We've got a bevy of questions here ranging from arresting cognitive decline, new dad life hacks, and old English inquiries to Reddit randomness. Mrs. Limitless and I discuss Biohacking, cognitive h...
Transcript
Limitless Q&A episode number 46 coming at you. We've got a bevy of Christians here, ranging from arresting cognitive decline, new dad life hacks, old English inquiries, to Reddit randomness that will... get to, but I have a direct ask for you, dear listener, that is participating in the 2026 Limitless Audience Survey, linked below wherever you are watching or listening to me. And this should take you less than 10 minutes to complete. If you've gotten some... transformative value from my work, this is your chance to shape it in the future. In it, I ask you for some feedback on, for example, what biohacking or life hacking questions have you failed to find a satisfying and helpful answer to? What? kind of content do you want more of from Limitless? Feel free to ramble the answers to these questions and more into your smartphone for the AI chatbot of your choice to summarize and then copy-paste them into the survey fields. I also ask, do you have any constructive criticism of Limitless? Yes, you can actually submit this survey anonymously. Your name and email address not required. For example, I got a piece of criticism lately from someone close to me that has a public speaking background. And they were saying that I... am in presentation mode too often, and that my podcast would be, like, way better if I was in conversational mode more often. And I kind of have a reason for that. I think that's accurate. I am in presentation mode a lot of times, because in my content, I write almost all of my content out. That helps me to organize my thoughts. crystallize my ideas, practice Socratic method a little bit more, and then deliver it in a more concise way. And then I have also been influenced by and emulate a little bit, some podcasters that speak with some eloquence and gravitas. So that would explain why I use kind of flowery. vocabulary and expressions from time to time. But, I don't know, babe, maybe in my podcast I should ramble a little bit more about how the weather is, and maybe that will make me a much superior podcaster. So that's the kind of thing that I'd like to get your feedback from in that form, in that survey, and a lot of podcasters would attach... some sort of bribe to this, some kind of freebie giveaway. But I want to gauge the goodwill of my audience, you, and again give you the chance to shape my work if you've gotten some transformative value out of it. So hit up that form in the description. You could... even do that while listening to this. It's one of those clever forms that remembers your responses if you only get like halfway through it and then have to return to finish it. I genuinely look forward to your feedback via the audience survey, which will be open for not long. Hit up. that link now, and my co-host in this Q&A is a woman who is no stranger to controversy. In fact, she was recently accused by her rather diminutive opponent of cheating in the Bulgarian block stacking competition. I am joined by my beautiful wife, Gargana. Hey, babe, how are you doing today? Hey, John, a little, a little hot due to the flush from the niacin that you gave me? That's right. I was tempted to give you a real megadose, get those NAD levels up in the stratosphere, but... I thought you might not like that. And I do... You're completely right. Yeah, I don't need you read like Rudolph for this podcast. We're a ways away from the holiday season. Okay, so before we get into the questions, just a few things, what you hear here... and find on my website, limitlessmindset.com, is not medical advice. I'm not a doctor. I'm just an experienced, unlicensed self-experimenter practicing free speech in talking about my own extensive experiences and interpretations of published science. You should really see my guide on how to biohack smart and safe. This is a recently updated guide filtered through about 15 years of obsessive, meticulous experimentation and experience with this whole weird and wacky world of biohacking, and that guide has got a sweet infographic. Did I show you that infographic? I don't think so. Okay. I'll have to show it to you, and I think you'll be, I think you'll be woed by it. I'm sure I will be. So with any serious health decisions you're making, consult a doctor and get a second opinion from the doctor, and then all the links to everything that we talk about here can be found via the link. to the show notes for this Q&A episode, below wherever you are watching or listening to us. Okay, babe, let's dive into question one. I think that we should warn our dear listeners that they may very well hear some happy baby noises in the background. There is indeed some happy baby noises in the background from the littlest biohacker, possibly in Bulgaria, but due to the sorcery of modern day AI that I'm going to use to massage the audio quality. On