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Biohacking in Singapore The complete 2019 guide

Biohacking is a revolutionary way to use your own biology to your advantage.

It is based on some of our most foundational human processes and adaptations, combined with the most recent scientific developments. Applied biohacking gives an edge to your longevity, cognitive capacity, overall health, and much more. You can even protect your cells from genetic damage and boost your capacity to learn and memorize things by applying a few biohacking tips.

This 2019 guide is a perfect starting point, if you are based in Singapore and looking to biohack your life!

Biohacking can be entirely free and it can also be extremely expensive using the latest medical equipment. We expand on all things biohacking in Singapore.

We have a 6-week biohacking course that is full of structured trips and tricks to use biohacking tips mentioned in this article as well as loads of discount vouchers from Singapore based participating partners. CLICK HERE to download this now!

Free and Readability Accessible Biohacking Methods

Harness Oxygen and Resilience – The Wim Hof Method

The Hyperactiv clinic based in Pemimpin Place is Singapore’s first and only dedicated center to the Wim Hof method. This method has gained huge popularity in its use of breathwork, cold exposure and commitment to biohack your life! https://www.hyperactiv.us/wim-hof-method

If you have not heard of the amazing Wim Hof yet, his story is quite unbelievable. Wim Hof, known as The Iceman, is a Dutch extreme athlete and biohacker. Famous for his ability to withstand freezing temperatures, he has set Guinness world records for swimming under ice and prolonged full-body contact with ice. He still holds the record for a barefoot half-marathon on ice and snow, among a range of other incredible feats of strength, endurance and resilience, which he attributes to a method that he calls the Wim Hoff Method (WHM).

Essentially the WHM is a way to tap into the hidden power of oxygen. The most extraordinary aspect of the WHM is that it can be used by everyone. Simply by combining the 3 pillars of this unique process, it is claimed that humans can biohack our body for benefits such as:

Improved immune system

Increased energy

Heightened focus & determination

Reduced stress levels

Dealing with fear and challenges

Improved sport performances

Better sleep

Greater cold tolerance

AND improve the way the body deals with problems such as:

Depression

Anxiety

Burnout

Muscle soreness

The fundamentals of how WHM works

This biohacking method starts with your breath. Through a breathing pattern, Wim Hoff has designed a protocol that helps your absorb and utilize oxygen. By adding additional stressors, such as cold or exercised induced exposure to the process (at advanced levels), our bodies are enabled to self heal. In fact, Wim has worked with many universities that have studied his ‘unique’ characteristics — not only did they find evidence that this process works, he has been able to replicate similar results with everyday people like you and me.

Overall, an exceptional biohacking protocol.

Download our 6 week biohacking E-Book that includes exclusive offers by each of these Biohacking outlets!

Intermittent Fasting and FASTING

It is no surprise that most religions that we know of include a ritual of either intermittent or full fasting. We know there is science-backed proof behind this ancient wisdom, and intermittent and full fasting have quickly become some of the most popular tools in nutrition and fitness.

Imagine: if you could save money, eat less meat, decrease your overall carbon footprint on the world, while saving time, losing weight, and giving your body a load of measurable health benefits.

It almost sounds too good to be true! But these are some of the reasons why intermittent fasting has become the biggest biohacking topic in the last three years globally.

Here are just a few benefits of intermittent fasting that you need to know about:

Reduces inflammation and encourages a better inflammatory response

Improves digestion

Increases metabolism

Helps clean ‘dead cells’ to stay younger, and SO MUCH MORE!

There are simply so many amazing aspects of intermittent fasting, from autophagy to weight management, that we will have a comprehensive article exclusively on that coming out soon. Submit your name here to receive a first copy, as well as a Nuzest protocol that uses Clean Lean Protein and Good Green Stuff within a safe protocol for you to lose and manage weight, gain muscle and look amazing.

Sauna and Heat Shock Therapy

The Finnish people have for hundreds of years been using heat to biohack many beneficial physical outcomes.

Here in Singapore, there is a plethora of saunas and steam rooms — you can find at least a sauna or a steam room within most private condo as well as in many gyms around the island.

There are too many benefits to name. So we have listed the top 6 sauna-induced biohacking benefits below:

Boosts Metabolic Rate

The high temperatures in the sauna allow your heart rate to increase by 30%. This, in turn, boosts your metabolic rate by up to 20%. Once your metabolism has kick-started or accelerated, you tend to burn more calories in a shorter amount of time.

Here is a calculation you can use to see how many calories you will burn in a sauna:

The number of calories burned in 30 min of sitting or resting * 1.5 (and 2) = calories burned in a sauna.

If the sauna session is carefully paired with intermittent fasting and specific types of exercising, you can make a remarkable transformation in a very short space of time. You literally become a fat burning machine!

Acts As A Detoxifier

If you walk around a lot in Singapore, you’re going to get sweaty. However, for most of us, the daily routine may mean we leave early (while it’s still relatively cool), hop on air conditioned trains (MRT), buses or cars, then walk through shopping malls to arrive at the office. This is fantastic, meaning we don’t show up to work dripping wet, but not ideal when it comes to biohacking our health.

Sweat is made from the lymphatic fluid. Since the heat in the sauna will make you sweat more, your body can get rid of toxins easily. This is healthy, especially if you do not workout regularly (or at all), or often stay indoors in low-temperature air conditioning.

Sweating also helps flush out heavy metals like nickel, mercury, copper, and zinc that are absorbed via the foods you eat. Once your lymphatic system is clear, you will start losing weight by burning the fat effectively.

Helps Lose Water Weight

Water weight can contribute a number of kilos to your total weight. It can take about seven days to lose the water weight, with a restricted diet and a mixed workout routine. But we can biohack the solution much faster: 15-30 minutes in the sauna will help expel the excess water by inducing heavy sweating. If done in a ‘semi fasted’ state, this mild dehydration not only improves your overall metabolism as suggested, it also pushes your body to burn more fat as well as move into an autophagic state.

Reduces Stress

A sauna can be described as the most relaxing bath — it helps reduce stress and lowers cortisol levels in the body. Cortisol is a stress hormone that is released when you worry too much or are under mental or physical stress. This leads to an increase in the number of harmful free radicals and inflammation in the body.

Further, if you need to control your blood pressure, several studies have proven the strong benefits of saunas. Specifically, in a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2015, Dr. Zaccardi and colleagues linked regular sauna use with a reduced risk of cardiovascular death.

“During follow-up, a total of 251 men developed high blood pressure. Compared with men who had just one sauna bathing session per week, men who had two to three sessions every week were found to have a 24 percent lower risk of developing high blood pressure.

Also, the hypertension risk was 46 percent lower for men who had four to seven sauna sessions weekly.

The team suggests a number of mechanisms behind their findings. They note that the increase in body temperature during sauna bathing can cause blood vessels to dilate, which can increase blood flow.

Additionally, they explain that regular sauna use can improve the function of the endothelium – the tissue that lines the inside of blood vessels – which can improve blood pressure.” – https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319610.php

Used in conjunction with other biohacking tools, you can bring that blood pressure right down.

Improves Stamina

Ever felt out of breath too soon while working out or even climbing up the stairs? Well, the sauna can help tackle that problem. It improves your breathing capacity, increases respiratory function. It can assist in the production of the vasodilator nitric oxide, and reduces respiratory problems. Additionally, through acclimatization to the heat of the day, your body is able to produce more oxygen-rich red blood cells, which is a huge benefit to your cardiovascular system.

The effects have a secondary benefit. When your stamina for working out increases so that you’re able to go on long walks, lift heavy objects or climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator, you will start burning more fat, as an increase in oxygen will enable you to become more fuel efficient. There are gadgets and services in Singapore that will measure this response.

Aids Muscle Recovery

Many athletes rely on a sauna to help their muscles recover from a strenuous workout or exertion. Since the muscles also play an important role in your metabolic rate, keeping them rejuvenated and strong will help you lose weight. Sauna helps to relax and remove all the soreness from your muscles.

Getting A Good Dose Of Sun

So many people in Singapore actively try to avoid the sun, as the radiation from the sun can lead to sun spots aka pigmentation. But, if you are here to biohack, then the sun needs to start becoming your friend.

The scientific literature of ‘low in the sky’ morning and evening sun is clear: your body needs sunlight in order to convert cholesterol in your body to Vitamin D.

Fun biohacking fact: Cholesterol is an essential part of every cellular function in our bodies and up to 85% of Cholesterol is actually made within our bodies, the rest comes from food sources. Sunlight will help you manage your cholesterol levels.

Below is a diagram of this process:

It is clinically proven that our bodies must have vitamin D to absorb calcium. So for children, females, and those who have family histories of fragile bone illnesses such as osteoporosis, it is encouraged that you get a quality amount of vitamin D.

But there is more. Vitamin D deficiency has now been linked to several cancers including, breast, colon and prostate, as well as heart disease, depression and weight gain. These specific correlations and benefits are still being studied but the initial evidence is clear — vitamin D has a positive role in many of the above disorders.

Time in the sun most likely means spending time in Nature

The ways natural environments hack our brains are still open questions in many aspects. But the notion is common sense. Time in nature has been found likely to decrease brooding, and increase healing after surgery, among other benefits. Still, year after year, the average amount of time people spend indoors increases in wealthy countries. If this is happening to you, you could try ecotherapy or potentially get a prescription for park time from your doctor.

Nature has also been shown to be the best place to achieve a ‘Flow state’ which we are going to talk a lot more about later in this blog.

A further benefit to being outdoors is that you hopefully can get a reprieve from the stresses of EMF or electro-magnetic radiation. Most countries around the world have guidelines on ‘tolerated levels’ of EMF radiation. Wifi and the towers that produce its signals are the main causes of EMF. There are tons of gimmick products that make claims in this area, so it is a slippery slope. But using common sense, such as having downtime every day from EMF and ideally turning WiFi off in the evenings, are great first steps to decreasing your exposure and biohacking out of a compounding situation.

