When you suffer from stress (as most people do), it’s too hard to focus and be productive and too easy to have recurring irrational thoughts. It can also cause poor judgment and memory problems, and that’s certainly not Bulletproof. A good way to combat stress is to use meditation and breathing exercises.

When you meditate, you practice the art of mindfulness, which allows you to choose which thoughts you want to focus on. It enables you to choose how you respond to your feelings instead of blinding reacting to them. Different ways of meditating include counting, mantras, mindfulness, positive self-talk, and controlled breathing exercises.

With controlled breathing, you want to breathe from your diaphragm, not your chest.  Pull the air in through your nose all the way down into your belly, then exhale with your stomach first, using your diaphragm to push the air out of your lungs. Only your stomach should move, not your chest. The inhale should be a long, continuous breath, followed by a pause before exhaling, and then another pause before taking the next breath. This slow, steady breathing can help control your heart rate and allow your mind to relax.

Heart Rate Variability Training

When you are relaxed, you have a rhythmic heart rate variability, or the amount of time between each beat. Under stress, your body resorts to a fixed, inflexible rhythm.  HeartMath technologies (like the emWave2 or the Inner Balance™ Sensor) use a tiny sensor to calculate your heart rate variability and warns you that you are showing signs of stress (perhaps before you even realize it). The sensor guides you to take deep breaths every five seconds as you listen to music or meditate to resume relaxed heart rate variability. By warning you that you are getting stressed, and teaching you to prevent stress before it starts, you can stay more focused, controlled, and in better moods.

4. Gratitude and Forgiveness

Taking a few minutes a day to do a gratitude and forgiveness exercise can be unbelievably beneficial. In fact, it’s probably the most powerful biohack ever. Either stop everything you’re doing and consider what you are grateful for, or write your thoughts about gratitude and forgiveness down in a journal (like The 5-Minute Journal). By doing this, you can increase your happiness, recover more easily from stress (I mean, how much stress do you carry around from your anger and hurt?), and become more effective at work. In fact, gratitude exercises are shown to increase decision-making abilities and encourage productivity. It also makes you generally more likable.

5. Neurofeedback Techniques

Neurofeedback is when you re-teach your brain how to respond to different emotions.  Cool, right?  You have EEG sensors placed all over your scalp, and monitor your brainwaves in different areas.  Then you play a “video game” with your brain, using your brain electricity to make the game progress.  The more positive brain activity, the faster the game goes (positive reinforcement), and the more undesirable brain activity, the slower the game goes.  Eventually, this cycle of positive and negative reinforcement re-teaches the brain which brain waves are desirable, so that they can replace your previous negative responses to stressors.

40 Years of Zen is an intensive 7-day neurofeedback program that puts you in the same mindstate as advanced (we’re talking 20 to 40 years) Zen practitioners.  It takes 7 very long, very full days of monitoring and retraining your brain at a facility dedicated solely to this process, but it can increase your IQ by an average of 12 points, and increase creativity by an average of 50%, and it’s hands-down the fastest, most efficient way to reap the benefits of neurofeedback.

6. Hack your Sleep

You know how groggy you feel the next day when you barely get any sleep during the night? It’s not just because you want sleep; it’s because your brain needs quality sleep to function properly. When you sleep, it gives your brain a chance to repair the neurons that you exhaust during the day while you’re active. It also gives your brain time to exercise the connections between your neurons. In fact, a recurrent lack of sleep may cause loss of brain cells – the last thing you want when you’re trying to be Bulletproof.

Good Sun Exposure and a Healthy Circadian Rhythm

Did you know that people whose offices have windows get better sleep than those who work in windowless workspaces?  That’s because getting enough sun exposure every day keeps your body’s clock – or circadian rhythm – on point.  Sunlight tells your body to postpone making melatonin – the hormone that makes you tired and helps you sleep.  So it’s a great idea to get some sun in the morning if you can, but if you’re rushing to get to work and don’t have time to take a leisurely walk, you can take your vitamin D supplements in the morning instead.  Since sunlight makes your body produce vitamin D, which put offs melatonin production, taking a morning dose of the vitamin may make your body feel like you’ve been outside.  (For this reason, you want to avoid taking your vitamin D at night, which can interfere with sleep).

