“You can gamify it a bit,” says Allen. “With every exhale, try to relax a little bit more. See how much you can let go.” As you relax some muscles, you’ll become aware that others are tight, so direct your attention to them and release them in sequence. “Allow your armor to melt off,” says Allen, and you’ll begin to feel like you’re floating.

5. Ask questions.

When you feel your mind has quieted down and you’ve relaxed physically, you can start to use meditation for its greatest purpose—to become enlightened. Maybe not to the level of the Buddha, but at least about your own life and things you want to achieve.

“I start to ask my own mind questions,” says Allen. For example, “What do I need to achieve today to fulfill my long-term goal? What are the next steps I need to take to sort out this situation? How do I need to realign my focus to better achieve my goals?”

Then wait and see what floats to the surface.

The breathing you’ve already done will help to clear away the normal chatter in your head, so it should be much easier, at this point, for you to think about what you want to work on objectively and with focus. “It’s like dialing into a radio station you want to hear instead of just getting static,” says Allen. “The resolutions will come forward.”

While questions are coming up, don’t try to actively answer them or problem-solve. The more you try to “grab” at thoughts and hold them down, the harder it will be to let your subconscious thoughts come out. It may sound a little esoteric, but think of your mind as a mirror (ever notice that thinking is called “reflection?”) When it’s racing and unfocused, the mirror is shattered, and you’re scrambling to pick up fragments of thought that you can never piece together into a whole. You can’t reform the mirror to get a clear image of who you are and what’s in front of you.

“By moving the intellectual mind out of the way,” says Allen, “we allow a unification of elements that eventually becomes conscious thought. Those fragments come together and the mirror becomes unbroken. You’ve been reflecting on pieces of a shattered mirror within you, but when you let those pieces become one, you can see the image.”

By the end of 2019, I was physically healthy, but inside I was struggling. My eight-year relationship with my fiancé had ended, and I could feel my time as CEO of Onnit was coming to a close. I was also still unable to find resolution with my father’s mental disorders. And the deeper reasons for my suffering were still lurking in the shadows. 
I heard about darkness therapy from Aaron Alexander, which was one of many signs to take the plunge into the great unknown. He told me of a house in the black forest outside Frankfurt, Germany, near a town whose name translates to “the middle of nowhere.”

The house is owned by a family whose matriarch studied in the Hindu tradition and learned darkness therapy by staying in isolation in a cave. She is the real deal. In their house, there was a light-proofed room that you can pay to spend up to a month in. Away from your job, your friends and family, your life, and your world. And possibly the most significant aspect is the constant, ever-present pitch darkness. 

People who’ve been there say that room breaks you. But what did I have to fear? As I said, I was already pretty fucked up. So I signed up.

No sooner did I tell people about it than they were trying to talk me out of it. I’ve been on the psychedelic medicine path for over two decades, exploring many of the great indigenous traditions and initiations. But the reaction I got to the announcement that I’d simply be sitting alone in a dark room for a week was far harsher than any of the times I said I was going to a jungle in Peru for a month to do ayahuasca.

“That’s crazy!” said pretty much everyone. “You’ll go CRAZY! Aren’t you afraid of what will happen?”

To each of them, I had the same response. “Afraid of what? Being alone with my own mind?” My thinking was this: If the prospect of sitting in the dark with just your own thoughts frightens you, maybe that’s exactly where you need to be.

So, was I scared? Not really. I knew the isolation and removal of sight would test me, but if you’ve followed my work for any length of time, you know I like to test myself. I like to learn what I’m capable of, and who I am inside. And so if the learning process takes me to the brink, so be it!

Besides, the week before I went on the darkness retreat, I was with Wim Hof, testing my limits on a mountain in Poland. In the first week of 2020, I dove into a natural pool beneath a freezing waterfall, held my breath under ice for more than two minutes, and climbed four and a half hours up an icy mountain (with no shirt on).

I needed some time to be with myself. Just myself. And sitting in meditation for a week sounded like a powerful way to usher in the New Year. Little did I know how crazy the year 2020 would turn out to be. The world would shut down, and I would get together with my wife Vylana Marcus. But before all that transformation, I was entering the ultimate cocoon. 

A House In The Woods

I arrive at the house and meet Bharati, the woman who runs the retreat. She lives there with her husband and two young daughters. They are deeply steeped in the mystic traditions of India, and have a lovely little collection of artifacts from their years spent there. 

Bharati shows me to my quarters for the next week. It’s a 20’x10’ rectangular room with a cot, table and chair, couch that seats one person, dresser, yoga mat, and radiator. There’s one window that’s painted black, so I can’t see out of it, but at least I can open it for ventilation as long as I use my blackout blindfold. On the table is a single speaker that plays an “Om” chant continuously on a 15-second loop, in case I need help meditating, or just want a break from the silence. The only other voices I’ll hear (apart from the ones in my own head) will come from out the window when I open it— like birds’ songs or whispers from the wind.

If it sounds like I volunteered to do time in what convicts call The Hole, or The Box, I can assure you it isn’t that severe. First of all, a little bit of light in a jail cell is just torture. Because it’s a tease, and it prevents the psychotropic effects of the black. But beyond that, my bed includes a memory foam neck pillow, for goodness sake! There’s a 24-hour call button on the wall that I can push to alert Bharati if I need something urgently, or I lose my mind. But while the darkness retreat isn’t technically solitary confinement, it is solitary, and it is confining.

In my room is a small bathroom where I can shower and use the toilet. These will be in total darkness too. Bharati will leave food for me in a blacked out corridor outside my room, but I’ll have to find my way there and back. I’ll know it’s time to eat when they ring a bell. This will also help to give me a sense of how time is passing. If I count the meals, I can determine which is breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then I might have an idea of what time it is, or what day I’m on. 

Not that it matters.

The meals will all be raw vegan food. That’s what Bharati’s family eats, but it serves another purpose as well. I’m going to have visions, just as if I’ve been taking plant medicines. This is the darkness “dieta,” to borrow a term from the ayahuasca tradition. If I’m eating food made from animals, I’m liable to imagine how they died to make it onto my plate. That could be quite a significant thing to reconcile, so it’s best to eat things that I won’t empathize with.

The mechanism behind why visions start to occur after a few days in the darkness is still being studied. Leading theories suggest either an increase in endogenous DMT—a hallucinogenic chemical—or an increase in the chemicals that break down endogenous DMT, therefore creating a surplus in the body. For more on the leading edge science of endogenous DMT, you can check out my podcast with research professor Jon Dean.

I have three other tools at my disposal. One is a Mindfold blindfold. It blocks light while allowing you to keep your eyes open. This will allow me to open the window for some fresh air without accidentally cheating some light in. Even with your eyes closed, light will seep in through your eyelids. 

The next tool is a rudraksha necklace, which Bharati’s daughter, Ananda, hands me. The walnut-sized prayer beads are rough to the touch, but I’m grateful to put them on. They’ll be my security blanket when the lights go out, and they make a comforting rattling sound—my only entertainment apart from the sights and sounds that will soon arrive in my head.

And lastly is my tape recorder. I memorized how to turn it off and on in the dark, and it is there to capture my experience. Little did I know that these recordings would eventually turn into the most powerful film I have ever been a part of. 

Day 1

Bharati’s family gathers in my room. It’s already dark, save for a single candle that’s working for all of us. We sing Hindi songs to prepare me for my journey. Then she asks me to blow out the candle, and they’re gone. Everything’s gone.

I start to do the only thing I really can, other than sleep. I meditate. Without any distractions, it’s not difficult to go deep within myself, and quickly. I begin to hear words in my head. One of them is “obsequious”—excessively obedient or attentive. This makes me think of a waiter in a five-star restaurant who has worked his way up over a lifetime of service. The blackness around me is providing everything I need, like an obsequious waiter. It’s giving me everything I came for.

A little later, I have my first meditation vision. It’s an upside-down heart. Then I see landscapes in my mind. Finally, there’s Buddha. He’s a shining golden figure, and he’s smiling at me. I ask him why.

“Why aren’t YOU smiling?” he replies. He’s laughing now.

“Buddha, why are you laughing?”

“Why aren’t YOU laughing?”

It’s a good question, and a reminder that I haven’t been happy for a long time. I’ve been a pretty somber person as of late, not giving in to playfulness or laughter easily. Unless I’m intoxicated, on some substance or another. Which is not the way I want to live—dependent on something outside of myself for happiness. 

I take Buddha’s visit as a message to, quite simply, lighten up. And I’m starting to understand that total blackness and blinding light are really the same. In either case, you can’t see. Nothing’s all bad or all good. You need both, and you can live in both. You need to appreciate both sides of everything.

Day 2

The roosters outside my window wake me up. That’s how I know it’s morning. I have to take a shit, and when I’m done, I realize I don’t know if I’ve wiped thoroughly enough. I decide to shower after every bathroom trip to be sure. It’s an unexpected inconvenience, and the first of many.

Back in the sunlit world, I was addicted to hand sanitizer. Before putting anything near my mouth, I would wash my hands or use the alcohol. But in this darkness, even if I had sanitizer, it would be useless. I’d have used the bottle up already. I have to touch everything—the walls, the toilet, even the floor—just to get around without smashing into something. I quickly learn not to fear germs.

I also have to trust my food. I can’t see what I’m eating, so I have to believe it’s clean and well prepared and that there isn’t a bug crawling on top of it. And if I spill some on the floor, I accept that I can scrape it up and eat it or go hungry.

Brushing my teeth is another challenge. I can hardly find the bristles of my toothbrush with the hand that holds the toothpaste tube, so to avoid squeezing gobs of it everywhere else, I decide to drop it directly into my mouth and then rub it around with the brush.

These little frustrations add up, and my mind turns faster to deal with them. I’m becoming more aggressive with myself. I have verbal fights with people I care about in my head, arguing both their side and mine, but to no resolution.

At some point, I decide I need to sell everything I own. It’s holding me back. I also think everybody needs to do a public confessional. Now and then, we all need to get up in public and say, “Here’s what I’ve been hiding. This is who I am. These are the sexual thoughts I get off to¦” I imagine how liberated that would make us all feel, and how we’d all be better people as a result.

Annoying as my new daily tasks are, they’re working. I’m starting to let go. I’m not going to die without hand sanitizer. I can eat food off the floor. And I can afford to brush my teeth with some procedural modifications frowned upon by the American Dental Association for a few days.

I’m learning how to just be. 

I hear my friend Mike Posner’s voice in my head. He says, “Bro, honestly, it’s not that important.”

I sleep well that night.

Day 3

I don’t wake up with the same calm I went to bed with last night.

It’s starting to get hard. I’m questioning why I’m doing this. All I have to do is look out that window, or push the call button that alerts Bharati and tell her I quit, and I can go back to my life. It’s tempting.

I try to remind myself of my why—the reason I wanted to do this in the first place. But I can’t remember it. Did I ever really know what it was?

