How to Biohack Stress Like a Soldier

November 1, 2018 by Team Asprey

Soldiers have to deal with extraordinary stress on a regular basis. Military psychologists have developed several kinds of training to help soldiers learn to perform at their best. You can use these skills in your own life.
Habitually stressing yourself and testing your limits teaches you to perform well and keep going, even when you’re well beyond your comfort zone. Find out how to do these stress management techniques.
Stress Inoculation Training teaches you the psychological tools to face stressors and adapt to them instead of being overwhelmed by them.

Imagine floating in the frigid ocean at 4 AM. You’re on the verge of hypothermia. You haven’t slept in a day. Your body is falling apart from hours of brutal physical training. Salt water bites at your blistered hands and feet. You don’t know what comes next, or when you’ll be able to rest. And your mind is constantly tempting you with the knowledge that you can give up anytime and make it all stop.

That’s the reality of a Navy SEAL recruit going through training. Trainees have to face a series of challenges designed to put them under severe physical and psychological stress — and teach them how to endure anything and still perform at a high level.

In a recent Bulletproof Radio [iTunes] podcast episode, Andrew Herr, a Department of Defense biotechnologist, talked about the military’s emerging interest in biohacking, and how they use psychology and physical challenges to make their soldiers more resilient to stress.

Soldiers have to perform and make reasoned decisions under extreme pressure; falling short can mean their death, or the death of those around them. To deal with that level of pressure, soldiers — particularly special forces units — undergo stress inoculation training designed to make them as resilient as possible.

The stress management techniques that soldiers use can be just as valuable in civilian life. Here’s a look at how soldiers learn to manage stress and keep performing, and how you can use the same techniques to become a more resilient person, no matter what life throws at you.

Get to know your limits (and push past them)

Navy SEAL training is some of the toughest in the world. It teaches soldiers extreme stress management techniques designed to push them past their breaking points, both physically and mentally. Highlights include:

Holding a 200-lb. log with several other trainees, while doing intense cardio, for multiple hours. If one person drops the log, the entire team has to start over.
Drown-proofing, where trainees get thrown into a pool with their hands and feet tied and have to stay calm enough to avoid drowning. People often pass out underwater while doing this drill and have to be rescued.
The infamous Navy SEAL “Hell Week”. Trainees are chronically sleep-deprived and exercise around the clock, often in water so cold that they risk hypothermia. They also have to deal with the constant pain of salty ocean water and sand on cuts and chafing skin. Trainees eat around 7,000 calories a day and often still lose several pounds over the course of Hell Week.

This kind of training is extraordinarily stressful, which is the point. It forces trainees to confront what they think are their limits and push past them on a regular basis. Trainees have to be tough, but they also have to function at their best under extreme stress. Drown-proofing, for example, forces trainees to stay calm and act with precision, even when they have no oxygen and are seconds away from passing out underwater.

Resilience comes from overcoming stress on a regular basis. If you want to become more resilient to stress, add stress to your life in a controlled way, and get in the habit of performing well at your edge. It’s one of the most powerful stress management techniques out there. You don’t have to go as crazy as Navy SEALs do, of course. Here are a few ways to test your mental and physical limits:

Do high-intensity interval training (HIIT) once or twice a week. If you’re doing it right, HIIT will push you to absolute physical exhaustion in under ten minutes. Do it regularly, and make it incrementally more difficult every week by adding more weight, adding more rounds, or decreasing rest time. You should end every HIIT workout feeling like you’re about to pass out.
Take a cold shower every morning. Life coach Tony Robbins is famous for his cold plunges. In his recent podcast episode on Bulletproof Radio, he explained why: “It’s teaching my brain that when I say go, we go. I don’t negotiate with myself.” Taking a cold shower in the morning will never be easy, which is what makes it so important. Choosing cold exposure means ignoring that tempting voice in the back of your head telling you to take it easy or give up. Ignoring your inner doubter is a valuable habit to cultivate. Plus, cold exposure is amazing for your biology. And if cold showers feel tame after a while? Dump a couple bags of ice in a bathtub and sit in it as long as you can stand.
Do a 24 or 48-hour fast. Intermittent fasting is great for you, and with Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting you use Brain Octane Oil to take away hunger, which makes fasting a lot easier to do and still gives you many of the benefits of full-on fasting. Every now and then, though, you may want to choose the hard road and have nothing but water for 24-48 hours. It’ll be a lot more challenging than doing Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting, which is the point in this case. You’ll have to learn to deal with hunger and fatigue and keep going.

