← The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
Why You Still Feel Tired And Foggy On A Perfect Diet : 1348
00:12:36
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You see it in the mirror. Wrinkles, sagging and old scars your skincare can't touch. What if you could get cosmetic surgery results at home without the pain, the risk or the downtime? The Lima laser switches your skin into youth mode. This is clinic grade cold laser technology now available at home. It penetrates deep into your skin and triggers repair at the cellular level, not just the surface. Watch your wrinkles, scars and pigmentation fade, all without stepping into a clinic. No surgery or injections necessary. Experts around the world trust and use this. I use this. If you're serious about changing how your skin looks and feels, this is the future. Go to Lima Life and use code DAVE10 for 10% off the Lima laser. That's L Y M a Life and use code DAVE10. I used to work in Silicon Valley running multi million dollar tech teams and being the genius in my field. But I weighed 300 pound and I tried every diet you could think of. I became a devout vegan because I thought it was the ultimate path to health. And I still felt like shit. My brain was foggy, I'd forget basic things right in the middle of a meeting. And I woke up exhausted no matter how healthy I ate. And for years I thought it was just food that was the problem. Until I realized I was chasing the wrong solution. The truth is, you're not living in the same world your biology was designed for. That single realization really did change everything for me. Today I'm going to show you why even a perfect diet might still leave you feeling like garbage and what you can do about it. Everyone thinks that food fixes everything, or maybe food and exercise. But that's not what it's all about. So you clean up your diet. No seed oils, no processed sugar, organic everything. You meal prep, you track your macros, even brag about how clean your plate looks on Instagram. But you still have low energy, brain fog, inflammation, muffin top. And you can't explain it. I've seen this over and over, even in my own life. I wrote the Bulletproof Diet, which has sold about a million copies globally. And it's helped people lose countless millions of pounds. And it's helped me lose £100 as well. And I spent decades obsessing over food quality and composition. I mean, I literally built a global movement around food quality. Bulletproof coffee, now Danger coffee and removing toxins from your diet. And I still hit a point where eating perfect just wasn't working well enough. What I realized is that food alone isn't always enough to make you feel Bulletproof. The real reason you still feel like shit might have nothing to do with your plate. It's the invisible factors in your environment that sabotage your biology. No matter how well you eat, there are biological disruptors in your daily life that make a perfect diet just about useless, but still better than a crappy diet. Those disruptors silently wreck your biology, but you can't see, taste, or usually even smell them. These disruptors stop your body from absorbing nutrients. They damage your gut lining, and they slow down your detox pathways. So whatever healthy stuff you are eating, your body's just wasting it. Food fuels the body, but your environment determines whether that fuel even reaches your cells. One of the biggest biological disruptors we're dealing with right now is emfs, or electromagnetic field. These are coming from your phone, your WI fi, your smart home devices, and lots of things in our lives. This could be one reason why brain fog hits you with no apparent explanation. You could be working out every single day, waking up early, getting sunlight, doing meditation. But if you're sleeping next to your phone or next to your wi fi, maybe EMFs are the thing that is silently destroying your cell metabolism. EMFs interfere with how your cells communicate. And EMFs can disrupt melatonin production. They can throw off your circadian rhythm, and that's your biological clock. At night, EMFs can even spike your cortisol when your body should be recovering. But EMFs are just one part of the problem. You're probably breathing toxic air as well. People think that having air purifying indoor plants could be a solution. Things like snake plant or spider plant or English ivy, maybe that'll solve the problem, but it doesn't. Why? Because you haven't addressed the root cause here. You want to focus on whether or not there's mold in your house or your house plants. That's a massive source of chronic inflammation, fatigue, and brain fog. And when I say massive, I mean more than 100 million homes and businesses in the US have a problem with it. Mold produces toxic compounds called mycotoxins. They don't just hide in old buildings, they show up in air systems. Even in relatively new or healthy looking homes. These toxins directly damage your mitochondria, and those are the energy factories inside your cells. But they also make body heat and they control your metabolism. And that's why it's time to start auditing your environment. You want to do two things here, and it involves cleaning your home. First, you might want to test your house or apartment for mold. And don't assume you can see it the most dangerous types are often hidden inside walls, behind drywall and in H VAC systems. You need to keep your indoor humidity to around 50% and consider running a HEPA air filter to reduce airborne spores and dust. If you do confirm mold exposure with a dust test for mold, work with a professional to remediate it. Reducing EMFs can also be a big challenge. Most people think that it simply means spending less time on your phone. But what you want to do is become intentional. Don't sleep next to your phone unless it's in airplane mode. Better yet, turn off completely. Don't wear Bluetooth earbuds. Turn off your WI fi router at night with a little lamp control switch that costs five bucks. Use wired connections when you can, and these small tweaks make a big impact over time. But fixing your home doesn't mean that your body is going to magically heal. So your mitochondria decide if you're going to be a healthy human being or a zombie. Just feeling tired and sluggish the way I did for the first half of my life. That's because your mitochondria create the energy you feel. They take about 30 pounds of air and some food, and they convert them into ATP every single day. And that's the currency of energy your cells use. Most people know that 90% of your body's energy comes from mitochondria, and sometimes even more. Years of EMFs and mold exposure will damage your mitochondrial membranes, and which means that they don't do a good job of making ATP. And EMFs in particular interfere with something called a voltage gated calcium channel, which is inside your cell membrane. And what that means is that when emfs hit the membrane, it makes a small amount of voltage. Voltage causes an influx of calcium, which causes the cell to swell up so that it can't make energy as well. It's directly stressful on mitochondria. It can trigger oxidative damage. And this is confirmed by dozens