If you don't feel like you are trapped in The Matrix, then stop reading right now. You’re either completely free and then likely not reading these words anyway, or so deep into it that I probably can’t help you.
Your sovereign power has been taken away and you’ve been labeled a resource, a consumer. Since when did we become “human resources” and “consumers” and stop being free human beings?
The attitude that corporate profits must forever expand means you must be kept anxious, lonely and depressed. If you remain in a constant state of fear, always wanting more and never being satisfied with what you have and who you are for very long, then you’ll begin looking for the next product or service to purchase to stop the pain.
Marketing, advertising, and even school are designed to shape and mold you into a worker and consumer. You are a commodity from which to extract energy and resources and have been trapped into giving up your sovereignty. You’ve been molded into good factory worker making money for a group of owners. Welcome to modern day slavery, corporate sharecropping. Welcome to The Matrix.
Are You Ready For The TRUTH?
FORCED PUBLIC SCHOOL WAS DESIGNED TO MAKE FACTORY WORKERS AND GOOD SOLDIERS
Get up only when the bell rings. There is only one right answer and one way to get it. You have to eat lunch at this exact time. Oh, there's another bell, lunch is over, time to attend the next State required subject.
Did you ever wonder why you were taught only specific subjects in school? Originally public schooling was a way to create good little factory workers for the capitalists that needed them so badly. They needed a mildly intelligent but easily controllable population of workers. Thus the buzzers and bells to accustom you to moving about at preset times without someone telling you to do so, but rather conforming to the thought that the bell tells you to move. All this is documented by a school teacher in the wonderful book, the Underground History of American Education. It’s a wonderful book that documents the history of public schooling and why it came about as well as details the many genius souls who never attended forced schooling, like Einstein, Tesla, Newton, and Edison. Sometimes genius needs to obsessively focus on one subject to the exclusion of others to truly shine. Have you wondered why we don’t have any modern-day Edisons, Teslas or Einsteins?
If you don't know about Nikola Tesla, it's time you become introduced. This was my first exit port from the Matrix. Simply learning about Tesla helps you understand how much has been hidden from you. Here's a totally FREE kindle book on Tesla for you.
In order to focus, find their passion and get REALLY good at something, the genius of times past did not study 7 subjects in school. They were not forced to move from math to literature by buzzers ringing. No, they moved from math to literature if and only if they wanted to and only when they wanted to. When they had a need or a passion for learning something, they dove in headfirst. They didn't spend 45 minutes a day studying it, they immersed themselves in it, read for hours, days sometimes. Then they went to meet the people who wrote the books or at least corresponded with them to learn more and pry into the secrets there.
Our modern world takes you from the school to the office where you continue to live by and obey the clock and sometimes even the bells. I work at a manufacturing plant where there's a buzzer that goes off when it's time for break and again when breaktime is over. Just like in school. Thankfully I don't work in the manufacturing portion of the plant and can ignore the buzzer. But not everyone can.
When you’re not at work, you're kept distracted from yourself through media, shopping, and the internet. We're all becoming increasingly more anxious, depressed and lonely. We're spending too much time living in our heads and thinking about messages that are implanted there from others. The news, movies, television, and commercials give us the landscape on which we create thoughts. Try driving to work or bike riding to work without any media on. Notice what you think about. Now turn on the radio and again notice what you think about. Still, don't think your mind is being influenced and co-opted?
I call this The Matrix. As have many others. I am not a unique voice here. But I do think my way of escaping the Matrix is unique. Wouldn’t you like to know how to Escape The Matrix?
WE'RE STUCK IN OUR HEADS
All this forced schooling and government forced learning of very specific subjects makes some of us crazy! We start to retreat into our heads, into story. We tell ourselves stories over and over again, sometimes disengaging with the real world.
I bet you spend so much time in your head that we miss enjoying some of the best moments of your life. Sometimes, the only way you can enjoy memories is looking at old pictures or reliving a scene from the past in your head and realizing how great that moment was. At the actual time the memory occurred, it didn't even register as special.
Eckhart Tolle says that the only difference between that crazy person on the street talking to themselves and us is that we don’t say what’s in our head out loud. Yet most of you are stuck in your heads having conversations and reliving the past in a way that’s quite insane. You're talking to yourself all day long, just like that crazy person. You just keep it to yourself.
