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"That which does not kill us
makes us stronger." - Friedrich Nietzsche.

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It's sad that most people never truly
understand how amazing their bodies are

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and what they're capable of.

I've trained with somebody who's held
their breath for 22 minutes underwater.

I've also trained with somebody who's
climbed Mount Everest in shorts and shoes.

These are incredible things.
You can't achieve those things

without knowing
what you're truly made out of.

Ever since my childhood I've been
interested in how humans have managed

to adapt to different kinds of stressors.

Cold, heat, starvation, anything
that is involved in surviving in nature.

We've managed to spread
across the entire globe,

we can live in the desert,
we can live in the Arctic,

we can live in the rainforest.
That's been one of the biggest reasons

to our success as a species so far.

I started biohacking from a very early age

because I was born with
an inherited migraine.

It was that pain that I tried
to hack with different interventions:

sleep, diet, medications.

Biohacking is looking at the world and
your body as a complex set of systems,

understanding how those systems work
and making small iterations and changes

to influence them to be optimal
and perform at a higher level.

If you know that you have poor sleep

and that is causing you to feel
stressed and anxious,

you are taking interventions
in order to improve your sleep

so that you can feel better.
You'll take some set of data,

you'll do an intervention and then you
see if you were able to change the data.

I started biohacking because I had to
take my well-being into my own hands.

It's about learning to understand yourself
better, a process that never ends.

Discovering and testing
different things on yourself

and figuring out
how to live a better life.

My father dies at the age of 65.
That's when it clicked for me

to maybe somehow work on
my life extension.

That's why I started thinking,
maybe I would like to live to 120.

You're not only seeking help
when you get sick.

You actually create your resilience
to different kinds of challenges

that we are facing as humanity
but also in your personal life.

Biohacking can be many things.
- All the available tools

that we can use, from nature,
science, technology,

from all kinds of possible ways
that we can enhance

our self-consciousness, in essence.

Because the more conscious
we become about who we are,

the inner state and all the biochemical
and physiological processes,

the more we can affect the system
by affecting the environment.

Biohackers have existed for
thousands of years. Ancient yogis,

Buddhist meditators or shamans who were
really interested in the human condition,

what the boundaries are and how to push
that with diet, nutrition and movement.

Technically everybody's a biohacker,
performing biohacks on a daily basis

whether they know it or not. Drinking
coffee in the morning is biohacking.

Caffeine to stimulate you, to wake you
up and get you in this more active state,

be alert and show focus. But also if you
go to the gym and have a protein shake

to help repair and grow muscular tissue.

If you've ever taken fish oil
to improve your fatty acid balance,

if you've ever gone out to the sun
to get some vitamin D,

if you've taken a sauna
for just relaxation,

then you've done biohacking, changed
the physiological state of your body

to achieve a particular goal.
- Individually it is a way of living,

collectively it is
the preventive healthcare system.

In my doctor's office I saw a lot of
chronically stressed burned-out patients.

They were running around from doctor
to doctor without getting any help

and they eventually ended up to
my appointment. I found out that

the chronic stress was the underlying
root cause for multiple health problems.

77% of people experience stress
that affects their physical health

48% of people have trouble
sleeping because of stress

73% of people have stress
that impacts their mental health.

Stress is the No 1 health concern
of high school students

I've been a serial technology
entrepreneur all my life.

I thought I was living at my peak
and putting everything into what I do,

but at the end, when I turned 30
I got a stress-related illness.

I got an ulcer,
I got some issues.

The stress begins already from the school.

You have to have great numbers,
better grades, you have to perform.

Hobbies are not really hobbies any more,
they almost become like a job,

more and more demanding.
Even younger people get stressed

and burnouts are actually real
even for 20-year-olds.

The roots of the stress are in
the culture. - Just go, go, go, go.

Many of us get caught in that trap where
we want to out-hustle our outperform.

We have to be productive all the time,
take care of your family,

work out, run your business,
take care of your job.

It's about doing things
too much and too vigorously.

Short-term acute stress
can be good for psychology.

Let's say you're working.

Having that mild stress can make you
more productive and focused on your work.

When there is too much short-term stress,
it can actually become long-term stress.

It can become chronic stress.
That is when people don't notice

that they are stressed.

Chronic stress
is like a disease or a plague.

That is the number one reason
for absenteeism from work,

for burnouts and even
leading to many chronic diseases.

If you're not able to
calm down your body and mind,

you are also more self-centered.

People who are more stressed
have more rumination.

Stress becomes their way of life.

When you are in that mindset that you
don't even notice the feeling of stress,

you're not any more
mindfully managing your stress.

People are stressed and they
don't know how to down-regulate,

how to shift down into this
kind of parasympathetic state.

Nervous system.

The autonomous nervous system
can be divided into two parts:

the parasympathetic nervous system
and the sympathetic nervous system.

The parasympathetic nervous system
is the so-called "rest and digest".

Your heart rate lowers, your ability
to get oxygen in lowers as well

and you're ready to digest food and relax.

The sympathetic nervous system's
activated state

can be also described
as the fight or flight.

Your heart rate goes up,
your ability to take oxygen increases,

your ability to get signals from the
environment through your eyes increases.

You're basically running your system
in an overclocked state.

It keeps us awake, alive,
in survival mode in many ways.

It's just so draining and your
nervous system will just eventually

be such a wear and tear on you.
- It reduces your ability to digest food.

People who are chronically stressed
often have got issues

because they are
not spending enough time

in the parasympathetic nervous
system's activated state.

Although your
physiological organism is not

under any considerable
real serious source of threat,

your nervous system
is still perceiving the situations

as potential problems and threats.

Amygdala.

The amygdala is one of
the oldest parts of our brain.

It's called the fear center for a reason.
It controls the physiological responses

to stress, fear and dangers.

For example, if you see a snake,
that will activate the amygdala,

which will activate your
fight and flight nervous system

and prepare you for rapid action.
- The amygdala is essential for survival

because it helps us react to dangers
and physical threats much faster.

It helps to mobilize all the resources,
gives you the alertness and energy

to escape this harm
and get back into safety.

In the modern world, the amygdala
can many times be misalarmed.

Social media, news,
different fears going on.

Politicians, government, things like that.

If there is a phone alarm,
that can also activate your amygdala

and make you more stressed.
Or traffic noise.

The more the amygdala gets activated,
the more stress responses you accumulate.

If it's too much, too excessive times
the amygdala gets activated,

then the stress can become chronic. - It's
important to train our nervous system

to be in and out of this arousal state.

It's not to not feel the stress,
it's how to unstress

when you feel stressed
for a longer period of time.

Look at a dog. If you hear a knock
on the door, the dog wakes up.

It's aggressive, fight or flight,
wants to know who's there.

A second later, once it understands
there's no danger, it goes back to sleep.

Other creatures are much more
adept at switching states

much quicker than us. They can switch
everything off, be back at resting,

in that "rest and digest".
Humans, we're not so good at that.