and dozens of studies, none of them funded by the WI fi or mobile phone industries. Who would have thought? So maybe you're not low on nutrients. Maybe your cells are just overloaded with toxins and their membranes aren't working because of the things that are next to your bed. On top of that, your body's burning through antioxidants and minerals and B vitamins, just trying to stay balanced. And that nutrient depletion happens no matter how well you eat. That's why the next step is to detox your body so your mitochondria can work like they're supposed to. And you're going to do that by using the largest organ in your body and sweating it out. That's right. Your skin is one of the safest, fastest exits for toxins. Infrared saunas are my go to because they penetrate deep and they mobilize toxins stored in fat tissue better than any other kind of sauna. But if you don't have access to an infrared sauna, hot yoga, or even walking in the sun until you break a sweat can start the process. At the same time, you need to capture toxins in your gut so your body doesn't just reabsorb them when infrared light causes them to be released. And you do this by consuming binders. Binders are supplements that are like tiny magnets for toxins. When your liver processes toxins, it pushes them into your gut via your biliary system so that you can get rid of them. Problem is, your body will reabsorb those toxins as it makes good use of that bile. Binders trap the toxins in your gut and flush them and the dirty bile out through your stool before it can re enter your bloodstream. Make sure you take binders away from food and medications because they bind to those too. And drink extra water to keep things moving. Some binders I recommend are activated charcoal, bentonite, clay, and modified citrus pectin. But once you remove the toxins, you still need to rebuild the nutrients your body burned through. Magnesium is so important for ATP production. So are zinc, activated B vitamins, and antioxidants like CoQ10. That's going to let you repair oxidative damage and restore the energy your cells are supposed to be making. And speaking of bile flow, which is so important for toxin removal, you can support bile production with things like bitters, taurine, the amino acid, or even simple things like lemon water before a meal. But even after you've cleared those toxins and you fixed your mitochondria, your body still might not be working the way you want. Because there's one more biological switch that can keep you feeling terrible. This biological system is the one that controls digestion and inflammation and detox and healing. And when you're living in a toxic environment, that system locks your body in fight or flight mode. In that mode, digestion and repair just don't work the way they could. Then you get blood sugar swings and you don't sleep as well, and anxiety feels like your default setting. See Shallow breathing, doom scrolling Mold exposure. They all tell your body you're not Safe. When your body doesn't feel safe, it disrupts your circadian rhythm and it releases cortisol at night when you shouldn't have stress hormones. When your nervous system thinks you're running from a predator, it's not going to prioritize digestion or absorbing nutrients or sleeping. So most people just try journaling or positive thinking. But yeah, mindset is great. I write books about it. But it's not enough by itself because your body still feels under attack not from a mental level, but from a sensory, from a cellular level. When your nervous system can't shift back into rest and digest mode, then you have slower digestion, your detox pathways stop working and your hormones become chaotic. So then you've got bloating by noon, an afternoon crash, muffin top. And you wake up, feel like you didn't sleep at all. No matter how much you sleep, and until your body feels safe at a cellular level, it's not going to heal. That's why you want to rewire your stress response and reset your circadian rhythm so your body knows it's safe to heal. The fastest way to do this is in the definition of biohacking. You change the environment around you and inside of you, so you have control of your state. You're going to use your environment as a tool. Get natural sunlight in your eyes within 30 minutes of waking. That morning light is like flipping on the master clock in your brain and tells your body that it's daytime and you should be alert. And it also sets you up for great sleep later. And it doesn't work if you're wearing sunglasses outdoors. Wear glasses indoors to block blue light outdoors. Natural sunlight, that's the thing. And at night, shut down screens at least an hour before bed. Or use junk light blocking glasses like TrueDark, the ones I invented. If you're going to work late or look at screens, you want to create a pre bed ritual. Dark, cold, quiet. That means blackout curtains, dropping the temperature in your bedroom and keeping electronics out of the room, or at least dim and on airplane mode. And to directly calm your nervous system, you can use techniques that physically engage your vagus nerve. This is the switch that controls your rest and digest state. You could practice box breathing. This is a classical deep breathing technique from my most recent book called Heavily Meditated. It involves inhaling, holding, exhaling and holding for an equal amount of time, usually 4 seconds each. This method is going to calm your nervous system, reduce your stress, and it can improve your focus. So all you got to do is slowly breathe in through your nose for four seconds like this. Then you hold your breath for four seconds like this, and then breathe out slowly for four seconds. You know, like that. And then you hold it empty for four more seconds. Do that three, four or more times and watch what happens to your nervous system. You just repeat that cycle until you're chill. When you eat, slow down. You want to make sure you actually chew your food. Take a breath between bites and do your best to not be stressed by looking at stressful content. And better yet, spend some time with a friend or family member. Put your body in a parasympathetic resting state before you take that first forkful. This is why most cultures will tell you sit down, take a deep breath and have some gratitude for your food. Bless it, do whatever you need to do. Because eating on the go, eating while scrolling, eating while fighting. If your body thinks it's a battle, it's not going to digest. And gratitude, relaxation, and just telling yourself the world's awesome before you take that bite. It changes your state. So when you reset your nervous system and your circadian rhythm, your body will stop living in survival mode and it'll turn into thrival mode. That's when digestion improves, your detox pathways reopen, and your body can actually use those nutrients from that diet that you spent so much time and money on. And that's when food becomes medicine. Foreign.
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Upgrade Formerly Bulletproof Radio was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider carefully read all labels and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.