I used to constantly have conversations in my head. I’d be imagining the worst-case scenario, like getting caught reading a book on the job. When I worked in pharmaceuticals I’d often have an hour waiting for the mixing process of a batch of vaginal suppositories to finish. Hey, someone’s got to figure out how to make these things. I would sit down and read a book. No one came into the pilot plant but me, so why not. I could read a book a week this way. But instead of focusing on the book and my work afterward, I was caught up in the story of my boss coming in and catching me. I would think about what to say if I was caught and then what he would say and how I would respond and so on. Often I would think about what would happen if our world had a major crisis and where I would go. Did I have enough food stored? Should I buy gold and silver? How much should I buy?
All this scenario planning and worrying and anxiety for something that hadn’t happened. It was all put in my head because of what I was hearing on the news, reading in magazines and reading on the net.
Most of us are stuck in this loop of worrying about what people are thinking. Is everyone I walk by looking at this stain on my shirt? Does my hair look out of place? Is there a booger hanging out of my nose? I’m just going to rub it and check. Now that I did that, is this person thinking I’m doing that because they have a booger and I’m trying to signal to them? I think I’m going to have a big salad for dinner tonight, now I’m reliving a totally pleasurable sex scene from my past. Oh, right, what am I supposed to be doing? I can’t even remember why I came in here.
We’re rarely able to focus and stay focused on the present. And this is causing many of us to become anxious, unhappy and unable to enjoy life.
Neurohacking is about finding our Minds and then letting go. We must learn to set a goal, create a plan, do the work and let go of the outcome without getting caught up in the story and without attaching our self-worth to the final result. We must learn to live in the present moment and move our attention into our bodies and out of our head. This is where psychology, stress relief and cognitive performance and advances are going.
Check out this video explaining a little about this:
BUT HOW DO WE GET THERE AND HOW DID WE GET HERE? WHAT THE HECK IS NEUROHACKING?
I don't think it's anyone's fault in this day and age. Forced public schooling was originally instituted to make good factory workers and soldiers and now it's thought that we need it to be competitive with other countries for scientists and engineers. Notice how no one questions the fact that we're forcing public schooling to teach us to make more money for the corporations. We're so deep into this that we all forgot it's OK for some people to study just ONE subject. In so much depth that they become the WORLD expert on that subject. If someone is passionate about primal movement, let her dig in at an early age. Have her train with the best in the world. By the time she's 20 she will be an expert, if not THE expert and plent capable of making al living doing what she loves and what she's good at.
Instead, we force her to give up that passion and conform. To learn math and science and read old books that offer no value to her. She becomes rebellious or she becomes docile and passive. At some later time in her life, she wakes up and suddenly wants to break free!
But How?
It's time to hack the system!
The Neurohacker Collective says neurohacking “involves applying science and technology to influence the brain and body to optimize the subjective experience.
The desired outcomes of neurohacking cover everything from focused productivity, to expanded creativity, more restful sleep, reduced anxiety, enhanced empathy, and anything else that contributes to the psychological well-being and emotional health of whole, thriving human beings.
The technologies of neurohacking run the gamut from chemical technologies like nootropics and entheogens, probiotics to support the gut-brain connection, bioelectrical technologies like neurofeedback and transcranial stimulation, photic therapies like low-level laser therapy and all the way to embodied practices like somatics and meditation. So long as there is a scientifically accessible biological mechanism for effecting subjective experience, it belongs in the domain of neurohacking.”
Neurohacker Collective was designed to radically change human consciousness and break us all out of The Matrix. Their first and flagship product is an epic nootropic stack to fundamentally make you feel more like yourself. It's called Qualia. And it's awesome. Watch this company closely if you want OUT! They're up to big things.
It's called Qualia. And it's awesome. Watch this company closely if you want OUT! They're up to big things.
We all should be neurohacking because…
OUR WORLD IS A MINDFUCK
The modern world is fucking with your biology, your relationships, and your mind. And you’re letting this happen. Realize that you are passively consuming information that becomes embedded into your mind and you are therefore letting it influence your mind. You wonder why anxiety, loneliness, and stress are at all-time highs and yet the shit we feed into our psyche is designed to keep us in this state.
Big brand companies never want you to be satisfied or they can't grow their bottom line.
School forces us to learn the same exact things as everyone else.
School forces us to only associate with peers of the exact same age (give or take 18 months at most).
Working for someone else can be thought of as modern slavery in that you do most of the work for absent owners who collect the majority of profits as dividends and may not work at all.