this, they will simply have to imagine the baby noises that waft in to charm us. Well, okay, okay, I just thought that we should warn the listeners in case they hear that. Okay. Okay, so on to the first question. The first question comes from Ben via breakthrough form. A 38-year-old former tunneling worker based in Signey, with a five-month-old son, with due to deep concerns over potential early cognitive decline, citing word-finding difficulties, memory lapses, executive dysfunction, a history of shift work and fine silica dust exposure, and a APO-E -E 3-4 genotype with his mother, who has early Alzheimer's at 66. Additionally, struggling with chronic mild irritation, elevated anxiety manifested in hair-twisting habits, and persistent mild neutropenia alongside recurring skin rashes. He has already stopped past heavy parting and alcohol use. and is actively managing his health through an extensive supplement regimen 40-harts, light-slash-sound therapy, and vagus nerve stimulation. Okay, Ben, he names his primary issue, don't have control over my mind. And, first of all, You're really not doing too badly if you're managing to tread water in life as a husband, father, and a new dad. That is a lot to juggle. I know. And, yeah, so you might be being a little bit hard on yourself if you're saying, I don't have control over my mind. So let's go through a couple of the concerns that he shared with us via the breakthrough form and then gave me permission to address publicly. Here, said over the last two years, I've noticed a significant change of my cognition, very poor at remembering names compared with previously. increasing word-finding retrieval of problems. I know the word is there, but struggle to access it. Given my family history, the APOE4 status, long -term shift work, and occupational exposure, I'm concerned about possible very early Alzheimer's changes, and I went to investigate other causes. Okay, so things like remembering names and word -finding. I would suggest, of course, the smart drug piracetam. It's really the best for that. And then fitting in a mnemonics memory practice. Nemonics is the best form of exercise for your memory, and it will help, and it'll help relatively quickly, especially if you pair it with some good neutropics. And again, Paracetam is probably the best. About your concern with APOE4, here's a little context for that. Carrying a single copy of that gene increases relative risk for late. onset Alzheimer's, typically 65 plus, but it is not a deterministic gene. It is highly debatable whether there are any deterministic genes, or necessarily a cause of early onset Alzheimer's. So, at your age, I really don't think you have to be paranoid about this. I think you can... Use your mother as motivation for enhanced vigilance around maintaining your mind. And the two things I mentioned, mnemonics practice, and paracetam, are pretty good preventatives of things like Alzheimer's and cognitive decline. Okay, and then his issues. Okay, so he says, over the last few years, I've developed more anxiety slash stress. Okay, so you, in that case, want to just be more mindful of habituating mindfulness habit. That is what makes the biggest difference in the anxiety stress department. And he said, I recently left tunneling. And now work for myself. Last two years have involved a lot of stress while making this transition. Your escape from tunneling. And when I think about tunneling, I think of tunneling primarily as an escape modality. And then he says, I also now have my first child, who is five months old, so this may be a contributing additional stress and sleep disruption. Yeah, you don't say, Ben, yeah, that first year of parenthood, there's, stress is dramatically increased. Yeah, yeah, it's a bit rough. This is the steepest, this is the steepest curve of explosion of novelty and new challenges that you're probably ever going to have to deal with in life. So a little bit of what you're describing is, like, pretty natural for the chapter of life that he's in. Here's a big question, though, and he sounds like he's already pretty adroit around genes. Are you an MTHFR? If you're an MTHFR, your biology, and ultimately your longevity is going to be less anti -fragile to stress. If you're an MTHFR, You would want to do meditation for like 30 minutes a day. That would be like a really good idea for you. And you are self-employed, so let's like practice some agency here with time management. Although life is hectic and busy, you can do this. You can do 30 minutes a day, and it'll make a big difference. If you're not an MTHFR... then you're going to be a bit more resilient to stress, and I would say, reframe all this as you stress. As a sapient biohacker like you is aware, if mindset has a lot to do with how our biology responds to stress, if we tell ourselves that the globe of responsibilities on our shoulders, is a blessing, is a positive, is a challenge that greatness awaits through, then our bodies refrain that into you stress, and it actually