Under the sun is a great place to be moving your body and applying force

There is loads of research around fitness and exercise on health, so it barely can be considered in this list of biohacks.

However, if you are pursuing a physical exercise program, consider these core pillars:

Cardio work. Ideally less weight-bearing as we age.

Resistance work. Using natural force.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT). This method promotes heart rate variability as mentioned above, and has massive benefits. In Singapore, places like F45 and UFit have programs fully structured around this concept.

Flexibility. Often overlooked but increasingly important as we age. Having a good range of motion is not only excellent for your health, but also for your joints as they need to be opened for optimal blood flow and maintained. Check out The Stretch Clinic or perhaps take up a Hot Yoga class to maximize your time and effects.

So what exercises should be done?

Simply the balance of what’s right for you, what you enjoy, and what is sustainable and possible within your physical dominion and time schedule.

There are hacks to exercise and fitness. One that I personally love is to bundle time: walking is the ideal time to be watching your favourite show or listening to a podcast or music.

The biohacking trifecta = Downtime + Sun + Exercise

Biohacking a Flow State

In 1970, University of Chicago psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term ‘flow state’. Csikszentmihalyi surveyed thousands of people about when they felt their best and performed their best. And the feedback was powerful!

When you’re in the state of Flow, you:

are completely focused on the task at hand;

forget about yourself, about others, about the world around you;

lose track of time;

feel happy and in control; and

become creative and productive.

Athletes experience this feeling in the heat of the game; they refer to that moment as being “in the zone.” The Buddhists call it mindfulness. Essentially, time literally seems to slow down, focus sharpens, and a myriad of hormonal activities take place.

Why is flow such as powerful biohacking tool in a modern society full of distractions?

The ability to single-task (as opposed to multi-task) in our modern lives is the most important facet of productivity. Never before in history have we had such powerful distractions, such as the addictive nature of social media, or constant reminders of messaging apps and push notifications. These have all been crafted to be attention-grabbing and addictive.

We’re also not talking about the kind of productivity where you knock off 20 items from your to-do list (although that can be satisfying), where you’re switching between tasks all day long, and keep busy all the time. True productivity is where you actually achieve your goals, and where you accomplish important and long-lasting things. It means getting key projects done rather than answering a bunch of emails, making a lot of phone calls, attending a bunch of meetings, and shuffling paperwork all day long. It means closing key deals. It is quality instead of quantity.

What is the science of flow state?

From early research, scientists have made enormous progress on flow. Advancements in brain imaging technologies have allowed us to apply serious metrics to quantify historical subjective experience research. Plenty has been learned, including the fact that Csikszentmihalyi was spot-on in his word choice: “flow” is the exact right term for the experience.

The state manifests in a radical alteration in normal brain function. As attention heightens, the slower and energy-expensive extrinsic system (conscious processing) is replaced for a far faster and more efficient processing of the subconscious, intrinsic system. “It’s an efficiency exchange,” says American University, Beirut neuroscientist Arne Dietrich, who helped discover this phenomena. “We’re trading energy usually used for higher cognitive functions for heightened attention and awareness.”

The technical term for this exchange is “transient hypofrontality”, with “hypo” (meaning slow) being the opposite of “hyper” (fast), and “frontal” referring to the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that houses our higher cognitive functions. This is one of the main reasons flow feels like a ‘slowing down’ because any brain structure that would hamper rapid-fire decision-making is literally shut off.

In another example, in flow we shift down from the fast-moving beta wave of waking consciousness to the far slower borderline between alpha and theta. Alpha is a day-dreaming mode when we slip from idea to idea without much internal resistance. Theta only shows up during REM or just before we fall asleep. In that hypnagogic gap, ideas combine in truly radical ways.

Finally, there is the neurochemistry of flow. A team of neuroscientists at Bonn University in Germany discovered that endorphins are certainly part of flow’s mix. As other researchers have determined, so are norepinephrine, dopamine, anandamide, and serotonin. All five are pleasure-inducing, performance-enhancing neurochemicals, upping everything from muscle reaction times to attention, pattern recognition and lateral thinking. This is why flow feels so good!

What are the best ways to get into and remain in flow state?

Instead of focusing on mountain climbing, dancing or other types of intense activity, the focus is usually on simply sweeping, washing, walking and mopping, and/ or ideally being in nature.

Step 1. Before you begin the activity, pause, then take three deep slow conscious breaths. Let the mind be fully engaged in the breath for that time and nothing else.

Step 2. Focus all of your attention in the present moment. Pretend for the moment that past and future do not exist. Bring awareness to your sense perceptions. Be fully present in the now.

Step 3. Slowly, with deliberate movements, go about your activity.

Step 4. Remain alert and keep mindfully attentive to only what you are doing in that moment – do not allow it to slip off into the unconscious mind chatter. Be completely absorbed in the activity, as if you have just been born into this world. You will find that the activity ‘comes alive’ when you practice it with mindfulness. If your mind does slip off into ‘autopilot’, simply guide it back to being intensely engaged in what you are doing.

Biohack your Brain

Getting into ketosis and fueling your brain.

People think ketosis is all about weight loss and come ‘crazy diet’ where you eat lots of meat and fat. To some extent this is true, but it is really about taking carbohydrates out of your diet in order to force your body to use fat as the primary fuel source. The bi-product of using fat for fuel is the body’s production of ketones.

Latest research with the US military is showing clear evidence that ketones are extremely beneficial for the brain. This is a complicated area, and more research is being done right now on how ketones are having massive positive effects on cognitive health! The Bulletproof method also outlines that toxins found in many crops including grains, vegetables, and even coffee, can release toxins into the brain. Toxins come from pesticides and herbicides used in the process of making vegetables or are released by mould growing on plants, which is a known problem in the agricultural industry. These toxins are what cause brain fog, and place a huge burden on the brain’s ability to perform at the level you want it to.

Gamify your life!

Many studies have shown that seemingly small uses of our brain capacity to solve visual and word puzzles might improve cognition in younger and older adults. Things like crosswords and sudoku force us to continue creating, maintaining and reinforcing connections regardless of our age.

There are many such programs available for free as mobile apps, and all you need to do is turn this into a daily habit so as to improve your cognitive function and reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Inversion Therapy (Hanging Upside Down)

The concept of decompressing the back to find pain relief goes back to Hippocrates, the father of medicine. He invented the Hippocratic Bench, the first version of the inversion table, around 400 BC. This concept wasn’t resurrected until the 1960s, when holistic practitioners sought ways to deal with their patients’ pain that didn’t involve drugs or surgery. Dr Robert Martin, a California chiropractor, adapted Hippocrates’ concept to create the modern-day inversion table. By 1980, inversion therapy had been adopted by alternative medicine professionals.

Inversion tables are one type of “inversion therapy,” which involves adopting an upside-down posture to reverse the effects of gravity on the spine. The head is tilted downward on a table, to relieve pressure on the discs and nerve roots in the spine, and increase the space between vertebrae. Proponents claim that inversion table therapy not only relieves back pain but also improves posture, preserves height, increases flexibility, stimulates blood flow to the brain and scalp, corrects the position of abdominal organs, and relieves varicose veins. Furthermore, regular inverting trains the brain capillaries, making them stronger and more capable of bringing oxygen to the brain. It’s pretty straightforward – more oxygen to your brain means better brain performance. As an added bonus, after repeated inverting, the way your body regulates blood pressure actually changes. The science of these assertions is still unclear, but let’s dive in.

Experts regard inversion tables as a form of spinal traction. Instead of increasing disk space, traction is more likely to stretch the muscles and ligaments around the spine, and temporarily relieve muscle spasm. That may be why some people get short-term relief from back pain after lying on an inversion table. But spinal traction doesn’t provide long-term relief.

However, Joe Rogan, the famous UFC commentator, podcast host, and comedian, speaks very highly of inversion therapy. On his podcast with Jesse Ventura, he said:

“I’ve suffered from several back injuries over the years (bulging discs) from jiujitsu and working out. One of the things that has helped me a lot is using one of those Teeter Inversion Tables. I strap my ankles into this thing and I hang upside down – it’s a great way to decompress your back and get rid of pain.”

A 2006 Cochrane Review (a summary of evidence from randomized trials) concluded that there was no evidence to recommend traction for the treatment of low back pain.

Using an inversion table is not without risk: based on a study, the immediate effects of inversion increase both systolic and diastolic blood pressures significantly – Phys Ther. 1986 Sep;66(9):1361-4.

However, just like exercising, the immediate effects of working out would also suggest that all indicators are negative, raising heart rate, straining the cardio system. The question yet to be solved is: are there long term blood pressure lowering benefits from frequent inversion therapy? Taking yoga as an example, head and handstands have been used for millennia in these practices for this and other purposes.

Gratitude

If you have not heard of stoic practices, these are simply a daily gratitude exercise that can be an unbelievable powerful biohack.

Here is a little snapshot of the benefits:

Let’s do a quickfire list as to how the practice of gratefulness and forgiveness can positively impact your life:

A five-minute daily gratitude journal can increase your long-term well-being by more than 10 percent. That’s the same impact on happiness as doubling your income!

Gratitude generates social capital – in two studies with 243 total participants, those who were 10% more grateful than average had 17.5% more social capital.

Gratitude helps our health.

Gratitude can boost your career! This happens by making you a more effective manager, helps you network, increases decision-making capabilities, increases productivity and helps you get mentors and proteges.

Gratitude gives control of emotions. It reduces feelings of envy, makes our memories happier, lets us experience good feelings and helps us bounce back from stress.

Gratitude is strongly correlated with optimism. Optimism, in turn, makes us happier, improves our health, and has been shown to increase lifespan by as much as a few years.