Media tries to get us to think we can all be rugged individualists, living alone, fighting back nature and providing for all our own needs without relying on anyone else.
Our minds are rented out by media, advertising, and our corporate workplaces that force their way of thinking into the deep of our minds.
We all need to implement the right tools and practices to unfuck our modern lifestyle.We need to reclaim our mindspace and kick out the renters taking up that space and giving us nothing in return.
DUNBAR’S NUMBER
Imagine someone from a tribal community 10,000 years ago, hell someone from just 100 years ago, hearing and seeing us communicate with one another from across the world instantaneously, or even flying overhead in metal tubes. Maybe even a livestream video of what the other person is doing, in that instant appears. Is this magic? Is it astral projection?
Arthur C. Clarke said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”
Long ago it was the Shaman’s role to use magic and communicate with spirits and entities and receive information from far away. If it was the shaman in the tribe using a cell phone or Skype to communicate with a pilot in the air or another shaman across the ocean, then it might be overlooked as magic. Today, this “magic” allows us to communicate with so many people far away, that your biology thinks your 9000 Facebook friends are part of your tribe. This gives a false sense of kinship and tribe. Ideally, you would be in physical contact with the majority of people you share energy with.
We’re designed to communicate with about 150 people, locally. This is referred to as Dunbar’s Number. In person communication with which we can form comfortable relationships is sustainable and natural. We were meant to break bread, touch, feel the energy of and meet the families of the people in our community.
Now, alone in your bedroom, disconnected from the natural world, you stare into screens and message your Facebook or Instagram “friends. Instead of seeing someone’s face and demeanor to tell how they’re feeling you send cartoon emoticons of how you’re feeling.
You type in one line status updates to make sure everyone knows you’re an alpha male or popular female, having fun and doing great things. Meanwhile, you frantically check the photos of others doing amazing things and make plans to get out of your bedroom tomorrow and actually do something, off the computer. Tomorrow. Always tomorrow.
But most of your friends are not truly friends. People you met once, long ago, or visit a few times in our life or perhaps have never met and never will. These relationships can still be beneficial and wonderful but are largely inauthentic and shallow.
These shallow and inauthentic relationships only stress your body, mind and nervous system more.
By spending too much time alone, yet thinking we have relationships with faraway people makes it easier for you to be controlled.
We have lost the tribe, the community with those closest (literally in close proximity) to us.
AN OUTDOOR LIFE FOR ME
You were designed to be an outdoor creature, a creature of the light. You weren’t born to live indoors.
It used to be and still should be that Naked, we stand in the sun, connected to the earth and absorb nutrition from light, align our biology to the magnetic field present at the surface of the earth and energize from the oxygen given off by plants.
We now hide from the sun, breathing polluted indoor air that the EPA says is up to 5X more polluted than outdoor air. We cover our bodies with clothes, hats, sunscreen, and sunglasses. Did our ancestors cover their bodies? According to Dr. Jack Kruse, this is similar to throwing a tarp over a tree and expecting it to grow, much less thrive. We are natural creatures to this earth and sunlight provides key nutrients. This fact is missed by nearly every health expert and researcher in modern history.
Do you think hiding from the sun might be affecting your health? See THIS and THIS and THIS ("Vitamin D3 is just the chemical signal made after unpolarized light is captured by our skin and in the pill form, it does not the power of the sun’s light or photons. Taking supplemental vitamin D3 is like trying to hire someone else to do your push-ups for you" Dr. Jack Kruse).
If you live an indoor life, it has a real impact on your mind.
Studies have shown that even just looking at a picture of nature increases healing and decreases depression. We should be getting outdoors as often as we can if we want good mental health.
SIT DOWN AND BE QUIET!
You were designed to move, often, at a slow pace, all day long. You are meant to be a curious creature and follow your passions. You are meant to explore.
Now you sit. In school, you were taught to sit and not fidget. You were taught to move only when the bell rings and then only in an orderly fashion, no dancing to running. You spent your childhood learning how to function in a corporate office or factory floor.
Finally, as an adult, you are free of the bindings of school rules. What do you do? Sit! You obey the clock! You eat dinner at 6 and play only on the weekends. Our homes look like they were designed for a species that has trouble moving.
