Lessons from “Limitless”: Biohacking for Longevity
For those who have known me for a while, I’ve been a dedicated biohacker since 2013. I travel a lot for work so I need to keep on top of my health. Plus I really, really enjoy my life and lifestyle, so one should find ways to extend it any way you can, right? Health is the ultimate wealth as I’ve written before.
So I spend a lot of time and money trying to find the health and cognitive edge from the latest scientific research or tips or tricks shared by Tim Ferriss, Kevin Rose, Andrew Huberman or David Asprey among others. I’ve gone to various biohacking conferences. I’ve read all the books like ones from David Sinclair, Valter Longo, Dan Buettner, Sergey Young, Dr. Peter Attia, Aubrey de Grey and Nir Barzilai, among others. I take lots of various cognitive enhancers like cordyceps and Reveratol and NAD+.
So of course, I was eager to watch the new Limitless series on Disney+ starring Chris Hemsworth, as he travels the world consulting experts in his journey on how to live longer, happier and healthier. He is on the pursuit of extending both lifespan (ie. how long you live) and healthspan (the health and quality of how you live).
I figured I’d share some of the learnings here and thankfully many of these are fairly well known in the biohacking community:
Regular Physical Exercise:
–You need to get your blood flowing which helps your brain and thinking too. Something I rely on a lot as an investor and aspiring creator.
–Muscles and muscle mass are important but they start to deteriorate as you get older. And being somewhat vain, I want to look good and be in good shape so I can fight decently if needed. There are over 600 muscles in the human body and you have to use as many of them as possible for longevity purposes.
–Some endurance exercises like cycling, rowing and running will help with mitochondrial growth, which are key to longevity and health. Research studies show that just 2 hours of this endurance exercise a week can add years to your life. One of the reasons is that it also boosts your immune system to work better for longer.
A regular gym regime is important & i do some basic exercises every single day. You need to stress your body to force it to adapt and evolve. That is why our present sedentary lifestyle is so dangerous to our health. Peter Attia said: “We don’t stop moving because we get old. We get old because we stop moving.”
2. Mental Exercises:
–You need to do novel and challenging mental exercises to stimulate the hippocampus part of our brain. The more we stimulate this area, the more we can resist the cognitive losses that come with age. In the show, Chris is given the very challenging & complex exercise of navigating himself out of the wilderness without GPS or phone.
3. Spending more Time in Nature:
–Humans have long existed in Nature. And unlike in urban settings where the noise and light really cause distraction and massive cognitive load on our brains, we are far more attuned to sights and sounds of nature. Thus it is more relaxing for us. The Japanese even have a term called “Forest Bathing”: “It is proven to reduce stress hormone production, improve feelings of happiness and free up creativity, as well as lower heart rate and blood pressure, boost the immune system and accelerate recovery from illness.”
(Source: https://www.forestholidays.co.uk/things-to-do/forest-bathing/benefits)
Just 20 minutes of strolling in a park without checking your phone has been shown to significantly reduce levels of stress hormone cortisol.
4. Sleeping:
–Getting good sleep is key to human health. Sleep cleans your brain through the glymphatic process. There are some steps you can take to help improve the quality of your sleep like: Sleeping at regular time, relaxing and not looking at blue screen ie. no devices or phones. Taking ZMA (Zinc Magnesium compound). Taking a hot shower and keeping your room temperature around 66 degrees. These are some of the things I do that help. Thankfully I’ve always had pretty good sleep. In fact, I always loved sleeping so it was not a big problem for me. :)
5. Extreme temperatures as Humans thrive in adversity (well some do): Both extreme Cold and Heat.
–Cold helps reset your immune system, fights inflammation. This is why I do cold showers and why others go further and do ice baths. Cold scrambles the pain receptors before it hits the brain and just makes you tougher & stronger. It also has been shown to improve your immune system so you get sick less. I hate cold showers but I have noticed it does help me definitely wake up when I need to ie. mental clarity. There is also a reason that cold water treatments were used in asylums to help those who were depressed. You just feel so much better after coming out of extreme cold water.
