Summary of Head Strong

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Morbidly obese, angry, and failing both at work and in his MBA program, Dave Asprey embarked on a quest to find out if and how he could hack his brain to gain stamina, productivity and smarter functioning. He spent 17 years and more than $1 million developing his two-week “Head Strong” program. More than just enabling you to think better, Asprey asserts that his program will even boost your IQ. His personal saga is engrossing, though he overdoes the sales pitches for his products. Note that to comply with his program, even for just two weeks, you’d probably have to change your life significantly. getAbstract, which doesn’t give medical advice, suggests judging his advice for yourself, though it’s hard to argue against his core idea: better nutrition, smart exercise, stress-easing meditation and a toxin-free life are good for your brain.

In this summary, you will learn

  • How your diet, environment and lifestyle affect your brain; and
  • How to implement the two-week “Head Strong” program.
 

About the Author

Dave Asprey is the founder and CEO of Bulletproof, a human performance and nutrition company; a Silicon Valley investor and technology entrepreneur; and author of the New York Times best-selling book The Bulletproof Diet. He is also the founder of 40 Years of Zen, a brain training and cognitive performance facility and host of the world’s largest biohacking conference.

 

Summary

Hack Your Brain

One-fifth of your body’s energy goes to fuel your brain – the most that goes to any organ. You create new brain connections and generate new brain cells throughout your life. But your brain’s performance suffers when you stuff your body with toxins. When your brain expends energy converting toxins, you feel “foggy, forgetful and tired.” Toxins come from your diet, your devices and the polluted world. Control them to make yourself smarter. To avoid the toxins that slow down your brain, change your diet, abandon bad habits, alter your environment, exercise and meditate. Focus first on addressing five “mental weaknesses”:

  1. “Forgetfulness” – Lack of nutrition causes memory problems. Eating better, exercising and taking supplements can help.
  2. “Cravings” – If you hunger for sugar, watch out. Sugar causes your cells to take their energy from glucose rather than fat, which means the fat you eat doesn’t get burned off and you gain weight. When your energy gets depleted, your body and brain compete and the call goes out for more sugar – a vicious cycle.

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    ROLANDO CRUZADO DE LA RIVA 11 months ago
    Mitochondria needs to be treat well with good food, suplements, light, sports and no toxins.
  • Avatar
    ROLANDO CRUZADO DE LA RIVA 11 months ago
    Myelin needs to be incorproated with linaza, giasol seeds, olive oil extra virgen.
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    ROLANDO CRUZADO DE LA RIVA 11 months ago
    In Peru we must take care of commercial products that are not Good food: Milk, Olive Oil's whitened in plastic bowls, Industrial Refined Sugar, Coffee or Cacao with Cadmio, Nuts without skins, GMO's tomatos and papayas.
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    ROLANDO CRUZADO DE LA RIVA 11 months ago
    Concrete tricks to hack mitochndries and increase efficiency = Health food - Bad food (carvings, glutens, GMOs, fried, margarines, alcohol, potato chips) + Meditation + Sport