Office chairs, beds, dining chairs, the couch, chairs in our cars and even for sport (spin classes and row machines) and leisure. Maybe you punctuate 23 hours of sitting still with 1 hour of intense movement performed indoors under toxic lighting in gyms filled with toxic gasses coming from the poorly manufactured materials of the equipment and mats and mold in the air ducts and locker rooms.
1 hour of movement a day does not make up for sitting the rest of the day and often leads to increased injury when you put stress on otherwise sedentary muscles.
As Katie Bowman says, if we have “activewear” that we put on for our workouts, then we have to acknowledge that the clothes we wear the rest of the time must be our sedentary wear.
IT'S DARK, GO TO BED
For nearly all of history we went to bed when it was dark. After sunset, it should be dark. We see and commune with the stars, the universe.
Now light pollution both indoors and outdoors is so bad that we not only bathe in the wrong type of light indoors but outdoors we can see only a handful of the brightest stars.
This photo from Darksky tells a whole story. One you have likely forgotten even existed.
We have lost the wonder of connecting with the stars and galaxy above us.Fire at night was the only other light at night besides starlight. Fire warms us and gives off red and infrared light. It contained no blue light, which was only ever present during the day, until now
(See this SLEEP article for more about this).
Blue light is high energy light and signals to your body to wake up and energize. Fire gives off light you can feel. The red and infrared light from fire and the sun can heal you and are longer wavelength, lower energy light that signal to your body to relax and wind down.
Now CFL and LED lights brighten you home, your office and even you streets at night. There is no infrared component, the part that warms you, comforts your biology, and that we can feel.
These artificial lights are based on high energy blue light that is harsh and tells your body to wake up and be active, at the wrong time of the day.
Check out this short TEDx talk by Thaddeus about the harm of blue light at night and during the day.
Artificial lights may save you money but aren’t worth the long-term harm. Artificial light is artificial. It’s really just processed sunlight. Like processed and junk food, this processed and junk light contains only a fraction of the total sunlight spectrum and is too high in the type of light that can harm us and devoid of the light that can heal us.
CRAFTING NO LONGER MEANS CREATING A TANGIBLE OBJECT BUT REFERS TO MESSAGES WE TYPE INTO LAPTOPS
As in, “I’m crafting an update to share with my friends.” We used to make things with our hands. Writing things down using our fingers and thumbs, building, forming and sewing. We cooked only after the food was sought out, harvested and prepared.
Leave me alone, I'm creating a masterpiece.
Today we create meals by pulling a box out of the freezer and throwing it into a magic machine that sends energy into the food to make it hot. We create spreadsheets on computers by facing a cold blue screen and saving them into a folder that no one may ever see. The next day we get up and produce another useless piece of the corporate machine and go back home again.
The crafting of goods, food and a life is now so meaningless to many of you that it’s hard to find joy. Manipulating with your hands, finishing a long project and creating with your mind something tangible and useful it fulfilling. Typing into a computer and sending off digital currency to buy something that a machine made does not fulfill you.
WHAT’S THIS DOING TO YOUR MIND?
These modern adaptations to our world have an impact on our minds. We’re driving ourselves insane.
We used to feel our emotions in our body and let them out through ceremony, coming of age transcendence processes, wrestling each other and grappling with nature.
Now you’re trained to hide your emotions, to push them down and hold them there, trying hard not to let them show when they bubble up. You tell yourself “I’m not nervous” when you are. You think, I’m really happy and post a selfie to social media, then check your status over the next hour to see who responded. You think being busy is the equivalent of being successful and lack of sleep is a badge of honor. You are losing the ability to authentically connect with others, and yourself.
Meaningless work, isolation and distorted messaging on Facebook and Instagram combined with disconnection from the sun and earth are fucking with you. Your psychology is being distorted and disturbed.
It’s time to find the path to healing. A lifetime of learning to be a good factory or corporate worker followed by actually becoming a corporate follower, I mean worker and then spending your nights spent watching TV to feel closer to your human tribe and less isolated are out of sync with your biology.
How do you find our playful self and be the creative and curious child again?
ENTER NEUROHACKING
Remember the movie “Matrix?”
Don’t worry, you don’t need to plug your head into a computer using a headjack like they did in the movie.
While it may be kind of cool to be able to download new skills and knowledge into your brain at any given time, that’s not quite possible.
You still have to learn things the old fashion way.
Well…sort of. Let's figure out how to use Neurohacking to find your way out of The Matrix.
WHAT IS NEUROHACKING?
