Revolutionizing Mental Wellness: Discover Why Many Top Biohackers Swear by Neurofeedback—Live!
Episode Summary
Why Neurofeedback Is Becoming the Mental Health Tool of Choice for High Achievers
As someone who has spent over two decades analyzing brain patterns and training neural circuits, I've watched neurofeedback evolve from a niche clinical tool to something that top performers actively seek out. The question isn't whether it works—after 25,000+ brain maps and extensive clinical research, the evidence is clear. The question is why it's suddenly everywhere, and what makes it so compelling for people who demand results.
The Perfect Storm: Why Now?
Several factors have converged to create this neurofeedback moment. First, the technology has become genuinely accessible. What once required $50,000 clinical systems can now be done with consumer devices that cost under $2,000. Second, we're seeing stimulant medication shortages worldwide, pushing people toward non-pharmaceutical alternatives. Third, the stigma around brain training has dissolved—measuring and optimizing your neural resources is now as accepted as tracking your heart rate or sleep patterns.
But here's what really matters: nothing works as well as neurofeedback for changing the resources that high performers care about most. Stimulant medications don't match what neurofeedback can do for executive function. Traditional therapy doesn't produce the measurable changes in processing speed or emotional regulation that you can achieve through direct brain training.
What Neurofeedback Actually Is (And Isn't)
Let me be precise about this: neurofeedback is operant conditioning applied to brain waves. We measure your EEG in real time and provide auditory or visual feedback when specific frequencies shift in beneficial directions. You're not consciously controlling anything—you can't feel your brain waves. Instead, you're watching a screen where games stop and start based on what your brain just did.
The computer is essentially saying "good job, brain" or remaining silent based on the neural patterns it detects. Over 30-40 sessions, this passive conditioning creates lasting changes in how your brain allocates resources. We're training the gross neural networks that govern executive function, anxiety regulation, processing speed, and attention stability.
This is fundamentally different from meditation apps that tell you if you're "meditating correctly" or one-size-fits-all devices that apply generic protocols. Proper neurofeedback starts with assessment—specifically, a quantitative EEG (qEEG) that maps your unique neural patterns against age-matched databases.
The Assessment: Your Brain's Performance Profile
At Peak Brain Institute, we begin every training program with comprehensive brain mapping. This involves recording 10 minutes of EEG data (eyes closed and open) plus 20 minutes of the world's most boring computerized attention test. We compare these measurements to thousands of age-matched samples to identify where your brain patterns deviate from typical ranges.
This isn't about being "normal"—it's about understanding your neural signature. The qEEG reveals patterns that correlate with specific experiences: that brain fog you've been fighting, the processing speed slowdown after your concussion three years ago, or the anxiety patterns that spike under pressure. We can see executive function markers, sleep depth indicators, and emotional regulation circuits in your resting brain state.
The mapping data guides protocol selection. If we see underactivation in left frontal regions (associated with approach motivation and positive mood), we might train up beta frequencies there. If we detect excessive high-beta activity in right frontal areas (linked to worry and rumination), we'd work on downregulating that pattern while strengthening calm-alert states elsewhere.
The Training Experience: Incremental Change, Permanent Results
Here's what actually happens during training sessions: you sit comfortably while wearing EEG electrodes, watching simple visual displays or listening to audio that responds to your brain state. The feedback is subtle—tones that get richer when you're in the target state, or visual elements that become clearer or brighter.
Most people don't feel anything for the first 2-3 sessions. Then you might notice something—a moment of clarity, a sense of calm, or improved focus—that lasts an hour or two after training. These windows of effect gradually expand and stabilize. By sessions 20-25, you're experiencing consistent changes. By sessions 30-40, the changes have become your new baseline.
The effects are specific to what you're training. SMR (sensorimotor rhythm) training at 12-15 Hz over the sensorimotor strip creates calm alertness and improves sleep spindles. Alpha training over posterior regions reduces anxiety and threat sensitivity. Beta training in frontal areas enhances executive control and processing speed.
The Evidence: What Research Actually Shows
The neurofeedback research base includes over 2,000 published studies, with particularly strong evidence for ADHD treatment. Meta-analyses by Arns et al. (2009) and Micoulaud-Franchi et al. (2014) show effect sizes comparable to stimulant medication for attention and hyperactivity symptoms. Lubar's foundational work (1991) demonstrated that theta/beta training produces measurable changes in both EEG patterns and cognitive performance.
For peak performance applications, the evidence is more limited but promising. Vernon et al. (2003) showed that alpha/theta training improved creative performance in healthy adults. Gruzelier et al. (2006) found significant improvements in music and dance performance following SMR/beta training. Ros et al. (2009) demonstrated that alpha training enhanced working memory capacity in college students.
Clinical observations from facilities like 40 Years of Zen (which uses intensive alpha/theta protocols) suggest profound effects on emotional processing and creative access, though controlled studies on these intensive formats are still needed.
Beyond Traditional Protocols: The Expanding Toolkit
The field now includes several distinct approaches:
Traditional Clinical Neurofeedback: Therapist-guided, protocol-based training typically requiring 30-40 sessions over 3-4 months. This remains the gold standard for addressing specific symptoms or performance goals.
Intensive Programs: Week-long retreats like 40 Years of Zen that combine alpha/theta training with therapeutic processing. These create rapid access to non-ordinary states and emotional content.
Consumer Devices: Systems like Muse for meditation feedback or more sophisticated devices for home training. While convenient, they lack the assessment and customization that make clinical neurofeedback most effective.
HEG (Hemoencephalography): Trains cerebral blood flow rather than electrical activity, particularly effective for prefrontal function and migraine reduction.
Real-World Applications: What High Achievers Are Training
The executives, entrepreneurs, and performers I work with typically focus on specific neural resources:
Executive Function: Training prefrontal beta networks to improve decision-making, impulse control, and cognitive flexibility. This is particularly valuable for leaders managing complex, high-pressure situations.
Processing Speed: Enhancing the efficiency of information processing through targeted frequency training. Crucial for anyone dealing with information overload or requiring rapid pattern recognition.
Emotional Regulation: Strengthening the prefrontal-limbic circuits that manage stress response and emotional stability. Essential for maintaining performance under pressure.
Sleep Optimization: Using SMR training to enhance sleep spindles and improve sleep architecture. Better sleep creates cascading improvements in cognitive performance, emotional regulation, and physical recovery.
Recovery and Resilience: Training networks involved in stress recovery and nervous system flexibility. This prevents the accumulation of stress-related neural patterns that degrade performance over time.
The Limitations: What Neurofeedback Can't Do
I need to be clear about the boundaries. Neurofeedback works on gross neural resources—the big patterns that are consistent across individuals. It won't change your personality, cure severe mental illness, or replace necessary medical treatment. It's also not a quick fix: meaningful changes require consistent training over several months.
The field still lacks standardization in some areas. Different practitioners use different approaches, and some make claims that exceed the evidence. Always work with someone who uses qEEG assessment and can explain the specific mechanisms they're targeting.
Response rates vary. While most people (80%+) experience some benefit, the degree of change depends on factors like age, neural plasticity, training consistency, and the specific patterns being addressed.
The Future: Where This Technology Is Heading
We're moving toward more sophisticated, personalized approaches. Real-time fMRI neurofeedback allows training of deeper brain structures. Closed-loop systems can adjust protocols automatically based on ongoing assessment. Integration with other biometric data (HRV, sleep, stress markers) creates more comprehensive optimization programs.
The democratization will continue. Better algorithms, improved hardware, and automated assessment tools will make effective neurofeedback more accessible while maintaining the precision that makes it work.
Making It Work: Practical Implementation
If you're considering neurofeedback, start with proper assessment. Find a provider who uses qEEG mapping and can explain exactly what they're measuring and why. Understand that this is a training process requiring consistency—you wouldn't expect to build muscle strength with sporadic workouts, and neural training follows similar principles.
Set realistic expectations. Early changes are often subtle and temporary. The goal is gradual, stable improvement in measurable neural resources that translate into real-world performance gains.
Consider your specific objectives. Are you addressing a particular challenge (anxiety, attention issues, sleep problems) or optimizing already-good performance? Different goals require different approaches and set different expectations for timeline and outcomes.
Neurofeedback represents a unique intersection of cutting-edge neuroscience and practical performance optimization. For high achievers who understand that the brain is their most important asset, direct neural training offers unprecedented control over the resources that determine success. The technology is ready, the evidence is compelling, and the applications are expanding rapidly.
The question isn't whether you can train your brain—it's whether you're ready to take that level of control over your mental resources.