Humans of the past faced
primarily stressors of survival.

Nowadays our stress is slightly different,
associated with sleep deprivation,

working too much, social media
and environmental pollution.

However, not all stress is bad.

In fact we need some stressors
to stay optimal and healthy.

For example, exercise and working out
are fundamentally stressful to the body.

We're breaking down muscle tissue
and releasing stress hormones.

But after we've recovered from it,
we actually get stronger.

On the other hand, a sedentary
lifestyle makes us more fragile

and increases the risk of many diseases.

So how can we leverage
stress to our advantage

and collaborate with it to become stronger
and healthier versions of ourselves?

Stages of stress.

Stress can be divided into
three different stages.

First there is the stressor,
which can be emotional,

physical or even mental.

It's very useful to analyze
and become aware

of what is actually causing me the stress.

Many people don't even know that. They
are in a high stress state all the time

and they think for example
that they are working too much.

But in reality there is some sort of
background noise in the workplace

that is causing their nervous system
to be hyperalarmed all the time.

It can even be a person.
It can be your working poster.

It can be the air quality in the workplace
or the travel to the work.

There are so many different stressors.
The next stage is distress.

We have physiological response,
emotional response

and it can also affect social functioning.

This is where people normally become aware
that something is not in balance.

In this stage, the most important thing
is the stress management.

The final stage is the burnout.
The stress has become so prominent

that it causes very-very clear symptoms

which are deteriorating
your immunity, your mood.

You become anxious or depressed.

This final stage of stress
is the hardest to manage.

Anyone who feels stressed out or burned
out should stop and assess the situation.

What are the sources of stress,
how are they affecting you

and if you can somehow transform them.
- What is stressing you out?

What causes your mind and body
to be hyperalarmed or in a bad mood

or just in a fight or flight state?
If you can remove that, remove that.

If it's a loud noise in your office,
wear noise-canceling headphones.

If it's about air quality, ventilate the
room more or get some room plants.

If it's bad ergonomy,
you need to improve the ergonomy.

If the stressor keeps
appearing in your life

then the stress will always be there. - If
you have sleep issues, you cannot rest.

Your fight or flight nervous system
is all the time active.

And then come the problems:
heart palpitations,

anxiety, depression, cardiovascular
issues, higher blood pressure and so on.

All these signs are
kind of like an alarm for people:

"Hey! Stop! Take it easy."

If your body says
"I'm stressed, take a break",

then we should have
the courage to take that break.

Stress does have a direct impact
on our physical health and bodies,

however a lot of stressors in our
environment aren't physical.

More often than not,
they're mental and imagined.

This kind of psychological stress can be
as harmful as physical stress itself.

Imagined or real?

The brain cannot really tell
if you are imagining something

or if it is happening in real life.

It actually doesn't matter
in what situation you're in,

whether you are in an ice bath,
whether you are playing sports,

whether you are writing a Facebook message
and someone didn't like it

or has a bad comment. Stress is manifested
in the body in exactly the same way.

Imagining a threat in your head
lights up the same regions in the brain

as experiencing it in real time does.
For example,

I'm sure you've seen a horror
movie. It increases your heart rate,

you get anxious, it releases stress
hormones and it feels real, but it's not.

At the same time your body perceives as
if it is real and treats it as a threat.

And this all actually boils down
to the cellular level.

Your cells are not responding
directly to the environment,

but they respond to the different
neurochemicals and biomedical messengers

that you are releasing
into your bloodstream.

If you get stressed and release
thing like cortisol and adrenalin,

your cells will react to that environment.

Stress management.

When you learn how to control your mind
and your emotional responses

and your nervous system's reactiveness,

you naturally build
more resilience to stress.

Stress management is a learnable skill.
There's a split second in every moment

to decide how you react.
If you practice something

like meditation or breathing techniques,
take a deep breath before every action,

it enables you a few seconds
to change the way how you respond,

to be less reactive.

The frustration can be
the actual thing that damages you,

not the thing that somebody
cut you in the traffic or a queue.

It's your emotional response. Emotion
does not always have to lead to behaviour.

Let's say something is frustrating you
or making you angry.

Feel that emotion and realize
that this is making me upset

and just let it go. - Better stress
management is better response.

It's all about how you respond to the
e-mails and demands of other people

and especially demands
that you set for yourself.

"It is not stress that kills us,
it is our reaction to it." - Hans Selye.

Adapt & survive.

Every adaptation in the body
is a result of necessity.

If you don't use it, you lose it.
For example, let's take muscle.

If you were to be hospitalized
and you aren't able to move your muscles

or exercise, then eventually
those muscles will begin to deteriorate.

One of the funniest ideas I've picked
from Arthur Haines and Daniel Vitalis

who are these nature-based philosophers,
they coined the term

"homo fragilis",
the wise, but fragile human being.

I remember, even in my school books
we had this future human.

We'll be very thin,
we don't need muscle mass,

we just need a lot of hair in our face
to filter the bad quality air we have.

A very dystopian picture
of this almost alien-like being

that we are sort of becoming.
If you look at a human being

from let's say the paleolithic era,
it had a much stronger bone structure,

much more muscle mass,
more nutrient intake.

Physiologically we've been
actually domesticating ourselves.

And that's kind of the core idea:

if we really want to build the resilience
and stress buffers and all of these,

we need to really mimic
many of the aspects of our lifestyles

that have been evolving
for a very long time.

Because our modern environment is quite
different from our ancestral environment,

we don't really experience the same
stressors as we did in the past.

Most people don't fast, they don't
experience the cold nor the heat.

That's why we may lose some of our
ability to tolerate those stressors.

The body's constantly trying
to find this state of efficiency.

That's why it's so important
to keep those pathways open,

that's why we do those kinds of positive
stress like expose ourselves to the cold,

like fasting, sauna, a physical workout,
lifting weights, things like that.

If we don't keep those pathways open,

the body doesn't have a use for those
and it diverts the energy elsewhere.

The ability to adapt
is essential for survival

because the environment is always
going to be challenging us in some way

and exposing us to various stressors.

If we think about decades back,
we had very different means for survival

or skills that we needed.
We actually needed to survive

with hunting food
and learning to build a shelter.

In today's society we don't have to
worry about survival that much.

We have food everywhere, we have shelter

and all of these hedonistic pleasures
that we can go after.

It's more about the question of staying
healthy and happy during our lifespan.

Dopamine.

Our modern environment is quite different
from our ancestral environment,

but at the same time our bodies are still
the same bodies we had in the past.

We have this evolutionary jet lag.

We have these primal bodies,
but we live in a modern world.

This can cause some incoherence.

It's so convenient to just
drive through and order the burger.

It's so easy to scoop a few candies
in the bag, weigh it off and out you go.

There's fast food all around us.
We might feel sad

or we might want some comfort food,
reach for the sugar, reach for candies.

These might make us feel good,
feel happy, alert or alive,

hyperactive for a little bit of time,
but there's always the crash.