How to Hack Your Sleep

Eight hours of quality sleep can increase your ability to tackle complex problems by 50%.  So how do you get that kind of sleep?  First, invest in Sleep Cycle, a simple iPhone app that tracks the quality of your sleep, just by placing your phone on your bed!

After you’ve done that, install F.lux on your computer, which changes the light from your computer screen to adjust for the time of day, helping your brain prepare for sleep even when you use your computer at night (that said, you want to avoid bright lights like the TV for an hour before bed).  You should also avoid exercising for at least two hours before bed.

Nootropics, or “smart drugs,” are some of my favorite hacks. These substances increase your brain’s performance – you remember more, learn better, concentrate more fully, and can even increase your intelligence. These drugs are also neuroprotective, so they protect your brain from injury (unlike amphetamine-derived stimulants like Adderall).

Vitamins and Nutrients

But if smart drugs aren’t your thing, you can always boost your mental performance with nutrients, such as Magnesium, vitamin D, Krill Oil, Turmeric, and vitamin B.

• Magnesium can actually reverse the effects of stress on your brain, and can increase your memory and cognitive function.  Magnesium is also vital to ATP production, so low magnesium means low brain energy, which isn’t Bulletproof!
• Vitamin D is also a great supplement for your brain.  It helps protect you from free radical damage, which can decrease your cognitive performance.
• Krill oil, which is packed with DHA, EPA and Astaxanthin, keeps the neurons in your brain communicating freely.  Better communication in your nervous system obviously means that you’re going to be smarter, faster, and better.
• Turmeric is a spice frequently used in Indian food. It contains curcumin, which is great for your brain.  Curcumin is an antioxidant that travels easily from your blood to your brain, and like vitamin D, it helps protect your brain from free radical damage.
• B Vitamins fight off the amino acid homocysteine, which increases brain shrinkage and may lead to Alzheimer’s. In fact, it seems that vitamin B may be able to decrease brain shrinkage by up to 90%, and may make shrinkage 7 times slower. And we all know that size matters.

Other Natural Supplements

• CILTEP® – CILTEP®, short for “Chemically Induced Long-Term Potentiation,” is an all-natural supplement created by Abelard Lindsay that can improve your mental performance.  It helps you be more focused, motivated, and retentive. CILTEP® works by optimizing levels of intracellular second messengers, which carry signals between your brain cells.
• Choline – Choline is an essential micronutrient that helps your brain make the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which fosters intelligence and memory.  There are also some studies that suggest it may be protective against Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. You can find choline in supplements like Choline Force.
• Upgraded™ Glutathione Force – Glutathione is the best antioxidant out there.  Your liver already makes its own supply, but with today’s constant environmental exposure to toxins, it’s good to help out your liver.  Supplementing Glutathione through a lipsomal form like Glutathione Force (other forms are destroyed by your gut before being absorbed) is a great idea because your brain makes more free radicals than any other organ in your body, and these free radicals accelerate  cell death.  Glutathione helps eliminate these free radicals and protects your brain from them, so it optimizes your brain function.
• Upgraded™ Aging Formula – The foundation of Upgraded Aging Formula is oxaloacetate, or OAA.  This supplement works to protect the neurons in your brain from toxins, and there is also evidence that it can improve your short-term memory and help you think more clearly and efficiently.

8. Sex and Stress

Obviously, people prefer one over the other, but we’ve got some hacks that will help you in both areas. If you are still looking for ways to help your body relax consider toning the vagus nerve. We’ve got some fast and proven techniques to help calm your nervous system. Who knows, it might even get you in the mood.

9 . Other Fun Hacks For The Bulletproof Mind

Inversion Therapy (Hanging Upside Down)

It sounds weird, but hanging upside down is a great way to hack your brain.  Regular inverting trains your brain capillaries, making them stronger and more capable of bringing oxygen to your brain.  It’s pretty straightforward — more oxygen to your brain means better brain performance.  As an added bonus, after repeated inverting, the way your body regulates blood pressure actually changes.

Using Light to Get a Mitochondrial Boost

You can use light to affect your mitochondrial function.  Just hold a red LED light to the place where you want a boost – your stomach, a sore muscle, or up your nose if you want to bump up your brain — for a few minutes, and you will experience more mitochondrial activity, meaning more cellular energy and better cellular communication.