Pushing your limits rewires your brain to handle stress

Pushing your limits is one of the most effective stress management techniques — it forces you to change the way your brain deals with pressure or challenges. Researchers have studied the psychological habits of resilient people and tested how changing your mindset can make you better at handling stress. Through their research, they’ve developed Stress Inoculation Training (SIT), which teaches people to become aware of their stress and learn how to handle it. Psychiatrists also use SIT to help people deal with psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

According to research on stress inoculation, there are certain fundamental habits that build mental resilience. Here are three of the biggest ones:

Don’t be a victim. Watch out for self-pitying thoughts. Notice when you act or feel like a victim, and consciously choose to shift your mindset from “victim” to “survivor” or even “thriver.” People who reframe hardship as something to overcome, instead of something that’s happening to them, are significantly better at dealing with and recovering from stress, making this one of the best stress management techniques. One tip: look for the silver lining in the challenge. How will facing it and overcoming it make you a stronger person?
Practice forgiveness and compassion. The most resilient people learn to accept difficult situations and find compassion for others and themselves. Being compassionate with yourself instead of beating yourself up allows you to handle more stress and decreases your stress response on a physiological level. Forgiveness and compassion also permanently change your brain, which is why they are central parts of 40 Years of Zen. When you notice the temptation to judge or blame others, consciously choose to be compassionate instead. It’ll be difficult at first, but stick with it. Every time you do, you’re lighting up and strengthening a new, positive pathway in your brain and breaking down old habits of negative thinking.
Adaptively face your fears. Negative emotions like sadness, guilt, grief, shame, and anger are normal, and are not inherently bad for you. It’s not negative emotions themselves, but trying to avoid them, that undermines your ability to handle stress. When painful emotions come up, your monkey mind immediately wants to run from them. Notice when that happens, and feel the painful emotion instead of trying to avoid it. Nobody is happy all the time, and that’s okay. Get in the habit of feeling your negative emotions instead of trying to bury them. You’ll let them go much more quickly, and bounce back with a strong, resilient mindset.

Life is stressful, and it’s worth your time to learn and regularly practice stress management techniques that make you stronger. You’re also capable of a lot more than you think. Make it a habit to push your limits, and pay attention to how you react. When you practice these stress management techniques, you can learn to become more resilient than you thought possible.

The Future of Upgrading Humans and the Military – Andrew Herr #540

November 1, 2018 by Dave Asprey

Make Your Environment Less Like a Farm and More Like a Zoo: A “Game Changers” Excerpt

October 31, 2018 by Dave Asprey

If you’re like a lot of people, your typical day looks something like this: You get up, get dressed, drive to work, sit in an office cubicle, drive home, make dinner, watch some TV, and go to bed. Maybe you fit a workout in at the gym. So what’s missing from this picture? It’s a sense of freedom, of being out in the wild and a deep connection to the natural world. That’s the way your ancestors lived, and the way some people still live in remote parts of the globe.

Now, it’s likely not realistic or even necessary for you to reject the modern world in favor of a totally wild existence. But there are ways to reawaken your innate wildness so you can become happier and more productive in your current domesticated life. The idea is to make your environment less like a farm and more like a zoo, and it’s one of the 46 science-backed “laws” for living in my new book “Game Changers: What Leaders, Innovators, and Thinkers Do to Win at Life”.

The advice in the book stems from my conversations on the Bulletproof Radio podcast with hundreds of trailblazers doing cutting-edge work in their chosen fields.

Read on for an exclusive excerpt from the book to discover how you can reconnect to the wildness in your DNA to be smarter, faster, and healthier.

And to celebrate the release of “Game Changers”, I’m giving away some of my favorite gadgets and services. Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for more info.

Law #41: Make Your Environment Less Like a Farm and More Like a Zoo

You live in a domesticated environment that is economically useful and efficient but devoid of the type of energy that can power you to new levels. Spend more time outdoors. See trees. Smell plants. Taste real food. Sweat in the sun. Shiver when it’s cold. Give your nervous system a taste of the environment it evolved in so you can reap the returns as your biology changes to increase your performance.