Materialism is strongly correlated with reduced well-being and increased rates of mental disorder.g1 There’s nothing wrong with wanting more. The problem with materialism is that it makes people feel less competent, reduces feelings of relatedness and gratitude, reduces their ability to appreciate and enjoy the good in life, generates negative emotions, and makes them more self-centred. The pursuit of wealth and power has been shown in dozens of studies to be a highly inefficient method of increasing well-being and happiness.

Spiritual transcendence is highly correlated with feelings of gratitude. That is, the more spiritual you are, the more likely you are to be grateful.

This is for two reasons:

All major religions espouse gratitude as a virtue.

Spirituality spontaneously gives rise to grateful behaviour.

Gratitude increases sleep quality, reduces the time required to fall asleep, and increases sleep duration.

Those who have more gratitude have a more proactive coping style, are more likely to have and seek out social support in times of need, are less likely to develop PTSD, and are more likely to grow in times of stress. In other words, they are more resilient.

Our memories are not set in stone. Rather, they are like words in a book, and to a large extent, the framing of the emotional connections and memories around them can change over time. Sometimes we remember things as being worse than they actually were, as being longer or shorter, people as being kinder or crueller, as being more or less interesting, and so on. Experiencing gratitude in the present makes us more likely to remember positive memories and actually transform some of our neutral or even negative memories into positive ones.

A small bit of jealousy or envy directed at the right target is motivating. Too much produces feelings of insecurity, materialism, inferiority, distrust, and unhappiness. Gratitude pulls us out of negative emotional states and pulls us toward the powerful zone.

So how do you practice gratitude?

It’s about creating space to be introspective – stopping everything or being conscious before you get started on the day. Simply consider what you are grateful for, or write your thoughts about gratitude and forgiveness down in a journal – there are some great Apps for this.

In summary, gratitude triggers positive feedback loops.

But don’t expect changes to be drymatic or fast. Studies have shown that positive benefits generally occurred slowly. It took several months of continuous practice for the largest benefits to appear. This is for two reasons:

Cultivating gratitude is a skill. After three months of practice, I now have the ability to self-generate slight feelings of gratitude and happiness on command. With more time and practice, I expect the intensity and duration of the generated feelings to increase.

Gratitude is a personality trait. Some people have more grateful personalities than others. A daily gratitude practise can change our personality, but that takes a long time.

Biohacking your Sleep

Sleep is entirely overlooked and underrated as a top biohacking tool – well it should not really be a biohack, but it shows how far we have strayed from our innate wellbeing.

Getting the right amount of sleep has shown benefits from extending life, to the optimal functions of the body’s processes to help in the prevention of many diseases. Yes, even the infectious ones, since sleep deprivation can leave the immune system in tatters. Sleep requires no effort and costs nothing, yet people tend to go out of their way not to do it enough.

Sleep should come naturally to us, but as we will demonstrate later in this blog, our lives are now getting in the way. Sleep is a deep meditative state where you explore your subconscious and the dense ball of neurons in our heads wash themselves, clearing out the metabolic by-products (“toxins”). If the pro-work, anti-sleep culture makes you feel lame and self-conscious about, say, leaving a party to go home and sleep, try saying, “I’m going to go biohack my brain.” Then run out of the room.

There are many keys to biohack quality sleep, but the first is to save the last hour of the day for non-work-related things that let your brain cool down. I call this the ‘Amazing Hour’. Other basic steps to mastering this biohack: no phones in bed, no caffeine or prescription amphetamines before bed, and no alcohol before bed because it messes with sleep cycles. Maintaining a regular sleep schedule and keeping your bedroom dark/ wearing an eye mask can all help with falling quicker to sleep and the quality of sleep you experience.

It is important to remember, it is not simply about the number of hours you sleep, but also the quality of sleep you’re getting. Waking feeling ‘groggy’ could be a signal that you are not entering the deep REM sleep zone.

The science looks like this. When you sleep, it gives your brain a chance to repair the neurons that you exhaust during the day while you’re active. It also gives your brain time to exercise the connections between your neurons. In fact, a recurrent lack of sleep may cause loss of brain cells.

Eight hours of quality sleep can increase your ability to tackle complex problems by 50%. So, continue reading this article for all of our sleep biohacks that are hidden gems within other biohacking tools we outline.

Powernap Biohack

If you are looking to get a very re-energizing sleep during the day, try this powernap bio hack:

Take your mid-day coffee and then go to bed immediately.

By the time the coffee kicks in, you will have had a 30min power nap and you will wake up recharged and refreshed.

The half-life of coffee

Ok, so it’s totally possible that many of us are completely addicted to coffee. There is no major issue here, other than when it starts affecting your sleep. Coffee has a very long half-life and it compounds. Meaning to say, there is an accumulation in your body over time.

Here is a diagram of caffeine and clearance:

So the hack here is never to have a coffee in the evening. Make sure you have all of your brews before midday.

Sunlight in promoting a Healthy Circadian Rhythm – boosting positive sleep patterns

Did you know that people whose offices have windows get better sleep than those who work in windowless workspaces? That’s because getting enough sun exposure every day keeps your body’s clock, or circadian rhythm, on point. Sunlight tells your body to postpone making melatonin, a hormone that makes you tired and helps you sleep. So it is a great idea to get some sun in the morning if you can, but if you are rushing to get to work and don’t have time to take a leisurely walk, you can take vitamin D supplements in the morning instead. Since sunlight makes your body produce vitamin D, which puts off melatonin production, taking a morning dose of the vitamin may make your body feel like you’ve been outside. (For this reason, you want to avoid taking your vitamin D at night, which can interfere with sleep).

Getting into gadgets for biohacking

Blue Light Filters and Glasses

Blue light is naturally produced by the sun but also by computer monitors, smartphone screens and most other digital devices. In addition to these, blue light is produced by LED and fluorescent lights, and compact fluorescent light bulbs. Blue light is essential in maintaining the sleep and wake cycle, mood and keeping the memory sharp.

Exposure to blue light can cause trouble when going to sleep. A simple yet effective biohack is to turn off electronic devices 2-3 hours before going to sleep.

But you can go further.

Companies like https://www.essilor.com.sg sell specific blue light blocking glasses that will help you filter out this negative light at your convenience.

On the contrary, if you’re just waking up, blue light is a fantastic way to start your day and stimulate a healthier circadian phase. This type of light is naturally derived from the sun, and our bodies are made to regulate our circadian rhythm according to this stimulus. If you wake up and go out walking outside to receive a full share of sunlight, it is not only a good exercise to start your day but may also improve your biological clock.

Travel and biohack with blue light. Hate getting jet lag? Well, biohacking may be your answer! We have already established that blue light can affect your circadian cycle. So planning out the time difference in your trip, and manipulating your light exposure and sleep cycles 3-4 days before you fly can help you become immune to the crushing effects of jet lag.

Heart Rate Variability Monitoring

If you’re looking for biohacking tools that are both affordable and effective, heart rate variability is probably your missing piece. It will help you get in touch with your own body, and understand how stress and certain health problems affect your overall performance. Heart rate variability was formerly used by athletes to measure how their workout produced stress in the organism. It is still a useful parameter, if you want to detect how your body is responding to a particular routine or a change in your workout protocol. However, its application is not only reserved for physical performance and sports.

Heart rate variability is a parameter that measures how constant your heart rate is. If you measure your heart rate in the next minute, and then once and over again for the next 5 minutes, you will probably get a different number each time. If you’re connected to a heart rate monitor, you will also notice how the numbers go up and down. It is possible to measure this variability through an algorithm named RMSSD (Root Mean Square of Successive Differences).

Heart rate variability measures the level of stress in your nervous system. A higher reading is associated with a lower stress level, but there is no way to compare yourself with a standard. Thus, if you want to use this measurement appropriately, it is essential to know yourself and establish a baseline reading to compare with successive readings.

To establish your baseline heart rate variability, make sure you’re not under intense emotional or physical stress. You should be as healthy as possible, and not undergoing any type of changes in your physical activity or diet. Proceed to measure your heart rate variability the first thing in the morning when you’re not yet out of bed. Do so for 3-4 days and calculate the average reading.

After doing this, you will need to measure the same parameter every morning and compare the readings to your baseline. This will provide useful data as to how certain changes are affecting positively or negatively in your life. You will realize how much an emotional breakdown is taking a toll on your nervous system, when to take a day off your workout routine, and whether or not other biohacking tools are improving your physical performance, and the levels of stress in your nervous system.

In some cases, and for different reasons, it will be necessary to take your baseline readings all over again. For example, you might begin to understand your organism a bit more and making changes to improve your levels of stress. Thus, if you realize there’s a recurrent change in your heart rate variability that is maintained for a very long time and when you’re not under a stressful situation, it is possible you’re taking a step forward and need to adjust your baseline to your current advances.

Download our little book of discounts for exclusive offers by the biohacking companies featured in this article!

Recovery and Lymphatic drainage with Pneumatic Compression Technology

Many of us have seen people wearing long compression socks while out running, or even while sitting on the plane in order to increase leg blood flow to avoid deep vein thrombosis. But, recovery socks provide in-adequate ‘squeeze’ in order to sufficiently make an impact.

Step in pneumatic compression technology.

You may have seen your favourite sports star on TV sitting on the side of the field with some ‘boots’ on. This is a recovery boot, and Singapore based company Recovery Systems is Asia’s leader in this biohacking technology. Recovery Systems uses active compression to speed up the body’s natural recovery process by accelerating the elimination of waste, and the healing process for recovery and gains faster than any traditional mode of recovery, compression socks, massage or rest alone.

This is an ideal solution for a range of issues and conditions including:

Recovering from a workout

Post-surgery to stimulate blood flow

Speed up water retention removal effects of travelling and avoid deep vein thrombosis

Founder Michael Lyons states, “designed by athletes for athletes, Recovery Systems is in the business of speeding up athlete recovery, healing and gains.” But as we can see above, it is so much more.

