Biohacking and self-development

2022-01-21 22:30:44 Where to start when deciding to become a biohacker?

To start with, it would be nice to get an overall picture of your body condition, optimize your health and delay the aging process as much as possible.

Here are critical indicators to give maximum information about the state of your body at minimum cost:

Body Mass Index.
The level of sex hormones.
Cortisol levels.
Vitamin D levels.
Vitamin B12.
Pherritin.
Cholesterol profile.
TTH (thyrotropic hormone).

If any indicators deviate greatly from the reference values, you need to deepen the tests showing abnormalities in the work of a particular organ, rather than taking huge diagnostic panels at once, spending lots of money. Open / Comment

2022-01-20 19:41:07 Exercise creativity in routine things

What do you tend to answer to questions like "what's up?", "what's new?". Surely the answers are almost indistinguishable from each other. Yet even here you can break away from the templates and give non-trivial responses. It's not that easy, mind you!

Get rid of stereotypes, memorize jokes, come up with new quips and amusing stories on your own - and be sure to shine them in the conversation.

Why is it beneficial?
If you approach everything spoken creatively, from multiple angles, you stimulate memory and the speech center in the brain – the left temporal area of the Wernicke's and Broca's areas. Open / Comment

2022-01-19 22:41:32 How is stress affecting our brains?

As you have already guessed, the effect is negative — the areas responsible for memory and attention shrink. Cortisol, the stress hormone, plays a part in these processes.

Cortisol is formed in the adrenal glands and protects the body from stress: it regulates blood pressure and engages in metabolic processes by juggling fats, proteins and carbohydrates. It even serves as an "internal alarm clock", helping people wake up in the morning.

Thus, people exposed to frequent stress, worry and poor memories have a "reduced" amount of brain.

That's why it's crucial to notice your body's signals in time and avoid letting the course of stressful states run free. Open / Comment

2022-01-18 21:07:41 Highly restrictive diets kill the metabolism

Next time, in the pursuit of a slim figure, keep this fact in mind. Following restrictive diets, especially if one is exercising, forces the body to conserve energy to perform basic daily activities.

That can lead to unpleasant consequences, as the body clings to those calories, making it harder to lose pounds. Still, it's not just about the calories.

Restricted eating is also an imbalanced diet.

Lack of vitamins and minerals, engaged in hundreds of biochemical processes in the body, also disturbs these processes, disrupts hormonal regulation, leads to chronic inflammation and slows down metabolism. Open / Comment

2022-01-17 16:16:01 ​​The cingulate gyrus and cognitive flexibility

The cingulate gyrus is the cortical part of the limbic system running along the lateral walls of the sulcus separating the two hemispheres of the brain.

Why is it important? The cingulate gyrus determines whether or not we will take action, and abnormalities in it cause intrusive thoughts, indecision, and an inability to find a solution.

It is the part of the brain that allows you to switch your attention from one object to another, to switch between thoughts, to see different solutions, and it is also believed to be responsible for a sense of security. In my opinion, the function of this area of the brain can best be expressed by the term "cognitive flexibility”.

Cognitive flexibility defines a person's ability to go where everyone else is, to adapt to change, and to successfully solve new problems.

In addition to shifting attention, this area of the brain is also responsible for the ability to cooperate. The cingulate system is involved in the process of thinking "looking into the future", for example, in planning and goal setting. With this part of the brain working normally, it is easier for us to plan and set reasonable goals. Open / Comment

2022-01-15 23:07:28 Why sweets are the real drug
And sucrose or sweeteners cause dopamine system disorders.

Sweets stimulate a strong release of dopamine. Prolonged stimulation leads to a sugar addiction and results in an even stronger addiction to sugar.

Sweeteners and sugar activate the brain's reward system. Similarly, sugar substitutes activate the orbitofrontal cortex, the amygdala, and the dopamine system.

Green and Murphy of San Diego State University found that prolonged consumption of diet drinks leads to disruption of several dopamine systems. For instance, the more and more regularly a person consumes Diet Coke, the weaker the activity of the caudate nucleus. Eventually this leads to the formation of an "addicted" or addictive brain and leads to burnout and loss of enjoyment of life. Open / Comment

2022-01-14 23:27:41 Pets and immunity

Pets have a positive effect on our immune system. It is critical to have pets in early childhood, ideally before the age of one year, but it is possible to have them positively before the age of five as well. Their presence noticeably reduces the risks of allergic and autoimmune diseases.

A cat, a dog, living in the countryside derisk allergies, eczema, bronchial asthma, etc. Still in adolescence, when the immune system is already formed, the effect can be just the opposite. Open / Comment

2022-01-13 23:11:32 The latest fear of the famous theoretical physicist and science popularizer Stephen Hawking, which he mentioned in his last posthumous book "Brief Answers to the Big Questions”:

1) In the future, wealthy people will be able to modify their own DNA and their children's genome to improve memory, mental abilities, resist disease, and increase longevity. During this century, people will discover a way to modify both mental abilities and instincts, such as aggression.

2) When superhumans emerge, there will be significant political problems for "unimproved humans" who cannot compete with them. Presumably, they will either become extinct or lose all significance. In their place will be a race of self-programmable humans who will continually improve.

Creepy or inspiring? Open / Comment

2022-01-12 22:46:21 Sleep Mode

Our body is able to adapt to external conditions, in particular it can tolerate a constantly changing sleep schedule, but this lifestyle increases the level of stress and takes longer to recover vital elements.

Sleep deprivation affects the immune system and makes the body more vulnerable to illness; cognitive functions deteriorate: thinking, attention and memory; the body does not look good; production of the hunger hormone is stimulated; and mood and motivation also drop.

Rule

Go to sleep and wake up at the same time by choosing a certain method of sleep in advance: be it classic or polyphasic. However, when choosing the multiphase method, try to act softly and gently. And be sure to record all the changes that occur, since scientists still do not have a single objective opinion about its benefits or harms. Open / Comment

2022-01-11 23:49:22 Develop creativity: generate mental distance

It has long been known that detachment from the task helps to overcome the creative block and achieve insight. Still in addition to temporal distance, you can also use "spatial" distance.
Subjects in a recent interesting study were able to solve twice as many problems when they were asked to think of the problem as something far away, rather than close.

Try to consider your problem as something disconnected from you and distant from your location. As to the study, this will help you understand the problem more deeply and become more creative in solving it. Open / Comment