Full Transcript
okay we're on why do so many top biohackers swear by neuro feedback and why is this topic so big at the moment and only getting bigger this is biohacking news welcome back to biohacking news I'm Tony W and before we go any further please do like and subscribe so today's topic or today's top story is neuro feedback a non-pharmaceutical approach to improving brain health mood and cognitive disorders and biohackers and entrepreneurs and high Achievers in every different area are loving it luckily I've got a man who knows all about it on right now Dr Andrew Hill is a neuroscientist who specializes in biof feedback and brain training he's the founder of the global Peak brain Institute and he's been on uh before on this podcast a long time ago Andrew nice to talk to you long time ago I I think I had more hair and you know we were all living in different places so yeah well here we are and and even the podcast has got a slightly different title now but Andrew it's really good to talk to you again I have a long list of questions um neuro feedback then is a real Hot Topic why is it exciting people so much well I think it's giving people tools to make actual changes in their brain I mean biohacking probably even the first time we spoke was still a little bit of a uh you had to be in the no to know what biohacking meant and if you use that word too often and you know the average consumer would roll their eyes and wonder what this strange stuff was but nowadays you know lots of people are embracing this this concept of uh measuring and taking control of your resources and um I think for neuro feedback specifically you know in the past few years we've seen shortages of stimulant medications in the world we've seen uh sort of less stigma around going after other mental health uh you know health and Wellness topics so I expect that neuro feedback is blowing up because a the technology is becoming more accessible and B the things that it's used for um nothing works as well as neura feedback does I mean stimulants don't work as well for changing executive function as does Nur feedback for instance but you you're getting really in the biohacker world especially we have several different iterations of neuro feedback we've got traditional clinical where you go to see a therapist we've got program like 40 years of Zen Dave ASP program which is a little intensive a weeklong program we've got uh sort of self-driving devices out there now that are one-size fits-all that do sort of tailored work based on what the devices reading in real time sort of consumer devices we've got devices that tell you if you're meditating so the fields exploding in the neuro feedback space although uh it's still a little bit of a nichy area to some extent so so I've done 40 Years of Zen you have um probably since we last spoke and it was it was pretty deep experience and a lot of things changed in my life afterwards I'm not sure if it was that or something else but that's the case with a lot of biohacking isn't it absolutely yeah yeah what was your experience did you have uh I assume that you had some emotional access with that kind of program you got touch with feelings and creativity and flow States and that kind of stuff is the big uh uh Top Line experience is that sort of accurate yeah I did it at the start of 2018 and I was going through a huge amount of life change at a time some addiction therapy and also I just met my partner who's now my wife oh wow and the whole thing came at such a perfect time because I was already going through all this sort of life change and for an amazing week I was able to sort of tap into all of that and then alongside the neuro feedback you know we had sort of therapists working through um in a sort of group setting our discoveries and sort of Revelations afterwards so that was that was excellent really um I mean I guess it probably would be worth just explaining to people exactly what it is and how it works it's a non-pharmaceutical approach to improving brain health move and cognitive disorders as you said biohackers can use it entrepreneurs there's a real creative benefit to it but what exactly is it and I'm interested especially in what you do um with your Institute as well so nura feedback is um training the brain waves training the EEG typically you can do neuro feedback on things like blood flow or other features in the in the brain but generally when we talk about neuro feedback we mean biof feedback on brain waves and when I say bio feedback what I mean is you measure what the brain is doing in real time and when it briefly shifts in the quote unquote right direction for a particular uh resource you applaud the brain with auditory and visual feedback so not all forms of neuro feedback are this but most forms are this passive operant conditioning where you're just watching the brain deciding okay let's for this exercise applaud the brain when it makes more alpha or more beta in a certain place and it's mostly involuntary the computer is watching your brain you're sitting watching a screen and the Applause the game is stopping and starting based on whatever your brain has just done but you can't feel your brain waves you can't really control them so it feels like this kind of random like I'm sitting and watching a computer screen a little stupid game stopping and starting okay but the brain is hearing good job brain good job brain good job brain nope good job good job good job nope again and again for the little shifts it happens to be making and the stuff you can train the stuff you can see in the brain uh is generally the big gross resources the stuff that is common to everyone so you're not going to see the subtle things of thought but you are going to see big resources on uh executive function in the area of anxiety of speed of processing of brain fog that kind of stuff so Peak brain my company starts off with something called a brain map or a quantitative EEG and I would say at least half the field uses q eegs and I would encourage folks that are thinking about neuro feedback to start there because it's a tailored process you know you you it's an assessment of your brain so Tony you're welcome to do a brain map with us at one of our offices but we'll throw a cap on the head squirt it full of gel and have you sit still for about 10 minutes eyes closed and also eyes open and get some baselines and we have you do the world's most boring uh computerized attention test as well for 20 minutes just horrible and we compare those three things the one performance measurement and the two physiological baselines to age match samples and we see on a bell curve how weird you are in a bunch of ways essentially and for performance testing for attention testing it's pretty valid you can look at impulsivity inattention Reaction Time stamina fatigue that kind of stuff but for the brain you don't necessarily know what's good or bad you just know what's different across people but people are really weird so the goal is not to say from brain mapping be like the average or why aren't you average the goal is to