Products are moving fast too. Where it used to be a single unit that needed to be plugged into a wall, Recovery Systems is pushing ahead with the next evolution in technology. Now, you can get battery operated recovery boots that can be used on aeroplanes for long haul flights (ideal for pilots) and for those frequent travellers. Also, you can get multi-person adaptors and units, ideal for teams.

This technology is a biohack that feels great.

Realtime Lactate Testing – Biohacking for sport

The Humon Hex is a tool that non-invasively measures the body’s endurance zones, lactate threshold and recovery, all in real-time. An intelligent combination of hardware, software and data, this “lab-grade” wearable generates easy to interpret statistics that can be viewed via the Humon app on a smartphone, smartwatch, and also online. With this real-time information, one can track and understand the condition of their muscles as they delve into interval training, allowing them to head towards recovery according to the needs of the body.

Before training, strap the device on the calf or thigh and set it to work. The performance data will ensure that each training is done in a proper manner, from indicating if the body is properly warmed up or cooled down, eliminating the likelihood of a strain or injury. In the same way, it allows athletes to do better, train harder and increase endurance.

Supplements and Herbs

Once again, moving to nutrition is a huge topic on its own. So we will only be able to highlight some of the key biohacking nutrients, supplements and categories that you may not have heard about. It’s highly likely we will release a big book of supplementation sometime, so drop us your email address to get all of our articles sent first.

Baking Soda

One of the easiest biohacking tools is right in front of us and has been for a very long time. Baking soda, which is basically sodium bicarbonate, can be found in almost every kitchen in the country, and it has been found to improve the exercise performance and inflammation profile in many people. It increases the absorption of nutrients, and if you have an inflammatory condition, it would modulate the inflammatory response to your favor and reduce those annoying symptoms.

Gut health

The research around gut health is getting deeper and the evidence couldn’t be stronger. Here are some key findings from the latest research that reinforce why we want to biohack our positive gut health:

According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the gut bacterium A. muciniphila — the foremost bacteria in the gut’s nutrient-dense mucus layer — may be the key to developing new treatments against obesity and related metabolic disorders. When researchers gave probiotics to at-risk mice, their levels of A. muciniphila increased, improving the functioning of the gut lining and resulting in a reversal of fat mass, inflammation, and insulin resistance

A Japanese study, published in the February issue of Appetite, found that the up-and-down motion of certain exercises like jumping rope disrupted appetite-regulating hormones released by the gut. Exercise that involves vertical movement may curb hunger even more than other exercise, researchers said, since it causes a greater gut disturbance, which may promote the appetite suppression that generally occurs with exercise.

Researchers in Germany have found by introducing gut bacteria of the opposite sex in mice had some startling results. “Our findings suggest potential strategies for using normal gut bacteria to block the progression of insulin-dependent diabetes in kids who have high genetic risk,” Dr. Danska added. The findings also suggest that exposure to normal GI tract bacteria early in life may protect against other autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, lupus, and even allergies and asthma.

Norwegian researchers have uncovered a link between infant growth rates and specific types of bacteria that populate their newly formed digestive tracts. Their study, published in PLoS Computational Biology, involved analysis of stool samples from more than 200 babies and identifying certain points in time at which specific gut bacteria are associated with growth.

“After applying our new method, we found an indication that the composition of early life gut microbiota may be associated with how fast or slow babies grow in early life, although there is also the possibility that factors early in life affect both gut microbiota and how fast the baby grows,” the study authors explained.

Researchers at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) took gut bacteria from mice that had gastric bypass surgery and implanted it into other obese mice. The result: accelerated weight loss in the obese mice. The first important finding of the study, which was published in Science Translational Medicine, was that gastric bypass surgery altered the gut microbes of the first set of obese mice. The second was that the altered implanted microbes prompted rapid weight loss in the second group of obese mice.

“Our study suggests that the specific effects of gastric bypass on the microbiota contribute to its ability to cause weight loss and that finding ways to manipulate microbial populations to mimic those effects could become a valuable new tool to address obesity,” stated study coauthor Lee Kaplan, MD, PhD, director of the Obesity, Metabolism and Nutrition Institute at MGH and associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Nuzest’s Good Green Stuff has pre biotics, probiotics and digestive enzymes that all assist in developing optimal gut health. Follow this link to Good Green Stuff on the Nuzest store now: https://www.nuzest.sg/product/good-green-stuff-tub/

Adaptogens: Natures super herbs and foods to regulate stress

Whether it’s work or family, or both, stress can bog you down. Too much stress can take a toll on your health – both mental and physical. If you’re searching for a solution that helps you get back on an even keel and take control of all aspects of your health, look no further than adaptogens.

Never heard of them? Adaptogens have been used for ages though, and with more research in recent years to back up claims from ancient times, they’re receiving newfound acclaim.

What Exactly Are Adaptogens?

Quite simply, adaptogens are herbal substances that improve your adrenal system. That’s the system in your body that manages your hormonal responses to stressors. You know, fight or flight.

When you add adaptogens into your daily intake, they help your body to better handle anxiety, easing you through so that your hormones don’t spike. In fact, that’s how the name came about – adaptogens help your body adapt to stress.

Adaptogens in History

Adaptogens have always been around, revered for centuries in both Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic medicines. It wasn’t until modern times when researchers in the Soviet Union, Korea, and China began setting out to put some scientific merit behind what they suspected to be true.

This concept was first born in 1947, and the studies in question took place prior to the 1980s. They were mostly dismissed due to methodological flaws. But newer research has brought to light the benefits of adaptogens for the central nervous system, restoring faith in these time-tested natural agents that balance the body safely and effectively.

How Adaptogens Can Help You

If you’re stressed and anxious all the time, it’s a hostile environment for your body. Provoking your stress hormones in a constant manner leads to chronic inflammation. In turn, that chronic inflammation manifests into chronic diseases. Using adaptogens can level you out and put your body into a state of homeostasis.

It might be helpful to think of them like an automatic thermostat. Adaptogens work to bring that balance to your body, calming you while boosting energy simultaneously by supporting your adrenal functions. Additionally, they push toxins from your metabolic processes out so you can draw in more energy and oxygen. In other words, you could benefit from these herbal pharmaceutical agents.

Where Can You Get Adaptogens?

You could run around to every health store in town trying to grab the top adaptogenic herbs like panax ginseng, holy basil, or ashwagandha, but a better solution is to go for our Good Green Stuff. It contains over 75 healthful ingredients that are more than just greens. In it, we have adaptogens, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, all backed by science to support your best health yet. Check this out at https://www.nuzest.sg/product/good-green-stuff-tub/

Rosemary

When you’re studying or performing any type of mental effort, a good way to give yourself an edge in these activities is sipping rosemary water or using rosemary essential oil to infuse the room with a satisfying scent. According to studies, rosemary water may facilitate the extraction of oxygen to make it more available to our brain tissue in times of cognitive demand. That’s how it reduces fatigue levels and increases our alertness and learning potential.

Methoxatin

Chemically named pyrroloquinoline quinone (PPQ), methoxatin is a relatively cheap supplement you can use as a neuroprotective tool. It has anti-inflammatory properties, and protects your liver and heart from oxidative damage as well. If you combine this with other antioxidant supplements such as Coenzyme Q10, it will be a powerful antioxidant stack to prevent neurodegeneration and accelerated aging.

Cinnamon

If you have learning difficulties or just want to boost your learning capacities for a study session, a tasty solution would be adding cinnamon to your tea or snacks. It has been found to increase brain plasticity, which is the ability of the brain to create new connections. It reduces the rate of cognitive decay and may prevent Parkinson’s disease.

Nucleotides

Another neuroprotective supplement to turn off ageing genes and improve your cognitive function is called nicotinamide mononucleotide. It is a fitting candidate for patients with severe neurodegenerative diseases and brain injury, and it is a great ally to modulate the activity of enzymes inside and out of the mitochondria.

MORE Vitamins and Nutrients

You can always boost your mental performance with nutrients, such as magnesium, vitamin D, krill oil, turmeric, and vitamin B.

Magnesium can actually reverse the effects of stress on your brain and can increase your memory and cognitive function. Magnesium is also vital to ATP production, so low magnesium means low brain energy, which isn’t bulletproof!

Vitamin D is also a great supplement for your brain. It helps protect you from free radical damage, which can decrease your cognitive performance.

Krill oil, which is packed with DHA, EPA and Astaxanthin, keeps the neurons in your brain communicating freely. Better communication in your nervous system obviously means that you’re going to be smarter, faster, and sharper.

Turmeric is a spice frequently used in Indian food. It contains curcumin, which is great for your brain. Curcumin is an antioxidant that travels easily from your blood to your brain, and like vitamin D, it helps protect your brain from free radical damage.

B vitamins fight off the amino acid homocysteine, which increases brain shrinkage and may lead to Alzheimer’s. In fact, it seems that vitamin B may be able to decrease brain shrinkage by up to 90%, and may make shrinkage seven times slower. And, we all know that size matters.

Other Natural Supplements

CILTEP® – CILTEP®, short for “Chemically Induced Long-Term Potentiation,” is an all-natural supplement created by Abelard Lindsay that can improve mental performance. It helps you be more focused, motivated, and retentive. CILTEP® works by optimizing levels of intracellular second messengers, which carry signals between the brain cells.

Choline – Choline is an essential micronutrient that helps your brain make the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which fosters intelligence and memory. There are also some studies that suggest it may be protective against Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. You can find choline in supplements like Choline Force.

Upgraded™ Glutathione Force – Glutathione is the best antioxidant out there. The liver already makes its own supply, but with today’s constant environmental exposure to toxins, it’s good to help out your liver. Supplementing Glutathione through a liposomal form like Glutathione Force (other forms are destroyed by your gut before being absorbed) is a great idea because your brain makes more free radicals than any other organ in your body, and these free radicals accelerate cell death. Glutathione helps eliminate these free radicals and protects your brain from them, so it optimizes your brain function.