becomes kind of a good thing for us. But if you're an MTHFR, then you don't want to be quite so stoic about soldiering on through stress. He also mentions, go ahead, babe. I think that we should tell him that if he is an empty HFR, he should be only taking methylated B vitamins. Right, yes, always a good reminder. Because otherwise, he won't be able to absorb the vitamins. So if they are synthetic, they're doing nothing for him, only methylated forms. Oh, okay, okay, all right, and at this point, I am going to take off my eye patch, because I can't see you, and you're beautiful, I can't see you, I can only see the inside of the eye patch, and the people that make fun of me for being cross-eyed are the kind of people that only watch, like, the first, the first... two minutes of a podcast anyways. Okay, and then he also mentions some things going on with his, he's twisting his hair into knots, and that's kind of a bad habit. The anxiety solutions like meditation are going to help with that. Or you can just do what I did as a brand new dad, which is give yourself a buzz cut, and then you won't have anything to twist. There you go. Problem solved. What if his wife doesn't like him with a buzz cut? Um, then he should do the 30 minutes of meditation a day. Okay, good advice. Okay, um, he... has also, okay, other health issues mentioned, I've had reoccurring skin rash over the last few years. Blood tests have shown persistent low-grade neuropenia compared with my earlier blood work, and he mentions a couple of supplements that he's on, and I'm going to circle back to that. My chief recommendations here, is that, first of all, just the acknowledgement that new dad, life, even first your parenthood, will be, will mess with your cognitive powers, some. And my, at this point, my best parenting... is kind of high level, and it reflects our experience here, which is that our son, Phoenix, has been an extraordinarily easy and tranquil while baby. He started sleeping through nights all on his own at about three months old, right? Yeah. And he's been, yeah, he's been overall just very easy. And I think this is a lot to do with our intentionality that we have as parents. And one thing I looked at is, prior to being a parent, is that a lot of behavioral issues in babies and then in children and then even in adolescence, a lot of behavioral issues come down to their cortisol. their cortisol levels. And so anything that you can do to not spike your child's cortisol levels is going to ROI in a major, major way, with tranquility in your life. And so this is why we are 100 % on board with peaceful parenting. And this means to broach a bunch of somewhat controversial topics. This means no vaccination, no circumcision, no yelling in the house, no corporal punishment, no spankings or anything like that, no physical aggression against the child, and no daycare. Yeah, these are, there's quite good research now linking these things to heightened cortisol levels in the child, which make them all the more melodramatic and make, and just multiply the frustrations that you have in life as a parent. And then, yeah, it ultimately results in a more healthy and resilient human being that will... carry on your legacy in the world. He mentioned sleep, and the way that is totally retarded that a lot of new parents do sleep, is that one parent will deal with the baby's wake-ups that occur until midnight. And then another parent will deal with the baby's wake-ups after midnight. And so then you end up with both parents being chronically underslept for quite a while. And the much smarter way of doing this is having designated nights that one parent sleeps with the baby. And the other parent sleeps in another room. So, at least one of you is decently well slept every day. And that makes a big difference. Okay. So he obviously has some toxic buildup. Yes, go ahead. Oh, geez. And you can tap me on the shoulder when you want to interject. Yeah, when you can't see me. Well, some parents actually both wake up at night for the baby. Even worse. Both, because one wakes up, you know, to change the baby, and then the other one feeds the baby. Yes, so both parents end up even more underslept. Yes, that's what I mean. Okay, that's what we don't want to do, limitless parents. So, obviously, Ben has some... detox that needs to be done from his past life of tunneling, and a supervised detox protocol is a really good idea, and this is something that is also totally out of my wheelhouse. It's something that I just don't know that much about, other than the fact that detox can be done the wrong way, actually resulting in... accumulating health issues with it. So this would be the place to employ the services of a good functional medicine doc. And I'm also going to direct him to the empirical zinc protocol that I recently did a meta-analysis article. And this is something that would target his mild... Neutropenia. This would be a real good idea. He didn't mention zinc in his stack. So I will link over to the empirical