Neurohacking is one type of the many various “hacking” movements. It seems like hacking something is all the rage today. From biohacking to life hacking, you can find people applying a systems model to anything in an effort to try and optimize, change or “hack” every aspect of their lives.
The thing that really stands out with many of these “hackers,” is their voracious appetite for learning, researching, self-experimentation and the sharing of that knowledge with other people. Biohacking and neurohacking are citizen science movement at it’s most fundamental level.
Using the latest research in neuroscience, new and ancient techniques, supplements and technology, neurohackers attempt to influence these aspects of ourselves.
WHAT IS THE PROMISE OF NEUROHACKING?
Neurohacking is a way out of The Matrix. It’s a way of hacking into the mind to make it better, or at least more useful by reversing the programming stuck in there over years of feed from the TV, school, and media. By understanding more about your mind and your biology, you can tap into your own operating system and change things so that your experience on this planet is more pleasurable.
HOW TO PRIMALHACK IT (STEP BY STEP MATRIX ESCAPE)
Here at PrimalHacker, we try to approach any and all issues from a primal or ancestral health viewpoint before we resort to technology or “biohacks.” While we love biohacking and have found huge benefit from various technology, we strive to use our own minds, body, and environment before bringing in the big guns.
Get Outside
There are many reasons that people living in urban environments are at a much greater risk for anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses. We believe the biggest reason is the extreme disconnect from nature. Even if you can’t get out of the city regularly, there is a way that you can limit the negative impact it has on your mind and body.
Just taking a walk in nature can improve the way your brain works in profound ways. In fact, we agree with a few leading scientists that removing ourselves from nature can have dire consequences. Living 10 or more stories up in a steel apartment building surrounded not by trees and sky, but by wifi signals and cell signals bounced around the building endlessly looking for connection points. What does that do to our body and mind?
Being outside in nature can give you one of the most reliable improvements to your mental and physical well-being. Any time that I feel a little fatigued or mentally overwhelmed, all it takes is a little walk in the woods or through a park to help clear my head and get me focused. Most of my best ideas or breakthroughs come from just talking a walk outside. Even if you can’t get out into nature for a walk, there are many studies that have shown that even looking at a picture of nature can give you some of these benefits.
But don’t take my word for it. Here are just a few of the numerous studies that prove this point.
- One study out of the University of Michigan showed that a walk through nature increased scores on a memory test by almost 20%!
- Most people have probably heard that spending time in nature will help you to feel less stressed. One study out of China showed that spending time in nature actually lowers cortisol and inflammation markers.
- Other studies have shown that even 20 minutes in nature can greatly increase your ability to concentrate and stay focused on the task at hand.
Remove Sources of Junk Lighting
Lighting, like food, comes in many flavors. Most of it, like food, is junk. Does light affect your mind? You Bet!
Find out how to light your home and office with biologically appropriate lighting RIGHT HERE.
Junk lighting effects your mind. It also massively effects your sleep. Disrupted sleep actually leads to shyness, depression, and anxiety due to poor levels of neurotransmitters.
Move Often at a Slow Pace
A healthy mind and a healthy body go hand in hand. And you don’t need to kill yourself at the gym every day, in fact, it’s probably better that you don’t. Gyms are filled with toxic emissions and toxic lighting and often toxic and desperate people. The energy in these places can be awful.
Walking, biking and functional movement can help you stay mobile, increase blood flow, reduce stress and maintain a healthier mind.
Think about the times you feel most depressed or anxious. If you’re like me, it’s when you are ruminating and stuck in an infinite mind loop of negative self-talk and images, often imagining the worst. Now think about the times you have been hiking, walking or exercising outside. Do you associate those times with anxiety?
Walking for an hour a day is great. Preferably outdoors. Get off the treadmill at the gym, get out from under the toxic artificial lights and get OUTSIDE.
Taking frequent movement breaks is also necessary. Do not sit or stand in one place while working for more than an hour without moving for at least 5 minutes. It seems easy in theory, but most people do not practice this, no matter how much they agree. Knowing all this, even I find it hard to leave my desk and move about every hour. I want to just stay and finish one more thing or check my email and then get sucked into another hour of stationary work. Don’t fall for this trap. Get up and MOVE!
While it’s not for everyone, we encourage 1-3 workouts a week with the specific goal to build muscle. After age 35 our bodies begin to lose muscle and bone each year and the right type of workout can reverse this, keep us optimally healthy and looking our best.
That doesn’t mean going to the gym for 2 hours or even 1 hour. To us, it means getting outdoors and using a kettlebell, mace or the kid’s jungle gym at the park. In the winter it might be 30 minutes of lifting really heavy weights or a 12-minute session on an ARX. Trust me, all these things can make you ripped if that’s what you’re going for. You don’t need a gym.
Take Care of Your Food
Have you ever stopped somewhere to have dinner and then after leaving felt tired and noticed that your brain was kind of foggy? Maybe you intended to get in a workout afterward but just felt like curling up and taking a nap.
Most people have felt this way a few times in their life. While it may be a little hard to pinpoint exactly what caused that decline in energy and brainpower, there are a few likely culprits.
- Toxins
- Excess carbohydrates
- Low quality and processed ingredients
The food we eat has a HUGE impact on the way our brains function.
In fact, in one study out of Ohio State University examined data from 11,740 students and found that children that ate fast food in the fifth grade four times a week scored 20% lower on tests in the eighth grade than children that consumed none or very little. Even kids that just ate the processed food 1-3 times a week still scored lower than the ones that didn’t eat any.
Considering that your brain is made up of at least 60% fat, you need to make sure to consume enough healthy fats to give your brain the fuel it needs to thrive. This includes saturated fats from animal proteins, butter and coconut oil.
Another thing that is lacking in many people’s diet is a good source of omega-3’s. Omega 3s are a very fragile fat that helps keep our cell membranes fluid and not stiff and is thought to be the reason we have higher brain functions than most animals. Omega 3’s are most often found in seafood, but also in grass-fed meats and eggs.
Since so much of our brains are made of fat, we need to make sure we have plenty of sources of good fat, specifically omega-3 essential fatty acid. Omega-3’s help to build strong neural connections and contributes to the myelin sheath that protects your neurons from damage.
Food like oysters, sardines, anchovies, and salmon can support you in reducing inflammation and building a healthy brain with high amounts of Omega 3s. Skip the fish oil pills because they are often rancid and toxic.
You also need to make sure that you are getting good amounts of essential vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. Some of the major ones that contribute to optimal brain health are also the ones that most people are deficient in.
- Magnesium
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin E
- Vitamin B12
- Vitamin B6
- Folate
Make a plan to get wild caught seafood every single week and ensure adequate intake of the key micronutrients shown above.
Get the Fluoride out of Your Water
Lions and tigers and fluoride, Oh, my!
Yes, it’s true fluoride is a part of what makes up teeth, but so are many other minerals. And fluoride that we swallow down in water is not easily sent back up to the teeth. In fact, many people claim it’s calcifying our pineal gland and causing us to be easier to manipulate!!
I don’t know what your take on all this is, but fluoride is a drug (LINK) and it’s the only drug I know that we’re adding into the water supply and giving to everyone! I can’t support this.
Further, there are likely other drugs in your water. When people take pharmaceuticals, the pills aren’t all used by the body. Some of the drug stays in the digestive system or is excreted from the body in the urine and feces. This goes down to the toilet. Water treatment plants are not equipped to get rid of these drugs and thus they end up in someone else’s drinking water.
Add a filter to your water. This is not an option. Your best bet is a reverse osmosis or to drink pure spring water.
FIX YOUR HEAD
Acknowledge your emotions, welcome them. Image this ball represents your emotions. You are constantly holding down and restraining these emotions.
When we feel sad or anxious we tell ourselves not to be anxious, to be calm, whatever. This is not being true to what we’re feeling. Suddenly these emotions bubble up and we’re slammed with anxiety, or a panic attack or anger, seemingly out of nowhere. Instead of suppressing our emotions we should allow ourselves to feel them fully.
The next time you are anxious, just slow down and feel where that emotion is in your body. Say to yourself, “I am anxious. Welcome anxiety, I’m glad you are here.” Now feel where that emotion is in your body and say silently for example, “I am anxiety in my chest and I am freedom” Just breathe into that area, don’t try to make anything happen. Allow yourself to feel your emotions, welcome them and feel where they are in your body.
Do this often. This is your practice.
DO SOMETHING MEANINGFUL
Worry, anxiety, and loneliness often stem from meaningless rushing about.
I’m not going to belabor this point. Find your true purpose. Find something meaningful and work towards it. If possible, make this your entire career. You will immediately feel better when you are on this path!
EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)
I have found great success with this technique and apparently, many others have too. It involves tapping on energy meridians in the body and is best explained here.
Try it out for a month.
Anxiety to Excitement
Feel where your anxiety is. Feel where it is in your body. Getting in touch with your body is so important and often ignored.
Welcome your anxiety and think about the fact that anxiety is just ruminating on the unknown and the future that hasn’t happened yet and may never. This is really just excitement. Can you feel the excitement in your body? I bet it’s the same feeling as anxiety. See if you can transmute your anxiety and fear into the excitement of the unknown.
Find a coach
You can’t do this alone. A coach or therapist can help you work through the blocks and blind spots. Begin living your life from your place of truth.
I used to think that a coach or counselor was a bad thing and to be avoided. I thought it was a failing if I had to resort to using someone else to help me. Boy was I wrong. After working through the Bulletproof Coaching Program (LINK), I had many hours of being coached and coaching others. I came out with a brand-new appreciation for coaches and how they can help us make progress faster and achieve our goals easier.
Most successful people have a large bench of coaches and mentors.
Have a Practice
Prayer, meditation or my favorite, Qigong and tai chi. I don’t like to sit. Qigong and Tai Chi are basically moving meditation. Hey, who said you can’t combine moving often at a slow pace with meditation, we’re hackers! That’s what I love about qigong and tai chi. I can move while meditating.
Find your own form of practice. Remember it’s practice, and your goal is to get better than you were yesterday. Some people chop wood, some hike, some run and others sit on a cushion and meditate. As long as you approach it as a practice and not as something to master and move on you are doing it right.
When it’s a practice you just need to focus on the skill and getting 1% better every day.
Extra Help and Support
Finally, if you need extra support, bring in the Neurohacking tech!
Neurofeedback
This could be considered today’s headjack. While you aren’t able to download information straight to your brain with neurofeedback, you can get some pretty amazing results.
What is it?
A great way to hack your brain is by using a computer or other type device. Also called neurotherapy or neurobiofeedback, is a kind of biofeedback that allows you to train to better harness and even increase your brain’s power.
Better yet, continued use helps train new, more useful patterns into your brain and therefore increasing whole body wellness in the process.
Basically, you hook yourself up to some type of electroencephalography (EEG) and either play brain games, meditate or just follow the instructions of the person giving you the session or the instructions on the screen.
Neuroptimal, Brain Trainer, and MUSE are examples of this technology. MUSE is relatively inexpensive and uses a less powerful brainwave measuring device to help you understand when you are performing meditation in a useful manner.
Neuroptimal and the Brain Trainer hook electrodes up to your head to measure your brainwaves and work to train your brain into a state of optimal function by guiding the brain waves to change.
Neuroptimal and Brain Trainer
Neuroptimal and the Brain Trainer are very expensive, but with the use of a practitioner can be purchased in sessions, rather than buying the whole machine. It’s like personal training for your brain.These techologies are said to be able to create whole body and mind health.
Neuroptimal hooks up 4 electrodes to your head and uses a laptop based computer program to help train your brain to more optimal patterns of thought. You just close your eyes and relax and the computer and music in your ears do the work of training your brain. If you’re in the Twin Cities you can hit up my buddy Rob Biohacker in Hudson, Wisconsin for a Neuroptimal session. I’ve enjoyed the 10 or so sessions I’ve had so far and even used the device the night prior to my TEDx talk.
I’ve purchased a Brain Trainer and plan to use it on myself and then rent out sessions to locals.
MUSE
The MUSE is a type of neurofeedback device for meditation. Using headphones and the headband, the MUSE gives you real time feedback about your meditation by translating your brain waves in to the sound of wind. When you are calm and your mind is relaxed, then the wind is soft. When your mind starts to wander, the wind intensifies so that it reminds you to refocus on your meditation.
While this device can be a great addition to your neurohacking toolkit, so people have stated that the MUSE gives them a headache. If you are very sensitive to EMF, then you may want to skip this device. Thaddeus got a sharp pain in his temples whenever using this device.
Think about using brain training to guide your mind out of fear and stress and back into creative freedom.
Nootropics
According to Corneilu E. Giurgea, the Romanian psychologist and chemist that coined the term nootropic, a nootropic should have the following characteristics:
- Little to no side effects of toxicity
- Enhance learning and memory
- Protect the brain against physical and chemical injuries
- Enhance resistance to conditions that disrupt learned behaviors
This is a great foundation for nootropics, but let’s define it a little more.