I put my blindfold on and open the window, but I don’t look out. I just need some air¦ and oh fuck does it smell sweet. I take the rudraksha beads in my hands and I begin a breathing exercise. I take in deep breaths until the oxygen rush has me feeling tingles, and then I hold my breath and let out one small atmosphere of it at a time. I say “I love myself” in my head on every in-breath, and on every exhale, I try to expel anything that isn’t love.

I see I’ve been caught between serving other people—my stated purpose in life—and my own ego. I’m both self-rejecting, and selfish.

Breathe it out.

I am in a constant chase for validation, and nothing I ever do is enough for me. 

Breathe it out.

I miss my friends. I miss hearing music. I want out of this fucking room. What the fuck am I doing in here?? 

Breathe. It. Out.

I see my grandfather Aubrey. My namesake. I never actually met him in life, but here he is in front of me now. My grandmother is with him. They tell me they’re proud of me.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” I say, with tears coming down my face.

“You’re here for the darkness, son.”

And that’s when I stop resisting it.

As the ego softens, my bargaining melts away.

Mike Posner enters my head again and starts talking to me. “You make deals with yourself so you can learn to trust yourself,” he says. “When you break deals, you trust yourself less.”

Day 4

The endogenous DMT visions are really coming on strong now, and some of them are seriously fucked up. I’m seeing demons. Images so gruesome they might not be allowed in theatres if they were part of a horror movie. 

A wheat thresher is mowing people over. Heads are being crushed and limbs are spraying blood.

The more I don’t want to see it, the longer the scene lingers. My 22-year journey with plant medicine has taught me that what you resist persists. So I begin to look for beauty in the desecration and destruction. I get the word “aperspectival” stuck in my head—the absence of perspective. I remember that from the perspective of unicity, there is no good or bad. No polarity whatsoever. There is just God, who I define as “the Loving Aperspectival Witness,” or LAW. From God’s perspective, I understand that destruction is as necessary as creation, and that evil is a requisite consequence of a world of free will. 

I’m big into coming up with acronyms now. My guide to relationships is LARK—Loving, Aware, Respectful, and Kind. You have to be able to let love in and love others for exactly who they are. You need to be aware of your behavior, and your partner’s. Respect means to respect their boundaries, and your own. And, lastly, be kind.

I am able to see my habit of loving people for their potential, not for who they are in front of me. I love them when I see how great I think they could be. But making people feel that your love is conditional upon some future achievement isn’t Loving. All you’re doing is telling them they’re not enough right now.

I see Whitney, my longtime lover and ex fiancé. She’s wearing a crown of eagle feathers like a first nations moon dancer and looking over herself. She meets my gaze and asks, “Am I doing it right?” I always wanted her to reach her spiritual potential, and now I’m overcome with guilt and sadness about how I made her feel.

“Yeah, babe, you’re doing just fine.”

I understand now that the best way to support someone is just to love them. I can’t drag them up a mountain to help them climb it. I can’t make them sit in darkness. It doesn’t work that way.

My purpose now is to love people as they are. If someone asks me for help, or an analysis, or a judgment, I’ll give it and let it go. I won’t be attached to it, and I won’t try to force it.

Another acronym that comes to mind is HEB, my new guide to life. In Austin, where I live, it’s a supermarket chain. In this dark room, it means Honesty, Expectation management, and Boundaries. The importance of honesty and boundaries are obvious. But I’ve had a hard time letting go of expectations. I see how stupid that is now. Having expectations is saying I know better than what’s going to happen, and if what I expect to happen doesn’t, it’s wrong. What an ego!

Saying that anything “should be” is hubris. There is only what is. And you deal or dance with it.

With these revelations, I achieve some peace. The greatest calm I’ve felt since I got here. I see more demons, but now they’re throwing confetti in the street. Seriously. Probably some deeper meaning there, but not worth exploring for now.

In the most profound vision of the entire journey, I see my father. He’s in a corner reading a book. Back home in Austin, he’s mentally ill. He hears voices that give him delusions of grandeur.  

I ask him what book he’s reading.

“The Book of Lies,” he says. “It tells me things I want to hear.”

“Why are you reading that book, Dad?”

“Because I never loved myself.”

He throws the book over his shoulder and continues speaking to me.

“Remember that you’re worthy of love. You don’t have to be a king or a messiah to be loved.”

Wow. I take a moment to see him, and I understand his plight with deep compassion.

“Thanks, Dad. I want you to know that everything you did was perfect, because look at where I am now. I love you.”

After that vision integrates, I feel like I’m ready to leave the darkness. I got what I came for. 

I find the call button and ring for Bharati. I can’t see her when she comes in, but I hear her gently speaking to me. “The mind is tricky,” she says. She asks me to think about it another day and be sure I’ve had enough before I come out. There might still be a clue or two more to find in the dark. And I already committed to two more days. I agree to stay.

Day 5

I see my mom. She tells me she always loved me, and I confront the fact that, in spite of her efforts, I never fully let that love come in.

Why? Because if you let yourself feel loved, you’ll get attached to it. You have to say goodbye to everyone at some point, so in order to avoid the pain of losing them, we hold back the love we feel with them. It’s easier that way.

To be afraid to die is to be afraid to live.

You need to have the courage to love things in spite of the risk of losing them. You WILL lose them. Eventually. We love them BECAUSE they can be taken away. Whether it’s people, a rose, or a sunny day, they won’t last. To not enjoy them protects us from missing them as much when they’re gone, but it also denies us the pleasure of having them in the first place.

I didn’t love Whitney as much as I could because I was afraid she would choose someone else. And sometimes she did. But she always loved me; that never wavered. 

I sob for probably 20 minutes. Catharsis.

I’ve spent so much of my life not really letting love in or putting the maximum amount of love out. Not anymore. I’m terrified of going through another day of life not loving it as it is. Not loving people as they are.

Then another horrifying thought enters my consciousness. What if someone I love dies while I’m in the dark? I’m not home. I will have never gotten the chance to really love them like I know I am capable now.

In my new film, Awake In the Darkness, these moments recorded live on my tape recorder and animated for the screen are absolutely devastating for me to watch. 

I think back to when I was in high school, living with my mom and sisters in a cramped cabin in Dripping Springs, Texas. We didn’t have much—not even a TV—so we’d sit around the living room, playing music and singing along to the words.

Our family was never happier.

Right now, I don’t miss my house, or my ranch, my companies, or my possessions. I miss the people I’ve shared those things with. Human beings crave intimacy, not items.

The darkness has broken me, as I was warned it would. It’s made me see that I love life. My life, yes, and also Life with a capital L.

I’m ready to leave this room and re-enter the world.

I reach out to Bharati again, and we agree that at sunset tomorrow, I’ll take my blindfold off.

Day 6

Bharati opens the door, and I remove the blindfold. Even with my eyes closed it’s like someone is shining a flashlight in my eyes, and it’s several minutes before I can fully open them. When I do, a feeling of grief and gratitude like I have never experienced overwhelms me. 

I see the soft rolling hills of the German countryside. I see the forest. The small homes speckling the scene. It’s the most painful and beautiful thing I’ve seen in so long. Until then, I’ve forgotten how incredible my life truly is. This is one of the most powerful moments in my life, and I feel blessed that it is all captured on film. So I’ll remember. So I’ll never forget.

Let There Be Light

Darkness is the most powerful form of therapy I’ve ever experienced. It took me deeper into myself than any type of meditation or even plant medicine I’ve tried. Your trip comes not from taking something but by REMOVING everything. You don’t need drugs when you ARE drugs.

The first thing I did when I got out was listen to music. I didn’t want to look at my phone. I just sat with it on the table in front of me. Eventually, I took a peek at my texts, and eased back into social media, but I loved the feeling of being without it all, and I wanted it to last.

When I got home, I made good on my promise not to tell people I loved them, but to SHOW them. I felt even more vulnerable than I had expected to, but with that vulnerability I was alive. When you are armored to protect from pain, you are armored from beauty as well. Every warm human interaction I saw made me cry, from a guy opening a door for a woman, to the kids in Stranger Things playing together. Seeing people be human affected me like never before. It was too much.

It was like the skin of my psyche had all been ripped off. It would grow back, but it needed time. Eventually, I put enough layers back on that I could function as a normal human being again, but I haven’t forgotten the lessons I learned in the dark.

The most important of which is to love the world as it is. You don’t have to change it; you have to change your mind, because you can choose the attitude you take toward any situation. The game of life is here for us to enjoy playing it. If we do, then we’ve played well.

We are all capable of much more than we think we are. We are worthy of love and able to give it in return.

You don’t need to spend a week in darkness to prove it to yourself. You could just put your phone away and sit alone for a little while and be still, or go for a walk in nature. That’s a good start.

Remember that we live at a banquet. There are so many amazing things in our lives we completely take for granted, like daylight, eyesight, music, and fresh air. In the world of polarity, we understand through contrast. If you never deprive yourself of anything, you can never really appreciate what they offer you. If you never fast, you’ll never realize that every meal is a feast. 

Sometimes you just have to choose nothing, so you can have everything. 

Some take this rite early and some take it later, but in the end we all go through something extreme to become the man or woman we’re expected to be. But what is a rite of passage really?

What is a Rite of Passage?

Traditionally, a rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person’s transition between childhood and full inclusion into a tribe or social group. The concept of the rite of passage explores and describes various other milestones in an individual’s life when their social status is forever altered.

Imagine transitions from puberty, year seven to high school, coming of age, marriage and death. Initiation ceremonies such as baptism, akika, upanayana, confirmation and Bar or Bat Mitzvah are considered important rites of passage in their respective religions. Initiation rites are seen as fundamental to human growth and development as well as socialization in many communities.

Again, in today’s society most initiation rites are done through sports, fraternities, or religion. These rites function by ritually marking the transition of someone to full group membership. It also links individuals to the community and the community to the broader and more potent spiritual world.

Initiation rites are a natural and necessary part of a community, just as arms and legs are an extension of the human body. These rites are paramount to the development of an individual as well as the community.

Most of the ancient rites of passage can be separated and classified into five groups. Rite to Birthright, Rite to Adulthood, Rite to Marriage, Rite to Eldership and Rite to Ancestorship. Although there are five different rites of passage, they can more or less be distilled down to three steps: Separation, Transition, and Reincorporation.

Step 1: SEPARATION

The initial stage of the traditional rite of passage is the separation. During this phase an initiate is separated, either literally or figuratively, from his or her former life. During the separation phase, the individual’s past is expelled as the initiate prepares a new life.

This is much like a young man starting his transition into college football, the trials of entering a fraternity/sorority, or a civilian joining a branch of the military.

Step 2: TRANSITION

The second stage of the traditional rite of passage is the transition. During this phase, the initiate is in a state of transformation, or for the faithful, limbo. The individual is no longer part of his or her old life, but not yet fully inducted into a new one. The transition is usually marked by a series of tests deeming whether the initiate is worthy of this new life.

