Knowledge from biohacking experts.
In the last article, I explained what flow is and why it can be such a positive state. In this second part, I will summarise the best practical techniques to promote it, drawn from the works of psychology theory and research. These include a myriad of ways in which to structure the external environment as well as one’s inner world.
Our modern lifestyles are slowly killing us: by overeating and being excessively sedentary, we might have brought upon ourselves an epidemic in metabolic diseases. Our body is not optimized for these modern ways of life and we can’t change that overnight, nor even in the course of a few generations. Evolution is slow.
Throughout evolution, the survival of humans may have greatly depended on the constraints of needing to acquire food. Food deprivation was most likely one of the biggest energetic and evolutionary challenges to our bodies - it is likely that many of our ancestors could only acquire food during daytime, having to fast for long hours; it is also likely that long periods of food scarcity were common. So, those who were able to endure in these conditions ended up being favoured by evolution.
The fact that our bodies store fat as a backup long-term, high-energy source, and that we can survive relying solely on it for a fair amount of time, is an indication of how human evolution prepared us (and maybe even optimized us) to go through periods of fasting.
Vanilla & Berry Coconut Chia Pudding
Serves 2
Ingredients
Optional Add Ins: raw honey, pure maple syrup or liquid stevia to taste, other fruits, lemon or orange zest and juice, chopped pure organic dark chocolate, nuts or seeds or nut butter mixed through.
The ketogenic diet is a low-carbohydrate, high-fat, adequate protein diet. This dietary pattern changes the way our body produces energy – its basic principle is to get your body into a metabolic state known as ketosis where carbohydrate stores are depleted and fat becomes the main energy source. The name ketosis comes from the molecules that the liver starts to produce from fat to be used as fuel - ketone bodies or ketones.
Ketone-fuelling has become a lifestyle approach of choice because it allows fast weight loss with no harm to physical or mental performance and resistance. In fact, an effective transition to ketosis may actually improve these outcomes.
On a regular or high-carbohydrate diet, our body is in a state optimized for the use of dietary carbohydrates. But in a continuous state of carbohydrate restriction, the body puts its plan B in motion, switching gears such as to become more efficient at using fat as the main energy source. Ketosis boosts the body's capacity to use fats as fuel.
More than forty years ago Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi posed a simple question: “How does it feel to master something?” To figure this out, he interviewed hundreds of people who had demonstrated excellence in their chosen field. They included rock climbers, painters, chess players, basketball players, athletes and surgeons.
The short answer to his question was: joy.
“A strong relaxation and calmness comes over me. I have no worries of failure. What a powerful and warm feeling it is! I want to expand, to hug the world. I feel enormous power to effect something of grace and beauty.” - professional dancer describing a sense of control experienced while dancing.
Prep time: 20mins
Cook time: 35mins
Yield: One loaf
Ingredients:
Ingredients
Serves 2
Optional Extras: 1 Tbsp of grass-fed gelatin (bloomed), for the hot chocolate version only.
Modern lifestyles, particularly in the “western world”, are clearly having an impact on human health. Chronic stress and anxiety are recurrent and have a highly deleterious effect, leading to the development of chronic diseases and to an earlier onset of many age-related conditions.
Our feeding habits have also changed rather significantly. Throughout evolution, humans were designed for feeding patterns that highly differ from those currently observed. Modern western diets rely heavily on high-energy, low-nutrient processed food, for which we are not optimised. These choices are not innocuous - nutrition is a fundamental element in our health and in our resistance to disease.
The steady rise in chronic conditions observed in the last decades is most likely a consequence of these lifestyle options. Today’s most prevalent chronic diseases have been found to share a common ground that can be attributed to modern environments and behaviours.
Metabolic disorders such as diabetes, metabolic syndrome or obesity, are a sign of our times. They are an outstanding consequence of our modern feeding behaviours, and their incidence has been steadily rising in the last few decades. Obesity can actually be considered a global epidemic - the World Health Organization estimates that worldwide, at least one billion adults are overweight and 300 million are obese, and the prevalence of obesity is also rapidly increasing in children.
These metabolic disorders are more than meets the eye. They have insidious consequences that in the long run can be significantly damaging. In fact, the rise in human obesity is closely linked to the increase in other chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, neurodegeneration, and certain cancers.
Of all the colours in the light spectrum, blue light is one of the most damaging simply because we overdose on it with all of our technology…all day and often much of the night for many of us.
You have heard mespeak on this before. How we need to block the blue light at night to allow melatonin levels to rise. My concern is that we are not waking up to this fact fast enough. Working in an intensive care unit is as bright as bright can be. We often do not have the lights dimmed down too much at night. I worry for our poor patients….who get sleep deprived and starved of natural sunlight. If I had the money and power (dreams are free!) I would make hospitals one level only with retractable roofs. Then, every day, when it is not raining, I would open those roofs for at least 15 minutes to give patients and staff access to natural normal sunlight. And it might sound crazy, but I think they would heal better, faster and be FAR better off emotionally.
The development of the human cerebral cortex has been linked with multigenerational consumption of oily fish containing essential fatty acids, in particular, DHA and EPA. A decline in proportionate consumption over the last century correlates with the marked rise in lifestyle-diseases, and perhaps even a dumbing-down of the population. Without essential fatty acids (DHA and EPA), humans fall prey to a host of debilitating and lethal chronic diseases, including the big C.
Our focus today is on two long chain Omega-3 essential fatty acids known as EPA and DHA. They are essential because our bodies can’t manufacture them so we must obtain them exogenously, i.e. in our food (1). And when we don’t get them, we're in a whole lot of trouble.
