Game Changers: What Leaders, Innovators and Mavericks Do to Win at Life. Dave Asprey

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СКАЧАТЬ (including brain cells) build new power plants. It’s also a key regulator of energy metabolism and upregulates thyroid hormone receptor genes and mitochondrial function. If you read Head Strong, you know that almost anything you do to make your mitochondria function well is going to help your brain. Nicotine fills the bill!

      (Pardon me while I take a writing break to enjoy an unreleased early version of a “clean” nicotine product. It seems that a great many works of literature have been written under the influence of caffeine and nicotine, including this one.)

      You can get addicted to nicotine, so it is good for occasional use unless you decide that it’s okay to be addicted to something that grows new blood vessels and increases mitochondrial function. It is profoundly helpful for writing, and the test product I mentioned earlier contained 1 milligram of oral nicotine, compared to the 6 to 12 milligrams you would find in a nasty cigarette. Gums, patches, and oral lozenges or sprays are the best forms because oral (not smoked or vaped) nicotine provides different benefits. Most oral nicotine products have bad artificial sweeteners and chemicals in them. If you’re using nicotine for your brain, why add in crap that moves the needle in the wrong direction? I’m a fan of start-ups such as Lucy gum (www.lucynicotine.com) that are working to release nicotine products with clean ingredients. Gum chewing never makes you look cool, so it’s a good thing that you use nicotine gum by tucking it into your cheek instead of smacking it.

      I’m so glad nicotine is in my brain. And smoking is gross.

       CAFFEINE

      Few people know this, but the first commercial product ever sold over the internet was a T-shirt that read, CAFFEINE: MY DRUG OF CHOICE. I know this because in 1993 I sold it out of my dorm room, resulting in a photo of my three-hundred-pound round-faced self appearing in Entrepreneur magazine wearing the shirt in size XXL. So of course, caffeine is my favorite nootropic of all time. Actually, coffee is. Coffee is made up of thousands of compounds, and caffeine is just one of them.

      By itself (not just in coffee), caffeine is an energy booster and cognitive enhancer. Caffeine may even help ease cognitive decline and lower your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by blocking inflammation in the brain.²⁵ You already know that this book is powered by coffee (and just a few additional nootropics).

      One reason caffeine is in this book is to give you pause. If you think cognition-enhancing substances are something too crazy to try, put down that coffee cup and pick up a glass of nice, bitter kale juice. See how long that change lasts! If you’re like most people, you’ve been taking one of Mother Nature’s greatest nootropics for years, without knowing that you were on nootropics. The truth is that mankind has sought out cognitive enhancement since the beginning of civilization, and the technologies in this chapter are just a continuation of that long and noble tradition.

      The bottom line is that all cognitive enhancers carry some risks, but top performers decide whether those risks are worth the rewards. It’s up to you to weigh the benefits against the potential downsides and determine if it’s worth it to you. If you do decide to experiment with any nootropics, please be safe, know your local laws, and follow the recommendations of a medical professional.

      Smart drugs make you more of what you are, and they can be important tools in your self-awareness arsenal. They won’t make you an enlightened, loving human overnight. If you’re an asshole generally, you’ll be a bigger one on smart drugs. But the experience of taking these drugs can help you to see your asshole tendencies when you would ordinarily be blind to them. The goal is to observe yourself and use your newfound smarts to do important personal development work if you haven’t done so already.

      Action Items

       Use psychedelic drugs only with intention, supervision, and solid legal advice to make sure you’re not breaking the law. These are powerful tools, not toys. And do it after age twenty-four, after your brain’s prefrontal cortex is fully formed.

       If you’re going to microdose anything—from nicotine to LSD or anywhere in between—do your research first and know what you’re getting. Start slow. Don’t break the law. And don’t do it for the first time before you go onstage, into a big meeting, or even behind the wheel of a car.

       Consider trying aniracetam or phenylpiracetam, the entry-level, very safe, quasi-pharmaceutical smart drugs.

       Consider a plant-based nootropic to see how it makes you perform. There is real science behind plant-based compounds for cognitive enhancement, but it would take a whole book to write about them all. (I recommend Bulletproof’s Smart Mode because I formulated it, but there are many.)

       Ask three people you trust to give you honest feedback about how you behave when you start using any nootropic—one family member, one close friend, and one colleague. Sometimes when you get a lot faster all at once, everyone else seems stupidly slow. You can act like a jerk or get depressed and not know it. These people will be your feedback system. Who will they be?Family __________________Friend __________________Colleague __________________

       Recommended Listening

       “Mashup of the Titans” with Tim Ferriss, Parts 1 and 2, Bulletproof Radio, episodes 370 and 371

       Tim Ferriss, “Smart Drugs, Performance & Biohacking,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 127

       “The Birth of LSD” with Stanislav Grof, Father of Transpersonal Psychology, Bulletproof Radio, episode 428

       Steven Fowkes, “Increase Your IQ & Your Lifespan for a Dime a Day,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 456

       Steve Fowkes, “Hacking Your pH, LED Lighting & Smart Drugs,” Parts 1 and 2, Bulletproof Radio, episodes 94 and 95

       Recommended Reading

       Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, and Transcendence

      Law 8: Get Out of Your Head

      There is incredible value in accessing altered states where you face your inner demons. This is where magic and healing happen. Ancient cultures have always known this, and today’s game changers do, too. So go to the jungle and try ayahuasca. Do a ten-day silent meditation Vipassana retreat. Fast in a cave on a vision quest. Stick EEG electrodes on your head to access altered states. Do advanced breathing exercises until you leave your body. Go to Burning Man. Or consider consciously and carefully using full-dose psychedelics in a spiritual or therapeutic setting. Do whatever it takes to occasionally get out of your own head so you can more powerfully own what you do once you’re back. And do it with help from experts.

      Not long ago, when I was visiting New York City, my friend Andrew invited me to a dinner party hosted at his hip $20 million SoHo penthouse. Given that I didn’t know he owned a place like that, I was blown away when I stepped through the door into what looked like a palace. He obviously likes surprising people, because I had no idea that the “dinner with a few friends” would turn out to be a gathering of incredibly powerful, successful, and influential people from across New York’s industries, ranging in age from twenty-five to seventy-five. The dinner was structured as a Jeffersonian dialogue. Only one guest spoke at a time, so the entire table stayed on topic. When I had an opportunity to ask a question of all the guests, I asked, “How many of you have used psychedelics for personal development at least once?”

      Every hand at the table went up, from СКАЧАТЬ