In ancient times the initiate’s test usually included some form or pain, circumcision, defecation, endurance, and/or hallucinogens. Our modern day equivalent translates to the rigorous selection process of boot camp, the young Jewish boy committing the Torah to memory, or spring training camp and tryouts for the collegiate football player.

Step 3: REINCORPORATION

The third and final chapter for the initiate is reincorporation. After the individual proves himself or herself worthy through a series of tests, the initiate is welcomed back into society and given a grand celebration of their new life.

The football player makes the final cut and is welcomed to the team, the young Jewish boy celebrates his passage into manhood with a Bar Mitzvah, and, for the recruit, the transition from civilian to soldier is complete.

TODAY’S SOCIETY IS LACKING IN TRADITIONAL RITES OF PASSAGE.

During all phases of the process, the elders who have previously gone through the ritual themselves guide the young initiate on his or her journey. By controlling the rite of passage, the community decides when a boy becomes a man, a girl becomes a woman, or a civilian becomes a soldier. Here are 5 Ancient example of Rites of Passage:

Ancient Rite of Passage #1: African Lion Hunt

The lion hunt begins at dawn, while the tribe sleeps. The warriors meet near a local landmark before departing to predetermined hunting areas. The older, experienced warriors filter out the group until only the bravest and strongest warriors remain.

The resulting group is known as the Ilmeluaya, or fearless warriors. Until the return of the limeluaya, the rejected warriors are sworn to secrecy by the elders concerning the details of the hunt.

The older warriors often force the limeluaya to relinquish excess weaponry, considering it insulting to wield more than a spear, a weapon more than sufficient to slay a lion. Following a successful hunt, the tribe holds a weeklong celebration to commemorate the warriors.

The warrior who struck the first blow is courted by the women and receives an Imporro, a doubled-sided beaded shoulder strap, as a token. The warrior dons this ornament during the ceremonies. The community honors the hunter, or Olmurani Lolowuaru, with much respect throughout the remainder of his lifetime.

Ancient Rite of Passage #2: Spartans

Most people are aware of the Spartans and their intense training and child combat trials from the film “300.” One of the most interesting rite of passage for young men was called Helot Killing. At the age of seven, the male child was enrolled in the agoge under the authority of the paidonómos, or “boy-herder,” an elder statesman charged with supervising education.

This began the first of the three stages of the Agoge. If a young child was a standout “student” at Agoge, he was allowed to train with Krypteia; a state security force organized by the rulers of Sparta.

Following his eighteenth birthday, he would be sent off into the country with nothing but a knife and given the task of killing as many state-owned slaves (called helots) as possible. If you were asked to join the Krypteia, at age twenty the boy would join the Spartan Army and enter one of the public messes. If voted into a public mess, service continued until age thirty, where the right to marry and vote were granted, becoming a full member of Spartan society.

This rite of passage follows the three stage process. The first stage is removal from society, happening to a Spartan boy at age seven, leaving to train at the agoge. This stage includes twenty three years of training and combat experience, turning Spartan boys into men.

The next stage, transition, occurs when the young man goes on his quest to kill Helots and return to his krypteia. Following his return, he transitions into the final stage, reincorporation into society. He is now considered a man and a warrior, and is reincorporated into society with the reputation of a true Spartan man.

Ancient Rite of Passage #3: Land Diving

Land Diving is both a harvest ritual and a rite of passage amongst the tribes of the small pacific island of Vanuatu. The origin of land diving reportedly comes from the legend of a woman who was dissatisfied with her husband, Tamaliel.

She fled to the jungle where she climbed a banyan tree after her husband pursued her. Tamaliel began climbing the tree after her and, after tying lianas vines around her ankles, she jumped to escape.

Tamaliel jumped after her but, having failed to tie lianas to his ankles, plummeted to his death. The men of the Pentecost Island in Vanuatu climb a rickety 98-foot-tall tower, tie vines to their ankles, and dive to the ground, falling at speeds reaching up to 45 mph. When a dive goes correctly, the person gets close enough to touch his shoulders or his head to the earth.

However, if a dive goes incorrectly, things can get messy. Unlike bungee jumping, these vines aren’t elastic and a miscalculation in vine length could lead to broken legs, cracked skulls, or even death.

Boys begin participation following circumcision at about age 7 or 8, though they usually are permitted to jump from a shorter tower. When a boy jumps, his mother throws an item from the boy’s childhood off the tower, extinguishing the remnants of his youth and completing the transition to adulthood. Divers also refrain from sex the day before they jump; legend says intercourse will cause the jump to go poorly.

Ancient Rite of Passage #4: Bullet Ant Glove of Brazil

The Satere-Mawe people of the Amazon perform an initiation ritual forcing young men to place their hands into mittens filled with hundreds of bullet ants. The bite is approximately twenty times more painful than being stung by a wasp.

The tribal men gather the ants and submerge them into a solution that temporarily renders them unconscious. The ants are then woven into the mittens.

Upon waking, the men place their hands into the gloves, where they must remain for up to ten minutes. The ant’s sting prevents the body from protecting itself from pain. The body begins to convulse, and the pain can last up to twenty-four hours.

The most unusual aspect of the entire process is the fact that many men choose to repeat this ritual multiple times to prove their manhood.

Ancient Rite of Passage #5:  Matis Trial Hunt

For a boy to prove himself worthy to hunt among the men in the Matis Trial deep in Brazil’s Amazon jungle, he must first undergo four trials. The first trial involves temporary self blinding using a concoction of bitter poison directly into their eyes. This cocktail allegedly improves vision and enhances the senses.

The next series of trials includes a series of violent beatings and whippings. The trials conclude with an inoculation from the Phyllomedusa bicolor, a small poisonous frog native to the Brazilian jungle.

But the vaccine alone isn’t enough, before injecting the frog’s toxin with a homemade wooden needle, the elders burn the area of the boy’s skin where the prescription is to be delivered. The Matis believe the poison increases strength and endurance, however, these enhancements are preceded by unbearable light-headedness, vehement vomiting, and violent relieving of the bowels.

Once the boys prove themselves worthy of the hunt, they are given the privilege of performing the very same rituals before every future outing.

As successful and effective as the original Alpha BRAIN^® formula was and remains, we recognize that it doesn’t work for everyone, and we’ve gotten plenty of critiques and suggestions over the years on how to improve it. That led to different formulations and delivery systems, including instant drink mix powders and ready-to-drink liquids. We also wanted to reach different types of people, from professionals who want more focus for productivity to artists looking to stay in that creative zone and, most recently, athletes and gym rats seeking mental and physical support for greater exercise and sports performance. To that end, we’ve gradually expanded the Alpha BRAIN label to cover a family of products that all serve the same goal but work a little differently. Now, anyone who’s interested can find the version that’s right for them, and that aligns with their own individual taste and lifestyle.^†

Consider the following your map to navigating all the current Alpha BRAIN^® offerings, including the original game-changing formula, Alpha BRAIN^® Instant, Focus Shot, Black Label, and the new Alpha BRAIN^® Pre-Workout. But before you start exploring, let’s define what the Alpha BRAIN^® family is for, and why you should consider it for your personal health and wellness journey.

What Is A Nootropic Supplement?

Nootropics are dietary supplements that support certain brain functions, including memory, mental speed, and focus. (Caffeine is a kind of nootropic.) All four Alpha BRAIN^® formulas are nootropics, intended to promote alertness and quick thinking so that you can be more productive, but their ingredients, effects, and delivery mechanisms vary.^†

There are two features common to most members of the Alpha BRAIN^® (AB) family:

1) Ingredients that support neurotransmitters, the chemicals that relay information in and from the brain.^†

2) Ingredients that promote focus and concentration.^†

Most of the AB formulas contain huperzia serrata, a Clubmoss containing a compound called Huperzine A, which has been suggested to help slow the breakdown of acetylcholine (an important neurotransmitter).^†1 Many of the ABs also have L-theanine, an amino acid found in teas that revs up alpha wave activity——electrical pulses that pass through the brain, shifting it into a calmer mode that contributes to quicker attentional processing and productivity.^†2,3,4

In other words, by supporting the brain chemicals that allow you to concentrate and focus more deeply, the Alpha BRAIN formulas help keep your mind running on all cylinders.^†

One of the key features of original Alpha BRAIN and AB Instant is their ability to help you get into flow state—that feeling of being in the zone.^† You know those days when you’re so focused on what you’re doing that you don’t look up from your work for hours, and then suddenly realize it’s dark out? That’s called being in flow, and both AB and AB Instant have efficacious ingredients that can help you get into that headspace more often.^†

What Is Alpha BRAIN^®?

The original Alpha BRAIN^® is Onnit’s flagship supplement and all time best-seller. It acts as a great introduction to the family, so to speak, serving as a general cognitive performance formula.^† Alpha BRAIN^® comes in capsule form and can be taken daily, or as needed.

Alpha BRAIN^® Benefits

Alpha BRAIN^® contains ingredients that can help you maintain mental focus and think more clearly.^†

What Are Alpha BRAIN^®’s Key Ingredients?

L-Theanine. An amino acid, L-theanine promotes alpha brain waves,^† supports attention, and assists with reaction time.^†8

Huperzia Serrata. A Clubmoss containing Huperzine A, a compound that helps slow the breakdown of acetylcholine in the body.^†1,13

Alpha-GPC. A chemical compound found in the brain, it acts as a precursor to acetylcholine, aiding its production in the body.^†11,12

Vitamin B6. B vitamins are known for their role in supporting energy, and this one specifically helps with nervous system function and neurotransmitter health.^†5,6

Alpha BRAIN^® is caffeine-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, and nut-free.

How Much Alpha BRAIN^® Should I Take?

It’s best to start at one capsule (half a dose), assess your tolerance, and build up gradually from there. If you take one capsule and don’t feel anything after an hour or two, take another. If that feels good, the next time you use Alpha BRAIN^®, take two capsules at once (one full dose, as recommended on the label). We do not recommend that you take more than one dose in 24 hours.

Many prefer to take Alpha BRAIN^® in the morning with breakfast to support cognitive function at the start of the day, when they try to prioritize their most challenging tasks. But Alpha BRAIN^® can be taken in the afternoon or evening, if you need your thinking to be on point at those times instead.^†

Alpha BRAIN^® is intended for adult use only.

Who Should Use Alpha BRAIN®?

If you’re new to the Alpha BRAIN^® family, or nootropics in general, original Alpha BRAIN^® is a good place to start. It will allow you to assess your tolerance and see if the ingredients that are common to the other AB products work for you. Alpha BRAIN^® is good to use daily for general cognitive support, but it can be used only as needed, such as when working or studying.^†

What Is Alpha BRAIN^® Instant?

The Alpha BRAIN^® Instant (ABI) formula is very similar to that of the original Alpha BRAIN^®. It contains 500mg more of the amino acid tyrosine, and black pepper extract to aid absorption, but the main distinction is that ABI comes as an instant drink mix powder, for those who prefer to consume a supplement as a tasty drink rather than a capsule you have to swallow. The ABI packets may also be more convenient for some users to carry around (as opposed to a bottle), because they can fit easily into any pocket, purse, or bag.