And then what are you gonna do?
Go back and find the same thing again.

You want to chase the dragon
of that high, that emotional feeling.

The reason why we like
sugary things, chocolate and sex

is that it gives us a feeling of reward
and releases this dopamine.

That's actually why we have
so many sick people today.

They find bad behavioral patterns
and are trapped in those vicious cycles.

The dopamine, the chocolate,
the smartphone, those are not the issues.

The issue is our inability
to control our behaviour.

It's almost like the set of skills
that we need in today's society

is reverse that of those
that we needed decades ago

when we actually had to have
the dopamine to go after these things.

Now we have to use more of these
sort of cognitive inhibition skills

that every time we see a food queue
or social media announcement

that we won't be rushing to them.
Because this will create a stress loop.

Every time we get something
we feel like we need to respond to that.

What kind of cues are actually leading
to the habits, for you to get the reward?

Becoming aware. Let's say you see
a friend and you immediately think,

okay, let's grab a beer
or something like that.

Or you go into a certain place
which has a certain smell,

like the smell of a cookie
or something like that.

And you immediately... You don't
even think. Let's take the cookie.

When you learn to see
and be mindful about these different cues,

you are actually being able
to change these, if you would like.

I like actually biohacking in general,

because it's not like ideology,
religion or philosophy.

It's like a toolbox
and there's this community of biohackers,

they just bring all the tools
in this one box

and you can take whatever
tool you want out of this box.

You have this friend's
pizza party, beer party.

You don't kind of restrict yourself
because you know you have tools available.

You eat this pizza and drink this beer,
which is of course no good for you,

but because of friends and
socializing you still do that.

So, what I do in these cases,
family gatherings and things like that,

I know that Mondays are always
the empty days for me.

And I know that
I can recover by doing this.

Also adding to the fasting,
Wim Hof breathing technique

that optimizes your immunity, your
healing processes that already happen.

Combining those two things is so powerful
that you really can allow yourself

to indulge into these
unhealthy foods from time to time.

I consider lifestyle as a kind of system.
I apply that system 90% of the time.

10% of the time I just go with the flow.

If I go out with friends
and they have beers

I join them and I drink a beer.
I drink a glass of wine, maybe two.

If you apply the rule of 80-20 or 90-10,
then you can enjoy all the moments in life

and go back the next day,
applying your system again

so that you still stay healthy
and can enjoy life.

Eating habits.

We have been taught that
we should eat multiple times per day

to keep the metabolism up, so to speak.

Breakfast, AM snack, lunch.

PM snack, dinner, bedtime snack.

But what it actually does is spiking
the blood glucose and also the insulin

multiple times per day.
You can think it like this:

the more often you spike
the blood glucose and the insulin,

your body eventually
becomes resistant to it.

The same thing also happens when you have
multiple stressors throughout the day.

You secrete cortisol and the receptors
actually receiving the hormones,

they become resistant.
They are like: "Uh, enough of this."

And then you need to
secrete even more and more

and this is kind of a snowball effect
which eventually can lead to diabetes

and also chronic stress.
- Before someone develops diabetes,

they usually live years with prediabetes.
Prediabetes is a serious health condition

where blood sugar levels are higher
than normal, but not high enough yet

to be diagnosed as type II diabetes.
It's more common than you would think.

For example, more than
1 in 3 Americans have prediabetes.

Different foods affect
blood sugar levels differently.

For example, simple sugars and carbs will
spike your blood sugar levels much more

than proteins and fat. You can
check each food's glycemic index

which tells you how the food
impacts blood sugar levels.

The higher the number,
the bigger the impact.

Generally it's a good idea
to aim for lower glycemic index foods.

Instead of always taking the banana,
go with less sugary like the green kiwi.

That's a better option.

Instead of eating a huge
amount of fruit, go with berries.

Changing your eating habits
is as crucial as changing the actual food.

Let's say you have a hamburger and a Coke.

It takes you five minutes,
a thousand calories, boom!

You don't even realize you have some
so-called "food" in your system.

When you're stressed out,
your body is more prone

to storing the calories
that you eat as body fat,

because the stressed out response
is going to shut down digestion.

So the longer time
you actually spend with the food,

the better the digestion also works.
Take at least 20 minutes for the eating

and do not use laptop or watch TV
and stimulate yourself,

but concentrate on eating.
Be mindful about eating.

Time restricted eating.

If you talk about the nutrition
and the diets in the whole world,

there is only one thing
that is common in all continents,

every religion, every population.

It's fasting.
Exactly this part where you don't eat.

The first thing people think about
when they hear "fasting" is starvation.

Truth of the matter is that
it's very hard for humans to starve

if they just skip breakfast
because we carry thousands of calories

in our adipose tissue all the time with us

and in order to reach the starvation
state we would have to fast for days,

even weeks. - Back in the old days
the hunter-gatherers running around

and maybe they're successful,
maybe they find the kill, find the meat,

but what happens in between,
if they're unsuccessful?

Humans are actually able to survive
without food for long periods of time.

Fasting has helped humans to survive
before we had access to

supermarkets and refrigerators.
In fact, during evolution,

individuals whose brains and bodies
functioned well in a fasted state

were successful in acquiring food,
enabling their survival and reproduction.

If you're not used to any form of
intermittent fasting, you will experience

higher levels of hunger and discomfort
when you do skip a meal.

It's not necessarily caused by
the fasting or the skipping of the meal.

It's just caused by your body's inability
to tolerate this type of a stressor.

If you were to practice fasting
on a regular basis,

you would build up your body's ability
to tolerate this kind of stress response.

You will also become
more robust and stronger

against various
nutrition-related stressors.

During the fasting time
you actually heal your body.

You actually increase your potential,
you get stronger,

you get mind focus. There are
lots of benefits that you get

just by fasting for let's say
12 hours, 16 hours, 20 hours.

Maybe even 5-7 days. - Fasting is another
example of these hormetic stressors

that in moderation and small amounts will
elicit a positive response in the body.

In addition to the health benefits,
intermittent fasting is also practical

in this modern society where
we're surrounded by food all the time.

It's especially useful when traveling,
when you don't have access to quality food

you can just skip
a few meals and say to yourself

that you are doing some fasting
and getting some health benefits from it.

There are many types of fasting,
but they all follow the same principle

which entails restricting
the eating window.

The easiest way to start is delaying
breakfast or having an early dinner.

Micronutrients.

One of the key nutrients your body uses
to deal with stress is magnesium.

Magnesium is important for regulating
the autonomous nervous system

and relaxation as well. But the problem is
that stress depletes magnesium

by activating the sympathetic
nervous system and on top of that,

we don't get that much magnesium
from our food either

because of soil depletion, erosion,
food processing and eating a poor diet.

The amount of micronutrients
in the foods have been downward trending

for the past 50 years and actually
even accelerating in the past 15 years.

Most people are needing extra magnesium.

They're not necessarily highly deficient,
but they're functionally deficient

which means that they're not getting
the optimal amount for their bodies.