Daniel Vitalis is in love with the idea of human wildness –– as in free, sovereign, and undomesticated human life. His passion resides at the intersection of human-zoology and personal development. In other words, he is keenly focused on understanding how we can use the wisdom of our ancestors and the benefits of their natural environments to reinvigorate our wild nature while simultaneously thriving in today’s world. For two decades, he’s been developing and applying practices modeled on the lives of early humans to help people get in touch with their wild sides. Some of the things he does are a little nuts, but he is inspiring a lot of people maximize their performance in ways that are in line with mine.

Daniel uses the term “rewilding” to refer to the idea of restoring something to its natural, uncultivated state. It is the antonym of “domesticated,” which is derived from the same word as “domicile” – another word for house. In other words, domesticated means, “of the house,” and for thousands of years humans have been not only domesticating plants and domesticating animals, but we’ve also been domesticating ourselves. Along the way, we’ve created a domestic version of many naturally wild entities. The romaine lettuce we eat is a domesticated version of the wild lettuce, lactuca serriola. The dogs we have as pets are domesticated versions of wolves. And Daniel claims that humans today are not actually homo sapiens, but rather a domesticated subspecies that he calls, “homo sapien domestico fragilis.” Maybe a little over the top, but he’s got your attention.

How has domestication changed us? Daniel says we are less robust and more graceful physically than our wild ancestors. We’re leaner and thinner and smaller. We mate and breed in captivity. We eat a diet of domesticated food. As such, we are a domestic subspecies. Radical thinking.

This means that there is a “wild” form of humans – the indigenous people that still live in isolated pockets around the world. Daniel says that these wild humans are healthier, stronger, and fitter than the rest of us. But there aren’t many of them left. Daniel believes that we are on the brink of a monumental change for human history, which is the extinction of wild humans. When this happens, he says, we’ll lose the strength of our gene pool. This is why we must reawaken the wildness that’s still alive in our DNA with daily practices that kindle the fire in our wild roots.

This “rewilding” process entails taking a look at your lifestyle and asking yourself how you can reinstate some of the things that are natural to our species. Daniel says to imagine pulling a chimpanzee out of the jungle and bringing him home to live in North America. Is your interest in keeping that animal healthy so it can live a long and productive life? If so, you would set up a habitat for the chimp that resembled its natural setting as much as possible instead of sticking it in an apartment, handing it a remote, and feeding it processed foods.

But the latter is exactly what we are doing to ourselves, so much so that Daniel believes we are halting our own evolution and harming our DNA for future generations. He suggests that there is a direct link between this degeneration of our genetic code and the increase in modern illnesses like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, tooth decay, and bone decay. We’re coming unglued.

Right now, Daniel says that we are living in a human factory farm. The purpose of a farm is not to promote the animals’ health, happiness, wellbeing, and longevity. It’s about getting maximum productivity at any expense with the goal of ending that animal’s life shortly. We’re born in captivity. We’re snipped and cut right at birth. We’re traumatized. We’re indoctrinated. We’re brainwashed. Then we produce products, services, and taxation money nonstop until we die prematurely. That’s a factory farm for humans. It’s a dark interpretation of our lives for sure, and it ignores the benefits of civilization. But this perspective does offer us some useful insights when it comes to maximizing human performance.

Daniel believes we can instead create a human zoo – a place that promotes an animal’s maximum health, the expression of its wild behavior, and the preservation of its genetics so that the animal can live a long life. To live in a zoo, you must recreate a habitat and diet that’s as similar to the wild version as possible, even though it’s only going to be an approximation. That exactly meets the definition of biohacking – changing the environment around you so you have full control of your own biology.

Daniel isn’t suggesting you need to go off the grid completely and start living in the woods. Instead, ask yourself: if you were going to bring a wild human into your house, how would you prepare? What would you have available for him or her to eat? What kinds of activities would you plan? Then, consider how you could take advantage of the same changes to set up your life so that it’s more of a zoo and less of a farm.

Of course, Daniel has faced a lot of criticism. He suggests that this is because the idea of wildness is taboo in a “civilized” society. In order to maintain our civilization, we have programmed ourselves to believe that there is something scary, unorganized, and inherently “other” about wildness, and that if we get in touch with that part of us, it will erode all of the progress we’ve made. We’ll become barbaric again. But Daniel reminds us that the word “barbaric” comes from the root word “barber.” It simply means to have long hair.

Not only is wildness normal, it is healthy. We’ve seen how every step we’ve taken away from nature has led to a breakdown in our health, whether it’s a result of sitting too much, not getting enough nutrients from plants and healthy animals, or the back-breaking labor of farming at the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution.