You can mix ABI into water or any other liquid you choose with a spoon, or shake it up. It’s available in five different flavors—Ruby Grapefruit, Meyer Lemon, Pineapple Punch, Peach, and Blackberry Lemonade.

Alpha BRAIN^® Instant is caffeine-free, dairy-free, and gluten-free.

How Much Alpha BRAIN^® Instant Should I Take?

Start with one serving (1 packet) mixed with 8 ounces of cold water, preferably with a light meal. Do not take more than one packet in any 24-hour period.

Who Should Use Alpha BRAIN® Instant?

If you don’t like swallowing capsules, or you plan to use Alpha BRAIN^® on the go (mixing it at a sink in your office, at a public water fountain, etc.), then Alpha BRAIN^® Instant may be a more appropriate option than original Alpha BRAIN^®. Of course, if you prefer to enjoy your supplements as a flavored drink that can accompany a meal, ABI is also the clear choice.

What Is Alpha BRAIN^® Focus Shot?

AB Focus Shot is a liquid, ready-to-drink version of Alpha BRAIN^®, similar to energy shots you’ve probably already seen. Its formula is slightly different from original AB and ABI, as it features new ingredients that support focus, energy, and mood.^† Note that unlike the previous two AB incarnations, Focus Shot contains a small amount of caffeine (50mg, or about half of what’s in a typical cup of coffee). Because it fits in the palm of your hand and is easy to grab on the go and down in one shot, we like to say that AB Focus Shot is the most convenient way to get into deep focus.^† 

AB Focus Shot is available in two flavors—Peach and Tropical.

Alpha BRAIN^® Focus Shot Benefits

As with its predecessors, Focus Shot aids cognitive performance, but it offers a few new ingredients that provide additional support for attention and focus, daily stress, and mood state.^† This makes Focus Shot stand out from the pack of other energy shots. Focus Shot is designed to help you get into a state of alert relaxation, allowing you to think fast while staying cool under pressure, be it from work deadlines, car traffic, or other day-to-day stresses you experience.^†

What Are Alpha BRAIN^® Focus Shot’s Key Ingredients?

L-Tyrosine. This amino acid features in regular Alpha BRAIN^® and ABI as well, but we pumped up the dose in Focus Shot to lend more support for cognitive performance.^† One study, using large doses relative to bodyweight, shows that it helped military cadets keep their cool and problem-solve during a combat training course,¹⁴ while another indicates it may help with memory while multitasking.^†15

Ashwagandha. An adaptogenic herb popular in traditional medicine, ashwagandha has shown very promising results for supporting the body’s stress response in similar amounts found in AB Focus Shot, as well as higher doses.^†16

Cognizin^® Citicoline. A naturally-occurring brain chemical, citicoline is essentially “brain food,” helping to maintain levels of neurotransmitters that support attention and focus.^†18 When combined with caffeine, it can aid concentration, memory, and sustained attention even further.^†19

Low-Dose, plant-based caffeine. In lower amounts, the stimulant found in coffee and tea promotes alertness and focus, but with subjects reporting a more relaxed mood and less nervousness and restlessness than when taking higher doses, especially when paired with L-theanine.^†22

Alpha BRAIN^® Focus Shot is dairy-free, gluten-free, and contains no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives.

How Much Alpha BRAIN^® Focus Shot Should I Take?

Focus Shot should be taken only once per day, or as needed. Do not exceed more than one bottle in a 24-hour period, and do not take it in addition to any other Alpha BRAIN^® products or other nootropics.

Who Should Use Alpha BRAIN^® Focus Shot?

Carrying a bottle of capsules may be too cumbersome, and packets of powder can be messy and difficult to mix on the go. Therefore, Alpha BRAIN^® Focus Shot is the most convenient AB option. Focus Shot is also a good choice if you don’t mind consuming a low dose of caffeine, or you prefer that your energy supplements have it. It can be used daily, or as needed.^†

What Is Alpha BRAIN^® Black Label?

The premium member of the Alpha BRAIN^® family, Alpha BRAIN^® Black Label (ABBL) is a refined formula that goes one step further to promote mental processing speed and helps contribute to productivity. When taken daily, it can also support brain and eye health. Like AB Focus Shot, it contains a strategically low dose of caffeine (25mg) that can amp up cognitive benefits without the downside that higher doses of caffeine may cause. However, Black Label is only available in capsules.^†

Alpha BRAIN^® Black Label Benefits

We call ABBL our “break-glass-in-case-of-emergency, must-get-stuff-done now” formula because of its potential to support cognitive function and productivity like no other.^† It has ingredients that promote deep focus, attention span, memory, relaxed alertness, and mood. Likewise, it can be taken daily to support eye health, which is beneficial for anyone who works in front of a computer or smartphone screen.^†

What Are Alpha BRAIN^® Black Label’s Key Ingredients?

Citicoline. As with AB Focus Shot, this brain chemical helps to maintain neurotransmitter levels, supporting attention and focus.^†

Caffeine Anhydrous. A concentrated form of caffeine, supplied in a low dose here. The synergy of low-dose caffeine and L-theanine promotes alert relaxation, deep concentration, and a positive mood state.^†

Lutemax 2020^®. This extract from the marigold flower contains lutein and zeaxanthan, two plant carotenoids that have been found to support eye function on visual performance tests.^†23,24 Lutein and zeaxanthan also help maintain general brain and eye health with continued use.^†25,26,27 In fact, they’re particularly helpful for filtering out blue light—the kind emitted by electronic devices that contributes to eyestrain.^† Research shows that lutein and zeaxanthan can absorb a significant amount of the blue light that enters the eyes.^†28

Mucuna Pruriens. A tropical bean, it contains the amino acid L-Dopa, which is essential for healthy brain function.^†

How Much Alpha BRAIN® Black Label Should I Take?

Refer to the directions for original Alpha BRAIN^®, and work up to a full dose gradually. Ultimately, a full dose entails taking four capsules daily, or as needed, preferably with a light meal. Do not exceed four capsules in a 24-hour period, and do not take ABBL in addition to any other Alpha BRAIN^® formula or other nootropic.

Who Should Use Alpha BRAIN^® Black Label?

If you tried regular Alpha BRAIN^® in the past and were disappointed, you may have a better experience with ABBL’s super-charged formula. Also, if you prefer a supplement that has a strategically small dose of caffeine, Black Label may be more appropriate.

ABBL is intended for use on days where you really feel under the gun, as it gives you the support you need for deep focus under important deadlines, hitting goals, etc., but it can also be used daily, if you choose, for general eye and brain health.^† This makes ABBL an especially good choice for those who work in front of computer screens for long periods, or who drive long distances, and need support in remaining attentive and reactive behind the wheel.^†

What Is Alpha BRAIN^® Pre-Workout?

Alpha BRAIN Pre-Workout is the newest addition to the AB Family. Combining cognitive support benefits with compounds that promote endurance and power, it’s the ideal Alpha BRAIN formula to consume before exercise.

Alpha BRAIN Pre-Workout Benefits

AB Pre-Workout helps charge up both the mind and body, supporting focus and mental sharpness, muscle endurance and power, and energy production specifically for exercise. It can also help to reduce levels of perceived exertion.^†

What Are Alpha BRAIN Pre-Workout’s Key Ingredients?

Caffeine anhydrous. Caffeine is well known for promoting alertness and aiding mental processing speed and sharpness²⁹. The dosage of concentrated caffeine extract used here (200mg, which is approximately the same amount you’d get from two cups of coffee) has also been shown to support movement speed³⁰, muscle power^{31, 32} and endurance³³, in part by reducing the perception of effort.^†

Furthermore, one trial has shown that caffeine can help with physical skill performance when deprived of rest³⁴.

Beta Alanine. An amino acid like creatine monohydrate, beta alanine is also similar to the world’s most popular sports supplement for its potential to aid exercise performance. Evidence published in two journals backs beta alaline’s use for promoting exercise capacity.^{† 35, 36} 

Noogandha^®. A 2022 trial found that this trademarked form of ashwagandha extract supports mental agility, concentration, and mental processing speed while helping to manage the physiological, cognitive, and psychological effects of normal stress.^†37

L-Citrulline. An amino acid that was first found in watermelon, citrulline promotes endurance performance and helps with exercise-induced muscle fatigue.^†38

AlphaSize^®. Remember Alpha-GPC? This special form supplies choline, a nutrient that is important to the nervous system and necessary for healthy brain functioning.^†

Dynamine™. A trademarked version of methylliberine, a methylxanthine metabolite, Dynamine™ is gaining popularity in the sports nutrition space for its ability to complement caffeine.

How Much Alpha BRAIN Pre-Workout Should I Take?

Take one serving (one scoop) mixed with 10–14 ounces water 20–30 minutes prior to training. Do not exceed one serving in a 24-hour period. To avoid side effects of too much caffeine, don’t combine Pre-Workout with other foods or supplements that contain more than 50mg of caffeine. 

Who Should Use Alpha BRAIN Pre-Workout?

AB Pre-Workout is a good option for anyone who wants to feel more alert and energized for exercise sessions, whether they’re endurance or strength-focused. Athletes can benefit from it, as well as gym rats who have to train early in the morning (and are usually otherwise groggy as a result).^†

REFERENCES:

1. Skidmore-Roth, Linda. Mosby’s handbook of herbs & natural supplements. Elsevier Health Sciences, 2009.

2. Nobre, Anna C., Anling Rao, and Gail N. Owen. “L-theanine, a natural constituent in tea, and its effect on mental state.” Asia Pacific journal of clinical nutrition 17 (2008).

3. Nathan, Pradeep J., Kristy Lu, Marcus Gray, and C. Oliver. “The neuropharmacology of L-theanine (N-ethyl-L-glutamine) a possible neuroprotective and cognitive enhancing agent.” Journal of Herbal Pharmacotherapy 6, no. 2 (2006): 21-30.

4. SONG, Chan-Hee, Ju-Hae JUNG, Je-Sung OH, and Kyung-Soo KIM. “Effects of theanine on the release of brain alpha wave in adult males.” The Korean Journal of Nutrition (2003): 918-923.

5. Yarlagadda, Atmaram, and Anita H. Clayton. “Blood brain barrier: the role of pyridoxine.” Psychiatry (Edgmont) 4, no. 8 (2007): 58.

6. Lippincott-Raven. (1999). Chapter 12. Catecholamines, Chapter 13. Serotonin. In Basic neurochemistry: Molecular, cellular and medical aspects.

7. Banderet, Louis E., and Harris R. Lieberman. “Treatment with tyrosine, a neurotransmitter precursor, reduces environmental stress in humans.” Brain research bulletin 22, no. 4 (1989): 759-762.

8. Higashiyama, Akiko, Hla Hla Htay, Makoto Ozeki, Lekh R. Juneja, and Mahendra P. Kapoor. “Effects of l-theanine on attention and reaction time response.” Journal of Functional Foods 3, no. 3 (2011): 171-178.