This is not something that you can just
scan yourself and feel you lack it or not.

You have to do the lab tests.

The first step is to go with eating
whole foods, not processed foods.

Not foods with a long label
of different ingredients.

Go with foods that are nutrient dense.

That is the best way to fix any
deficiencies in micronutrients.

Liver is like a natural multivitamin.

It contains most of the vitamins
and minerals your body needs.

Another good example is the egg yolk.

Gut health.

What we did to our environment
we pretty much did to our intestines.

I think one of the biggest problems
for our gut health

has been all the processed food.
We often think about those just as like,

well, there is probably a bit
too much sugar or carbohydrates.

But we don't think at the level of, are
you feeding the bad bacteria in your gut

or are you basically...
If I'd have a soil,

and I'm a farmer, I love that stuff,
like hands-on, thinking about

how do I enrich this soil so that I can
plant seeds there that are strong

and have vigor and all that.
If you think about your gut as this soil,

and you're basically throwing just like
shitty pesticides and all that in there.

You're pretty much getting
very weak plants.

So that's kind of the metaphor:

we haven't thought about many
semi-unhealthy foods

at the level of, how does this sweetener
for example affect gut bacteria?

Does it feed the good stuff
or does it feed the bad stuff?

And I remember
one of the classic studies was

this one professor who
fed his son just a McDonalds diet

and he basically cut out 40%
of the bacterial diversity from his gut.

That just gives you
the idea to keep in mind

that when we go a bit deeper from
the macronutrients, protein and carbs

into a world of bacteria,
then you need to start thinking about

what else is in the food
that's affecting the soil.

If we feed that soil with more life, that
life expresses itself with more complexity

and that complexity means more
neuroconnections, more new ideas.

I think it's fascinating that we are
going in the right direction at least.

We're not simplifying it
into specific ingredients

that are anti-inflammatory for example
and supporting high performance.

We are basically looking at diversity
and how that supports resilience

and your health and connectivity
to the environment around you.

There are many ways that you can be more
connected with your local food supply.

For example, go to the farmer's market
and buy produce that grows in your region.

Or go pick some mushrooms
and berries in the forest.

Growing your own herbs and plants
at home is also a pretty good alternative.

Environmental stress.

Most people today are living
in city environments.

We basically lost something that
can be considered in medical terms

as homeostasis:
that you are in a healthy balance

with different aspects and systems
in your environment.

In a modern environment,
people lose that balance.

They lose connection to themselves
and to the very immediate environment.

They lose connection to their true nature
as what it means to be for example human.

This is what causes many of the
imbalances that lead to chronic disease.

Often when people go camping,
they're like astronauts going to space.

They have all this gear.
Backpacks full of things,

camping gear, all kinds of survival gear.

As if they had lost
a connection to their true selves,

that they actually are a part of nature.

We are so disconnected,
so alienated from our true nature

that we need all this protective
equipment to keep nature away from us.

If you spend some time in nature,
step-by-step you start to learn

and see that you need
less and less equipment and things.

That the environment can actually
fulfill everything you need

in terms of food, shelter and survival.

But very few people nowadays
know how to do that.

People often forget
many of these principles,

but when they get to a crisis
like a pandemic or a lockdown,

that is when they suddenly
want to be in nature,

that is suddenly when they want
to learn to be self-sustainable,

that's when they suddenly
want to learn to hunt

to gather their own wealth from nature.

Your environment dictates
the default state of your mind.

The more time you spend in a particular
environment, the more used to it you get.

For example, if you've never been
in a noisy city before,

at first it's gonna be pretty stressful
and create some anxiety.

But after a while you're gonna get
used to it and you barely even notice

all the noise, the bright lights,
traffic and all the other distractions.

If you take a wild animal from its
natural habitat and put it into a zoo,

what we want to do is of course
give kind of the proper nutrition

that the species eats
in its wild environment

and kind of hack the environment
to suit its needs.

Now we've done that as human beings.

We've been living indoors
for quite a while

and we still have this innate
gravitation towards the environment

we grew up in for literally
a few hundred thousand years at least.

So I think that's itself very stressful.

Spending time in nature is relaxing.
A lot of people can attest to that.

As humans we've evolved to be
in nature most of the time.

It does have a direct effect on
our physiology as well as our psychology.

Research has found that this kind of
"forest bathing", as it's called

has many health benefits. It lowers
stress hormones, relaxes the mind,

lowers inflammation and oxidative stress
and other similar benefits.

Forest bathing enhances
human natural killer cell activity

and expression of anti-cancer proteins.

Once you escape the city environment
and you go to a forest for example,

you're actually exposed to
a wide variety of different bacteria,

fungus and so on in the air.
That supports your immunity

and stimulates it in a beneficial way.

Everything is very sterile
in the modern environment.

We're afraid of pathogens,
bacteria and viruses.

But the truth is that we need
those things, we need the bacteria,

because our bodies are made of trillions
of different non-human lifeforms.

They help us to digest our food, produce
energy and keep our immune system strong.

Immune system.

We have two immune systems.
One is the innate immune system,

the one that we're born with. The second
one is the adaptive immune system,

the one we build up
throughout our lifetime

based upon what exposure we experience
and what lifestyle habits we have.

So imagine, we are living
in a very sterile environment.

We use a bunch of chemicals,
detergents and disinfectants all the time.

We may end up doing
ourselves a disservice

by weakening our adaptive immune system.

Everyone knows that trees
and plants help us to breathe.

They produce oxygen for us, but they
also have other quite beneficial effects

in terms of secreting essential oils
and all the particles into the air

that we can inhale and that in turn
can strengthen our immune system

as well as improve our respiration.
We need to kind of expose ourselves

to these kinds of ingredients, as our
immune system needs to adapt to them.

If we were to completely avoid
all different viruses, pathogens,

bacteria and ingredients, our immune
system would get weaker in a way

because we don't get the reference
experience and the exposure.

In a city environment you have to
bring nature into your apartment,

for example, you can use air-purifying
plants and filtration technologies.

You can use essential oils
and red light panels and so on

if you don't have access
to direct sunlight.

Most of the biohacking tools,
funnily enough, are kind of band aids

to try to mimic those
very comforting and calming effects

that we grew up with, evolutionarily.

Most of these technologies
are beneficial for a modern man

living in concrete environments,
but once you escape that concrete jungle,

you don't need a lot of these technologies

because you can be
already in your natural habitat.

"The art of medicine consists of
amusing the patient"

"while nature cures the disease."
- Voltaire.

Productivity.

You have to understand that your best
work happens when you are healthy,

alert and ready to do
what you need to do.

If you are tired, sleep-deprived
or not a nice person to be around

because you're so stressed and reactive,
you're not going to do your best work.

The way to find balance
between work and health

starts by understanding
that most growth doesn't happen

when you stimulate something.

When you go to the gym, your muscle
doesn't grow when you stimulate it.

It grows when you are resting.

Similarly, when you learn something,
when you read a book,

the stimulus, what happens in that
situation, is not what leads to learning,

but it's actually when you sleep.
In a similar way, the most effective work

is a result of adequate recovery.
- I'm always saying to people,

work hard, rest harder.

So it's not only about looking at
how you interact with your tools,

about having a standing desk
or a saddle chair

or an ergonomic keyboard and the monitor
at the right height and level.

You also look at how you recover,
how you sleep, cognitively.

Productivity hacks.

People have built up
different protocols and tools

like the Pomodoro technique
where you're aiming to work

20 minutes focused on one thing
or one task at a time.

What is key for getting as many moments
of focused attention in your work day

is actually the breaks
that you hold between those sessions.

The problem is, there is only a certain
amount of information our brain can hold

before it gets tired. The same applies
to running and lifting weights.

You need to take a break and recover.

If your brain is constantly simulated,
if you're constantly working and thinking,

you're focusing hard, then it's not going
to allow all this information to set in

and you're going to get tired eventually.

Sometimes the most productive
thing you could do is take a break.

Instead of just sitting in front
of your computer all day long

you have a break where
you get a little bit of movement,

change the environment,
look at a completely different thing.

Focus on the horizon or on the short
distance. Move your body a little bit.

That often actually leads to more
creative ideas to come up.

Most people think of high performance
culture and work in terms of

putting as many hours
of effective time in as they can,

but many studies in the last few years
have noticed that people get more done

and they are more productive
if they do less, but more effectively.

Sweden is shifting to a 6-hour work day.

Finland's Prime Minister suggested
a 4-day workweek or 6-hour days

I usually only work like
5-6 hours per day.

Efficiency is doing things
in an efficient way.

Effectiveness is doing the right things.
It's not about the hours you put in,

but the way how you do
those hours that matters.

Flow state.

Humans are performing at their best
when they spend more time in a flow state.

What happens is, your prefrontal cortex
that analyzes what you do

shuts down and you just lose yourself,
you lose sense of time.

You're just so focused on the work you do.
- You're not distracted by anything else,

you're not doing any social media
while creating content, writing

or creating a presentation.
You are blocking out things.

The key here is ultimate mastery
of mindfulness and meditation.

Meditation increases the capability
of being focused on the present moment

and being totally immersed
in what you're doing.

The hippocampus is
the learning center of the brain.

It's an area that activates
every time you learn new information

or you memorize something. Meditation
increases activation in the hippocampus

and helps you to consolidate
the memories you have learned.

I still remember the day that I realized

that I have never lived
in the present moment.

That was kind of a shock.
We actually have this "now" moment.

I've been either in the future or the past
or thinking about the future

or rushing things
to get to the next thing.

So learning to be in the now and being
mindful about your own life is the key.

Then you can extend that into meditation
practice. It's not just for women.

Meditation.

I started thinking about my nervous
system and my stress levels

in every concept in my life. How can I
reduce stress accumulating in my body?

One of the biggest things that really
aided me with migraines was meditation.

If you just imagine a threat,

you will alarm your nervous system
and get that fight-or-flight state.

Likewise, if you just imagine
a nice calm beach

or the presence of your loved ones
or a positive moment,

your brain will react to that
as if it were happening.

We can see a correlation between
the years of meditation and amygdala size.

In some studies, those who have meditated
for a long time have a smaller amygdala

which means that by default they are
less reactive to external fear signals.

Create more space between
your thoughts and your reactions

and you can actually become aware
of different kinds of thoughts you have.

They are not necessarily your thoughts,
just thoughts torturing you a little bit

and then they go away. If you are
not attaching to these thoughts

you become more free. - Meditation
alters brain structure and function

and can help in managing
the nervous system and stress responses.

How quickly you can
change your emotional state,

how well you can be present
for your family and coworkers

or just be present in the life,
that needs a little bit of effort.

The quantification is not that obvious.

Not like muscle growth
that you can actually see.

The modern idea of exercise
with gym memberships and so on is flawed.

Movement.

If you think of the modern man
and how we work nowadays,

we sit long periods of time
in front of our computers.

We're basically physiologically
and biomechanically in a form

that is not natural
and doesn't come naturally to us.

Office workers spend too much time
at their desks, experts say.

Average 8,6 hours per day.

If you are inactive for
long periods of time during the day,

what happens is your
lymphatic flow doesn't move.

When you look at the human body,
the heart is a pump

that pumps nutrients, blood
and oxygen all around the body.

The lymphatic system doesn't have a pump.
It requires some kind of movement.

It requires you to use your body
and your skeletal system

and some gravity also,
by hitting your feet on the ground.

That is key for making sure
that your body is functioning optimally.

Those people who are metabolically
active throughout the day

but don't incorporate any specific
movements or exercise

or hobbies into their day are healthier
and have lower all-cause mortality

compared to those who are
stagnant and don't move 8-10 hours per day

and after work they do
all their exercise in the evenings.

Sitting all day
and then going for hard exercise

isn't the best way of going about it.
You should want to focus more

on doing lower intensity exercise
and movement throughout the day.

Like walking. It's one of my
favourite forms of moving myself,

it doesn't put that much stress on the
body and you can recover from it faster.

It's very important to have
these regular movement breaks

throughout the day, spread out.

A term that has been used about this type
of exercise is "grease the groove".

Instead of going to the gym
for one hour a few times a week

you're actually incorporating a few
minutes of exercise throughout the day.

Some people run on a treadmill
when they have online meetings.

Some people are doing stretches
while in an online meeting.

Walking in a forest in uneven territory
is better than just having walks.

Basically, making it slightly
more difficult to move,

to use your physical environment
like our original ancestors did,

that is probably
the best thing to think about

when thinking about
movement in the workplace.

How can I move in my working environment
and do things that our ancestors did

in an environment that was not built
like modern concrete office environments.

Not 10,000 steps a day
but 500 or 1000 steps an hour.

Don't take elevators,
take stairs and walk.

You don't have to go to the gym,
just carry your groceries home.

Detox.

In a city environment, if you get
exposed to environmental pollution,

tobacco smoke and so on, you may want to
consider using nutritional supplements

and interventions that speed up removal
of some of these sources of pollution.

You get heavy metals, different chemicals
and toxins accumulating in our fat tissue.

Sweating is one of the primary
detoxification pathways of the human body.

You can speed up extraction
of potential pollutants

by sweating and using
traditional means like a sauna.

There's a couple different types of fat.
There's the stored fat, white fats,

like excess energy in the body.
That's what we walk around with.

Your body conserves that
so we can maybe use that later.

Brown fat is something that's
stimulated at about 14-16 degrees.

Brown fat breaks down white fat stores
and uses that as energy.

This is why you can grow more and more
accustomed to the cold temperatures

and you can regulate your own
temperature a lot more efficiently.

Cold exposure.

What happens when you go into the cold?
You can train your nervous system

to get more flexible.

The cold water is always the same.
The only variable is you.