We are healthier in our wild environment. Before humans lived indoors they had constant access to fresh air and didn’t have deal with things like dust, which is dead skin that we now breathe in all day long in addition to the chlorofluorocarbons that air conditioning and refrigeration have been releasing into the air since the 1930s and all of the toxins in our factory-produced carpeting and furniture.

We’re never going to go back to being completely wild, but Daniel and others recommend a few simple actions that can help awaken the wildness in your genes – all of which mirror the advice throughout this book: reduce your toxic load, improve the quality of your diet, get increased exposure to fresh air, sunlight, soil, and clean water. Basically, begin the rewilding process by immersing yourself in a natural environment when you can get outside and changing your environment inside to be more natural.

Action Items:

* Get indoor plants. (Be sure to get organic plants without pesticide on them, and to control for mold growth in the soil. I use Homebiotic spray, which contains natural soil bacteria that combat indoor fungus.)

* Go for a hike in nature every time you travel.

* List three ways you can make your environment more like a zoo than a farm

o _______________

o ______________

Recommended Listening:

* Daniel Vitalis: ReWild Yourself – Bulletproof Radio Episode #141

* Eat Dirt: The Secret to a Healthy Microbiome: Zach Bush – Bulletproof Radio Episode #458

Learn more about Game Changers here.

Visceral Manipulation: The Organ Massage That Heals Pain, Digestion and Other Problems

October 31, 2018 by Dave Asprey

[tldr]

Your organs are soft and need to move inside your body to do their jobs.
Visceral mobility is how well your organs can contract and release as needed.
Overburdened or damaged organs can develop adhesions and scar tissue that makes them less pliable.
Visceral manipulation involves abdominal massage that combines pressing, deep strokes, and friction to strip away the adhesions.
Read on to find out what’s involved, and how to do visceral manipulation yourself at home.

[/tldr]

Over the years, I’ve seen hundreds of healers ranging from conventional doctors to Ayurvedic practitioners to a Peruvian shaman. Some of the more unusual practitioners would do deep abdominal massage.

Almost immediately, I would notice improvements in areas of my body they didn’t touch at all, especially when the practitioner used deep, targeted strokes. To be perfectly honest, these were not always the most relaxing procedures in the moment, but soon after, I felt my body relax and reposition in ways I didn’t expect.

There was one Chinese medicine doctor in particular who used two fingers and went in deep, then used long gliding pressure strokes to really strip the connective tissue around my organs. At the time, I felt every inch of my insides. I joked that he rearranged my organs with his hands, and while he was working I felt my muscles in my upper and mid-back release, even though he was nowhere near my back muscles.

My whole body tensed, then the relaxation that followed melted me into the table. It’s something you have to experience to describe. Some people have an emotional response, likely from the release of bound-up stress hormones.

When I would leave appointments with that doctor, I sat taller. I felt taller. And, my body changed. He massaged my abdomen, but my shoulder moved differently from then on. I had a more comfortable flow when walking. If you’re wondering what was the mechanism behind the change, keep reading to learn about how the movement of your organs relates to your whole body.

RELATED: Instantly download free printable workout routines that will help you build muscle, increase focus, and have more energy for the day ahead, no equipment required.

What is visceral mobility?

Your organs are soft and need to move inside your body to do their jobs. Visceral mobility is how well your organs can contract and release and squish as needed. Overburdened or damaged organs can develop adhesions[ref url=”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1360859209001296″] and scar tissue that makes them less pliable. When the fascia — the connective tissue and fluid around organs — becomes stiff, it limits their movement and pliability and hinders your organs’ function.

This carries through to the rest of your body, and there are two main ideas behind why. First there’s the logic that the entire body is innervated, so problems on the organ side of the nerve carry through the length of the nerve to muscles and limbs. The second idea is that stiff fascia around an organ formed because there was a problem, and that’s your body’s way of protecting vulnerable spots. Once the problem resolves, the fascia remains. Your whole body’s movement stems from your core, and pain and tightness from your organs sends the signal to limit movement from the parts of your body that will expose the vulnerable area.

Visceral mobility isn’t well researched, but my guess is, it’s a combination of the two. Your organs and systems do not exist in a vacuum. Your whole body is connected and constantly communicating in ways science hasn’t discovered yet.