say hey look here's some stuff sticking out it often means X Y or Z do you care oh it does seem ra valid for you well then great you can now go after it and change it so brain mapping is often the assessment neuro feedback is this iterative process so I mentioned the how the training Works where you're simply measuring the brain and then applauding it when it briefly shifts but the brain's always changing and generally we don't feel neuro feedback we don't feel the the brain wve exercise for a couple of sessions uh typically around three sessions in someone sort of says hey wait a minute I think I'm noticing something I think I'm feeling something and then it wears off an hour later and they're like well maybe not might have imagined it and the next time oh wait a minute yeah I feel like something and for folks that are wondering what are you feeling a little calm a little focused a little relaxed it it depends a little bit on what you're doing for the brain wave training if you're training up alpha waves on your posterior singulate which is that part of the brain involved with evaluating and orienting and threat sensitivity well you feel relaxed and if you're working on I don't know beta waves in the left hemisphere in the central area which is involved with vigilance stabilization you feel very clear very on briefly subtly and then it kind of wears off but as you repeat the protocol as you repeat the exercise you get these Windows of effect that starts start to build up and after you do around uh 30 to 40 sessions you created this permanent change so every 20 or 25 sessions of neuro feedback you can map the brain and see the changes building up and in the course of about 25 sessions which is about month and a half of training you can make about a full standard deviation on a bell curve for changes in executive function anxiety speed of processing fatigue markers and of course the data changes the performance changes and your experience also changes along with it all so wow you can gradually learn to change resources that are often things that are somewhat silent or invisible I mean we're used to working on our you know muscle mass bone density even the subtle biohackers will look at lipid panels and look at the blood species and figure out you know maybe some methylation analysis to dience and B vitamins well you can also look at your speed of processing as your alpha waves and the amount of impulsivity you have and how deep your sleep is and how much brain fog you're carrying around and that old concussion you got in high school shows up so you can start to unpack and demystify the stuff that's inside this uh little basket we're carrying around these three pounds of jelly and we often don't realize to what extent you can actually see this stuff you can see executive function features in the brain at rest you can see a lot of anxiety features really clearly and so seeing these things starts to give you a different perspective on not just a diagnostic label or thing happening to me but you start understanding the resources themselves and that gives you a little bit of uh agency to start manipulating them so I'm preaching to the choir in a biohacker uh environment you guys all know look you know what is measured is managed according to Drucker so look at that stuff figure out how the system works and watching your brain and then building interventions to change it is kind of like looking at your blood panel and going oh crap I better back off on the ice cream those triglycerides are kind of high and so you have this opportunity to start iterating through change and brains change somewhat slowly but they do change faster than bodies which is kind of cool so over just a few months if you track your sleep and your stress and your attention as you layer in interventions and we all know different interventions we can do meditation Hyperbaric red light therapy neuro feedback all kinds of stuff you'll actually produce changes in the resting data that match what you're feel and then give you that Progressive ability to keep making change so I love that Peter duer quote I used that in one of my book what has measured as managed yeah yeah it's it's varied by a hacky as well and and that's exciting when you can start to I noticed you were wearing an aura thing rare yep do you know do you notice any differences on the uring stats after after using it absolutely yeah um you'll find anyone that doesn't n feedback will find that every neur feedback provider asks all kinds of questions every day about sleep and half the time folks like my sleep's fine I don't have any problem my sleep I'm here for Focus or for trauma or for drinking or something yeah but when you exercise the brain the Sleep flexes kind of like you go to the gym and hit it hard the next day you're like oh hey wait I feel something in my shoulders so you have this opportunity to watch changes in sleep depth of sleep changes in dreaming sometimes you get really improved onset of sleep or you get um improved maintenance of sleep so generally by exercising the brain this little window of experience unfolds for about 24 hours after a brain training session where there's some subtle differences in sleep stress attention mood speed of processing creativity and you capture that and say oh that workout did this I think it did this I might have noticed this and then that gets you to uh the place where you can adjust you can try something different get a slightly different effect so it becomes very sort of like like a good personal trainer you iterate you move through testing things you meet the goals where they are you adjust as the person changes you adjust day-to-day a little bit but over time you can create this lasting change good stable change especially in things like executive function and uh anxiety which are huge features and on the Sleep uh question you the I have a whole rant on sleep tracking for biohackers uh the takeaway for those who are curious is folks I really don't want you to look at your REM I don't want you to care about it I I want you to believe it on the trackers I don't want you to even think about it Ram is like your blood pH if someone's telling you it's modifiable they don't know what they're talking about and you can't change that much without you dying essentially you know without you becoming full batshit crazy REM disregulated as you become fully psychotic yeah but REM can't be measured that well yes the aura ring and the other trackers say have a rem number it's not a valid number deep sleep valid number generally so if you look at the total sleep amount which pretty valid and the Deep Sleep amount which is valid on these trackers that use infrared now you're getting actually metrics that matter and what's more important about deep sleep is it changes day-to-day based on your behavior REM doesn't change the brain regulates it and keeps it makes enough of it it it asserts the REM if you will but deep sleep is a flexible resource so if you work out too late at night it drops if you fast before bed it goes up if you have better EX EXC or you're better in train the Circadian rhythm you're hitting Morning Light you're not eating at the end of the day you're having morning activity then the deep sleep starts to enhance and when you do some training the brain based on where you train you can kind of put your thumb on the scale and go aha oh look at that deep sleep doubled last night interesting or oh your deep sleep was not that great last night after that protocol and you can learn from the the flexing of the brain after the workouts yeah what you're doing and how it lands and then gradually iterates so yeah deep sleep is a huge feature that I encourage everyone to uh track and manage I mean yeah I'm wearing an ordera ring because it's sort of the Cadillac of sleep trackers there's a couple out there that I like but for a while I had both uh both hands from from wrist to Elbow both arms covered with sleep trackers for a few months because all my clients were like hey Doc I'm doing this with this sleep track I don't know that one oh and I have this sleep tracker I don't know how that data is okay so I had to wear all the different sleep trackers for a while to figure out my perspective on how they work and what's interesting but yeah we ask a lot about sleep and sleep is often a goal when you're training your brain um what's really interesting about neuro feedback is the field was design uh uh discovered the field of neuro feedback was discovered because of manipulations of a sleep component in the brain there's a a brain wave called sensory motor Rhythm that we use to do things like sit still and relax and and you know Focus but also to stay asleep at night when car goes by and you don't have to wake up because it's not threatening there's a burst of waves that keeps you asleep and that same brain wave is also used to sort of start the process of memory consolidation as you go into deep sleep so this one frequency SMR sens you motor Rhythm it also eliminates seizures it makes the brain resistant against seizures and it also makes you not impulsive it helps you pump the brakes if you wish to sit still or not be distractable so we get huge changes in sleep because we're training SMR waves but we also can kind of dial in sleep changes if you wish and I would say if your sleep is not optimal and most people want to meet them their sleep is not that great you can see the evidence in the brain in real time you can see the dragon speed of processing you can see the brain fog you can see the sluggish thoughts in you know just looking at the how fast the brain waves are but as you train the brain with these beta waves and get a better regulated person yeah their anxiety they're executive function their athletic performance their creativity whatever it is goes up very strongly subjectively but sleep changes dramatically and most people have this interesting experience doing neuro feedback where first their sleep gets shorter it goes from like nine hours of crappy sleep or eight eight and a half hours or eight hours of crappy sleep they don't feel great they're never rested they can't fall asleep they can't stay asleep they wake up tired to suddenly sleep in like six and a half hours and feeling great so I start getting reports about three weeks in yeah I'm not sleeping very much but I feel really good this is weird what's happening is the Sleep architecture has fixed itself and the brain's like oh we're getting our normal amount of resource build up now in three sleep cycles instead of five let's stop at three and the person's like I feel okay but I got up at five instead of at eight what's going on and then a few more weeks of that and the Brain will stretch back out into a slightly longer sleep State and you get really interesting effect on sleep when you're doing neur feedback most people get a really active um dream effect where a few weeks into neur feedback you start having really Vivid really vibrant story-driven plot driven character-driven dreams where you're on a journey you're exploring environments W signs of learning signs of plasticity and it's pretty common to have a oh I had a travel dream last night it's when you're doing neuro feedback I think it's because the uh play cells in hippocampus are involved with exploring environment and encoding environments and they're one of the biggest generators of plasticity in the brain period This is why things like exercise and exploring environments are have an anti-depressant effect because they bring up plasticity so strongly but the play cells explore environments it's one of their biggest job remember where you've been notice an environment know that you've been here before and I think that's why we're getting travel and exploratory environment type dreams when doing neuro feedback because we create such a strong plasticity boost the brain just trying to figure out you know what to do with it and there's good evidence on this one single session of ner feedback a single session creates a plasticity effect you can measure for 24 hours a very strong plasticity boost stronger than most things you can measure so it's a very reliable way to get in there and to shape some of the change you'd like to make uh in sort of a strategic and and almost controllable way which is kind of cool I didn't really we were going to talk about sleep as much as we have um as you know this is a podcast we sort of cover everything that's been going on in the biohacking world and news generated by biohackers and I've been saying the last few weeks I've got a feeling I'm going to be talking about Brian Johnson quite a lot on this podcast and he he posted something this week he said a reminder that your bedtime is your most important appointment of the day respect yourself and be on time which I actually loved I've got a bit of a confession to make I'm sort of starting to quite like some of the tweets that Brian Johnson is posting I'm actually quite liking his content I didn't think I would but what are you following him little bit little bit I certainly believe in that perspective I I tell my clients the time to sleep in is the start of the night you know and I tell parents of clients don't worry about their bedtime teach them about the Sleep urge the experience of you know feeling tired at night and locking your a wake time the Wake time is rigid you know the the only circadian like all all the bio again killing biohacking sacred cows here maybe but doesn't matter light doesn't matter that much all you guys that have your blue block and glasses on I'm sorry but it's not that impactful and it might even be doing some harm um all the literature all of it on light suggests that morning light and not evening light is the important one and you can absorb a fair amount of endof day light information and shrug it off from a circadian perspective and more damning for these blue blocker glasses the color light is not what's important it's the intensity of the light not the color for for causing circadian changes so all you have to do is not have bright overhead lights on at the end of your day and you've sidestepped all of the