Upgraded™ Aging Formula – The foundation of Upgraded Aging Formula is oxaloacetate, or OAA. This supplement works to protect the neurons in your brain from toxins, and there is also evidence that it can improve your short-term memory and help you think more clearly and efficiently.

Biohacking as a Service

Now we will plunge – yes quite literally – in some instances into machines that you probably wouldn’t have at home but are sold as biohacking services in Singapore.

Download our little book of discounts for exclusive offers by each of these

Biohacking technology partners and service providers!

Know how much fat you burn via Metabolic Testing

This blog has talked a lot about biohacking aspects of your metabolism, but without a baseline test, you may not know if the actions you are taking are leading to an increase in fat utilization and metabolic increases.

In Singapore, Coached Fitness offers a test to measure how much fat you are using in exercise. Called the Fuel Efficiency test, it uses a calculation of various gases in your breath. Essentially, as we exercise these gases change, and this is measured by a specific machine that will then provide a reading on your ‘fat utilization’ as specific training heart rate zones.

So, why is this important?

Let’s split into two distinct markets.

For those looking to manage and lose weight, if you are able to restrict carbs in the diet while simultaneously helping your body to use fat as a fuel source, essentially your daily life (and hopefully a small amount of exercise) will translate into fat burning (instead of carb-burning).

For athletes, fat is twice as efficient a fuel source as compared to carbs. So being able to use this source of fuel for a longer period in an endurance race, will help you with sustaining a faster pace for longer.

Staying in defined heart rate zones will help you be a fat burning machine!

Don’t forget to download our little book of discounts for exclusive offers by each of these Biohacking technology partners and service providers!

Using Light to Get a Mitochondrial Boost

Core concepts – the NovoThor

You can use light to affect your mitochondrial function. Just hold a red LED light to the place where you want a boost – your stomach, a sore muscle, or up your nose if you want to bump up your brain — for a few minutes, and you will experience more mitochondrial activity, meaning more cellular energy and better cellular communicate

Cryotherapy – Biohacking health

It may look like something out of StarTek but there is a growing global movement for people using cryotherapy to biohack their health. In Singapore, Cry Fit www.cryo-fit.com offers a full body cryotherapy chamber. Temperatures can fall as low as -150°C. The sub-zero temperatures trigger the body’s systemic response, clearing toxins from the blood and spreading nutrients, enzymes, and oxygenated blood throughout the body to help decrease inflammation, boost recovery, and ignite athletic performance.

As listed on their site, benefits of cryotherapy include:

Decreases muscle recovery time

Ignites athletic performance

Reduces inflammation

Pain management

Boosts energy levels

Promotes weight loss

Boosts collagen production

Unfortunately, as with many biohacking treatments, the body of clinical evidence is often still incomplete. From our research, most of the studies seem to focus on healing from surgeries and injuries, however this may not be the best use of cryotherapy.

As mentioned above, this biohacking service may be much more suitable to immediate outcomes such as feeling elevated, reducing pain and boosting the body’s natural processes! The question simply comes down to if you FEEL the benefits. Personal assessment is ultimately the deciding factor, and there have been numerous anecdotal success stories using cryotherapy for many of the above outcomes.

Float tanks / sensory deprivation tanks

The history of Floatation-REST dates back to the 1950’s when doctors. Jay Shurley and John Lilly at the National Institute of Mental Health became interested in understanding how the human brain would respond to an environment devoid of external sensory input. It was discovered that rather than falling into a deep sleep or losing consciousness, participants maintained full awareness.=

Jump forward to modern-day Singapore and there is a flotation clinic right here on this little red dot called Palm Ave Float Club http://palmavefloatclub.com.

The goal of float tanks is to speed up inner and physical healing as you float effortlessly on Epsom saltwater. Without light, sound, or gravity, your mind enters a deep meditative state, and your body reverses the harmful effects of stress. So let’s dive literally into these list of benefits.

Reset your mind and body.

Float tanks provide sensory deprivation. What this means is, everyday we are bombarded with images, sounds, smells and energy. Your brain is busy processing and reacting to all of these stimuli around you. Compounded in big cities, stress builds up, your blood pressure rises, and you feel overwhelmed. Over time, this manifests in poor decision making, physical illness, or injury.

A float tank is enclosed. It is dark, silent and still. In the tank, everything melts away as you float effortlessly, free of gravity!

This set up helps you to reach a deep meditative state by allowing your body to naturally activate and deal with the harmful effects of stress.

Here is a list of benefits

For your mind:

Rapid stress relief – 90% of illness is stress-related. High cortisol levels for prolonged periods can wreck havoc on your health. By reducing sensory input, floating lowers cortisol levels and blood pressure, sending you into deep relaxation.

Boost problem-solving and creativity – Explore new ideas easily as you gain greater access to your right hemisphere. Floating fast tracks your brain into theta state. In this relaxed space, it’s easy to practise self “reprogramming”, learn faster, or visualise things.

Gain mental clarity – Examine any situation uninterrupted as you free your mind from distraction. Every session trains you to get into a state of flow easily. Outside of the tank, it’s easier to focus and return to this state of mind.

Advance personal growth – Find it hard to quit addictive behaviour like smoking? With reduced sensory input, your mind is more receptive to new ideas. Because the effects manifest within you, they are more effective at transforming how you feel, think, and live.

For your body

Experience deep relaxation – Speed up healing, promote muscle repair, and lower your blood pressure. 90% of your brain’s powerful resources are now focused inwards. The reduced tension lasts for days, or even weeks.

Optimise athletic performance – Spark rapid improvement and reach your peak, by practising visualisation in the tank. Train your central nervous system to produce the ‘perfect performance’, free of distraction.

Recover faster – Speed up recovery in between workouts. The gravity-free environment reduces lactic acid and inflammation, compressing what normally takes a long period of time into hours.

Improve your well-being – Sleep better, work happier, feel good from the inside out. Soaking in Epsom salts rapidly replenishes the body’s magnesium and sulfate levels. This relaxes your muscles, relieves headaches, flushes toxins, and more.

The Science:

Most of the science has been conducted in the 1980-90’s. However, we know that aside from managing stress levels, there are direct and immediate positive correlations of decreasing levels in blood pressure, heart rate, and plasma cortisol.

Recent clinical tests have shown positive benefits including reduction in hypertension, chronic tension headaches, chronic muscle tension pain in the back and neck, and stress-related pain with ‘burnout depression’. Further, the long term benefits of float tanks have also been found. Research had shown that after only seven float sessions, patients with generalized anxiety reported improvement in symptoms when assessed an average of 7-months later. Another study, a pilot trial of 50 participants randomized to either a waitlist control group or 12 sessions of Floatation-REST, observed a significant reduction in symptoms of generalized anxiety in the float group that was maintained at 6-month follow-up.

Download our little book of discounts for exclusive offers by each of these Biohacking outlets!

5. Neurofeedback Techniques

Neurofeedback is when you re-teach your brain how to respond to different emotions. Cool, right? You have EEG sensors placed all over your scalp, and monitor your brainwaves in different areas. Then you play a “video game” with your brain, using your brain electricity to make the game progress. The more positive brain activity, the faster the game goes (positive reinforcement), and the more undesirable the brain activity, the slower the game goes. Eventually, this cycle of positive and negative reinforcement re-teaches the brain which brain waves are desirable so that they can replace your previous negative responses to stressors.

40 Years of Zen is an intensive 7-day neurofeedback program that puts you in the same mindstate as advanced (we’re talking 20 to 40 years) Zen practitioners. It takes seven very long, very full days of monitoring and retraining your brain at a facility dedicated solely to this process. But it can increase your IQ by an average of 12 points, and increase creativity by an average of 50%, and hands down it’s the fastest, most efficient way to reap the benefits of neurofeedback.

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sherristockman · 6 years ago