9. Leventis, Peter A., and Sergio Grinstein. “The distribution and function of phosphatidylserine in cellular membranes.” Annual review of biophysics 39, no. 1 (2010): 407-427.

10. Kim, Hee-Yong, Bill X. Huang, and Arthur A. Spector. “Phosphatidylserine in the brain: metabolism and function.” Progress in lipid research 56 (2014): 1-18.

11. Tayebati, Seyed Khosrow, and Francesco Amenta. “Choline-containing phospholipids: relevance to brain functional pathways.” Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine 51, no. 3 (2013): 513-521.

12. Brownawell, Amy M., Edward L. Carmines, and Federica Montesano. “Safety assessment of AGPC as a food ingredient.” Food and chemical toxicology 49, no. 6 (2011): 1303-1315.

13. Tun, Maung Kyaw Moe, and Seth B. Herzon. “The pharmacology and therapeutic potential of (—)-huperzine A.” Journal of Experimental Pharmacology 4 (2012): 113.

14. Deijen, J. B., C. J. E. Wientjes, H. F. M. Vullinghs, P. A. Cloin, and J. J. Langefeld. Brain research bulletin 48, no. 2 (1999): 203-209.

15. Thomas, John R., Park A. Lockwood, Anita Singh, and Patricia A. Deuster. “Tyrosine improves working memory in a multitasking environment.” Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 64, no. 3 (1999): 495-500.

16. Salve, Jaysing, Sucheta Pate, Khokan Debnath, and Deepak Langade. “Adaptogenic and anxiolytic effects of ashwagandha root extract in healthy adults: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical study.” Cureus 11, no. 12 (2019).

17. Choudhary, Dnyanraj, Sauvik Bhattacharyya, and Sekhar Bose. “Efficacy and safety of Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal) root extract in improving memory and cognitive functions.” Journal of Dietary Supplements 14, no. 6 (2017): 599-612.

18. Erin, McGlade, Locatelli Allison, Hardy Julia, Kamiya Toshikazu, Morita Masahiko, Morishita Koji, Sugimura Yoichiro, and Yurgelun-Todd Deborah. “Improved attentional performance following citicoline administration in healthy adult women.” Food and Nutrition Sciences 2012 (2012).

19. Bruce, Steven E., Kimberly B. Werner, Brittany F. Preston, and Laurie M. Baker. “Improvements in concentration, working memory and sustained attention following consumption of a natural citicoline–caffeine beverage.” International journal of food sciences and nutrition 65, no. 8 (2014): 1003-1007.

20. Saitsu, Yuusuke, Akemi Nishide, Kenji Kikushima, Kuniyoshi Shimizu, and Koichiro Ohnuki. “Improvement of cognitive functions by oral intake of Hericium erinaceus.” Biomedical Research 40, no. 4 (2019): 125-131.

21. Vigna, Luisella, Federica Morelli, Gianna M. Agnelli, Filomena Napolitano, Daniela Ratto, Alessandra Occhinegro, Carmine Di Iorio et al. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2019 (2019).

22. Kaplan, Gary B., David J. Greenblatt, Bruce L. Ehrenberg, Jill E. Goddard, Monette M. Cotreau, Jerold S. Harmatz, and Richard I. Shader. “Dosedependent pharmacokinetics and psychomotor effects of caffeine in humans.” The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 37, no. 8 (1997): 693-703.

23. Stringham, James M., Nicole T. Stringham, and Kevin J. O’Brien. “Macular carotenoid supplementation improves visual performance, sleep quality, and adverse physical symptoms in those with high screen time exposure.” Foods 6, no. 7 (2017): 47.

24. Ceravolo, S. Anna, Billy R. Hammond, William Oliver, Brett Clementz, L. Stephen Miller, and Lisa M. RenziHammond. “Dietary Carotenoids Lutein and Zeaxanthin Change Brain Activation in Older Adult Participants: A Randomized, DoubleMasked, PlaceboControlled Trial.” Molecular nutrition & food research 63, no. 15 (2019): 1801051.

25. Koushan, Keyvan, Raluca Rusovici, Wenhua Li, Lee R. Ferguson, and Kakarla V. Chalam. “The role of lutein in eye-related disease.” Nutrients 5, no. 5 (2013): 1823-1839.

26. Wilson, Lisa M., Saraniya Tharmarajah, Yuanxi Jia, Richard D. Semba, Debra A. Schaumberg, and Karen A. Robinson. “The effect of lutein/zeaxanthin intake on human macular pigment optical density: A systematic review and meta-analysis.” Advances in Nutrition 12, no. 6 (2021): 2244-2254.

27. ‹‹Yagi, Ayano, Rui Nouchi, Laurie Butler, and Ryuta Kawashima. “Lutein has a positive impact on brain health in healthy older adults: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials and cohort studies.” Nutrients 13, no. 6 (2021): 1746.

28. Krinsky, Norman I., John T. Landrum, and Richard A. Bone. “Biologic mechanisms of the protective role of lutein and zeaxanthin in the eye.” Annual review of nutrition 23, no. 1 (2003): 171-201.

29. Health Canada. www.hc-sc.gc.ca

30. European Food Safety Authority. www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/caffeine

31. Diaz-Lara, Francisco Javier, Juan Del Coso, Jose Manuel García, Luis J. Portillo, Francisco Areces, and Javier Abián-Vicén. “Caffeine improves muscular performance in elite Brazilian Jiu-jitsu athletes.” European Journal of Sport Science 16, no. 8 (2016): 1079-1086.

32. Grgic, Jozo, Eric T. Trexler, Bruno Lazinica, and Zeljko Pedisic. “Effects of caffeine intake on muscle strength and power: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 15, no. 1 (2018): 11.

33. Government of Canada. www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-nutrition/food-safety/food-additives/caffeine-foods.html

34. Cook, Christian J., Blair T. Crewther, Liam P. Kilduff, Scott Drawer, and Chris M. Gaviglio. “Skill execution and sleep deprivation: effects of acute caffeine or creatine supplementation-a randomized placebo-controlled trial.” Journal of the international society of sports nutrition 8, no. 1 (2011): 2.

35. Van Thienen, Ruud, Karen Van Proeyen, J. Puype, T. Lefere, and P. Hespel. “Beta-alanine improves sprint performance in endurance cycling.” Medicine and science in sports and exercise 41, no. 4 (2009): 898-903.

36. Saunders, Bryan, Kirsty Elliott-Sale, Guilherme G. Artioli, Paul A. Swinton, Eimear Dolan, Hamilton Roschel, Craig Sale, and Bruno Gualano. “β-alanine supplementation to improve exercise capacity and performance: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” British journal of sports medicine 51, no. 8 (2017): 658-669.

37. Remenapp, A., K. Coyle, T. Orange, T. Lynch, D. Hooper, S. Hooper, K. Conway, and H. A. Hausenblas. “Efficacy of Withania somnifera supplementation on adult’s cognition and mood.” Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine 13, no. 2 (2022): 100510.

38. Suzuki, Takashi, Masahiko Morita, Yoshinori Kobayashi, and Ayako Kamimura. “Oral L-citrulline supplementation enhances cycling time trial performance in healthy trained men: Double-blind randomized placebo-controlled 2-way crossover study.” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 13, no. 1 (2016): 6.

1. Fast Food

You already know it’s not healthy, but the convenience of a drive-thru window when you’re tired and feeling lazy can be too much to resist. Try to anyway. A Spanish study showed that eating fast food can increase the risk
of depression by 51%. Foods such as processed baked goods, hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza were cited in particular. This echoes the findings of an Australian study that concluded: “Those with better quality diets were less likely to be depressed, whereas a higher intake of processed and unhealthy foods was associated with increased anxiety.”

2. Coffee

It might seem like not being able to get coffee when you really need it would add to your stress, but it could actually be the best thing for you. If you’re the type who relies on copious amounts of caffeine to get focused and face the day, the stimulant effect can make any agitation you’re already feeling significantly worse. A study in Psychosomatic Medicine had subjects perform a stressful task and found that people who drank 300 milligrams of
caffeine per day—about three cups of coffee, or what you’d get from a grande at Starbucks—reported having more than double the stress response of a control group. Furthermore, the researchers said that habitual caffeine use wouldn’t necessarily improve tolerance to these effects.

3. Non-Dairy Creamer

OK, we can accept that we may not be able to get you to ditch coffee, but at least consider giving up any non- dairy creamers you use in it (except for MCT oil, which has all kinds of benefits). Most milk/cream substitutes
contain hydrogenated oils that negatively affect cholesterol levels and have been linked to depression, anxiety, and overall poorer mental performance. Don’t be fooled by labels: a nutrition panel might claim “0 grams” trans fats, but if you see “partially-hydrogenated oils” on the label, they’re in there in small amounts. If you drink multiple coffees with a serving of creamer
each time, or use numerous servings in a cup, trace amounts of trans fats will add up to something significant fast—and it doesn’t take much to do your body damage. The government recommends no more than 2 grams per day.

4. Soda

Cracking open a cold soft drink is associated with chilling out and feeling good (or at least that’s what TV commercials would have you believe). The truth, however, is that consuming lots of sugar can make you feel worse—and not just because it makes you fatter. Research from Emory University states that diets high in fructose can negatively affect behavior, and even
worsen symptoms of depression and anxiety. Excess fructose is especially harmful for adolescents, whose brains are still developing. Fructose is the sugar found naturally in fruits and vegetables, but no one is suggesting curbing your intake of whole foods. The danger comes when fructose is consumed in large doses, and that’s easily done when eating processed foods and drinking soda.

What’s the best thing to do when you’re feeling overwhelmed, angry, or depressed? While booze, drugs, or finding the source of your frustration and breaking its nose might be the first thoughts that spring to mind, you’re more likely to get relief by taking a walk outside accompanied by a few deep breaths.

Forest Bathing: Bust Stress and Boost Your Health by Reconnecting With Nature

Communing with nature is the oldest form of stress management known to humankind, and yet only recently has science begun to really study it. Forest bathing, a Japanese term for bonding with the outdoors for health-boosting purposes, is now being seen as a legitimate form of therapy for tightly-wound people cracking under the pressures of living in the modern world. Even if the nearest jungle to you is a concrete one, there are ways to reap the benefits of being in nature that can add years to your life—or maybe even save it outright.

What Is Forest Bathing?

The expression “forest bathing” comes from a Japanese term coined as recently as the 1980s. “Shinrin-yoku” translates to “forest therapy,” or, “the medicine of being in the forest.”

Of course, appreciating the tranquility of woodsy surroundings dates back much farther than Pac-Man and Flock of Seagulls hairstyles. For as long as people have been living in the cramped conditions of cities, they’ve been looking for reasons to escape them. Nineteenth-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche often strolled in nature for more than four hours a day, and he credited the habit with allowing him to conceive his world-changing theories. Nature-loving has been a common trait among other big thinkers too, including psychoanalyst Carl Jung, Albert Einstein, and Aristotle, who taught his students while walking through the wooded hills of ancient Greece.

