BIOHACK PROTOCOL FOR BRAIN FUNCTION & WARHAMMER 40 & SPORTS

WARHAMMER 40K is CHESS ON STEROIDS

As a biohackers, I am constantly testing out the newest nutrition, sleep or exercise protocols. I need to place myself in various arenas to test out how the newest method or supplements work.

When it comes to physical stress, I need to place my self in difficult environments. You can’t test much out without significant bodily stress, whether that be physical/mental or both. I have ran difficult marathons, played various sports, and trained with various different focuses such as; HIIT/POWER/STRENGTH/YOGA/FATLOSS/BODY BUILDING.

I generally like to enter events or competitions, as this provides an added dimension of pressure to the arena. These “arenas” as I call them, allow me to test out the efficacy of my sleep or nutrition protocols.

WARHAMMER AND BRAIN FUNCTION

My brother in law introduced me to the most complicated game I have ever played. At first I didn’t really realize what I was getting into, but over the course of 3 years, we continued to play the game on rare occasions, every 1-3 months (1 match takes 3-4 hours, and I don’t have the time for that). The game itself is a table top strategy game that goes head to head against your opponent on a large table surface with terrain, imagine a more real life chess game.

A friendly match that too place at the beginning of June 2023, my Necron force vs my friends Imperial Guard force.

Competitively, the game runs on a timer, similar to chess, so you don’t have time to waste. Your army has many specific and intricate rules that you have to remember by heart, and each individual model has a complex set of specific rules that you also have to memorize.

To play the game well at a competitive level, you also have to know all the other 40 some odd faction rules, as well as each individual model rule for each faction, so you can effective implement a board strategy and win the match.

The game is a dice based game, so each unit or model as a number of attacks that must be rolled for with a specific number of dice, and you must be able to quickly compute your statistical odds of ensure the attacks are effective against your chosen unit of attack. This is an important dimension of the game.

BRAIN FUNCTION

This game, warhammer 40k, started off as a COVID hobby , along with my fish tank, but has now transitioned to my mental biohacking arena. Once I really understood the full dimension of the competitive game, I realized that the mental focus, strategy, logic and mental computation required, all under the stress of competition and time, allowed me to test my strategies for cognition out.

My wife and youngest son joined in on my last friendly match. I’ve convinced my wife to play with me so I have a readily available opponent to destroy. (She beat me in our first match…)

My recently TESTED mindhack protocol

1. Ensure adequate REM sleep

REM is a deep stage of sleep, and is often the stage that is sacrificed by poor quality of sleep. Generally you need about 7.5 hours of quality sleep to obtain a sufficient amount of REM sleep (>1.5 hrs). When it comes to cognition, REM sleep is the most important aspect of sleep optimization. The other stages can also effect cognition, but the way sleep architecture works is that REM is the last stage, and you only get REM at after you get every other stage, so if you have sufficient REM, by default you have sufficient amounts of stages 1,2&3. REM is often effected by sleep apnea, alchohol, cannabis, restless leg syndome, or bruxism [1]

Lack of REM sleep results in 1) reduced concentration 2) reduced functional memory 3) fatigue [1,2]

All of these things are critical for optimal warhammer 40k success, but this also applies to anything else in life, such as sports, school, work, exercise, raising children etc.

So, if you have an important school test, sporting event, work presentation or warhammer match, make sure you get a good sleep.

2. Ensure adequate HYDRATION

The first step of any day should be to rehydrate immediately upon waking. I generally recommend my clients to drink 1-2 cups of room temp water upon waking, and then have another 1-2 cups in the form of coffee/tea or smoothie with or after breakfast.

Hydration doesn’t improve cognition, but dehydration definitely impairs it. Science shows that dehydration can significant impair memory and focus, as well as mood and physical performance [3]

3. Light balanced breakfast

You always have to pair your breakfast with the goal of the day. If you are doing heavy powerlifting first thing in the morning, you need more calories and carbs to fuel that workout. However, if your day is starting with more mentally focused tasks with little physical demand, such as work or school, too much calories or carbohydrates can make you feel sleepy and reduce your concentration and focus [4,5].

My favorite morning breakfast for cognitition is a cocoa powder smoothie:

2.5 cups cold water

1 frozen banana

3 tbsp. organic cocoa powder

1 tbsp. chia seeds

5g collagen

Cocoa powder in itself is a cognitive enhancer, here is an excerpt from a recent review on cocoa and cognition; “Findings from individual studies confirm that acute and chronic cocoa intake have a positive effect on several cognitive outcomes. After acute consumption, these beneficial effects seem to be accompanied with an increase in cerebral blood flow or cerebral blood oxygenation. After chronic intake of cocoa flavanols in young adults, a better cognitive performance was found together with increased levels of neurotrophins”[6]

4. The use of nootropic supplements, medicinal mushrooms

There are many many many forms of cognitive enhancing supplements. I have experimented with many, and plan to test them all so I have develop fine tuned protocols. The most commonly talked about nootropics today are the medicinal mushrooms. Medicinal mushrooms are not commonly used in cuisine, they are often too expensive, hard to grow and don’t taste great, yet they seem to have significant positive health effects. The science on these mushrooms is still in its infancy, but the positive health effects in rodent and human studies show promise [7]. Just to be clear, these mushrooms are non psycho active mushrooms, they are not “shrooms” containing psylocibin. Although psylocibin is an interesting topic with lots of research happening, you definitely don’t want to take those before an exam or work presentation.

The medicinal mushrooms that have been found to positively effect cognition are 1) Cordyceps 2) Lionsman 3) Reishi [7]. These mushrooms seem to have longer term dosing effects, meaning that you don’t really benefit from acute use as much as you do from taking a consistent dose for weeks at a time. In my case I have been taking a 500 mg dose of Cordyceps, I took them with my cocoa smoothie for breakfast. So far I have used both Cordyceps and Lions mane and low dose for extended periods of time, and I do confirm positive effects such as; increased focused, memory recall, mental stamina, energy, positive mood.

Dried Cordycep mushrooms, picture from Google images.

5. The use of acute FOCUS booster supplements

Along with my shrooms and cocoa smoothie, I took 750 mg of L-tyrosine. Tyrosine is a amino acid (protein unit) that is commonly found in high protein foods such as meat, legumes, and dairy. Tyrosine is used by the body to create catecholamine hormones that directly impact brain function, such as dopamine, epinephrine and nor-epinephrine [8]. The use of Tyrosine has been shown to improve cognition and concentration under higher mental loads. Personally, I have experimented with L-tyrosine before at a higher dose of 1500mg and found it made me too anxious and actually reduced my ability to focus. I tried it again at half the dose, 750 mg, and it hit the sweet spot. I felt like my mental stamina was at its peak.

Chemical strucuture of the amino acid L-Tyrosine. I used the brand NOW.

6. Cold shower

Last but not least, I finish my regular morning shower with a quick bout of cold. I turn my water temp down to the lowest, embrace the cold, breath heavy and enjoy the suck. Even though the science isn’t conclusive on cold exposure and cognition [9], I do personally feel a benefit. I feel fresh, energize, and more confident.

Me after a cold shower, happy to see my abs coming back after a bulking protocol transition to slow rate fat loss. (I am down 5 lbs. in 4 weeks.)

Overall, my performance during that Warhammer friendly match was great. I felt energized I won the match 50 - 20. More importantly, I didn’t make any significant errors due to lack of focus or forgetfulness. I felt like my concentration was high and consistent over the 4 hour bout. I plan to continue to tweak this protocol, so I can better understand the pros and cons of various supplements and methods.

I hope you enjoyed!

1. Blumberg, M. S., Lesku, J. A., Libourel, P. A., Schmidt, M. H., & Rattenborg, N. C. (2020). What is REM sleep?. Current Biology, 30(1), R38–R49.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31910377/

2. Peever, J., & Fuller, P. M. (2017). The biology of REM sleep. Current Biology, 27(22), R1237-R1248.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29161567/

3. Harris R. Lieberman (2007) Hydration and Cognition: A Critical Review and Recommendations for Future Research, Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 26:sup5, 555S-561S, DOI: 10.1080/07315724.2007.10719658

4. Peuhkuri, K., Sihvola, N., & Korpela, R. (2012). Diet promotes sleep duration and quality. Nutrition Research, 32(5), 309–319.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22652369

5. Murphy, K. R., Deshpande, S. A., Yurgel, M. E., Quinn, J. P., Weissbach, J. L., Keene, A. C., Dawson-Scully, K., Huber, R., Tomchik, S. M., & Ja, W. W. (2016). Postprandial sleep mechanics in Drosophila. eLife, 5, e19334.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27873574/

6. Martín MA, Goya L, de Pascual-Teresa S. Effect of Cocoa and Cocoa Products on Cognitive Performance in Young Adults. Nutrients. 2020 Nov 30;12(12):3691.

10.3390/nu12123691

7. Amelie Nkodo, A Systematic Review of in-vivo Studies on Dietary Mushroom Supplementation for Cognitive Impairment (P14-021-19), Current Developments in Nutrition, Volume 3, Issue Supplement_1, June 2019, nzz052.P14–021–19,

https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzz052.P14-021-19

8. Adrian Hase, Sophie E. Jung, Marije aan het Rot, Behavioral and cognitive effects of tyrosine intake in healthy human adults, Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, Volume 133,2015, Pages 1-6,ISSN 0091-3057,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbb.2015.03.008

9. Douglas M. Jones, Stephen P. Bailey, Bart Roelands, Michael J. Buono, Romain Meeusen, Cold acclimation and cognitive performance: A review Published:November 14, 2017 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autneu.2017.11.004

STRONG MAN NUTRITION++

NUTRITION LEADING UP TO STRONG MAN COMPETITION

After completing my first strong man competition, I can now say I have a better understanding of the nutrition requirements for strong man.

Above is a picture of my friend Marc @turbo_savage420 - He inspired me to do this comp.

The sport of strong men, is as it sounds, has the requirement for strength. But unlike the often compared sport of powerlifting, it requires more cardiovascular capacity. For that reason, powerlifting, or Olympic lifting are purer displays of strength and power, where as strong man, is like a hybrid sport between CrossFit and Olympic lifting / powerlifting. The key component is that your must drive a powerful movement for a period of time.

Pic of myself (right) and my highschool friend Mark. P, post axel bar deadlift

Now as a biohacker, I am always applying the science and strategy of sleep / nutrition / breathing to various different sports or physically demanding tasks. I have never done anything that requirement this much strength. I’ve done bulking/muscle building many times over the past decade, but they never included developing strength and mass at the same time.

NUTRITION FOR STRENGTH AND MASS

This event took place on May 20th 2023. I began training for strength / strong man in September 2022, so lets say about 8 months. Prior to that I was do strictly CrossFit, and was focused on fat loss in combination with the HIIT style crossfit training. I had dropped to about 180 lbs. @ 12%, my overall fitness was fantastic (Cardio / flexibility / strength). My strength was probably the weakest of the 3, but I could back squat 225 and deadlift around 300 and bench around 200 lbs.

I decided that I would focus on building strength and muscle at the same so. The strongment comp we had registered for had 2 weight categories, under 200 lbs or over 200 lbs. That gave me a target of 200, so I gained 20 lbs. on the dot over 8 months.

My two older boys (Bennett - Left and Callaghan Right) getting ready to cheer me on

I added the 20 lbs. well, I’d say about 13-15 lbs. of muscle and 5-7 lbs. of fat. These are good ratios for natural athletes (no steroid use). Adding muscle always comes with fat.

To do this, I found out my avg caloric daily requirements using the cunninghams equation at the following link; https://peterbond.org/calculate-rmr-cunningham-equation

I always prefer the cunninghams equation, as it is one of the only ones that takes muscle mass into consideration. This is very important for athletic populations.

I then added 300 kcal to my daily average, and target about 6g / kg of carbs and 1.5-2.0g /kg of protein and filled in with lots of healthy fats.

This is a sample day for me;

Breakfast

2 cup oatmilk (>50g carbs)

1 banana (~25g carbs)

3 tbps. cocoa powder (Loads of iron/magnesium/zinc and ionophores such as quercetin to help utilize those energy nutrients)

1 tbsp. hemp or chia seeds for omega fats, adding micros and fiber.

1 scoop of plant based lean fit protein

1 cliff bar on the side (oatmeal and soy protein, perfect addition to boost complex carbs ~45g and 10 protein).

The shake was easy for me during this bulking phase. I was able to drink it on the go. It was quick and convenient, as well as easy to digest, which is important for me, because I never have time sit in the mornings. The shake provided me with over 100g complex carbs, loads of micronutrients, at least 35g protein and essential omega fats and about 800 kcal.

LUNCH

whole wheat wrap (30g carb, 5g protein

1 can of light tuna in water (40g protein) or 4-5 eggs

baby spinach

1 tbsp. olive oil

pickled carrots

2 tbsp. light mayo

2 cliff bar (90g carbs, 20g protein) or peanut butter and honey toast

So we have about 1200 kcal here for lunch, totaling 2000 kcal for the day

DINNER

1.5 cups pasta (350 kcal, 90g carbs)

Store bough marinara, nothing fancy

180g chicken breast (60g protein, 330 kcal)

1-2 cups of 2 different colored vegetables

800 kcal, >100g carbs and 75g protein

DESSERT

PB + HONEY + CRACKERS OR 2 CLIFF BARS (500 kcal, 90g carbs, 20g protein)

So my calculated avg caloric burn was about 3000, my lean bulk target was 3300, and I tried to keep carbs around 500g and protein around 150g.

This was not difficult to do. Personally, I prefer a simple 3 meal per day as I am busy.

I terms of supplements, I was using;

3g creatine HCL Muscletech

3g Beta Alanin Allmax

9mg boron

500mg krill omega 3

2000 mg hawaiian spirulina

After about 8 months of training, I achieved my weight goal, but fell short of strength goals. I got my dead lift up to 420 lbs, bench press up to 250 lbs, and squat up to 385 lbs.

During the competition, I was able to axel deadlight 11x350 lbs which is a significant PR.

I hope you guys keep getting stronger!

Bada bing