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Autophagy Finally Considered for Disease Treatment Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Autophagy literally means "self-eating" and refers to your body's process of eliminating damaged cells by digesting them. It's an essential cleaning-out process that encourages the proliferation of new, healthy cells, and is a foundational aspect of cellular rejuvenation and longevity. Autophagy also destroys foreign invaders such as viruses, bacteria and other pathogens, and detoxifies the cell of harmful materials. Autophagy slows down with age, and autophagy defects are known to contribute to a wide variety of diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The good news is there are a number of different ways to activate and increase this natural process, thereby preventing many health problems before they begin. Autophagy Activation Is a Powerful Way to Treat Many Diseases Researchers are now also latching on to autophagy as a viable way to treat disease.1 As explained in the 2012 paper, "Autophagy Modulation as a Potential Therapeutic Target for Diverse Diseases:"2 "Autophagy occurs at a basal rate in most cells, eliminating protein aggregates and damaged organelles in order to maintain cytoplasmic homeostasis. This includes the degradation of dysfunctional mitochondria via mitophagy, a cytoprotective process that limits both the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the release of toxic intramitochondrial proteins … In addition to its vital homeostatic role, this degradation pathway is involved in various human disorders, including metabolic conditions, neurodegenerative diseases, cancers and infectious diseases … Autophagy may be dysregulated in several disorders, including metabolic diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, infectious diseases and cancer. In some conditions, autophagy is inhibited and this can occur at different stages of the process to enhance disease, whereas in other cases autophagic activity may be permissive toward pathogenesis. In addition, the induction of autophagy has been shown to increase longevity in a large panel of species, thus raising the possibility that ageing and longevity may be therapeutic targets for autophagy induction. Given these observations, pharmacological approaches to upregulate or inhibit this pathway are currently receiving considerable attention. For example, autophagy upregulation may be of therapeutic benefit in certain neurodegenerative diseases … whereas autophagy inhibition is being investigated as a strategy for treating some cancers." Autophagy May be Used to Treat Parkinson's Disease In 2016, the Nobel Prize in medicine was given to the Japanese biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi3 for his discovery of the actual mechanisms of autophagy, i.e., how cells recycle their contents. As reported by The Conversation:4 "Ohsumi identified key genes and molecules behind autophagy. In so doing, he shifted scientific paradigms about cellular quality control. He opened the gate for researchers … to understand how defects in autophagy are associated with neurological diseases … In neurodegenerative diseases, toxic proteins accumulate within brain cells called neurons. Neurons are irreplaceable. They must continue to recycle proteins and break them down into small amino acids to avoid a toxic buildup of abnormally large proteins. That is what autophagy lets them do. The process works by sequestering unwanted proteins into pipelines called 'autophagosomes.' Then they dump those proteins into a part of the cell called a 'lysosome,' where they are recycled. When this process doesn't work properly, harmful proteins can accumulate." Activating Autophagy Helps Prevent Neurological Degeneration By activating autophagy, or repairing the mechanism in cases where dysfunction has set in, researchers believe neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's can be successfully treated, as the autophagy process will naturally clear out harmful proteins. Interestingly, researchers have demonstrated that certain cancer drugs can trigger autophagy by activating a protein called parkin. Parkin is involved in the autophagy process, and some cancer drugs specifically activate this protein. As reported by Charbel Moussa, assistant professor of neurology at Georgetown University:5 "Keep in mind that cancer drugs work by killing cancer cells and can also be toxic to other cells. So our first step was to find out how these drugs worked in cancer cells and neurons. Our initial observation in cell culture models was stunning: Cultured cancer cells died while cultured neurons survived after treatment with several autophagy-stimulating cancer drugs. Next we introduced toxic proteins into cultured neuronal cells and treated them with several cancer drugs that activate autophagy and destroy tumors. The cells treated with these drugs survived and cleared their toxic proteins, while untreated cells died. Activating autophagy is a double-edged sword. One the one hand, the process clears toxic or infectious materials from cells. On the other hand, if the autophagy process goes beyond 'recycling' and clearing out proteins, it can start to destroy the cell, leading to cell death. This means that autophagy must be carefully manipulated to avoid the death of nonrenewable and irreplaceable neurons." Cyclical Autophagy, the Natural Way to Improve Health and Longevity Likely the safest way to achieve these benefits is simply to boost autophagy naturally, and there are many healthy lifestyle strategies that will do just that. Perhaps one of the most important and most effective is fasting. As explained in "Autophagy Modulation as a Potential Therapeutic Target for Diverse Diseases:"6 "Autophagy is stimulated during various pathological and physiological states, such as starvation … Starvation induced autophagy, an evolutionarily conserved response in eukaryotes, enables the degradation of proteins, carbohydrates and lipids, which allows the cell to adapt its metabolism and meet its energy needs. Indeed, the induction of autophagy in newborn mice has a major role in maintaining energy levels in various tissues after the maternal nutrient supply via the placenta ceases. Moreover, starvation-induced autophagy has a cytoprotective effect by blocking the induction of apoptosis by mitochondria." Longer water-only fasts are a form of "starvation" that will induce autophagy. As little as 200 calories can thwart the process, and the starvation period needs to be at least 16 hours or 72 hours or even longer, so it's important to be strict if autophagy induction is your chief aim. On the flip side, autophagy cannot remain continuously activated all the time. You also need to allow the cells to rebuild and rejuvenate, which occurs during the refeeding phase, which is why cyclical fasting and feeding is so important. Fasting Is a Powerful Way to Activate Autophagy Based on the research that has emerged in recent years, I'm now convinced that multiple day water fasting is one of the most profound metabolic interventions you can do to radically improve your health, as it allows your body to upregulate autophagy and mitophagy to remove damaged senescent cells, including premalignant cells. It's also an extremely effective way to shed excess weight and extend your life span. For a refresher on how to do water fasting safely, see my interview with Dr. Jason Fung, who wrote "The Complete Guide to Fasting." Many have irrational fears about water fasting, even for a few days, and Fung expertly shreds many outdated myths about fasting. There are a few caveats, however. If you're on medication, you need to work with your doctor to ensure safety, as some medications need to be taken with food and/or can become toxic when your body chemistry normalizes. Those taking hypoglycemic or antihypertensive medication are particularly at risk, as they may end up overdosing. It's also recommended to continue taking nutritional supplements during your fast. You also need to take a high-quality salt. Certain health conditions may also need more stringent medical supervision to ensure safety when fasting. A gentler way that can still improve autophagy is intermittent fasting, provided you're not eating for at least 16 hours at a stretch. This is the time needed to activate autophagy. That then means you need to eat all of your meals for the day within an eight-hour window, and not snack on anything during fasting hours. If you want to try a water-only fast, I recommend starting out by intermittently fasting about 16 hours a day, and slowly working your way up to 20 hours a day. Once you've done that for a month, it will be a lot easier to do a water fast for five days. Fasting Regenerates Your Pancreas A powerful example of the regenerative power of fasting was demonstrated in a recent study7 that showed a fasting-mimicking diet — characterized by periods of feast and famine — can reverse diabetes and actually regenerate your pancreas. The experiment, conducted on mice, was led by Valter Longo, Ph.D., professor of gerontology and biological sciences and director of the USC Longevity Institute. What they discovered was that by starving and refeeding the animals in cycles, insulin-producing beta cells were generated, resembling that observed during pancreatic development. Beta cells detect sugar in your blood and release insulin if blood sugar levels get too high. As a side effect of restoring pancreatic function, diabetic symptoms were also reversed. Insulin secretion and glucose homeostasis were restored in both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes models. According to Longo: "Our conclusion is by pushing the mice into an extreme state and then bringing them back — by starving them and then feeding them again —the cells in the pancreas are triggered to use some kind of developmental reprogramming that rebuilds the part of the organ that's no longer functioning … Medically, these findings have the potential to be very important because we've shown — at least in mouse models — that you can use diet to reverse the symptoms of diabetes. Scientifically, the findings are perhaps even more important because we've shown you can use diet to reprogram cells without having to make any genetic alterations." The fasting-mimicking diet developed by Longo involves restricting your calories to 75 percent less than your normal calories per day for five days each month. This approach greatly improves compliance, as many find a five-day, water-only fast to be too difficult. During these five days of calorie restriction, it's important to select foods low in carbohydrates, low in protein and high in healthy fats. The rest of the month, you are free to eat whatever you want. The goal is to mimic periods of feast and famine. However, while it may sound simple enough, Longo is quick to suggest this particular diet is best undertaken with medical guidance, as it's far more sophisticated than most people realize. You can learn more about the fasting-mimicking diet in my 2017 interview with Longo. Other Strategies That Will Activate Autophagy Download Interview Transcript Aside from fasting, there are several other ways to boost your autophagy process, including the following: • Time your nutrient intake appropriately. In her book, "Glow 15: A Science-Based Plan to Lose Weight, Revitalize Your Skin, and Invigorate Your Life," Naomi Whittel, former CEO of Twinlab, shares a number of different strategies specifically aimed at boosting autophagy. One of them involves the timing of nutrients. As a general rule, eat fats first and healthy carbohydrates last, whether you're intermittently fasting or not. In a recent interview, embedded above for your convenience, she explained: "On a low [protein] day, when you've done an intermittent fast, your first meal will be about fat, and fat first. Then at the end of the day, you'll have carbohydrates, and we talk about the quality carbohydrates that we need for health. When you're eating carbs … as your last meal, you're getting all of the benefits, from recovery to helping you relax and get ready to go to sleep. So, fat first and carbs last is my second principle." • Cyclical exercise. Every other day, do 30 minutes of high-intensity interval training or resistance training. The acute stress of exercise triggers autophagy much in the same way as fasting. • Eat autophagy-activating foods. In her book, Whittel includes 140 different types of foods that help activate autophagy — such as citrus bergamot tea, green tea and turmeric. • Activate adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) through proper diet and nutritional supplements. AMPK is an enzyme that stimulates mitochondrial autophagy (mitophagy) and mitochondrial biogenesis, as well as five other critically important pathways: insulin, leptin, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), insulin-like growth factor 1 and proliferator-activated receptor gamma co-activator 1-alpha. (It also increases nerve growth factor and helps protect against the type of oxidative stress that leads to Parkinson's disease.) With age, your AMPK levels naturally decline. Certain dietary habits, such as eating too much unhealthy fat and not enough of healthy fats and getting insufficient amounts of flavonoids (antioxidants) also inhibit AMPK activity. Insulin resistance is also a powerful inhibitor of AMPK. So, keeping this enzyme activated through proper diet is another important factor for maintaining healthy autophagy. Two dietary supplements known to activate AMPK — thereby triggering mitophagy and mitochondrial biogenesis — are pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) and berberine. Both of these supplements also benefit your mitochondrial function and health. Activating Autophagy — A Simple Way to Boost Health and Prevent Disease Considering your health is dependent on well-functioning cells, addressing autophagy is of significant importance and can go a long way toward preventing disease, including neurodegenerative disorders and cancer. Without autophagy, your cells will eventually become gunked up with toxins and debris, and once they start to malfunction and/or die, your body will be unable to efficiently clear those cells out, which will further exacerbate the problem. The good news, it's not very difficult to optimize autophagy. Fasting appears to be the most efficient way, but exercise and adding certain foods and supplements are also helpful strategies. If you're truly dedicated, you'd do your best to incorporate all of these strategies.

#VitalityPath

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robertsmorgan · 7 years ago

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The Health Benefits of Water Fasting

While fasting has been part of human culture for thousands of years, only recently have we begun to investigate the therapeutic benefits of the practice. Interestingly, modern science has found a variety of verifiable positive effects fasting has on human health.

What Is Water Fasting?

Water fasting, also known as a water cleanse, is a type of fasting in which you consume only water for a set period of time. Many types of cleansing diets are referred to as fasts, but in water fasting, you take in zero calories. It’s distinct from caloric restriction in which a person’s daily caloric intake is reduced by 20–40%.

Of course, in the long-term, it’s impossible to live on water alone. Your body can’t function without calories and nutrients; they’re the batteries and building blocks of life. However, a carefully planned, short-term water fast can help reset certain biological processes and reinvigorate your health.