But it wasn’t until the 80s that famed biologist/naturalist E.O. Wilson started writing about “biophilia”—the concept that humans evolved from nature and so have a deep longing to maintain connection to it. The clamor of urban life, Wilson hypothesized, was getting in the way of us satisfying this primal instinct, and many city dwellers rarely, if ever, spend any substantial length of time in natural settings.

Half a world away from Wilson’s office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Japanese researchers were coming to similar conclusions, leading to the government making shinrin-yoku part of its national healthcare plan. While two-thirds of the country is covered in trees, the explosive growth of major cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, and widespread rural-to-urban migration, meant that many Japanese people were losing their connection to the agrarian settings their families had thrived in for centuries.

In his aptly titled book, Forest Bathing, Qing Li, a medical doctor at Tokyo’s Nippon Medical School and chairman of the Japanese Society for Forest Medicine, reveals that the Japanese capital is now the world’s most crowded city, with 13.5 million people and 6,158 people per square kilometer (for some perspective, London has 1,500 people per square km, New York 1,800, and Paris 2,844). Not surprisingly, such population density makes it hard for residents to find peace and quiet. The subways are so jam-packed during rush hour that white-gloved oshiya (professional “pushers”) have to shove commuters into over-crowded carriages. And yet, Li writes that he is able to seek solace in the midst of the mayhem by retreating to tree-lined parks to take a daily walk. “This is not exercise, or hiking, or jogging,” he explains. “It is simply being in nature—connecting with it through our sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.”

Benefits of Forest Bathing

Philosophically, all people can agree that being active in nature is good for us, but this isn’t merely an assumption anymore. There’s an emerging and growing body of evidence to support the notion, and Dr. Li and his fellow researchers at Nippon Medical School are leading the charge on forest bathing research.

Helps Fight Cancer

NK cells are like the Navy SEALs of the immune system. (NK stands for natural killer.) They play an important role in defending the body against bacteria, viruses, and tumors. NK cells are called into action any time the body senses out of control cell division or virus mutation.

Li published a review on the subject of forest bathing and its immune-boosting properties in 2010. In the experiments, adult Japanese men and women took trips into a forest for three days and two nights. Afterward, activity in the NK cells was found to be up by 50%, and the number of NK cells also grew by 53.2%. The stress reduction that comes from being outside may be one reason why, but trees themselves may be another. Phytoncides are antimicrobial compounds emitted by plants that help them fight off insects and germs. “Phytoncides released from trees, such as α-pinene, and limonene, have a big effect,” says Li. The NK-cell impact of the three-day excursions was shown to last for 30 days afterward.

Calms Your Nerves

To say that “everyone” is stressed out these days is no understatement. According to a 2018 report from the American Psychological Association, 91% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 21 say they’ve experienced some health problem due to stress in the past month—compared to 74% of adults overall. (Consider that most of these young adults, nicknamed Generation Z, don’t even have full-time jobs or families of their own yet—it’s only going to get harder!)

Needless to say, chronic stress is harmful. Prolonged exposure to stressors keeps us stuck in fight-or-flight—that alert but anxious state of mind that indicates the sympathetic nervous system is in control. “Forest bathing can increase the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system,” says Li, the rest-and-digest counterpart to fight-or-flight, “and reduce the activity of sympathetic response. It can restore autonomic nervous system balance and deliver relaxation effects by reducing levels of stress hormones such as adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol.”

Li isn’t the only one to come to this conclusion. Another team of Japanese scientists published a study in Public Health that found forest bathing significantly reduced feelings of depression and hostility. The more down or angry people were, the greater the benefits of going into the woods. Then there’s a gigantic 2018 meta-analysis published in Environmental Research. It evaluated 143 studies tracking an incredible 290 million people from 20 different countries. The results not only corroborated what Dr. Li says about forest bathing and stress, but also demonstrated that it reduces blood pressure, lowers the risk of heart disease, and is correlated with more than 100 positive health outcomes.

What If I Don’t Have A Forest?

Most of the research on forest bathing had subjects camp out in the wilderness for a few days, but, unless you happen to live at the foot of a nature trail, this may not be a likely option for you. Fortunately, studies have also shown that shorter exposures to the great outdoors can yield significant benefits. A 2015 study from the University of Melbourne found that subjects who only looked out a window at a natural scene for a mere 40 seconds increased their focus and alertness.

And thanks to modern science, there are ways to take the woods with you wherever you go. One of Li’s studies looked at how tree-derived essential oils impact NK cells. Although it was an in-vitro experiment (done in a petri dish rather than a live human), the NK cells still increased in number and activity level when incubated with the oils. And just as with longer forest bathing exposures, the oils elevated the amount of disease-fighting proteins perforin, granzyme A, and granulysin in the cells. How? Most likely the powerful phytoncides contained in tree bark and its extracts that the oils were made from.

While nobody is suggesting you inject oils into your veins, you might do well to put a few drops of cedar, cypress, pine, or any other tree-based essential oil in water, or a carrier oil, and fire up a diffuser for a few minutes in the evening, or just take a few deep sniffs from an essential oil bottle. This might be particularly beneficial when your immune system is taxed by travel, or you feel like you’re coming down with a cold. As most oil bottles are only one ounce in volume, they’ll fit nicely in your suitcase. In his book, Dr. Li suggests inhaling tree-derived oils through a salt pipe inhaler, or putting three drops in a bowl of boiling water, covering your head with a towel, and breathing deeply through your nose. “Steam inhalation of essential oils is a very direct method of aromatherapy,” Li writes, “and gets the phytoncides deep into your body.”

Chances are, even if you live in a big city, you have more options for enjoying the outdoors than you realize, as well as people to enjoy it with. You can make new connections through a group like Walk2Connect, an online community of avid walkers that coordinates people all over Colorado (your town probably has something similar; Google it). If you’re in the Big Apple, look into the New York Ramblers, while San Francisco has the Forest Bathing Club.

How To Become A Forest Bather

Most aspects of improving health, such as eating better and adopting an exercise program, are never quite as simple as they seem. You have to figure out what the best foods are for your body, learn exercise technique, schedule meals and workouts, and so on. Forest bathing, however, really is as simple as it seems: all you need to do is go outside to somewhere peaceful and pay attention to your surroundings.

That last point, however, is crucial. According to Dr. Li, if you let technology interrupt your experience, you won’t get the most out of it. Leave your cell phone at home, or at least switch the bloody thing off for once and stash it in a pocket or deep in a backpack. “Looking at your phone will diminish the benefits of forest bathing,” Li says. “Whereas if you don’t bring your technology, you will soon forget about screens.” Afraid that you’ll get lost in the woods, and that no phone will mean you can’t call for help? Plot your route in advance and tell friends where you’re planning to go. If on the off chance you do wind up in the middle of nowhere and can’t find your way back, the rest of the world will know where to come looking for you.

Apart from your phone, eliminate anything else that you’d find distracting or that would prevent you from fully engaging in your surroundings. This includes any fitness trackers you might use. Forest bathing isn’t about accruing more steps, staying in a certain heart rate zone, or trying to make a workout of the experience in any way, shape, or form. It’s about simply being, and it should feel relaxing.

If you have trouble tuning into nature, start thinking about what you’re seeing, hearing, and feeling around you—the rustling leaves in the trees above, the crunch of snow beneath your feet, the burbling of a nearby stream.

11 Rules For Better Forest Bathing

To make the most of your forest bathing experience, follow these 10 guidelines from Dr. Li.

1. Make a plan of where you’ll walk and how far based on your own physical abilities. Avoid taking on anything that will tire you out. Remember, this is not a workout.

2. If you have an entire day to do it, stay in the forest for about four hours and walk about five kilometers (or a little more than three miles). If you have just a half-day, stay in the forest for around two hours and walk approximately 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles). Whatever length walk you do, take it slowly. (By “forest,” we mean that any rustic area will do, whether it’s a park in the center of a crowded city, or your carefully manicured backyard, if that’s all you have access to.)

3. Take a rest whenever you’re tired.

4. Drink water or tea whenever you feel thirsty.

5. If you find a comfortable spot, sit there for a bit and enjoy the scenery. You can even read if you like (paper books don’t count as a distraction; e-readers do).

6. If possible, bathe in a hot spring after the forest trip. These monkeys seemed to enjoy it. Seriously!

7. If you’re going to take a long trip to a remote area, let people know where you’re going in advance, and when they can expect you back.

8. If you’re going to camp overnight, go with friends and bring the necessary camping and wilderness survival equipment. Don’t take on potentially dangerous adventures on a whim.

9. If you want to boost your immunity (natural killer cell activity), a three-day/two-night trip is recommended.

10. If you just want to relax and relieve stress, a day trip to a forested park near your home is enough.

11. Forest bathing is a preventive measure, so don’t expect it to cure you of any conditions you already have. If you have allergies to plants you might find in a woodsy area, take every precaution, and speak with your doctor before making any prolonged trips.

5 Ways To Appreciate Nature

Li says that if you’re not used to spending focused time in nature without technology on hand, it can be difficult initially to truly embrace it. He offers this checklist of ways to tune all five of your senses into what you’re experiencing.

1. Sense of sight. Actively look for the greens, yellows, oranges, and reds in plant and tree leaves.

2. Sense of smell. When you come upon a fragrant flower, take a moment to smell it and think about how it makes you feel.

3. Sense of hearing. Listen to the forest sounds and bird songs. Most birds chirp between 2,500 and 3,500 hertz, which is smack dab in the middle range of human hearing. This is why it can seem like music to us.

4. Sense of touch. Touch the trees and walk barefoot for some stretches (when safe, obviously). Research from 2015 indicates that “grounding”—direct skin contact with the surface of the earth—can help balance the body’s inflammatory responses and reduce pain.

5. Sense of taste. If you come across fruits, nuts, or seeds that are safe, indulge in them (but it’s best to rinse them first).

For more tips on stress management and improving mindfulness, see Onnit founder Aubrey Marcus’ book, Own The Day, Own Your Life.  

Our mind has the ability to turn any heaven into a hell and any hell into a heaven. I’ve seen miserable men walk manicured gardens in the Hamptons and joyous souls plod barefoot in the poorest slums of Kenya.

All of us have experienced times when the external world yawned with perfection, but inner turmoil kept us locked in a prison of our own creation. The great mystics place mastery of the mind as the utmost priority on a path to happiness or enlightenment. It is also one of the hardest things to do.

Think of the mind as a wild stallion. You can’t just ask timidly, “Hey, Mr. Stallion, would you please do exactly what I want?”

To be the master, you must assert yourself as something greater than the mind – the essential self that resides in stillness and presence. I call this force, consciousness. As the steady and loving hand of consciousness, you can bend the mind to your ultimate will.

Here are nine helpful exercises to achieve the greatest of all feats: mindfulness. NO supplements, drugs, or medicine required.