If I had to describe nootropics in one sentence, this is what it would look like. Nootropics are any compound, either synthetic or natural that increase one or more areas of cognitive function with limited to no side effects.
That being said, many people only concentrate on the “Limitless” like effects of nootropics like increased focus, memory and learning ability. I think this is really selling nootropics short. We can’t leave out things like anxiety and stress reduction along with HUGE improvements to overall emotional wellbeing.
Some of the greatest benefits I’ve noticed from my experimentation with them fall into these categories.
Some people are afraid to take nootropics and others think they are cheating. A recent Harvard Business Review article likened the idea of nootropics as cheating to someone stealing a copy of the test answers and instead of using the answer sheet to cheat, goes to the library and studies ten times harder. This has totally been my experience as well. I don’t use nootropics to be lazy. I take them when I want to be incredibly productive and work really hard. They allow me to stay on task, get into flow easier and be more creative. I think the only form of cheating that nootropics can create is a type of class cheating. Many of the potent nootropic effects are created by combining multiple substances together and this can get expensive. Consistent use of nootropics may be out of reach for those with less money and thus differences may be created between those who can afford the compounds and those who cannot.
Nootropics can help calm, focus and motivate our minds. They can help us create space to be creative, get more done and make fast mental connections. We can use these as a tool to do the personal work we need to do to reconnect with our bodies and our creativity.
Neurohacking requires work. Nootropics help make that work easier.
This article by a friend of ours is a really good nootropic primer.
In the modern world, these substances can be a game changer. I think we’re already well past the speed, the rate of information and the relationships and knowledge our minds were designed to handle all at once. That’s not to say our minds aren’t powerful, but the combination of our isolation, the speed of information, barrage of stimuli and lack of nature is stressful to our bodies and minds and make it hard to relax enough to do important work.
Qualia
Our favorite nootropic is Qualia, which was designed by Neurohacker Collective as a broad-spectrum cognitive enhancer. The 42 ingredients that make up this nootropic stack are some of the most powerful and thoroughly researched ingredients when it comes to cognitive enhancement.
Neurohacker Collective was founded to help unleash the power of our minds, be more creative, and feel more like ourselves. They invented Qualia to help us lead more extraordinary lives.
While Qualia isn’t the drug NZT from Limitless, we have found quite profound benefits. Over time, the mind-blowing effect of this supplement quieted down to a capable knowing. Where the first few times we used Qualia, the effects were extremely noticeable and intense, over time those effects became less noticeable physically and more noticeable in the way our mood, creativity, and sense of ease was enhanced. We have come to appreciate this and notice that we Qualia enhances our sense of feeling capable of meeting anything life throws at us. That’s because the nutrients in the stack support cognitive function. The adaptogenic herbs modify your body’s response to stress. Using this tool can free up energy and mental space to focus on the internal work you need to do.
Qualia nootropic stack has become a very useful tool in our toolkit when we want to perform at our top level, cognitively AND PHYSICALLY. Using Qualia as a pre-workout has given us more energy, endurance, and the determination to go the extra mile.
Remember, Nootropics aren’t the answer or even the most powerful of the tools, but can help you build the other tools internally by giving you the space to take on the changes you want to experience. Nootropics can make you feel more like you, fire on all cylinders and welcome the world from a place of openness and calm.
If you want to learn more about Qualia go HERE to read our review, or here to try it out for yourself.
Remember these are all just tools. A hammer doesn’t build a house for you but allows you to build a house easier with the proper tool. You have to use the tool in the right way and put in the work and build your internal house from the ground up.
SUMMARY
Relax
Connect deeply with others – locally
Open yourself up and pay attention to what’s going on in your body. Really pay attention to how you respond during the day and check in before responding.
Acknowledge what is going on and welcome it. Now react and act from a place of purpose.
Get outside and welcome the sun, feel the ground beneath your bare feet, and breathe.
Clean up your Food and Water - they definitely impact your mental health. If nothing else, stop consuming fluoride in your water!
Find a tool that works for you. EFT, Coaching, Neurofeedback, Qualia. We use all these and more. They all have a place in our toolkit.
Look deep inside and find your TRUTH, then live it! Living a purpose filled life leads to increased happiness and peace.
It’s up to you. Become human again.
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