stuff that you might be trying to get done by wearing uh tinted glasses so that's it morning light is huge evening light not that exciting your bedtime not that exciting the number one exogenous cue number one cue for when our body knows what time of day it is is food not sleep not light not activity nothing it's food so eat in the time zone you want to live in go to bed early so that's really interesting you saying that because I was just about to to say to you that I respected my bed time last night um in the start of Brian Johnson but very busy day and I didn't get to eat until quite late and I felt hot and full all night and I just didn't sleep very well so is that what you're sort of saying actually we we need to eat earlier based on where we're living yeah there's good research on what's called ETF early time restricted feeding as compared to intermittent fasting where you just have a slight window and the etrf has a stronger much stronger Health Comp Health promoting component um part of the reason for circadian is that the Melatonin signal that builds up at the end of the day one of its primary roles it does a lot of things but one of the things it does is it drops blood sugar so melatonin release suppresses the release of insulin completely so as melatonin gets kicked off in the end of the day you have a very strong drop of insulin which is what encourages snacky Behavior oh I've got insulin to release oh there's calories from an evolutionary perspective great store those you know calories from a modern world not so great because you can never you know you can always just keep feeding the the machine to some extent so melatonin Rising drops uh insulin so if you eat at the end of the day you go to bed with high blood sugar or at least not low blood sugar and having any significant amounts of blood sugar when you're sleeping suppresses growth hormone release we have a a puls atile those people above 35 have one pulse of growth hormone a couple hours after you fall asleep it's a little PT if you're below 30 or something it's a huge PT but you also get little trickles of it all day long all the time but once you're 35 or 40 you get that one little circadian pulse and that's it for growth hormone so if you go to bed with a full stomach no growth hormone for you and you stay hot all night your heart rate stays elevated and you skim the surface of sleep and you never get deep sleep and so you wake up having not gotten into the deepest reserve and so you wake up tired and hungry but if you go to bed hungry or at least not fed you wake up full of energy and and not feeling hungry because that cortisol dip then surges back up releases blood sugar wakes you up in the morning and so you have a cortisol and blood sugar support if you start off the night in fasting but if you start off the night fed then you just burn through all that calories and you wake up with low blood sugar not that much cortisol in terms of circadian signaling so it's a very difficult place to manage from and yet a lot of westerners and awful lot of westerners eat late at night or feed their kids bedtime snacks and I do an awful lot of coaching around sleep because it's part of the the big brain resources and it's a shocking number of people that that I mean I I'd say most people eat too late at night unless they're actively thinking about it almost everyone I've ever talked to has this bad habit of craving you know snacky stuff in the last couple hours before bed giving into it and then having suboptimal sleep because of that because when you eat it takes the the body three to four hours to process that calorie and so if you're eating at 800m going to bed at 10: or something well by eating at eight your body just shifted it pressed the Cadian Rhythm Now by four hours so you body doesn't know what time of day it is and the human circadian rhythm is longer than the Earth's cycle longer than the photo period of 24 hours so if you don't entrain your circadian rhythm to the Earth's Rhythm every day it starts to slide past and you end up with a lot of disregulation this good research showing the people that work night shifts have a lot of significant health challenges and those that don't stay on a stable shift that have a rotating shift like nurses and things that have you know Human Service work that changes have incredibly uh strong risk factors for cardiovascular anxiety and sleep and all kinds of things so eating infects your sleep Rhythm so you can actually get away with working night shift and traveling across time zones if you keep your food consistent big trick is you know when I go to the UK or over to Europe three days before I look at the time zones of the food of the meal times in the place I want to be and I do two hours a day for three days before and approximate that meal time and I show up you know I live in Los Angeles so it's kind of a big time zone jump to go to you know Stockholm or London or something and I've gotten it down so I can go there and have no jet lag when I get there none I I I'm slider into the time zone I'm a little bit up late that night with some extra energy by the next day I'm living in that time zone with zero adaptation and I get home and it takes a little bit longer you know extra day or two come in this direction for me but it's food timing that's doing all of this so I would give biohackers some advice about watch that food timing it's actually a bigger deal on sleep and circadian and stress and IM immune it's not just about your fasting window and your blood sugar it's got all kinds of other regulatory components to it and what time do you eat in the evening yeah I don't eat in the evening I I usually eat one or two meals a day um I'm usually done by about 4: in the afternoon um I get up at 4:00 a.m. or before usually I I'm Andrew you're a machine well I'm I I own a company that has worldwide clients and we have a lot of East Coast us present so I tend to live on a East Coast us European afternoon time zone essentially uh but no I I I generally done by you know late uh uh midday early afternoon and then um try also to fast in the in the morning for a few hours as well so I tend to eat within about a you know six-h hour window um you know I'm a middle-aged dude so I can get away with that kind of stuff a lot of people can't you know for folks that are biohackers that are women listening if you're below 30 35 be really careful with things like intermittent fasting and macronutrient restrictions because women's bodies are magical they can adapt to anything and they do quickly from an evolutionary perspective the body wants to not be sort of stressed and and and dealing with things so so female bodies adapt a lot more quickly than male bodies do to things like metabolic stressors and because of that women can't get away with aggressive fasting aggressive macronutrient restrictions if they are still dealing with all the complexities of the hormonal system you know so if you're postmenopausal woman you can get away with fasting like a dude um because you aren't going to crash your hormones the same way but if you're not you gotta be really cautious to get enough good fats in and to not have too much of restriction of calories to avoid downregulating um one quick tip there for folks that are wondering well how do I do it then is think about caloric deficits in the time scale of a week not a day don't be in a caloric deficit every day and you'll prevent yourself from from adapting too rapidly this is probably true for men and women but do think about a caloric deficit at the level of a week so you know maybe have one fasting day or a couple of more aggressive fasting days but other days you're not in a deficit that'll keep you from uh hyper adapting too much so to speak okay the other story that I was very much looking forward to talking to you about and that is because I know you are a biohacker who likes to try out the various toys on offer and that is a story that's been in Medscape um around brain training and obviously it sort of ties in with what you do already does brain training really improved cognition and forall cognitive decline and this article really looks at the various sort of brain training devices on offer everything from games like brain HQ to of more sophisticated neuro feedback but one of the things that's very interesting and obviously longevity is a huge topic on on this podcast and for biohackers in general um it it shows that some forms of brain training May well help of stop cognitive decline which is absolutely massive and and really with longevity we all want to live longer but we want to sort of live long and happily don't we and healthily um so what do you what do you think about this concept of brain training and then what are the sort of different types of um brain training devices that you've tried brain HQ is a game so we could talk about that and then there's gadgets like brain tap as well yeah unfortunately the vast majority of things out there that are pointed at the consumer don't work and they're based on iffy science Andor it's all Sizzle no steak it's all marketing without any real back stop that includes all the Boral beat Technologies one of which you just mened I've got Boral I love B doesn't do a damn thing I don't IAL beats and because you're meditating during it that's why you like it it's giving you an opportunity and a focus on which to Anchor your meditation Bal beats do not change the brain they do not create the frequency they say on the tin it does not do what it says in the tin it may do something for you because it has a ritual or a practice or a focus but an alpha wave bin oral beat does not produce alpha waves in the brain does not happen humans do not have a frequency falling response for auditory there is some evidence we do light in entrainment differently but all the claims are completely not back stopped by any of the any of the tools out there and those devices I I would say really think about your goals not so much what the best device is I get asked all the time you know what's the best neur feedback device there's no such thing you can use any devices reasonably well reasonably any device if you know what you're doing and get the effects you're looking for like I can get you in shape with an equinox you know Nautilus machine or a kettle bell or resistance band or swimming or calisthenics or yoga and you'll be in shape at the end of it either way if I know what I'm doing with those tools but if I don't know what I'm doing with those tools and buy you a kettle bell and have you go out in the backyard and throw it around you get hurt so it's really about how you use these things and unfortunately because the brain somewhat complex we end up with tools in the marketplace that try to simplify that complexity and they do it by essentially having no power no efficacy um so I'm not a big fan of most of the devices out there all of the cognitive training games you described the things that you know memory games and and computerized testing games those things have really good research showing that there's no skill transfer you can get better in the game context but it doesn't transfer out into your life um very very you know the the sitting and doing suduku or crossword puzzles or that kind of stuff it might have some small impact but probably not you know what will have an impact replacing the roles and the engagement and the pressure of the environment in your life so I I used to teach gerontology at UCLA and a big piece of healthy aging is rooll replacement and role continuity so if you're a military jet fighter and you retire from that maybe you teach flying and retire from the military and fly commercial and then retire from commercial and teach physics in high school and and have all your examples be flying examples so the role continuity tapping into the expertise the passion the things that feed you that can be maintained and should be even as the things you're doing change career to Career life stage to Life Stage so I think you'd be better served finding the thing that you like to do that is like the things that challenged you historically not trying to find a particular biohacking device and if you have specific needs well then you can think about the need first and that'll inform the device or the approach you might want to take I mean if you have a you know postco brain fog it's not about the particular device it's about the metabolic hit you've been you've taken and now you might want to blend Hyperbaric and red light therapy and neuro feedback and some peptides and some coal plunges and some saunas and any of those things all of those things will have an impact so it's not so much about did I spend the right money can I spend the right money on the most important device it's more about well what is what is the plan where are you going what is Su success look like how do you know you're getting there do you have assessment tools and are the things you're doing moving the needle for you and a lot of stuff out there doesn't move the needle and or it ends up being an expensive device you you know purchase and put in a drawer because you aren't quite sure how to use it or what the outcome criteria are or you know so I encourage folks to to start simply you don't need devices for biohacking meditation exercise walking sleep journaling you can do a lot of this with no Tech whatsoever and then if you want some tech you can you know grab a sleep tracker uh maybe an HRV uh assessment device or HRV bio feedback and then EEG bio feedback this go up the the complexity uh Hill as we go but I also think that we're often throwing lots of resources and tools and interventions at ourselves Without Really knowing what the underlying system is so I really do encourage folks to do things like brain mapping alongside a blood panel for your triglycerides and full pain alongside a maybe Apollo health recode program to look at all the 37 factors that deal that drive uh brain aging and from there you can then extract a coherent plan your plan might have this tool or that tool attached to it but I think that because we're getting access to really fun shiny objects