Your mood, your state
can be different on a day-to-day basis

but in the lake or the Baltic sea,
the temperature remains constant.

The cold is a more righteous kind
of thing. That's why it's like a mirror.

It shows you who you are on that
particular day and moment in time.

When you go into the cold,
your body kind of gets the signal

that you are going to die.
You are really going to die.

It's controlled stress. When you
apply slower exhale than the inhale,

you actually train your nervous system
that even though outside is cold,

you still are in
a calm position, a calm mode.

Once maybe doesn't help.
Twice, it helps already better.

If you apply that regularly,
you get stronger.

I started to do cold exposure
because of my Finnish colleagues.

They have these little rituals,
Christmas parties and things like that.

Every year they would ask me
to come to the sauna, which was okay.

Once you get used to taking your clothes
off with Finnish people it became okay.

But then, everywhere you have a sauna
you you have a body of water.

I couldn't escape it. They were always
interested to see the Australian guy

go into the cold water.
After about three of these parties

I decided that okay, I'm going to
show these guys that I can do this.

I made every mistake in the book,
but I learned very quickly

and when that next Christmas party came,
I was ready to go.

I kind of got in there and these guys
were filming me with their Nokia cameras.

They were amazed that
the Australian guy can do it now.

The joke became a little less funny
when they realized

they had to beat the Australian guy
in the cold and outdo his time.

I like to push my boundaries,
be it a dip in the ice water

or a very hard sauna session.
Something that feels uncomfortable.

When you overcome the uncomfortableness,
that makes you feel that you're alive

and you've actually
accomplished something.

Cold exposure has so many unique benefits.

You can become more resilient towards
the cold and different temperatures.

I started to realize
that also I wasn't getting sick.

My immune system
was being boosted by this.

I haven't been sick for 9 years
since I've been doing this in Finland.

Research shows that winter swimmers
have higher levels of glutathione,

the body's main master
antioxidant system.

Whenever you are practicing cold exposure,
your body up-regulates its defense system

and boosts the immune system.
- I know if I eat candy or something,

I regret it 20 minutes later

and then I don't want to do it for another
month, then maybe I'll do it again.

Cold exposure is something
that keeps drawing me back.

It's just this amazing feeling
that you can kind of feel inside your body

and it's sort of like trying to escape.

I had so much success with it

that I even decided to build
my own ice bath at home.

Each morning I jump into my ice bath
and after that you feel amazing.

With cold exposure,
if you're going out for an ice bath

or if you're going into nature, you only
need to go two minutes once a week.

That's all you need to do
to get this full effect

where the brown fat's being produced
and you're getting these happy hormones,

your immune system is being rebalanced
and reset during this process.

It's only two minutes.
It's very possible, very easy.

Every single time I go into the water,
I experience the same cold.

It's just that I'm okay with it.
It's important to understand

that being cold is just a feeling,

it's just a signal
that your body sends to your brain

telling you it's dangerous to be there.

But if you take it just as a signal
that tries to communicate something,

same with fasting, if you get
this starvation, this hunger,

it's just a feeling, just a signal
that tries to tell you:

to survive, you need to eat. To survive,
you need to get out of this cold water.

So just take it as a signal.
Maybe just step aside

and ask yourself:
how do I feel in this moment?

Try to do this objective
assessment of your whole body

and you will love it.

"There is a voice that doesn't
use words. Listen." - Rumi.

Everyone is more or less very aware
how our thoughts affect our bodies.

We can feel the butterflies in our stomach
when we are nervous.

On the other hand, often times
when you eat shitty food

you might not realize how much
it affects your mental state.

Because of course the vagus nerve
and everything communicates all the time,

your body and your brain
are interconnected

and that's what we're trying to crack
and hack in the biohacking community.

There are a lot of signals
coming into our brain in terms of thoughts

because of the financials, because of
relationships with other people,

because of the job and many
different things that are on your plate.

To-do lists are very long,
so there is no time to stop

and think to yourself, to scan your body,
to understand what's going on.

So it's easy to actually
confuse those two things.

Like for instance, gluten. I know
that gluten is not good for me

because when I go to my mother's
and she makes a pancake

out of the normal wheat,
I eat two pancakes,

my stomach feels like
I had eaten a hundred pieces.

And that's the difference, I know.
Usually I would have thought

that I just ate too many of them
because I like them.

Now I eat two and I feel the same thing.

Maybe it's gluten, maybe it's my
leaky gut or something like that,

But to be able to understand signals
that your body is trying to tell you,

you need to stop.
You need to pay attention.

You need to step aside and ask
this question: how do I feel?

It's one of the best ways to get back
to the connection with your deeper self.

Quantified self.

What's interesting with biohacking, why
do we use a lot of gadgets and tools,

it's because technology made us weak
and technology may a little bit help

to make us strong again
and understand ourselves better.

We have some incredible technology
that can guide us, give us information,

tell us what's happening inside our veins,
what the condition of our blood is.

But at the end of the day, that's just
a guide. You have to listen to it.

You can use that as a way to understand
yourself and your own systems.

If you're looking to improve
your health through self-tracking,

the best way to start
would be measuring your sleep.

You will see how exercise, food
and lifestyle choices affect your sleep.

Another great tool
is a continuous glucose monitor

which tells you how metabolically flexible
you are

and how your body reacts
to different kinds of foods.

Sleep.

So in a nutshell
it doesn't really matter

how hard you train or how well you eat,
if you sleep like shit.

Stress and sleep are closely linked.

Stress can adversely affect
sleep quality and duration

while insufficient sleep
can increase stress levels.

Both stress and lack of sleep can lead to
physical and mental health problems.

Sleep is like a building block and
the first and most important biohack

for controlling stress levels
and the nervous system.

During sleep, there are actually
many processes going on in the body.

The first hours of the night
you get more deep sleep

and later in the night
you get more REM sleep.

During deep sleep the brain is
detoxifying from harmful substances.

If you don't get that deep sleep, there
will be more toxins in your nervous system

which obviously keeps the nervous
system in a higher stress state.

If you want to gain muscle mass
and gain strength,

you need to have a certain
amount of deep sleep.

In deep sleep you actually grow.

During REM sleep
the nervous system is recovering.

If you don't get REM, your nervous system
is so much more reactive the next day.

One night of bad sleep
is not a disaster,

but when you have another one and another
and then it's actually chronic,

everything changes.
Your metabolism changes.

You crave more glucose,
sugars and carbohydrates.

You make bad decisions,
it's harder to concentrate

and the quality of life is much worse.

For old people, lack of sleep increases
the amygdala hyperreactivity.

If you don't sleep, your nervous
system gets even more alarmed.

I know that way too well.

Let's say I had a full 24-hour shift
in the ER, I was working all night.

I was really like... "Donuts!"

I was craving this
highly satiating junk food.

The sleep deprivation messes up
normal physiological mechanisms.

Different techniques can be used
to help with insomnia.