zinc protocol. And on his stack, in his stack, he mentioned NMN at a dosage of 1 milligram. And that is way too little NMN. You want to be taken like 500 milligrams of NMN, but maybe that was a typo. And then he mentions 600 milligrams of NAC. And NAC is not a great daily driver, Neutropic, taking it every day. can result in kind of a down mood in some people. NAC is for, if you are recovering from vice, or if your immune system is a bit challenged. So, NAC is for episodic. So, I would finally just recommend to him what I call the Working Memory Rehab Protocol. And I did this deep dive article one time on how modernity is harmful to our working memories. And I prescribed a protocol in there, something that you don't have to do forever. But if you want to sharpen up your working memory, follow this protocol for a month or two. And you'll feel about 5, 10 years younger. And then if you want to take that to the next level, the one thing that it was kind of missing in his stack was neuroplasticity. stimulators. And if you need a brain power comeback, those are a good idea. So that would be CMAX, Selink, and something like a lion's mane. And unless you have anything to add, we can move on to the next question. Well, nothing, nothing to add. Just, you have to soldier through the first year with a new baby. Yep. Yep, that's it. And you did a good job at that. Bravo, babe. Thanks, John, you too. Okay, next question comes from Subversion Stopper on Odyssey. Jonathan, random question. I see you swaying side to side in your videos. Do you have restless leg syndrome by chance? Or perhaps just have excessive energy during peak energy parts of the day? I sometimes do the bobbing knee when sitting, and sometimes when having insomnia, I find that if I shake my legs, it helps my muscles to relax. So perhaps I have it some walk myself. Okay, I'll address that first. No, I don't have restless leg syndrome. I use a standing desk and... When I'm recording podcasts, I just get kind of energized and swaying back and forth is just kind of, that just feels natural to me. When I'm standing at my standing desk, talking to the internet, and this is also probably a little bit of a sedentary life hack. If we can move even just a little bit instead of staying steel, then that's good for our health. And a little factoid that you might find interesting, there is what's called the soleus pushup, and you're saying, what's a solius? And the soleus is your calf muscle. Interestingly, or remarkably, really, the soleus is an inexhaustible muscle. So a soleus pushup, you can't really see me doing this right now, but I'll post a photo, a little diagram of it in a show notes. A soleus pushup is where you just raise your ankle. a few centimeters off the ground repeatedly. And this is actually something that you can do all day long without your calf muscle getting tired. You can just keep... doing that, and that muscle is just going to keep working. That's kind of wild, isn't it? And some people recommend getting in the habit of doing these soleus push-ups, because if you do have to sit in a chair for work, then you're getting into kind of that sedentary mode, and it just keeps the blood flowing more throughout your body. Okay, you can continue, subversion stoppers questions. Okay. I vaguely recall from the years when I was more neutropics obsessed that some biohackers had started to consider acetanthropics as having some higher risks slash more moderate side effects and thought folks were more moving away from them. Am I mistaken in this? Okay, subversion stopper, with the amount of comments that you leave on my channel, I think you are currently quite neutropics. obsessed. And I still consider Rassatams, one of the safest classes of neutropics. Years and years ago, when I invented a Rassatam rich, newtropic stack, I went really deep into investigating the... potential negatives that they might have. I looked real hard for concerns with them because I was going to be selling a product that contained them. And I arrived at the conclusion that they really are very safe. Over the 15 years now that I've had my website, I have spoken with... It must be hundreds of biohackers now, and many of them use the rassetams, and I would hear from plenty of biohackers that tried modafinil and had some terrible experience with it. But I never encountered anecdotally... someone reporting really concerning side effects from the racetam neutropics, and given the attention that I've paid to this class of smart drugs, I don't know if there's anyone in the world that's paid as much attention to them as I, I remain really optimistic on them. Okay, next question. Comes from Geraldine on Facebook. Picture two identical twins over the next decade. Twin A takes the absolute gold standard neutropic stack every morning but lives in total behavioral chaos, while Twin B takes sugar placebo pills, but maintains absolute stoic discipline and laser focus. Who wins in the long term? Okay, do you think this is perhaps an allusion to…