What is visceral manipulation?

Visceral manipulation involves abdominal massage that combines pressing, deep strokes, and friction to strip away the adhesions. The goal is to restore the pliable, mobile state that helps your organs get the circulation, nutrients, and suppleness they need to function properly.

Benefits of visceral manipulation

Like I said before, you have to experience it to believe it. There’s nothing like feeling your muscles and joints release and realign, all because someone worked on your abdominal cavity for a while.

Anecdotally, people report improvements in many areas, like:

Reduced chronic muscle pain
Less bloating and constipation
Improvements with uterine fibroids and cysts
Reduced joint pain
Improved sciatica
Relief from carpal tunnel
Less trouble from “old” injuries
Diminished symptoms of fibromyalgia
Improved digestion

These are only a small selection of the long list of things people report as benefits from visceral manipulation.

Visceral manipulation isn’t well-researched. A lot of the research around it involves rat models, but results are worth paying attention to. Here are a few examples of things researchers observed about visceral manipulation so far:

Prevented and broke up peritoneal adhesions in rats[ref url=”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1360859211000544″]
Restored post-operative intestinal motility in rats[ref url=”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1360859212001611″]
Reduced constipation in humans[ref url=”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1360859210001063″]

What happens during visceral manipulation?

First, you will lie face-up on a massage or exam table. Your practitioner can feel your viscera — your major internal organs located in the abdomen — by lightly pressing through your abdominal muscles.

Your practitioner’s manual poking, pressing and massage action does three things:

Reveals visceral adhesions. A well-trained practitioner will know what healthy, mobile organs feel like, and will be able to determine whether your organs have tight spots.
Helps you find your own tender spots. Your practitioner will communicate with you throughout the procedure, asking whether you feel tenderness here or there when she presses. Speak up, and describe what you’re feeling, even if it’s barely noticeable.
Breaks up adhesions. Massaging and pressing stretches the collagen fibers that make up your fascia, which loosens tightly-bound fibers to break up adhesions. This releases the organs and allows them to move more freely.

Minor adhesions may resolve after one session. Tough, stubborn adhesions may require several sessions plus self-manipulation between appointments. Your practitioner will guide you.

How to do visceral manipulation to yourself

There’s no replacement for targeted therapy with an experienced practitioner, but if you’re not there yet or if you’re between appointments, you can do your own gentle visceral manipulation at home.

What you need:

6-8 inch diameter ball, either foam or inflated. The ball should have some give to it — you should be able to press into it but not flatten it.
Towel or yoga mat (optional).

How to self-administer abdominal massage

Do a plank with your middle over the ball. Slowly lower your body onto the ball until you’re relaxed face-down on the floor with the ball nested in your abdominal cavity.
Rest your head on your arms, and relax into the ball as much as you can. Move only in ways that you can tolerate. Your abdomen will feel more pliable over time, so go slow.
Use your breath to create tension and relaxation. You’ll find what feels good and allows you to relax into the ball further every time.
Once you get to know your abdomen and you’re aware of your tender spots, experiment with different movements. You can slowly slide or rock back and forth, side to side, or try sinking lower into the ball every time. The key is to move slowly and gradually, repeating motions that are tight (not painful!)
Picture your abdomen separated into quadrants all intersecting at your belly button. Be sure to spend a few minutes in each quadrant.
If it hurts, stop immediately. Pain means something’s not right, so get a doctor to check it out.

This is a good practice to incorporate for a few minutes 2-3 times per week, and there are advanced techniques that you can learn from a professional. This isn’t a daily practice. The point is to get the connective tissue around your organs to restructure, and you need a day or two in between sessions to allow collagen fibers to reconfigure.

Visceral manipulation was one of those things that I was willing to try, even though there’s not much information around it. The healers that I trust claimed there was a benefit, and it wasn’t going to do any harm. Why not? Biohacking is all about finding the things that make you feel and perform a little better each day.

100 Years Old is the New 60 – Dr. Bob Hariri #539

October 30, 2018 by Dave Asprey

This episode of Bulletproof Radio is recorded in person at the XPRIZE event (which Bulletproof is sponsoring) with neurosurgeon, Dr. Bob Hariri.

Dr. Hariri is an amazing human being with 30 years of experience as a neurosurgeon and a medical entrepreneur. He has created a huge number of startups, and is innovating at the very forefront of how we can gain control of our own biology.