To fall asleep faster, learn how to
progressively relax all your muscles

so that you get into deeper relaxation
and change the brain activation

so that you get into deeper brain waves.

"Sleep is the Swiss army knife of health.
When sleep is deficient,"

"there is sickness and disease.
When sleep is abundant,"

"there is vitality and health."
- Matthew Walker, PhD

I reduced my work load dramatically,
I switched my job to an easier one,

no night shifts. I began sleeping more,
spending more time in the bed,

having more relaxing time.
- The problem with sleep is that

when you don't wake up during the night
it doesn't count as good sleep.

Lots of people think that they sleep well
but they really don't.

That's where technology has a role to play
because if you're not measuring,

you're not tracking, you're not getting
that data, not seeing the real situation,

then you'll never actually know. With
technology we can make small adjustments

on a day-by-day basis
and improve the quality of sleep.

Things like sleep hygiene,
the temperature of the room,

what's the half-life of coffee
and caffeine in your system.

You can adjust these things in real time
and you'll see the results

through the technology,
through the data, through measuring.

I'm using all kinds of
tracking technologies

to track how my nervous system
and sleep quality is doing

and even in a city environment,
although I might feel rested

and my data looks okay,
when I go to nature,

there's a distinguishable difference
in the way how I feel

and how recovered I feel
after a good night's sleep.

It also reflects on the data.
I get lower heart rate,

I get higher heart rate variability,
I get more deep sleep

and also lower blood pressure
when I'm in nature.

And I don't need any technology
to feel that. I can feel it with my body

much more directly
than in a city environment

where I might need technologies
like this to tell me how I feel.

There's a few components here.
You're less exposed to EMF

so there's less interference with
your brain wave patterns

and your physiological processes.
And the other thing that happens

is also your body temperature drops
much more during nighttime

because it is in sync with nature.
In city environments

we are basically
constantly in tropical environments,

around 24-25 degrees Celsius,
but in nature there is natural variation.

When you go to sleep, your
body temperature naturally drops

and when environmental temperature
drops alongside your body temperature,

that is what we are actually adapted to.
That is what is good for us.

You can also drop your
body temperature artificially

by using mattresses that are
moving away heat from your body.

In my home I actually use a device

that is cooling my body with the
mattress by circulating cold water in it.

Another thing I would do is avoid
eating too late in the evening

because when you eat something,
that is highly metabolic activity.

Your body converts nutrients into energy
and it's a thermogenic process

that increases your
body temperature as well.

Melatonin is a hormone
that we often relate to sleep.

It also has other effects.
It's not just that it promotes sleep,

but it also improves recovery.
Your body increases its recovery rate

when you have melatonin
circling in your system.

What you don't want to do is delay
melatonin release in the evening

by being exposed to
artificial sources of light.

Artificial light.

In the evening you should dim the lights,
go more towards the red light,

the natural sunset light
and not have any bright lights,

especially not blue light because
it's blocking melatonin production.

Blue light is not your enemy,
but the amount of it

and what periods of time you get it.
In the morning hours you want blue light

because it helps you
synchronize your biological clock.

Circadian rhythm is where all of our
organs, our body and the systems inside it

are in alignment and in accordance
with nature and our surroundings.

The circadian rhythms control almost
all aspects of our physiology,

starting with the metabolism, digestion
of food, hormones and cognition even.

We actually have this clock.
Usually the alertness is highest

in the morning and the mid-morning.

You have your best
reaction time about 2-3 PM.

Your strength and power
is highest at about 4-5 PM.

And so on. Different kinds of systems
are active at different points in time.

Probably the best example of the
circadian rhythms is the diurnal rhythm

of cortisol, the stress hormone,
and melatonin, the sleep hormone.

In the morning when we wake up,
cortisol is supposed to give us energy

and energize ourselves
for the rest of the day,

whereas in the evening, melatonin
is supposed to make us drowsy

and promote better recovery
for the night ahead.

The best way to synchronize
your biological clock

is to have really
bright lights in the morning

and the best way of course
is sunlight, the natural light.

When you don't have that,
you're going to have problems.

In Finland in wintertime
it's kind of hard to get the natural light

because it's very dark in the morning.
- I might use something like a blue light

in the morning, like a
daylight lamp or glasses like this

to give my brain the signal that now
it's day. The earlier I do it, the better.

If your body's circadian rhythms are
aligned with those of the environment

then it's easier to stay healthy.
Your body experiences less stress

and less information.
- Now in the evening,

you don't want to be too exposed
to blue wavelengths of light

but you want to actually block it
and get more of the longer wavelengths

that are related to sunset.

If you are the kind of person who
stays up much later than others

then that's the result of
your habits and lifestyle

and not necessarily the result of your
genetics or physicological blueprint.

If you were to go to nature,
like for camping,

you would hit this reset button
for your circadian rhythms.

Chances are you just fall asleep
when the sun goes out

and you wake up with the sunrise.

When the rhythm of your day
and your life gets messed up,

everything gets messed up.
- Misalignment with the circadian rhythms

is going to promote disease. Shift work
is actually considered a carcinogen.

It's essentially because of this
misalignment from the circadian rhythms.

There is a lot of research
showing that disrupted circadian rhythms

can cause many imbalances
and chronic diseases in the body.

However we don't need to become
cavemen in order to stay healthy.

Here are a few easy tips of how
to keep your circadian cycles aligned.

Go outside, expose yourself to daylight,
consume food when the sun is out,

install blue light reducing apps
and sleep in complete darkness.

Longevity.

Imagine you are in a supermarket
and you have a budget: 50 euros.

You walk around and you see
there are no price tags on all the goods.

But you get those goods in the basket
and you go to the cashier.

The cashier says: "Sorry, you have
goods here for 100 euros."

That's a problem. It's the same with
health. If you go out with friends

eating pizza and drinking beer
and being up all night long,

you know it costs you something.
And it will cost you something.

We know the end result is such
that in Latvia,

the average lifespan is 75,
but healthspan is 55 years.

Imagine what happens in these 20 years.
People live in misery,

walking from one doctor
to another, popping pills

and living a really bad life. It's only
because they didn't know the price tags.

What amazes me is
each time I talk to other people

I discover that there is a disconnect
between what they do with their body

and what they expect from the body.

One way or another, they are not aware

that it's just the one body you get.

You should do with
that one body all your life.

If you damage your body during
your lifetime then you know for sure

that you have problems
when you get older.

When you take care of that
one body you get from the start

and you give it the right
maintenance and the right input

then you can expect the right output
and be healthy for the rest of your time.

I don't need to become 180 years old.

That's not necessary for me.
For me it's all about healthspan.

I want to stay healthy as long
as possible and then drop dead.

"In the end, it's not the years
in your life that count."

"It's the life in your years."
- Abraham Lincoln.

Sense of purpose.

The reason why people are burned out,
more than 70% of people feel

disengaged or actively disengaged
from the work that they do.