The most common question people ask about water fasting is “why?” Why would you voluntarily subject yourself to hunger and nutritional deprivation? There are many reasons to fast. Some people do it for religious or spiritual reasons; others to raise awareness for a cause. However, there are also well-established health benefits to fasting. Intermittent fasting encourages weight loss, reduces body fat, lowers blood pressure and heart rate, and may even reduce the risk of serious conditions like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.[1, 2]

In the early days of humanity, fasting was the norm. Before the invention of agriculture, we were all hunter-gatherers. We ate what we could, when we could. Grabbing a snack from the fridge whenever our stomachs rumbled was not an option. Survival required that we adapt to occasional food shortages.[3]

Our ancestors incorporated fasting into cultural traditions long after the invention of agriculture ended our hunter-gatherer days. Many religions participate in ritual fasting to this day. Those of Islamic faith fast from dawn until dusk during the month of Ramadan. Many Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and peoples of many other faiths all take part in traditional fasting. Many great healers and thinkers, like Hippocrates, Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle have praised the benefits of fasting.

The Health Benefits of Water Fasting

Fasting isn’t just for times of need or a way to demonstrate faith and devotion. There are some legitimate health benefits to fasting as well.

Weight Loss

The fasting benefit that interests most people is weight loss. While it may seem obvious that not eating will lead to less body fat, let’s take a closer look at exactly how water fasting can help. Ketosis is the state in which your body begins taking energy from your internal fat stores instead of food. Water fasting helps your body reach ketosis more quickly than dieting. When you refrain from eating calories, your body is forced to burn fat cells for energy.[4]

Slows Aging

While we know of no force on earth that can halt or reverse the aging process, it is certainly true that some people age more gracefully than others. Animal studies have found that intermittent fasting can extend lifespan by up to 80% over control groups. In humans, fasting has been found to reduce oxidative damage and inflammation.[4]

Improved Cell Recycling

Autophagy is your body’s normal, natural process for recycling unnecessary or dysfunctional components. Water fasting forces your system into an autophagic state. With the severely reduced caloric intake, your body is forced to be more selective in which cells it protects.[5]

This means that fasting can encourage your body’s natural healing mechanisms to actively destroy and recycle damaged tissues, which may have a positive effect on several serious conditions.

There is bountiful anecdotal evidence from people who claim that water fasting helped them overcome debilitating disorders. Current research backs up many of these claims. Animal studies have found that alternate day fasting caused a major reduction in the incidence of cancer and metabolic syndrome. Rodents placed on an intermittent fast had fewer incidences of neurological disorders including Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s disease.[4]

Water, Cells, and Human Health: New Breakthroughs

Of course, your body needs water for hydration, but is there more to it than that? Yes there is, according to Dr. Gerald H. Pollack, the Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Pollack and his team have made some new discoveries that challenge our current understanding of water. They found that water behaves oddly within living cells. Close to the cell membrane, water organizes itself in a series of gel-like layers, rather than as a completely fluid solution.

Dr. Pollack calls this “exclusion zone” (EZ) water, and it’s not the H2O we’re familiar with. EZ water is actually H3O2—three hydrogen atoms bonded to two oxygen atoms. So what does this mean for water fasting? Well, the reason this is called the exclusion zone is because it excludes things—things like contaminants and impurities. EZ water holds a negative charge and pushes contaminants away from itself. This discovery may have serious implications for cell signaling and detoxification, but more research needs to be done before we fully understand the connection.[6]

How to Perform a Water Fast

When fasting, planning is crucial; don’t skimp on it. If you’ve never done a fast before, you shouldn’t just start a 30-day water cleanse this afternoon. There is a right way to do any cleansing diet. Fasting is not usually dangerous, but it can do more harm than good if done incorrectly. I recommend consulting with a trusted health care provider before performing any fast.

Drink High-Quality Water

When performing a water fast, it’s more important than ever to only consume fresh, clean, high-quality water. The effect of any contaminants in your water will only be magnified with no food in your gut to help dilute the effect. I recommend you drink only distilled water during your fast. You can also drink filtered water if you have a very good filtration system, but distillation goes further than filtration and removes all harmful organisms and chemicals.

The most crucial step in any fast is to arrange your schedule. If possible, take time off work for the duration of the cleanse. Choose a length of time for your water fasting diet. Fasts can be done for any length of time up to about a month, but 1, 3, 5, 7, and 10-day water fasts are the most common. Start small. If this is your first fast, try a 24-hour or a 3-day fast.

If you perform any fast longer than five days, or you’re fasting to alleviate serious conditions, consider a supervised water fast. Many people choose a supervised fast because it offers a controlled environment, a team of professionals to make sure all goes well, and fellow fasters for emotional support. A fasting clinic can do tests to find the best fast for you, monitor your health during the fast, and help ease your transition back to solid foods after the fast.

Before we get started, let’s go over a few precautions. You should not perform a fast if you are pregnant or lactating. A developing child is just too sensitive to nutritional deficiencies. Likewise, anyone with type 1 diabetes should choose a different type of detox diet. Fasting works best for people who are 20 lbs or more overweight. If you’re less than this, you can still try fasting, but plan a shorter duration for your first fast.

What to Expect During a Water Fast

Fasting is a time for rest, not exertion. Don’t plan on running any marathons during your fast. You shouldn’t even go to the gym. Your body will want to sleep more than usual—let it. Listen to your body; you may need 12 hours or more of sleep each night, and naps during the day. Do not be alarmed; this is part of the process. Relax and embrace it.

Drink 2-3 quarts (or liters) of water every day. Don’t drink it all at once. Space it out over the course of the day to keep yourself properly hydrated and increase satiety.

I won’t lie; the first couple days are going to be tough. You will likely experience some unpleasant symptoms like hunger, irritability, headaches, or disorientation. Fortunately, your body is resilient and should quickly adapt. You should start feeling better around the third or fourth day. Many people even report a feeling of euphoria at this point.

Water Fasting Tips and Tricks

Here are a couple fasting tips that can make your experience go a little more smoothly.

Read

Books are a faster’s best friend. When fasting, it’s important to both rest your body and keep your mind occupied. Now would be a good time to catch up on your reading. Reading is a fantastic low-energy way to keep your mind engaged.

Set Realistic Goals

Be realistic about your goals. Why are you doing this cleanse? To help a particular health issue? To lose weight? Set simple, clear, achievable goals.

Meditation

Meditation reinforces willpower and promotes a healthy connection between body and mind. Many people find that meditating can be a great way to help control cravings and strengthen resolve. Others report that feelings of hunger distract them from mediation. Find what works best for you.

Lemon Juice

Remember, in a water cleanse, you drink only water. No food, no smoothies, no juices. There is one exception, sort of. Some people find the taste of plain water underwhelming. If you’re of a similar mind, you can add a small squirt of lemon juice into your water. Let me be clear; this isn’t an excuse to drink sugary lemonade. A small squeeze of a lemon slice can add some flavor without adding much in the way of calories. Likewise, you can add a spoonful of raw organic apple cider vinegar to add a little flavor and some probiotics.

After the Fast

After the fast, you must resist the urge to overindulge, especially in the first few days. While you may dream of gorging yourself at the taco truck, your rebooted digestive system simply cannot handle it yet. At this point, rich food would cause you severe discomfort, or possibly serious complications.

Instead, break your fast slowly. Start by drinking only juices and detox waters, then broths, and gradually add in solid foods. You can do this over the course of a day if you performed a very short fast, but for fasts of 3-7 days, wait at least 24 hours before reintroducing your system to solid foods. Breaking the fast can be a multi-day process for fasts longer than that.

Fasting is a great way to reset your system and experience some fantastic health benefits, but it’s not a way to cheat basic biology. Don’t expect to live a life of overindulgence and let the occasional water detox cancel out the damage.

Rather, fasting is just one part of an overall healthy lifestyle. Other lifestyle choices you must make include eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, exercising regularly, getting plenty of rest, effectively managing stress, and avoiding environmental toxins. Use your fast as an opportunity to abandon bad habits and add new healthy habits to your routine.

Finally, if you decide that fasting isn’t for you, that’s fine. There are many different ways to detox. Find a method of deep cleansing that suits you and make it part of your healthy lifestyle.

The post The Health Benefits of Water Fasting appeared first on Dr. Group's Healthy Living Articles.

from Robert Morgan Blog https://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/health-benefits-of-water-fasting/

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organiclifestylemagazine · 8 years ago

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Intermittent Fasting: The Best Breakfast May Be Eating Nothing At All

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

If you don’t eat cereal for breakfast, you will be overcome by the greatest evil — masturbation.

Oh, and cereal will make you more efficient and productive, too.

These were the beliefs that started the commercialization of breakfast and breakfast cereals in the early 1900s. These ideas were proposed by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, an early Seventh-day Adventist and the inventor of corn flakes. With the help of his credentials, his brother’s mass-marketing of the corn flakes, and the magazine he edited called Good Health, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was able to popularize his idea that a “whole grain” breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Although most of us already know how bad cereal is for our health, the idea that breakfast is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle is still popular more than 100 years later. This has been confirmed by that fact that — in 2011 — 9 out of 10 people in the United States reported eating a daily morning meal. A plethora of scientific studies, on the other hand, support the 10% of Americans who skip breakfast and provide irrefutable evidence that breakfast is not the most important meal of the day. We can start to uncover the reasons why with a Nobel Prize.

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut

How to Harness the Power of a Nobel Prize Winning Discovery

Last year, the Noble Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi for discovering some of the mechanisms of autophagy or — in layman’s terms — how the cell devours itself. At first, this sounds like a horrendous discovery, until you consider what is really happening.

