Manage Stress With These 10 Biohacks

Stress takes its toll in many ways - and the effect is compounding. At the inaugural Bulletproof Biohacking Conference, Dr Justin Marchegiani presented a stress management framework. He identifies

4 types of resilience to stress:

emotional, physical, mental and spiritual.

Image taken with a phone camera circa Jan 2014.

Achieving a state of coherence means successfully becoming resilient to stressors in all 4 domains.

By addressing lifestyle stressors in each area, we can build a foundation of wellness on which to thrive.

This is an opportunity to nip all those pre-clinical ailments in the bud, before they evolve into chronic disease. It's those consistently repeated good habits that keep us thriving. And it's those repeated bad habits that contribute to chronic inflammation and stress.

It’s best to prioritise and tackle things in order of magnitude of possible improvement in any dimension while remaining aware of the stressors in each domain. Why is this important? Examples:

• Training hard, but eating poorly and not getting enough sleep will negate the gains you are aiming for.
  
  
• Eating well, but living in an environment with poor air quality and excess noise pollution is only part way there.
  
  
• Compounding physical stress of exercise with a lack of resilience to daily challenges will mean your body is not given the opportunity to recover properly. In large amounts, cortisol causes an increase in serum amino acid levels by breaking down muscle and also inhibits protein synthesis. The opposite of what is desirable.
  
  
• Spending 8 hours a day seated in a chair with bad posture will give you OOS, RSI and places your body in a neurologically inefficient position that can compromise your ability to perform even simple physical tasks like bending and picking up a box without injury.

Our Top 10 Stress Management Biohacks

Alcohol is probably the most common substance we willingly use to disrupt our circadian rhythm. If you drink alcohol, you can use antioxidants like Vitamin C, NAC, l-glutathione and Activated Charcoal to mitigate the effects of alcohol's toxic by-products. Check out Dave Asprey’s more comprehensive guide to Bulletproof alcohol consumption.

Here are some of the most effective biohacks we use to help us lead healthy, resilient, coherent productive and fulfilling lifestyles. (a.k.a our super duper long list of little things that can make a big difference.) These aren't in any particular order:

#1. emWave2 Training Helps You Make More Objective Decisions by Gaining Greater Control Over Your Emotions

Quantified Mind helps you figure out your peak mental performance routine. You can use their free tool to test different variables and  track and improve your cognitive performance.

Lumosity's brain training games leverage the fact that your brain has the ability to strengthen and grow neural connections. The challenging games can make you aware of weak areas and improve concentration, productivity.

No excuses for not having a go with their free iPhone and Android options are also available. 

#3. Start the Day Right. Fundamentally, Your Morning Routine is the Most Effective Habit Forming Opportunity Available to You

Get things going on the right track from the start. Use this as an opportunity to make sure that you:

• Rehydrate with water and mineral rich unrefined sea salt. This will reduce adrenal stress by providing a re-stock of the minerals that your body needs to get going (raise blood pressure etc) first thing in the morning.
  
  
• Have all of your supplements (morning appropriate ones). See Dave Asprey's article on where to get started.
  
  
• Get your Bulletproof Coffee into you!
  
  
• Meditate.
  
  
• Alkalise with lemon and greens if you're so inclined.
  
  
• Use blue light therapy. When winter rolls around, this is an effective way to ward of S.A.D and keep your sleep-wake cycle in tune. The Phillips GoLite BLU comes recommended by Tim Ferris and I have one on order.
  
  
• Your sleep-wake cycle is intricately linked. Check out this epic post on Artificial Light & Sleep

#4. Drink Bulletproof Upgraded Coffee for Breakfast

Of course we would recommend this one :) 

Coffee is the number one consumed source of antioxidants in Australia. Bulletproof Coffee helps you eliminate performance robbing mycotoxins (mould). You are also giving your nerves myelin nourishing fat that.

Ever get jitters, headaches, nausea or anxiety after a  cup of coffee? Dealing with inconsistent coffee bean quality week to week? You don't have to!

Mycotoxins can form at any stage between farm and bag. Only Bulletproof Coffee's vigorous quality assurance process can guarantee you get mycotoxin-free beans every time.

Bulletproof Coffee Beans are single origin, organic, carbon neutral and Rainforest Alliance Certified. Grown on a family owned farm at height of 1,250m in Guatemala, we know exactly where the beans are coming from and the high standard of care with which they have been handled.

With Bulletproof Coffee, you can eliminate brain fog and perform better for 6 hours before you even begin to think about lunch (great for intermittent fasting.)

#5. Sleep Well. The Ultimate Biohack?

Quality trumps quantity. Sleep deficit and low-quality sleep are culprits in negatively impacting quality of life. Poor sleep is a result of poor diet, excess emotional, mental or physical stress.

Lack of sleep is typically the result of overworking / overplaying. Sleep deficit has a compounding effect itself. In combination with our lifestyle factors, the result can be stress piled upon stress. Sleep deficits can lead to depression.

A lack of sleep disrupts gene expression. Just to show you how one dimension can affect another: A lack of melatonin may be linked to an increased risk of developing diabetes. While many of us are able to fall asleep after a cuppa at night, quality of sleep suffers.

Hack your sleep by:

• Blackout curtains and make sure there is no light pollution in your bedroom (this includes removing TVs, laptops and tablets). A sleep mask is a simple workaround. We’ve written extensively about the impact of artificial lighting on sleep. 
  
  
• Cut back on alcohol. 
  
  
• Don't consume coffee within 8 hours of when you plan to sleep (or drink decaf.) Yes, this has as much to do with the stimulatory effect of the caffeine but it also raises your cortisol levels which gets in the way of  melatonin production. Some people are still able to fall asleep easily after drinking coffee at night, however, it can affect your sleep quality.
  
  
• Take magnesium (glycinate / citrate / l-threonate) or spray on some magnesium chloride and consider adding in l-theanine and GABA supplements an hour before bed to help you relax, fall asleep faster and keep you asleep.
  
  
• Try Huperzine-A 30 minutes before sleeping to help induce R.E.M sleep. For more on the value of this, see Tim Ferris’s Guide to Lucid Dreaming.
  
  
• You can take this further by wearing blue light blocker glasses after sunset and also using apps like flux to strip blue light from your computer display.
  
  
• Dave Asprey's sleep recipe: don't drink coffee atl east 8 hours before bedtime; take some MCT oil, raw honey, protein and krill oil before bed. Also check out his podcast with Dr Wisor about how to hack your sleep and why it is so important.

#6. Talking20: Measure and Track Key Biomarkers with In-Home Blood Test Kits

#7. Movement: Train Your Nervous System to Enable Optimal Human Performance

At the inaugural Bulletproof Biohacking Conference aka Biohack Your Life, EvoUltraFit advocated that “movement was the key everything.” We learned that how we move (or don’t move) conditions our parasympathetic nervous system.

Every movement you make counts towards your ability to live pain free and maximise enjoyment of recreational activities. Modern lifestyles in offices, cars etc. contribute to breakdowns in proper movement patterns which can lead to injury. (Weekend Warrior Syndrome anyone?)

In his TED talk, Dr Eric Goodman distills this biohack down down to the ability to hinge at the hips and presents a simple hack for alleviating pain: