Do you want to be smarter, stronger and happier?
What about increasing your focus, concentration, mental balance, and IQ?
What if you could take the lump of mass you are now and turn it into a lean, mean, superhuman machine? I’m talking about the top 3 ways to become superhuman.
The old adage, “If you shoot for the moon and miss, you’ll land among the stars, applies here and I’ll explain in a second…
First, have you seen the movie, Limitless?
Remember how Bradley Cooper’s character used that special drug to transform his brain, body, and attitude?
While you don’t need to take drugs to get where you want to be, there are some pretty powerful “hacks” out there that can move you forward in a big way.
And, if you remember, at the end of the movie, Cooper’s character figures out how to be limitless without the pills.
The message here is that you can use the steps Iâm about to outline to make yourself nearer to superhuman… To being limitless – like you’ve never been before.
This might be the most important health-related read of your life.
Table of Contents
Exercise Boosts Brainpower
Exercise has a tremendous impact on mental health and cognitive abilities, according to psychiatrists.
As little as 30 minutes of daily exercise can get you smarter.
Exercise increases the production of endorphins and an increase in endorphins has been shown to improve an ability to handle challenging tasks.
But How Does Exercise Make You Smarter
BOOSTS ENERGY
The more blood you get flowing, the more energized you’ll feel. Regular physical activity increases your muscle strength and boosts endurance. This means you’ll have more energy to think clearer and generate new plans and ideas.
ENHANCES FOCUS
Exercise significantly enhances your focus for up to a couple hours afterward. If you have a big speech or job interview coming up, consider exercising beforehand. In the long-term, it can help slow brain aging and prevent Alzheimer’s Disease.
IMPROVES MEMORY
Your brain recalls more when your body is active. In one study, participants were asked to remember a string of letters, and they were then allowed to sit and meditate, get up and jog, or lift weights.
The students who ran fared significantly better than either of the other two groups.
BOOSTS PRODUCTIVITY
Workers that exercise mid-day are much more likely to be nicer to their co-workers, increase performance on the job, and make better use of their time management skills.
Dr. John Ratey, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, outlined some of the ways that exercise makes us smarter in an online interview, promoting his new book, Spark: The Revolutionary new Science of Exercise and the Brain.
He said that exercise improves overall mood, motivation, attention, and concentration, and it decreases overall impulsivity.
He explained this was partially accomplished by raising the neurotransmitters norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine, and talked about quick exercise as if it was like taking a little bit of anti-depressants with some attention deficit pills…
His next point was that exercise primes the brain to generate new brain cells.
According to Dr. Ratey, the only way we learn something is when brain cells grow. They need to make better connections with each other so we can quickly retrieve information and hold on to it.
Exercise stimulates the production of a protein (BDNF) that promotes brain cell growth, and he likened the whole process to fertilizing the brain.
His third point was that exercise helps new brain cells grow. We make new brain cells every day, and a big area we do this in is the hippocampus.
He said something pretty significant…
And that was that no drug or activity compares to what physical exercise does to increase the number of new brain cells we generate each day.
Take exercise to the next level with high-intensity interval training…
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is any kind of workout that switches between intense bouts of activity and fixed periods of less-intense activity, or even total rest.
For instance, a good starter workout is running as fast as you’re able to for one minute and then just walking slowly for a couple of minutes. You can repeat that 3-minute cycle five times for a 15-minute, high-intensity workout.
It sounds really simple, like it couldn’t possibly be effective, but it really is. This might be the swift kick in the pants that you really need to reach another level.
High-intensity interval training is an excellent way to lose fat and build muscle. Done efficiently, these workouts are really short, but really intense, and offer numerous health benefits:
- Big post-exercise burn that lasts up to 24 hours.
- Enhanced hormone response that offers you a fat-burning effect.
- Health benefits for the brain, lungs, and heart.
- Increased strength and power capacity.
- Improved brain and mood function.
- An overall sense of wellbeing.
If you’re trying to take your life to the next level, high-intensity interval training is a great place to start.
Brain Games Boost Your IQ
Play Games
Fluid intelligence is a big part of every IQ test, and it’s associated with your working memory. A researcher at the University of Michigan discovered that asking participants to remember sequences of sounds and geometric shapes each day can boost it. Her research found that 25 minutes a day of this will raise your IQ by at least four points.
Be A Social Gamer
When you want to improve your brainpower, Scrabble is a good game. Activities which make you use several skill-sets, in tandem with social interaction, are great options if you’re trying to boost your IQ.
You’ll get all the interaction you need by playing the Scrabble app in a one-on-one match with a friend every day on Wi-Fi.
Brain training has been scientifically proven to improve working memory, and when you use games each day to increase your intelligence in tandem with the nutraceuticals and “smart drugs” Iâm going to cover, you’ll really see a positive difference.
Smart Drugs & Nutraceuticals
To call them âsmart drugs might fill your head with all sorts of bad associations.
All of the negative connotations that go along with the word drugs don’t apply to the following substances.