When our cells undergo the process of autophagy, damaged proteins are recycled and invading microorganisms and toxic compounds are removed. This means that autophagy plays an important role in stopping the aging process, reversing disease, and preventing cancer, but it doesn’t happen all the time. Fasting, protein restriction, and carbohydrate restriction are the three main ways that can initiate different autophagic processes — all of which are not the same. This is part of the reason why skipping meals like breakfast can be better for you than eating three or more meals throughout the day.

Enter Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting is a fancy term that we use to describe the process of skipping meals. The most popular intermittent fasting strategy is fasting during a 16-hour window of time and eating two meals during the remaining 8 hours. Let’s say, for example, your last meal was at 6 pm last night, and you ate nothing else after that. To start an intermittent fast, simply restrict eating until 10 am the next morning.

There are many different variations of intermittent fasting. Dr. Dom D’Agostino, the well-known ketogenic diet researcher, suggests doing a longer intermittent fast for 3 days, 3 times a year. This means not eating for 3 days, and eating normally until the next fast.

Dr. D’Agostino also recommends daily intermittent fasts. He says that it is ideal to have one or two meals after fasting for most of the day to reap the benefits of intermittent fasting every day.

Clean Your (Cell’s) Room

Part of the reason why intermittent fasting promotes health is because you can use it to activate the processes of autophagy that are brought about by carbohydrate restriction, protein restriction, and fasting.

If this scientific jargon is throwing you off, think about what you do when your room is dirty. You may clean it in your spare time or have a set time on the weekend to clean it, but what happens when the weekend comes and you are busy with endless obligations? You spend so much of your time fixing the car, helping your mother and doing everything else you have to do that you have no time to clean your room. After a week without cleaning, your room is just a bit dirtier than usual, but after a month of being too busy to clean, your room is filthy. Dirty, smelly clothes are all over the floor, dust is everywhere, and you ran out of underwear (again).

This is what happens to our cells when we eat three or more meals a day that completely fulfill our need for calories. Even if you are eating the healthiest of foods, your cells still can get backed up with inessential proteins and toxic compounds. So what can you do?

To make sure that you clean your bedroom, you stop allowing yourself to be consumed by other obligations – you free up your time. To make sure that your cells can clean themselves, you enter a fasted state.

Fasting will not only activate autophagy in your cells, it will also increase your ketone levels — an alternative fuel source for your body and brain. You can even boost ketone levels and autophagy by adding in low-intensity exercise (like walking and cycling).

Refeeding Syndrome — When Fasting Goes Too Far

Health complications can arise when you fast for longer than 5 days. One of these complications is called refeeding syndrome, which is caused by potentially fatal shifts in fluid and electrolyte balance that can happen when we eat after a period of undernourishment. Refeeding syndrome happens because the concentration of fluids and minerals in our body relies heavily on what we eat. For example, low carbohydrate diets, like the ketogenic diet, increase the excretion of vital minerals like sodium and potassium.

Fasts that are shorter than 5 days, however, aren’t likely to cause issues — especially if you sip water with a pinch of unrefined salt in it throughout each day and break your fast with a low carbohydrate meal that is filled with mineral rich foods. A meal with dark leafy greens, avocado, and salmon with some unrefined salt, for example, would be an ideal way to break a longer fast. But what about muscle? It’s only common sense that consuming no protein and fewer calories will lead to an unhealthy amount of muscle loss. That’s right — it is only common sense.

Intermittent Fasting and Muscle

Two paradigm-shifting studies have recently been published on the effects of intermittent fasting. One group of researchers studied the effects that 16 hours of intermittent fasting had on resistance-trained males. They found that muscle mass stayed the same, fat mass decreased significantly, and the males who fasted for 16 hours a day burned more fat for fuel compared to the control group that only fasted for 12 hours. This suggests that intermittent fasting can help us rely more on our fat stores for fuel rather than carbohydrates from food.

Another study showed that combining 20 hours of fasting with resistance training resulted in an increase in muscle mass, strength, and endurance, and all of this was achieved by eating ~650 fewer calories per day than normal.

The benefits of intermittent fasting translate to untrained overweight and obese individuals as well. One study published in Obesity Reviews found that eating fewer calories is effective for fat loss, but it does come with some muscle loss. However, if the subjects fasted for 24 hours and ate as much as they wanted on the next day for a period of 12 weeks, they lost significantly less muscle mass.

Yes — you read that correctly — 24 hours of intermittent fasting without any resistance training and these subjects were able to preserve more muscle mass than the subjects who ate fewer calories every day without fasting at all. This finding contradicts our common sense, but when we dig deeper into autophagy we can find the mechanism behind this result.

Autophagy and Muscle Loss Prevention

Before a Nobel Prize was awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi in 2016, other researchers were discovering wonderful things about autophagy. In 2009, an article entitled “Autophagy Is Required to Maintain Muscle Mass” was published in Cell Metabolism that described how deactivating an important autophagy gene resulted in a profound loss of muscle mass and strength. This happened because autophagy is an essential process that the muscle cell uses to clean up damaged proteins and mitochondria before they reach the point where they can’t function any longer and die.

At first glance, this seems counter-intuitive because we tend to assume that the nutrients we eat will repair the damage, but this is not how things work in reality. Think about it like this — if you want to refurbish a room, it is best to clean the room and remove the old furniture before you put the new furniture in. The same thought process applies to your cells. We must use intermittent fasting to let autophagy clean the cell before we put in new furniture, and if we don’t, our cells can become cancerous.

Intermittent Fasting and Cancer

Although there is little to no literature on the effects of 2 or 3-day fasts on muscle loss in humans, many clinical trials are currently being conducted on the effects that fasting has on cancer patients.

In initial case studies, patients who were going through chemotherapy treatment voluntarily fasted for anywhere between 48 to 140 hours. Each patient reported fewer side effects and an improved quality of life regardless of how long they fasted. This implies that fasting for 2 to 7 days can have a protective effect on the cells in the body while they are undergoing intense bouts of toxicity.

Other studies have shown that fasting was as effective as chemotherapeutic agents in delaying the progression of different tumors, and it increased the effectiveness of chemotherapeutic drugs against melanoma, glioma, and breast cancer cells. Although this research may not directly apply to your life, it confirms that intermittent fasting can help prevent cancer and help support your body in times of toxic stress.

The Takeaway

It’s okay to skip breakfast. In fact, you may experience more health benefits by doing so. Although you will feel hungry at first, your body will adjust by activating autophagy and using more fat and ketones for fuel.

Dr. Dom D’Agostino, a popular ketogenic diet researcher, suggests doing a longer intermittent fast followed by shorter daily intermittent fasts. His fasting protocol includes fasting for up to 3 days, 3 times a year with a shorter 16 to 20 hour fast on the days before and after the longer 3-day fasts.

However, you can still get the benefits of intermittent fasting by fitting different methods into your lifestyle. For example, Dr. Krista Varaday — a researcher who has conducted many research studies on fasting — suggests using alternate day fasting, which consists of eating less than 500 calories on fasting days and eating normally on non-fasting days. Dr. Mercola, on the other hand, proposes a less strict approach to fasting — consisting of a 13 to 18 hour fast a couple days a week or more.

Whether you are fasting for 16 hours or 3 days, it is important to stay hydrated with distilled water that includes a pinch of mineral-rich unrefined salts. Break your fasts with vitamin and mineral rich foods like organic vegetables, leafy greens, nuts, seeds, pastured animal products like eggs, and wild caught seafood like salmon and sardines.

But Remember — All Intermittent Fasts Are Not The Same

Before you start fasting, it is important to know that each method will have different effects on different people. In general, longer fasts — like a 3-day fast — tend to increase autophagy and ketone levels much more than a shorter fast. Shorter fasts — like a 16-hour daily fast — have a smaller impact on ketone levels and autophagy, but they tend to do a great job at decreasing your daily caloric intake and increasing the likelihood that your body will burn fat for fuel.

The shorter fast is simple and easy enough to implement, but the 3-day fast seems daunting and difficult (at first). This is why I provided you with an example of one of my favorite 3-day fasting protocols that make it simple and easy.

Practical Protocol: Tim Ferris’s 3 Day Fast

If you want a simple guide to boost your ketone levels and activate autophagy, try this 3-day “fasting” protocol that Tim Ferris adapted from Dr. D’Agostino and wrote about it his book Tools of Titans:

Thursday Evening

Eat a normal dinner and make that the last meal of the day. Go to bed as normal.

Friday Morning

Get out the door and walk within 30 minutes of waking.

Bring at least 1 liter or more of water with some added unrefined salt in it, and sip as you walk to avoid cramping.

Walk for 3 to 4 hours, sipping water as needed.

Arrange phone calls for your walk to make the time productive.

The idea behind the walk is that you use up your glycogen stores, forcing your body to move more quickly into deep ketosis (when your body is burning ketones for fuel). The quicker you get into ketosis, the less time you spend feeling tired and starved.

Friday Day (post walk)

Consume MCT oil 2-3 times throughout the day.

Tim suggests C8 (Caprylic Acid) Quest Nutrition MCT Powder. This provides you with energy until you reach ketosis.

Saturday Morning

Upon waking, Tim suggests testing your blood ketones with a ketone blood testing kit like the Precision Xtra. Your ketones should be at 0.7mmol or greater.

If you’re at 0.7mmol, proceed with your fast.

If you’re under 0.7mmol, consider going for another extended walk, and then re-test.

Saturday & Sunday Day

Add further MCT oil or coconut oil if you need a boost, but do your best to only have water throughout the day.

Incorporate some salts in your water throughout the day. This can either be in the form of table salts, or via a specially formulated solution such as SaltStick electrolyte replacement pills.

Sunday Evening

Tim suggests breaking the fast with whatever meal you choose.

This process can be used as a way to get you into ketosis more quickly so that fasting is much easier. Each time you do an intermittent fast, your body will get better and better at using fat and ketones for fuel, which will lead to less hunger, more fat loss, and less muscle loss. If you can’t go without fat for the full 3-day fast, it’s okay, you will still reap many of the benefits of fasting by not having any carbohydrates or protein.