Mindful Exercise #1: Yoga

A lot of people view yoga as stretching. While stretching is part of the practice, the magic of yoga is the utilization of breath to push through self-imposed limitations. As you practice, you start to hear your mind squealing, “that’s far enough. I can’t do that. What are we doing later?” Anything to take you out of the intensity of the present moment.

But you stay steady with your intent. You focus on your breath. You release stray thoughts with each exhale. You bring in life force with each inhale. You drown the fire of the mind with a generous ocean of respiration and perspiration.

Consistent tug and pull of breath. Resistance and release continues for about an hour, and finally at the end of the session, the mind is a quiet and humble servant. During Shivasana, the final, you rest full force in consciousness.

Mindful Exercise #2: Meditation

There are dozens of styles of meditation and all of them work. However, you will find that some of them work better for you. Here are a few that have worked best for me.

Open Focus – The preferred method of Joe Dispenza. It is a process of relaxing your focus to an empty space in your body. It starts with space behind your eyes and expands from there. An interesting and potent technique, try fixing your focus on nothing in space.

Transcendental (TM) – Popularized by The Beatles in the 60s, the advantage of TM meditation, according to popular opinion, is that an amateur can reach the same state as a master within weeks of starting the practice. Repeat a simple chant, distracting the mind long enough for consciousness to emerge.

Vipassana – This form of meditation asks you to focus on your breath as it passes the threshold of your nostrils. Gradually, you expand this awareness to permeate your whole body.

LVK Meditation – This meditation has been 100% proven to turn you into a Care Bear. Focus on all the love and kindness in your heart while loving the world so much that your mind can’t handle it anymore. This will result in your heart leading your mind.

Guided – Guided meditations are a great way to start and have merit for practitioners of all experience. A vocal guide, either live or via recording will take you to a deep, inner quiet with a series of cues.

Sacred Silence – One of the most comprehensive and effective techniques, this sequence starts with focusing on your breath, much like Vipassana. Gradually, it moves to flexing and releasing parts of your body,  followed by a sequence of visualizations. Lastly, it anchors the meditative state with a trigger breath that conditions your body to eventually be able to enter this state on command. I have my own guided version available for download here.

Biofeedback – One of the recent players in the meditation game is a biofeedback device called the Muse. It measures brainwave activity and plugs into an iPhone app. The more relaxed you get, the more peaceful a nature scene on your phone becomes. Spikes in beta activity or distractions kick up the wind and ruin your peaceful setting. Similar to real life!

“In meditation, we move not just from conscious mind to subconscious mind, but also from selfish to selfless…from being some place to being no place, from being in time to being in no time¦Meditation takes us from survival to creation; from separation to connection; from imbalance to balance; and from the limiting emotions of fear, anger and sadness to the expansive emotions of joy, freedom and love.”
– Joe Dispenza

Mindful Exercise #3: Floatation (Sensory Deprivation)

Floatation tanks, also known as sensory deprivation tanks, operate by eliminating all of your sensory input, tricking the ever-perceiving mind into lapsing into a hypnotic coma.

It goes kind of like this: You enter an enclosed hot tub of sorts, filled with 900 lbs. of epsom salt. The water is only a foot or less deep, but because of all the salt, you float easily.

The temperature is the same temperature as the outside of your skin, so after time, it becomes hard to determine where you end and where the water starts. That’s the point! When the door to the chamber closes, there is no light, no sound, and no smell.

In everyday life, your watchdog mind is very pre-occupied with analyzing sensory data to keep you alive. When all that sensory data stops, it goes on a lunch break. Here is an excerpt on a post made the first time I went floating at Zero Gravity Institute:

Capital ’M’ Mind fussed around for the first 10 minutes or so, but then he got sleepy. All of a sudden, my authentic self locked in like a Greyhound preying on a rabbit. As my body floated blissfully in what seemed like outer space, I was able to intentionally explore the key issues in my life.

A razor scythe of clarity cut through the chaff of emotional hurdles and preconceptions, and I arrived at peaceful resolutions. I could tune into the living memory of family who had passed away, and that has only possible for me in the deepest meditation.

Floating also has a host of ancillary health benefits. A 2001 study found that floating had the ability to reduce chronic pain, increase optimism, and decrease anxiety and depression. As a bonus, participants fell asleep easier following floatation tank treatment and experienced a higher quality of sleep. (source)

The key is to remain conscious inside the tank to maximize benefits. The sweet spot is that theta range of brain function at 6 to 8 Hz which is somewhere between waking and sleeping.

Mindful Exercise #4: Hyperoxygenation

Utilized by Kundalini yoga practitioners for thousands of years, a new school of hyperoxygenation practice was developed by Dr. Stan Grof in the 80s. Holotropic breathing – also called Shamanic breathing – creates a temporary surplus of oxygen in the blood.

This oxygen crosses the blood-brain barrier, suppressing normal thought patterns and allowing consciousness to emerge. These practices are best in a guided setting for maximum effect. One of the safest modalities available, hyperoxygenation has no known injuries, (this type of breath work).

The first time I tried Shamanic breathing, I was stunned. As a man who has explored the psychedelic pharmacopeia, I was expecting something really mild. This is not how it went down! After pushing through about 20 minutes of serious huffing, I saw a crystal clear vision of my eternal self staring back in my eyes. It was one of the most powerful moments in my life.

Mindful Exercise #5: Fasting

Many wisdom traditions from around the world demand that acolytes complete a fast before receiving any teaching. Depriving the mind of sugar and B-vitamins like nicotinic acid puts the watchdog brain in chill mode.

Fasting isn’t fun, but neither is being bullied by your mind. Once you get past the first day or two, it is much easier from there.

If you are looking for a guided fast to follow, check out this reboot.

Mindful Exercise #6: Binaural Beats

Binaural beats are an auditory biohack that facilitates entrainment to optimal brainwave status. Just as neurons firing are measured with frequency so too, is sound. The technique to create binaural beats is to put one sound in stereo left at one frequency, and then the same sound at stereo right at another frequency. This means that there is an almost imperceptible difference in sound coming into your left and right ear.

Hence the term bi – meaning two and – aural, “of the ear.” This technique creates an auditory phenomenon called beating. The size of the gap in frequency between the left and right ear will be the frequency of the beating. This is the target frequency for your brainwave entrainment.

Often times white noise i.e. rain is used in conjunction with these tones to help relax the mind and put it in a more malleable state. The result is the ability to target a variety of different brainwave states to yield varied benefits.

One uncontrolled pilot study showed that after 60 days of delta wave (deeply relaxing) binaural beats, there was a decrease in trait anxiety (p = 0.004), an increase in quality of life (p = 0.03), and a decrease in insulin-like growth factor-1 (p = 0.01) and dopamine (p = 0.02) observed between pre- and post intervention measurements. (source)

Another study, this time with a control group, showed significant reduction in anxiety for preoperative patients listening to binaural beats prior to surgery. (source)

The technology is definitely on the forefront of biohacking, and I have found these beats to be particularly useful in mastering the beta wave clutter of the mind. So useful in fact, I got together with sound technician, Cory Allen, to create my own.

My favorite track is called “Earth Peace“, and combines live recordings of Texas rain with Tibetan singing bowls.

Mindful Exercise #7: Nature

Contemplation in nature is the original form of meditation. Have you ever hiked to the top of a majestic mountain? Sat at the foot of a deserted waterfall? In these places, it is far easier to quiet the mind. Beyond the sense of awe it might inspire, this may have something to do with the frequency of the Earth itself.

Meditative states are generally found in frequencies between 6 to 10 Hz (theta and alpha). The frequency of the Earth, called the Schumann resonance, sits at 7.83 Hz. Babies sync their heartbeats to their mother. If we can sync our brain to the frequency of our great Mother, we’ll be on the right track!

A specific tactic used by Native American trained tracker and author, Tom Brown, is to relax the focus of the eyes to allow for extreme peripheral vision. This not only reduces the focus on any one thing, but it also allows all visible input to filter into the mind at once, without the brain actively seeking to register it. I have found this a very interesting technique to experiment with.

Mindful Exercise #8: Dance

Dance is a universal cultural phenomenon. People dance to celebrate. People dance to connect with the opposite sex. People dance for ceremony. In ceremonial dance, like the Navajo sun dance, dancing is the vehicle to induce a deep trancelike state.

But in our culture, because of its prevalence as a form of social expression, dancing to create a meditative state is under-represented.

I was first introduced to the term “ecstatic dancing” in my 30s. Just to clear things up for all you ravers out there, ecstatic dancing is not the same as dancing on ecstasy! In an ecstatic dance, the dancers are sometimes blindfolded to ensure the performance aspect is removed from the mind.

Participants are encouraged to move completely and freely with their body, surrendering entirely to the music. Some movements may not even resemble anything we would normally consider dancing. The goal is to reach a state that some psychologists refer to as superfluidity – the ultimate form of flow state.

What is interesting is that once you release the mind from concerning itself with how you look, your body comes alive. Every cell seems to wake up and the mind takes a huge step back. For many people, this can be a very cathartic process as they release the somatic memories of shame and judgment that we place upon the movement of our body.

One particular study compared dancing to mindfulness meditation, and found that 97 percent of participants chose to receive a voucher for dance rather than meditation. The study found that both activities reduced depression, but only dance reduced stress levels.

Mindful Exercise #9: Choice

Ultimately, we are in control of our mind. As much as we would like to think otherwise, we are the boss. I remember this one time, I mentioned I had a song stuck in my head to my good friend Bode Miller and he just looked at me and told me to “get it out.” It was a stark reminder that we are indeed in control of our mind.

Recently I heard a speech from a man who quit his opiate addiction, and he offered a ’helpful’ tip for those seeking to quit. He said, “Take all of your opiates and put them in plain sight. Then don’t take another pill.” That was a mic drop moment for me.

If you want to still the mind, choose to still the mind. It’s a move we always have available but seldom use to its full potential.

Nine to Nirvana: 9 Mindfulness Exercises for Mastering the Mind

If you want to build a successful career, get through school, or run a business, you probably won’t be able to limit mentally-draining tasks or escape making tough decisions, but you can take steps to keep your mind as focused and sharp as possible in spite of the challenges it faces.

How Can I Improve My Mental Acuity?

According to Dr. Jim Afremow, a mindset coach to Olympians, co-creator of the Champion’s Mind app, and former sports psychologist for pro sports teams such as the San Francisco Giants, the route to better focus, concentration, and understanding is recognizing the interplay between what’s going on around you and what’s happening inside your brain.

“Your mental state is dependent on both internal and external factors,” Afremow says. Here’s an example: “In the 90s, it was so hard to get a reservation at a famous restaurant in New York that [the restaurant] started getting a lot of complaints. So they had psychologists come in to find ways to get people in and out faster. They found that the two biggest difference makers were installing brighter lights and playing faster music, which shows how our external environment subconsciously shapes our mental state.”