–On the extreme heat side, Sauna, Banya or Onsen is also very good for you. Heat shock proteins clean up your body, reducing your odds of cardiovascular and Alzheimer's disease. It’s harder for me to do regularly when I am here in SF but it was something I did a lot when I traveled to other parts of the world and especially when I was spending lots of time in Japan, Kyiv, Finland, the Baltics, Turkey or Georgia. I love Sauna.
6. Diet:
–You are what you eat as they say. Sugar is poison and sadly I love candy, desserts and pastries. But I try to eat these in moderation. Life should be somewhat enjoyable, I’m not a monk :) I think meat and fish is a great source of protein and is important for building and keeping muscle mass. I love eating meat and fish. But I try to counterbalance that with plenty of vegetables and fruits. Thankfully I love green vegetables and fruits. I’m also very lucky that I have resources that allow me to afford organic and better quality foods and ingredients.
7. Supplements:
–Unfortunately much of the modern food today is not as nutritious as it was in the past. So many of us tend to lack important things in our body like vitamin D or magnesium or zinc. So this is where supplements come into play. I also take things like creatine, L-theanine, or drink green tea or yerba Mate for focus. Red ginseng for energy. I also take Lithium Orotate 5 for mood management.
8. Fasting:
–Your body needs time to rest, recover and reset. They recommend doing a 4 day fast with water only and no food which helps reboot your body. For us mere mortals, doing intermittent fasting can be just as good. I tend to do a minimum 13 hour to 16 hour fast every day. Eating only in an 8 hour period. It makes sense, our present time of being around unlimited food and abundant food is a very recent thing and with very unhealthy results like widespread obesity and diabetes. I also do a 24-48 hour fast once a month.
Fasting cuts off glucose to destructive zombie cells that lead to aging among other negative effects. So this is key to life longevity as your healthy cells get healthier. Also an added benefit of fasting as it generates ketones which gives you energy as well as mental acuity and sharpness. Everything seems so much clearer to me during fasting.
9. Meditation, Breathing & Mental Health:
–Learning to breathe helps to calm you down. The technique emergency responders use is “Box breathing”: Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds. Do it a few times and it does calm you, it’s a way for your body to signal to the brain to chill out and short circuit fight or flight. I need it when I run into situations that drive me to rage.
–I also started mindful meditation almost 7 years ago, now doing 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes before I go to bed. It’s been a critical tool for me personally. The research shows it reduces stress and increases focus, memory and concentration.
–I’m also really glad I invested in a therapist (thanks to https://www.joinreflect.com) who has helped me identify & face some of my demons. She has also given me tools to cope with life’s inevitable challenges over the last few years. Many of these are self- inflicted I might add. Mental health has been overlooked for too long in our society but glad this is changing.
10. Having great family and friend relationships:
–We are social animals so being with other people, especially our loved ones, is so critical. The people around us give us new ideas, see new things and they encourage us. The feeling of family and community, like you are part of something, having a sense of belonging, helps. It is that knowing you aren’t alone out there. In the show they say: when we are isolated, the risk of dementia increases 50%. Yes, 50%!
11. Have an Optimistic Attitude & do Positive Self Talk:
–How do you reframe bad situations? Growing up in Canada & in an Taiwanese-immigrant household to boot, every interpretation is negative. It is incredibly harmful and I’ve spent a lifetime trying to reprogram myself. It’s not about ignoring reality and thinking everything is rainbows and unicorns. But positive self talk helps us control our fight or flight circuits. You have to truly believe. Thinking positively helps you open up flows of blood to your muscles so you can power through the stress and challenge. You have to make stress your friend & manage it like a tool.
Repeating personal mantras also helps. I tell myself that “Whatever happens, I will handle it.” It’s about reprogramming your scripts. Chris Hemsworh says it best: “The story you tell yourself becomes your reality. It really is mind over matter.”
12. Having a Big and Clear Mission in Life:
–As Nietzche wrote:“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” For me, it’s this bigger picture that allows you to push through the painful moments and challenges in life. It’s motivating to have something bigger than yourself to think of. My family, my friends, my startup founders and my business partners who depend on me. I’m not going to let them down if I can avoid it.
These are just some of the main lessons from the show. Biohacking and some of the tactics/ techniques learned from “Limitless” are very powerful tools for improving your health, your performance and your life. So why not try some of these? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.