To call them ânutritional supplements might mislead you into thinking that these were ordinary vitamins and minerals that wonât have a noticeable brain-boosting effect.
So, for right now, we’ll call them nutraceuticals.
Nutraceutical might be the most appropriate word for classifying the substances I’m about to describe. Nutraceutical is a portmanteau of the words pharmaceutical and nutrition.
A nutraceutical is demonstrated to have a physiological effect or offer protection against chronic disease. In this case, the protection would be against losing the mental alertness, focus, and memory you had as a youngster.
The term smart drug applies, too, but I don’t want you to get carried away and start thinking these are illegal, hard drugs with addictive potential.
These are all legal substances, and you can pick them up in your health food store without a prescription.
Smart drugs are sometimes called nootropics. They’re referred to by a multitude of names, such as intelligence enhancers, âcognitive enhancers, neuro enhancers, and memory enhancers.
First, let’s cover some of the best nutraceuticals.
What Are Some Of The Most Popular Nutraceuticals?
ACETYL-L-CARNITINE: Acetyl-L-Carnitine crosses the blood-brain barrier where it acts as a powerful antioxidant. It acts on both dopamine and acetylcholine function. It’s a neuroprotective substance, and is an extremely powerful cognitive enhancer. Even though most of the studies have just been done on rodents, there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest it’s really effective on humans.
KRILL OIL: Small doses of pharmaceutical-grade fish oil improve brain function, reduce inflammation, and enhance your muscle growth, but poor-quality fish oil (not pharmaceutical-grade) can cause problems.
Not all fish oil is created equal.
If you’ve been told to start taking omega-3 fatty acids, you’re on the right track, but you shouldn’t just rush to the health food store and buy the first bottle you see.
Most of the brands you’re likely to purchase at your local health food store are low potency, oxidized, and contaminated. If you can’t find a good brand of fish oil, you’re much better off avoiding it altogether.
Because of the potential problems with fish oil, I recommend krill oil. Krill is a lot more stable, and it’s phosphorylated, so it’s a lot easier for your brain to utilize.
It also has a potent antioxidant called astaxanthin that protects the oil and slows down oxidation.
The EPA/DHA in krill oil is essential for optimal brain function, and they can improve memory, help thought processes, and offer neuroprotective benefits.
FOCUS FORMULA: Formulated by a clinical psychologist and our team of experts in natural medicine for both children and adults, Focus Formula has been used for many years to safely and effectively relieve the symptoms of ADHD without the unnecessary risk and possibly devastating side effects of psychiatric drugs.
Focus Formula is a 100% herbal formula and contains the following ingredients in therapeutic dosage: Extract of Nettle, Chamomile, Ginkgo biloba, Gotu kola, Green oats, Rooibos, Skullcap.
UPGRADED COFFEE: Think coffee is just caffeine? Caffeine itself (in moderation) can offer you a huge boost in brain power enhanced short term memory, cognitive function, and alertness. Studies have shown that caffeine enhances your ability to do less demanding work like basic math problems and organization, and can improve mood.
Upgraded Coffee has even more benefits, though. Upgraded Coffee beans have two powerful anti-inflammatory substances, kawehol and cafestrol, and they can boost cognitive performance in a different way than caffeine does, especially if inflammation is causing a problem in your body.
Most coffee out there has a chemical residue left behind from the fermentation process, and this residue is a mycotoxin that has a negative effect on brain function.
Upgraded Coffee is end result of an obsessive quest to find the best high performance coffee beans on the planet. Supposedly, this is unlike ânormal coffee, which can make you cranky and give you the jitters.
This coffee makes you feel a lot better than anything else youâll find out there on the market.
Congratulations, You’re Making Progress!
Now, you should be feeling pretty good about the progress you’re making in learning how you can become super-intelligent, more creative, and, dare I say, limitless.
You’ve discovered a superior form of fish oil and a superior kind of coffee. Not many people can say that!
Becoming Superhuman Is Going To Be Easier Than You Think
It’s up to you how far you want to take your quest to become superhuman. How much you choose to invest in smart drugs and nutraceuticals, how much time you devote to exercise, and how much dedication you have to plopping your butt down and playing brain games will determine your net gains.
The good news is that it doesn’t take hardly any time at all to do high-intensity interval training, to pop pills, or to play brain games in your spare time.
Health by choice, not by chance.
-David “Limitless” Aston
Great article David.
As you know I’m a brain trainer. One of my favorite hacks is doing hammer drills. That is you take a 20 ounce rubber mallet and bounce a tennis ball as many times as you can.
Starting with your dominant hand then switching to your other hand. Then, when you feel ready bounce the ball from one hand to the other.
This increases your brainpower fast.
I also recite one of Shakespeare plays as I bounce a tennis ball from one rubber mallet to the other.
Try it… it’s challenging, fun and combines exercise with brain training.
[…] And if you liked this post, you’ll love my 3 hacks to becoming mentally limitless. […]
Nice article. Very well written. The tips and points mentioned here are very helpful for me and I’m sure to others as well. Keep it up :)