The trouble is, says Afremow, “when we allow outside factors like 24/7 email, fast-paced work environments, and constant stimuli to speed us up too much, our performance suffers. That’s when we have to work on our inner [mental] game to slow things back down. Conversely, when we’re feeling sluggish, we need a toolkit of techniques that can energize us so we can perform well even when conditions aren’t ideal.”

Certain foods and supplements, along with daily practices such as meditation, “brain breaks,” and better sleep habits can all alter your mental state significantly, allowing you to speed up or slow down as needed to find the level of mental sharpness you require to be more focused and productive.

Can Natural Ingredients Really Affect My Mental Sharpness?

Everyone knows that caffeine/coffee can help with alertness and focus, but there’s another natural compound that, when combined with caffeine, may be even more effective for supporting a sharper mental state.

L-theanine is an amino acid found in green and black tea, and a trial published in Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior concluded that it helps lower the body’s stress response to stressful cognitive tasks. In other words, it may be able to help chill you out when you’re working on something frustrating. This calming effect could help to balance caffeine’s stimulant properties.

A study in Biological Psychology looked at the effects of caffeine and L-theanine in isolation and in combination, discovering that the two compounds together boosted cognitive speed, memory, and alertness better than when either nutrient was taken alone. Another study in Nutritional Neuroscience noted that while caffeine by itself boosts alertness, when teamed with L-theanine, it helped promote speed and accuracy on attention-switching tasks and reduced susceptibility to distraction.

Finally, British researchers found that L-theanine may help attenuate the spikes in blood pressure that are associated with caffeine use. This doesn’t necessarily mean it can counter the jittery and restless feelings that often accompany caffeine, but L-theanine seems to help you harness caffeine’s stimulatory effects, leaving you feeling alert but not overly revved up.

L-theanine is available as a supplement, but if you want to keep it simple and stick to coffee, at least get the dosing right, which can minimize the risk of caffeine’s side effects. “The sweet spot for caffeine appears to be between two and three milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight a day,” says Dr. Marc Bubbs, ND, CISSN, performance nutritionist for the Canadian men’s basketball team and author of the book Peak. So, if you weigh 180 pounds, you should aim for 160–245mg of caffeine—about one-and-a-half to three cups of coffee. “This is a level that provides most of the benefits while limiting the drawbacks of excessive caffeine intake,” says Bubbs, “like restlessness, anxiety, and inability to focus.”

Another natural ingredient worth experimenting with is Huperzia serrata (club moss). It’s been shown to help people with cognitive deficits, potentially by way of regulating oxidative stress and supporting nerve growth factors and receptors. It also acts to help promote acetylcholine concentrations, allowing for neuron communication. Lastly, lemon balm shows promise as a brain booster. British researchers writing in Neuropsychopharmacology noted its ability to promote both calmness and memory.

Tips for Achieving Mental Clarity

Here are four simple ways to boost your mental state fast.

1. Follow a Low-Carb Diet

Lowering your carb intake has been shown many times over to help people lose weight and reclaim their health, but one of the first noticeable benefits is improved thinking and concentration. This is because low-carb eating helps you avoid blood sugar spikes that rob your energy and fog your brain. Taken a step further, a low-carb diet becomes a ketogenic diet, where the lack of carbohydrate intake causes your body to run on ketones (compounds made from fat) for fuel.

A team of psychiatrists and neuroscientists from the University of Cincinnati divided adults with mild cognitive impairment into two groups. The one that followed a low-carb diet for six weeks showed improvements in verbal memory performance.

As Shelly Fan reported in Scientific American, a ketogenic diet may benefit the brain by inhibiting stress on neurons, increasing the number of mitochondria (energy-producing structures in brain cells), and regulating neurotransmitters to ensure a balance between excitation and inhibition.

“One of the biggest ’rocks’ for achieving and sustaining a high level of mental acuity is optimal blood glucose control,” Bubbs says. “With half the US population struggling with pre-diabetes or diabetes, it’s perhaps not surprising that mental performance seems to be on the decline. Chronically high blood glucose levels wreak havoc on the brain, entangling neurons and increasing your risk of dementia and depression. Reducing carbohydrate intake can be an effective strategy for improving glucose control, especially in those with pre-diabetes or diabetes, as a reduction in carbs significantly reduces your post-prandial glucose response. So, if you find yourself falling asleep at your desk after lunch, reducing your carb intake can be a great tool for supercharging your brain game.”

For specific guidelines on following a low-carb or ketogenic diet, see our free e-book HERE.

2. Get More High-Quality Sleep

At the risk of sounding too harsh, lack of sleep is making you stupid. One of the nation’s leading sleep researchers, William Killgore from Harvard Medical School, wrote in Progress in Brain Research that sleep deprivation not only slows response speed and compromises alertness, attention, and vigilance, but also affects “more creative, divergent and innovative aspects of cognition.” Said another way, if you don’t sleep well, your brain just won’t work right. And no matter how many extra shots you get your favorite barista to put in your morning joe, they can’t overcome the detrimental impact of a bad night’s sleep.

“Even a single night of bad sleep reduces your inhibitory control, making you more likely to react emotionally to conflicts and engage in risk-taking behavior,” Bubbs says. “In fact, even after you catch up on your sleep, there’s a major lag time before your full cognitive performance is restored. If you’re serious about your mental performance, prioritize increasing total sleep time and quality above all else.”

So how can you start sleeping better? Get all the electronics out of your bedroom, keep it dark with blackout shades and cool with air conditioning, a fan, or a chiliPAD, and trade your tablet or eReader for a good ol’ fashioned paper book to help you wind down before bed. You might also want to consider taking a supplement that contains magnesium, which may help you avoid delayed sleep onset and early wakefulness, as well as improve sleep efficiency, according to a trial in the Journal of Research in Medical Sciences. Get more sleep tips HERE.

3. Take Brain Breaks

If you remember the restaurant example from above, playing up-tempo music and sitting in bright lighting helps you move faster. As we showed in our report on forest bathing, taking a leisurely stroll outside can help you relax significantly. In both cases, the environment you surround yourself with creates changes in your brain.

“If you’re in a mental slump—which hits a lot of people mid-afternoon—then step away from your desk and take a quick walk outside,” says Afremow. “Or, if you’ve got a meeting coming up, just take a stroll around the building and have a chat with a colleague. The change of scene will give you a mental lift. Don’t think of it as time wasted, but rather an investment that will provide greater clarity and focus. The more consistent you are with any mindset practice, the bigger the benefits you’ll experience.”

Findings published in Mental Health and Physical Activity noted that just 12 minutes of activity helped promote mental performance in 10 year-old kids.

4. Schedule Meditation

While walking in nature can be a form of meditation, the value of sitting quietly with your eyes closed can’t be overstated. A 2018 study that spanned seven years concluded that meditation practice can help promote improvements in attention span, as well as prevent age-related mental decline.

“If you only have a few minutes,” says Afremow, “then fire up a guided meditation on an app like Champion’s Mind, or do a little single-point meditating by focusing on your breath. Picture yourself inhaling relaxation and exhaling stress. You could also do color breathing, in which you picture yourself inhaling a calming blue and exhaling a warning color like red.” For a step-by-step guide to how to meditate effectively, go HERE.

A group of researchers led by Mark Krasnow, a professor of biochemistry at Stanford University, found that calm breathing impacts a group of nerves that are directly tied into the arousal centers in the brain. The more control you have over your breath, the more you have over your mind. One journal found that yoga breathing techniques improved performance on mental testing.

Can Blue Light Help Me Focus?

Blue light is a color in the light spectrum that travels at short wavelengths. It’s produced by the sun, but also artificial lights, and scientists believe that exposure to it can help us focus and learn. A study published in the Journal of Neural Transmission concluded that, “a significant increase in alertness and speed of information processing could be achieved by blue light.” Furthermore, a team from the University of Arizona College of Medicine’s psychiatry department determined that subjects who were exposed to blue light for 30 minutes after a learning exercise improved memory retention compared to the placebo group.

According to Bubbs, one of the best ways to get exposure to blue light is to simply go outdoors. “Getting outside is hugely important for cognition and mental health, particularly during fall and winter months. If you’re bold enough to tackle the elements with a morning walk to work or to your favorite coffee shop, your brain will be exposed to over 100,000 LUX of light intensity, even on cloudy days, which will kickstart circadian rhythms and cognition.” A brightly-lit office, by comparison, puts out only a paltry 20,000 LUX. “Get outside to burn off the brain fog and clear your mind before work, or add outdoor morning workouts to further increase the benefits.”

However, there can always be too much of a good thing. Certain biohackers will warn you that blue light can mess with your sleep, as it suppresses the release of melatonin. It can delay the onset and reduce the quality and duration of sleep. For these reasons, it’s a good idea to wear glasses that block blue light when you’re watching TV or using electronics at night. Also, cut off your exposure to as much artificial light as you can at least two hours before going to bed (dim the overhead lights, turn off the TV, etc.). But don’t think you have to live in a cave just to be able to sleep at night.

For more tips on using blue light to your advantage—and avoiding it when it’s disadvantageous—pick up Onnit founder Aubrey Marcus’ book, Own The Day

Are you looking to optimize your morning routine for peak performance? Biohacking your morning with the right supplements can make a significant difference in your energy levels, focus, and overall well-being. Let's explore how you can supercharge your mornings with the power of supplements.

What are supplements and why are they important?

Supplements are concentrated sources of nutrients or other substances with a physiological effect that are used to enhance health and well-being. In the context of biohacking your morning routine, supplements can provide targeted support for specific functions in the body, such as cognitive function, energy production, and stress management.

Key supplements for biohacking your morning

1. Caffeine: Known for its stimulating effects, caffeine can improve alertness and focus in the morning.

2. Omega-3 fatty acids: Essential for brain health, omega-3 fatty acids can support cognitive function and mood regulation.

3. Vitamin D: Often called the "sunshine vitamin," vitamin D plays a crucial role in immune function and mood regulation.

4. Adaptogens: These herbs help the body adapt to stress and can promote a sense of calm and balance in the morning.

5. Probiotics: Supporting gut health is essential for overall well-being, and probiotics can help maintain a healthy balance of gut bacteria.

How to incorporate supplements into your morning routine

When biohacking your morning routine with supplements, it's essential to consider the timing and dosage for optimal effectiveness. Start by identifying your specific health goals and selecting supplements that align with those goals. Integrate them into your morning routine by taking them with breakfast or a morning smoothie for easy absorption.

Remember to consult with a healthcare professional before adding new supplements to your routine, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or are taking medications. They can provide personalized recommendations based on your individual needs and help you navigate the world of supplements safely and effectively.

The bottom line

Biohacking your morning routine with supplements can be a powerful way to enhance your overall well-being and performance throughout the day. By incorporating key supplements into your morning routine and optimizing their usage, you can set yourself up for success and make the most of each day. Take the first step towards a more energized and focused morning by exploring the world of supplements and unlocking their potential benefits.