This is on one hand.
On the other hand

people's own life goals,
the meaning of life

are not properly set for themselves.
- I've never seen anyone have a burnout

when really doing something
they're so passionate about.

Helping big corporations make more money
doesn't give me that purpose in life.

The moment that I decided to change
my career it changed my life completely.

Us people are not stagnant like trees.
We have legs, we can move around.

Therefore we can also transform
our personality and character

so we can become a new person.
We don't have to stay the same person

we were in the past.
We can constantly keep evolving.

You can change your job,
your lifestyle, your environment.

You can always change.

It's not easy. Some people will say,
there's a mortgage I have to pay,

all kinds of loans,
I need the money.

I had a family
and a lot of expenses as well,

but I can tell you
that it's worth the risk.

The high achievers
are very often goal-oriented people.

A few years ago
when I was still running marathons

I set my goal to run
under 3 hours and 30 minutes.

I prepared myself,
went into a ketogenic diet,

I worked on my running mechanics
and I actually did a lot of stuff

to achieve this goal.
I did. But what happened?

The race was on Sunday.
On Monday I was an empty sack

because that was my goal.
I fulfilled it.

But it didn't bring me the fulfillment
I expected. For the next week or so

I was really-really depressed.
I didn't know what to do.

Should I set my goal to 3 hours
or something like that?

Eventually all my nice
good practices evaporated

because I didn't have
this goal ahead of me.

Setting goals and achieving them
is great for getting short-term results,

but you should also look
beyond those goals.

Instead of thinking how you're
going to lose those three pounds

you should think how to stay healthy
and fit for the rest of your life.

We need to create these life-meanings,
why we do what we do,

so that it brings us forward, so that
you can feel that you get better,

you improve and grow
as a person, as an individual.

Only then can you avoid burnout.

The amount of things we can
control in this world is minuscule

compared to the things we cannot. That can
be a great source of anxiety and stress.

Not all people that live in the city
have the chance to go nature all the time.

It's nothing to stress about.
We just need to adapt flexibly

to the biohacks that we can do in our
environment that makes us feel good.

We as human beings have the natural
tendency to try to control everything.

We're trying to control our lives,
our days. If we feel anxious or stressed,

we immediately try to get rid of it.

But knowing and appreciating
that life is ever-changing

and there are always surprises and moments
that we don't feel comfortable with

is very important, because that's the
only way to adapt to these moments.

If we don't try to push things
like uncomfortable feelings away,

we're better able to enjoy every moment.

I've tried to do a lot of
difficult things in my life

to remind myself that these kind of
stressors or environmental disasters

are not going to go away,
they're going to keep happening

and we can't really avoid them.
The only thing we can do

is to keep ourselves more resilient,
keep ourselves more adaptable

and to prepare
for those things in advance.

Even though biohacking emphasizes
the holistic aspect of life

and really thinking about every single
moment of life, morning to evening,

I think it's really important
not to try to control everything

because this can also make you
really highly stressed.

It's more about the balance
of knowing what's good for you.

Biohacking is supposed to bring you
more happiness and health

and mindfulness and ease of mind

rather than creating some rules
that you need to blindly follow.

"Uncertainty is
the only certainty there is,"

"and knowing how to live with insecurity
is the only security." - John Allen Paulos.

Humans as a species are so-so.

We are weak, we run slow.

We don't have claws, no sharp teeth.
We sort of are not so good,

compared to other mammals for instance.

The reason why we are a dominating
species on Earth is our collaboration,

being socially engaged with each other.

One of the reasons
humans have survived for so long

is because of our social cooperation.
Imagine being alone in nature

or during some sort of crisis or war.

You wouldn't survive for too long if you
are alone. We need to stick together.

To be able to maintain
this activity that you are aiming for,

to feel better, to do all this
healthy stuff, all those biohacks,

pay attention to doing that
together with other people.

Because you are easiest to fool
yourself and to lie to yourself.

That's why you need somebody else
that you don't want to let down.

It's easier to stay healthy
with like-minded people.

Even the sleeping tracker, the ring,
is like an accountability partner.

Don't be obsessed with data like that.
Use it as a trainer, as a coach.

Mentors, coaches, partners,
friends, family people.

Everybody. Use them to commit
to this betterment of your life.

If a lady gets pregnant,
her husband doesn't demand:

"Can you do that in six months?"
Of course not.

It takes on average nine months. If you
plant a seed, basil or some other herb,

and you want to grow it for your salad,

of course you expect it to grow
in three-four weeks,

until you get some leaves
and eat it in your salad.

So in nature we are really patient to
wait for things that take a long time.

Now, the same goes also for your health.

"Today is the first day of the rest
of your life." - Charles Dederich.

If you feel like this is
just too much to try to optimize,

you can start with small steps. First
reduce using technology in the evening.

That's one step. And then step-by-step,
maybe reducing your sugar,

reducing the coffee consumption.
Step-by-step, building up to good habits

and making the process easier for you.

The goal is to gain
a real mastery of yourself.

Let's say when you wake up, the first
thing you do is grab a glass of water,

then go outside for fresh air.
That's also a good morning routine.

Even these small things
are really effective.

That is the path to self-mastery.

Imagine for instance
two spaceships going into space.

The angle of their trajectory is just
one degree, barely noticeable.

For a very long time,
they are going to fly in parallel,

but they will eventually land
in totally different galaxies.

These things affect long-term. Nothing
is going to change from tomorrow on

because a one degree angle
is a really small one.

You barely notice it,
but after some time,

in the long term, you will notice it
and everything is gonna be better.

You start the day feeling that you already
did some very good things for your health.

I start each morning with
60 seconds of cold shower.

You can extend that period gradually.

Just by taking small steps,
you can build it into your life

so that you get used to it.
If it's part of your ritual,

you just jump out of bed,
you don't need willpower,

you just start doing the right things
and each time you can add something else

that you think would be beneficial
at this specific moment.

You can take one biohack from the diet,

one biohack from the exercise aspect,
one biohack from the meditation aspect.

And sort of really build
your own biohack set

that works specifically in your life.
- How many people try to fast

because they want to lose weight?
That's totally the wrong approach.

You want to optimize for feeling good.
Once you start feeling good,

you start recognizing
that just to be able to feel good

you need to pay attention
to several things at once.

Eating better, sleeping better, moving
constantly, training your nervous system,

being surrounded by nice people,
having life goals,

financials, everything
is underneath that.

If one of those things is missing,
you probably won't feel good.

You know, in 70 years
we don't have any cell left

that we had previously.

You're actually creating
yourself anew all the time.

Why not start now? - You know
when is the best time to plant a tree?

It's 20 years ago. You know when
is the second-best time to plant a tree?

It's today.
- No one is responsible for your health

and no one is interested in your health
as much as you are.

In the end, you can consult
all kinds of experts,

doctors and specialists
and they will say one thing,

but in the end it's you who needs to
take responsibility for your own health.

Once you understand that,
that's when real change can happen.

English subtitles by Martin Kirotar
Interlex Media & Translations