Wade Lightheart, a co-founder of BiOptimizers, shares 5 steps to optimise brain performance without draining adrenals. Wade is a 3-time All Natural USA National Bodybuilding Champion and Director of Education at BiOptimizers Nutrition.
Read the other posts in Wade's series on Gut Health and Optimal Brain Performance
Constantly elevated adrenal function, high cortisol, stress, these things essential, but a problem when constantly elevated. I’d like to share some ways to get started on optimising your brain performance. If you follow these five steps, you are going to dramatically boost your brain performance without adrenal stimulation. This is what I did, and this is something you can do. I can guarantee that if you try this, you will notice a definitive effect on your cognitive performance.
Magnesium Breakthrough is one of the best-selling products that is aimed to improve sleep, reduce stress, cortisol and improve brain health.
I used to take all different kinds of magnesiums. Man, I had a whole counter of it and eventually, I found the seven best ones that you could possibly take. We’ve put them all in a capsule. It was really hard to do, as they had different flow rates and sizes. But we’ve put them all in one and it turned out to be one of the biggest boons ever.
What makes this product unique, is that it’s got seven different magnesiums. It doesn’t just reverse deficiency, but it transforms performance in key areas. Plus, it’s 100% mercury-free. You might have heard about what happened to Tony Robbins. He’s gone literally through hell because of mercury poisoning.
A lot of magnesium products have frightening levels of mercury in it. You do not want that in your body. But the bottom line is you need magnesium to help you have less stress, improve, sleep, weight loss and recovery.
My favourite formulation: KApex is a lipase and proteolytic enzyme combination that allows stimulating, digesting and absorbing proteins as well as fats. It allows us to bump up fat consumption considerably, which has a beautiful response on the brain as well.
P3-OM is the Navy seals of probiotics. It has a patented proteolytic strain. You might have heard about both kApex and P3-OM on Dave Asprey’s podcast.
Here is a video that demonstrates the power of probiotics.
By the time, you get 30, 40 years old, you are probably not producing enough hydrochloric acid. Of course, you want to stay very hydrated, so HCL Breakthrough is a great way to help with that.
HCL Breakthrough is an all-natural source of betaine hydrochloric acid that increases stomach acid and hydrochloric acid to support digestion and detoxification.
I use Primergen liquid vitamins and minerals. That means to get about 98% absorption levels. It's really great to get all those trace minerals that get absorbed into the brain. So you hydrate your brain and you are able to make the electrical signals for cell to cell communication.
CogniBiotics is a cognitive enhancing probiotic strain. Our group of PhDs cooperated with Chinese medicine practitioners to create this product.
Charles Poliquin is the first guy to make the connection between Chinese medicine and neurochemical dominance. He would rate his athletes to see what neurochemical dominance they had and then build training programs around it.
We combined probiotics that manufacture the neurotransmitters inside your gut, in case you’re lacking those, with the specific groups of herbs to make a unique formula that we call CogniBiotics - an absolute breakthrough.
So to sum up, these are some of the most stressful times that we've ever lived in the world. What I did to come back from the brink was: I went to neurofeedback, I got my team to look at me. I got my naturopathic doctor. I did my genetics testing. We did a gut map. We realised what probiotics were missing. I de-stressed, I went off caffeine for a little bit. I optimised my brain at four years of Zen. I had all these components, then took the digestive enzymes, I got my fats back up and I put the minerals back in.
I went right up to five grams of magnesium a day, and I stayed there for a period of about six months in order to get optimal levels again. Today, I use between 1 1/2 to 2 grams per day, depending on how stressful my day is, how much I worked out and how tired I am.
I got my nutritional testing. I added some B vitamins in as a well. I had to let go of a relationship and I had to let go of a business.
The bottom line is, is I did have to change my lifestyle along with it, but here's the good news: Not only was I able to make a full recovery, but I was able to take my brain to a new level of cognitive function, a new level of happiness and performance. This was objectively confirmed by my second time at 40 Years of Zen. The neuroscientists that looked at my brain noted remarkable improvements. I was also able to take my meditation to a level that I wasn't able to achieve before.
I've made the changes in my lifestyle, but more importantly, I was able to share this message with a lot of people that feel the same. And since that time, which is now, it seems like a million years ago, but it wasn't that long ago, my life has changed dramatically. I've got great relationships in my life. I got a new found sense of health and vitality.
What I discovered during that stressful stage allowed me to to help a lot of people. I founded Bioptimizers because we believe in alleviating human suffering and activating what we call Biologically Optimized Health.
Sometimes we might know everything, have all the background but still don’t apply it to ourselves. So the first thing we need to do is to heal ourselves, take your own advice first. By doing so, you’ll likely to inspire more people, not by what you say, but by who you become.
Here’s the thing: we all make mistakes, especially when we are pushing on the edge. But knowing the hacks and knowing the tricks, knowing the techniques to bring yourself back will allow you to live long and allow you to live strong.
Another way to boost brain performance is to reduce stress and improve sleep quality.
Vitamin D and cholesterol are metabolically linked because cholesterol is a key precursor for the skin's synthesis of vitamin D3 when exposed to sunlight.
Cholesterol is a waxy substance found in all cells, essential for producing hormones, vitamin D, and bile acids that aid digestion. While high LDL (bad) cholesterol contributes to plaque buildup in arteries, cholesterol is necessary for many vital functions.
Magnesium may also be the key to unlocking deep, restorative sleep.
Insomnia, restlessness or night craps getting in the way of your sleep? These are signs of a magnesium deficiency.
Chronic stress, busy schedules, and excessive screen time before bed, millions of Australians struggle to get quality shut-eye. However, research continues to support the idea of a simple solution: getting enough of the essential mineral magnesium.