Dr. Hariri’s work has now expanded to include anti-ageing, longevity and stem cell treatments particularly with a company called Celularity which is pioneering some of the most innovative ways we can live longer than we ever thought we could.

Enjoy the show!

Follow Along with the Transcript

100 Years Old is the New 60 – Dr. Bob Hariri #539

Links/Resources

Website: humanlongevity.com
Website: celularity.com
TedMed: tedmed.com

Show Notes

Why One Hundred is the new Sixty 00:01:30
Stems cells as a product 00:04:50
The challenge in cellular medicine 00:05:30
As we age we damage our own stem cells 00:06:40
Ethical and moral considerations behind stem cells 00:09:45
Do cells have a consciousness? 00:12:50
What is Hybrid vigour? 00:14:20
We can quality check stem cells 00:15:15
Are stem cells transient? 00:17:30
Is the USA regulating themselves out of invention? 00:26:10
Rewrite the Hippocratic oath 00:29:35
Who reads the pharmaceutical inserts 00:31:15
“Our global leadership thinks it is in a better position to judge the end of life care than we are.” 00:36:05
Stem cells and cancer 00:42:00
How long Bob plans to live 00:45:30

Go check out “Headstrong” and “The Bulletproof Diet” on Amazon and leave a review!

If you like today’s episode, check us out on Apple Podcasts at Bulletproof.com/iTunes and leave us a 5-star, positive review.

Fungal Acne is a Thing And You Could Have It (Maybe)

October 30, 2018 by Dave Asprey

[tldr]

Although fungal acne has come onto the scene as a relatively new discussion, it’s not a new condition.
Fungal acne looks a lot like hormonal acne or bacterial acne, but the culprit isn’t the same as other types of acne. Instead, it is an overgrowth of yeast that hangs around in the hair follicles.
Researchers have observed fungal acne crop up after events that compromise the immune system, such as certain illnesses, transplants, etc. among other causes. Or, fungal acne can occur without a major event that weakens the immune system.
Here’s how to identify fungal acne, and what to do about it.

[/tldr]

If you have breakouts that won’t budge, no matter what treatments you try, you could be dealing with fungal acne. Although the term fungal acne might be new to you, it’s not a new condition. In fact, it’s not even really acne. That’s why you can put all the benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid you want on fungal acne, and it won’t disappear. Here’s what you need to know about fungal acne, including what it looks like and how to treat it, so you can figure out once and for all what kind of acne you’re dealing with — and get back to clear, radiant skin.

What is fungal acne?

Fungal acne looks a lot like hormonal acne or bacterial acne, but the culprit isn’t the same as other types of acne. Instead, it is an overgrowth of yeast that hangs around in the hair follicles. The technical term: pityrosporum folliculitis or malassezia folliculitis.

Fungal acne appears as inflamed, itchy, acne-like eruptions that are really pus-filled bumps. It shows up as breakouts in areas where you typically have a lot of oil — in your T-zone (forehead, nose, chin), chest and back. The telltale difference is that fungal acne can be itchy, and regular acne is not. Other clues: fungal acne is generally uniform in size and shape, and appears in clusters of small whiteheads.

Fungal acne is especially frustrating to treat, because it looks so much like regular acne (which is caused by bacteria). Just as you can’t attack a cold virus with antibiotics and expect to get better, you can’t treat fungal acne with traditional acne medications. The good news is, once you know what you’re dealing with and use the proper treatments, you’ll see massive improvements in your complexion.

What causes pityrosporum (malassezia) folliculitis?

Malassezia, the yeast responsible for fungal acne, lives on everyone’s skin. It’s only when its balance is thrown out of whack that an outbreak occurs. Pityrosporum folliculitis stems from a range of imbalances.

Your skin microbiome, the balance of beneficial and troublesome microorganisms on your skin, can shift from changes in your diet, environment, medication, workout regimen, skincare routine, or dozens of other reasons. Sometimes it will rebalance itself, and other times, you’ll need to step in to help it along. Yeasts love warm, wet environments, so keeping skin dry and clean during workouts and after can help. Yeasts also love sugar and carbs, so you may notice improvement after cutting back on sweets.

