Mitochondria and Meditation

Think of your mitochondria as the battery packs of your cells. They are responsible for manufacturing energy for your body in the form of ATP. They also have the job of deciding where to allocate energy in your body.  

When your mitochondria are strong, you feel awake and alert, and your body works. When they don’t have what they need to power you, you feel slow in your body and mind. Dysfunctional mitochondria can lead to brain fog, accelerated aging, and chronic diseases. 

Your mitochondria power everything, including your meditation. You may think of meditation as a time to turn off, but your neurons have an incredibly active role in getting your brain waves into the beneficial state of deep meditation. In order to do what they need to do, neurons burn through a ton of energy — that your mitochondria provide. 

Learning how to meditate and getting into a meditation groove is easier when your mitochondria are happy. Here are some ways to keep them in a high-performing state: 

Avoid kryptonite (aka energy zappers)

Kryptonite is anything that makes you weak. Your mitochondria are powerful in the sense that they create energy for your whole body, but they’re vulnerable to less-than-optimal conditions. 

To maximize what your mitochondria can do, practice these habits: 

• Avoid junk food. Your mitochondria are especially susceptible to toxic substances floating around your cells. If you’re eating well-sourced, real food, there’s less for your mitochondria to spend energy resisting so they can make energy for you. 
• Seek out sunlight. It goes without saying that artificial lights emit wavelengths that do not match the ones that come from the sun. This type of artificial light is known as “junk light”. Your mitochondria don’t do well under this light. They thrive when they’re exposed to natural light. Early in the day, sunlight on your skin can energize you for hours. Later in the day, blue wavelengths can disrupt your mitochondria and circadian rhythm, and mess with your sleep. Wearing junk-light filtering glasses like the ones from True Dark can make a huge difference in your sleep quality. Speaking of sleep…. 
• Get good sleep. Lack of sleep damages mitochondria. Here’s how to clean up your sleep habits. 
• Minimize your toxins. Toxic substances like heavy metals and mold toxins don’t just interfere with mitochondria — they reduce the total number of mitochondria you have, and that messes with your energy and focus. Avoid toxins by following a low toxin diet (like the Bulletproof diet), filtering your air and water, and being mindful about the household products you use.  

Incorporate high-intensity interval training

Movement is good for your mitochondria. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is a great exercise technique to strengthen them. Studies show HIIT increases mitochondrial function after just two weeks. You can also do REHIT, which is an advanced form of HIIT. Learn more here. 

Add good fats

Your mitochondria work better when they have a steady supply of fuel. Stable saturated fats like those found in grass fed butter, ghee, and beef tallow help your mitochondria thrive. Studies show that C8 MCT oil, which is another powerful saturated fat, increases mitochondrial biogenesis. Stay away from processed seed and vegetable oils which wreak havoc on your mitochondria and your metabolism.  

Tools that make meditation easier

Technological advances have made it possible to determine whether or not you’ve achieved a meditative state. Whether you’re a newbie or a Zen Master, you’ll find benefits to measuring your progress and tracking it over time. Try these tools to help improve your meditation techniques. 

Meditation apps

If you’re looking for a little guidance while you meditate, then meditation apps are a great option. Some offer a simple timer, allowing you to choose how long you meditate for, while others give you guided meditations. Learn more about the best meditation apps on the market here. 

Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

Your heart doesn’t beat in perfect rhythm, and how much your heartbeat varies is a good indicator of your mental and emotional wellbeing. Heart rate variability (HRV) training teaches you to consciously control those variations in your heartbeat, which can influence how you feel on a daily basis and how you respond to stressors or uncomfortable emotions. It can also tell you how your nervous system responds to meditation. The overall goal is to train your nervous system to chill out when you want it to. Learn more about heart rate variability and how to train it here. 

Meditation Trackers/Tech

Meditation headbands, like Muse, offer real-time feedback on how your meditation is going, second by second. When Muse senses that your mind is busy, it plays sounds of heavy winds. When your mind is quiet, it plays calm, gentle winds. 

While you meditate, Muse logs what it senses. You can use this information to quantify your ability to calm yourself and focus. That way, you can track your progress over time and stay motivated. 

Meditation Without Meditating

Regular meditation practice is essential for high performance. However, most who sit down to meditate find themselves face-to-face with their busy, distracted mind – and that can evoke a lot of agitation and discomfort. 

What if there were secrets to getting the benefits of years of meditation in just a matter of days and with a lot less effort? 

Neurofeedback at 40 Years of Zen

If you’ve never heard of neurofeedback before, it involves attaching electrode sensors to your head which transmit signals to a computer (it’s completely painless). Then you consciously work on your brain while receiving real-time feedback from the computer. The goal of neurofeedback is to make your brain work better by training it to be self-aware.   

40 Years of Zen is like neurofeedback on steroids. It’s a 5-day immersive program designed to give you the benefits of 40 years of meditation in a matter of days. You can learn more at 40yearsofzen.com.  

Read Heavily Meditated

In Heavily Meditated, Dave Asprey teaches you how to get the full benefits of meditation in the fraction of the time and effort of traditional meditation. You’ll learn the most effective techniques, including ones you probably have never heard of before, as well as the science behind why those techniques work. You’ll learn how to access altered states with your breath, how to reset your entire nervous system so past traumas and triggers no longer hold you back, and so much more. This book will change your life.  

Conclusion

In Game Changers, most of the high-performing people that were interviewed credited meditation as one of their most important and impactful hacks. 

Why? 

Because meditation teaches you a process for switching out of mental chatter and compulsive busyness into the freedom and ease of a deeper dimension of you, called “being” or “presence”. Whether you use a meditation app, incorporate the techniques from Heavily Meditated, go to 40 Years of Zen, or just meditate using your own style, you’re rewiring your brain to become happier, less stressed and more resilient.