Not every instance of fungal acne gets scientifically investigated, but folliculitis that follows specific medical conditions grabs scientists’ attention. Researchers also have observed fungal acne crop up:

After taking antibiotics[ref url=”https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2133.1973.tb08015.x”][ref url=”https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/article-abstract/530748″]
If you have HIV and AIDS[ref url=”https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/article-abstract/552692″][ref url=”https://www.jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(86)70126-6/abstract”][ref url=”https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/10417509″]
After spending time in intensive care[ref url=”https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1365-4362.1999.00718.x”]
After transplant surgery,[ref url=”http://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/701374/pityrosporum-folliculitis-after-bone-marrow-transplantation-clinical-observations-five-patients”][ref url=”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053249899001230″][ref url=”https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1346-8138.2000.tb02118.x”][ref url=”http://awarticles.s3.amazonaws.com/8965683.pdf”] Note: patients take immunosuppressants after transplants so the common thread seems to be a weakened immune system[ref url=”https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1439-0507.2009.01814.x”]

Or, you could have fungal acne without having experienced any of these. There are plenty of conditions that create the ideal environment for fungal acne that scientists haven’t investigated yet.

The immune system connection is worth paying attention to. Your skin has its own microbiome, an ecosystem of microorganisms that benefit your skin in the right balance, or disrupt your skin’s function when the wrong species take over. Your microbiome is a crucial part of your immune system and helps your body fight off the pathogens that cause problems.

Restoring a disrupted balance of flora involves a multi-step process and antifungals might be a quicker fix, but to keep fungal acne away long-term, you have to pay attention to your beneficial bacteria. More on that coming up.

How to know for sure that you have fungal acne

A few things can clue you in that you’re dealing with fungal acne:

Your acne doesn’t respond to over-the-counter or prescription acne treatments, or they make the problem worse
Your acne feels itchy or burns to the touch
You have other signs of fungal overgrowth, like dandruff, tinea versicolor, psoriasis, eczema, etc.

The only way to know for sure whether your acne is fungal or bacterial is to have your dermatologist grab a sample of the surface skin cells and test them. Don’t worry — it takes a few seconds and it’s painless.

While you’re waiting for answers, you can experiment with over-the-counter and natural ways to fight fungus in your body (what to do about it, coming up).

Pityrosporum folliculitis fungal acne treatment

Here’s how to get rid of fungal acne for good.

Outside-in fungal acne treatment

Use a chemical exfoliant on your skin. This keeps pores clear of dead skin cells, which trap oil and create a buffet table for pityrosporum and yeasts. Look for ingredients like lactic acid, bakuchiol, or salicylic acid.
Experiment with over-the-counter topical fungus treatments. You may see a difference when you use antifungal creams, or when you use dandruff shampoo as body or face wash.
Wear natural, breathable fabrics. Synthetic materials can be irritating and contribute to oil production on your chest and back. Make sure oil isn’t trapped, and can dissipate naturally.
Remove wet workout clothes immediately after exercising.
See your dermatologist. Ask specifically for testing for fungal acne. A simple test can save you loads of frustration, and you can start the right treatments. You may find that your acne is fungal, bacterial, or a combination of the two.

Inside-out fungal acne treatment

Cut sugar and go low-carb. Yeasts and fungi love sugar and simple carbs that convert to sugar in your body. If you starve them, they won’t hang around for long.
Balance your gut microbiome. Your microbiome in your gut balances the microbiome in other parts of your body, including your skin. Keep your gut in balance, and the beneficial organisms everywhere else will stay happy. Listen to this episode of the Bulletproof Radio podcast (iTunes) to learn how to fix your gut. You can use the Viome Gut Intelligence Test to get your gut microbiome analyzed (yes it’s an affiliate, becuase I strongly believe in them. use “DAVE” at checkout for $10 off). Also Just Thrive has probiotics to help balance your gut microbiome.
Explore natural antifungals. Oregano, clove, black walnut, and other plants are natural antifungals that you can find as capsules or in essential oil form. If you use the essential oils, consult an expert to learn how to use them so you don’t damage your skin — they’re powerful. Caprylic acid, a medium-chain triglyceride with an 8-carbon chain, isn’t appetizing to yeasts — in fact, it combats fungi.
Ask your dermatologist about oral antifungal medication. After tests have confirmed it is pityrosporum folliculitis, talk to your doctor about what combination of oral and topical medications will work best.

Your skin is an important indicator of what’s happening on the inside. Looking your best on the surface is a clear signal that everything’s working well in your body. It’s your job to figure out where you can make adjustments so that you can look and feel amazing every single day.

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