now we start to think of the tool as the intervention and it's not it's just one of the things you might want to use to get someplace so think about goals not diagnosis think about success and what that looks like not which Gadget you're getting basically yeah disappointed the binaural beats no binaural beats are nonsense sadly no not that you aren't getting something out of using a brain or a or something else but it's producing an environmental stimulus you can anchor to with your mind so I'm pretty sure that all those things you're doing is giving you an opportunity to meditate and I would say try the same practice but try it with a meditation or an anchor or a mantra or something else and see how you feel afterwards you know maybe you'll feel just the same yeah yeah now there's some very vigorous tree cutting or lawnmowing going on outside my window so I hope you can't hear that too much and I know there's quite a few people watching this live as well so I hope you can't hear that too much um and since we relaunched the podcast we've been doing um podcast and then a review and I know you've got a review for us what is your review that you've got today so of course for 25 years been doing neuro feedback which I mean the field of EEG is 100 years old this year so we're just barely scratching the surface in terms of getting into the brain but the neuro feedback process of tuning the electricity is actually really really complex so I often use other tools alongside it um things that do blood flow uh either measurement and biof feedback or stimulation so I use tools called hemo cograph and fne like the mendi but these days I've been really getting into a device called the neuronic which is a a white plastic headset that's full of LED lights and the lovely thing about the neuronic is you can do sustained red light therapy photobiomodulation for sort of mitochondrial boosting across the whole brain you can do targeted uh regions which is kind of fun with the neuronic but more importantly what I'm really getting excited about is using brain mapping to find things in a brain that might be a little iffy or quirky and then using the red light therapy in a pulsed way so I'm saying light entrainment seems to be a little different than auditory entrainment light entrainment red light pulsing seems to create some response in the brain so we're still just barely getting into it I hear you huh I'm very sorry that was entirely my fault I because the because the um the tree surgeon was going so mad outside I muted my um my mic for a sec I was just saying Andrew is this something that people can buy they can yeah neuronic a international company um you can go on their website and purchase it I think the coupon Dr Andrew Hill might save you a little bit of money um but more more importantly than the device again is what you do with it so what I would encourage folks to do if they get a any photo botom modulation the neuronic is my favorite one but before you start jumping in and doing red light stem look at your brain figure out where in your brain where in your cortex you may have unusual frequencies or stuff that's stuck or inflammation and that will actually give you the ability to Target the photobiomodulation to your brain in a way that is targeted but not as finicky or as subtle as measuring electricity in real time which is a lot more you know in the weeds so I'm a big fan of the neuronic and we're doing a lot of um brain mapping now looking at resting baselines designing protocols for the neuronic and then mapping again a few months later and without doing neuro feedback just using stimulation you can actually see changes especially in some of the gross features of fog and speed of processing the metabolic stuff so I'm a big fan of photobiomodulation PBM for the metabolic end of the pool you know postco brain fog concussion s accelerated aging um mold exposure lime exposure heavy metal exposure these neuroinflammatory signatures and folks might be interested to know in a brain map in a qeg and a concussion looks just like postco looks just like lime or mold exposure you can't really tell the difference from the causes of brain fog at a high level it all roughly looks the same so we get a lot of people with these sort of autonomic phenomena on top of the psychological if you will phenomena these days some of that's I think the environmental stuff with Co but um I'm a big fan of the PBM stuff when you are trying to take the whole system and do something broad to it like anti-aging recovery from a brain fog or an injury so yeah neuronic uh neur radiant 1070 device is my new favorite uh Toy uh not a toy it's kind of expensive but I've been using it a lot personally and noticing really interesting effects I mean everything I do I generally do to myself before I um recommend them for other people not so you know I'm 25 years plus into doing this stuff so not every single under a feedback protocol do I you know try as I but the photobi modulation I was resistant to for a long time because I thought it fell in the same category as these ball beat type of devices which I don't believe in and yet I got one my hands on one and was like oh okay this this does something this feels like something and then I started looking at brain Maps before and after doing red light therapy and you can see changes you can see changes built up over a few months so I think it's a shing light at different frequencies and at different time zone sort of timings around your scalp I guess yeah yeah there's a it's four quadrants in the central strip and you can sort of decide which quadrant is lit up and you can decide if it's a glow of red light 1070 nanometer light which feeds mitochondria or you can pulse the light in a brain wave frequency which might actually work on the frequency the brain is struggling with it might enhance that frequency is the theory seems to work in the data I don't yet know the mechanisms fully so I'm a little cautious about saying you know how it works but we're getting data changes that are similar to what you might get from the fine tuning it just works on a different set of uh goals often so sometimes with biohacking clients I'll combine you know we'll do Nur feedback and EG work and creativity and anxiety and Peak Performance might add some red light therapy we might give them biohacking coaching around macronutrients or fasting um but it's a little bit different person to person so you have to again I'd encourage folks my my one not criticism but concern about the biohacking world the industry if you will the marketplace is that people are often looking for or a solution they're often suffering in some way and they're like well what's the best solution I can buy for this problem and there's this sort of consumerist you know let me grab the next thing the next thing the next thing and try to find the best thing sometimes you just need the right knowledge and what to do not the best device so again think about goals not symptoms Solutions not diagnosis and Venable to AR your way there and I I think the red light therapy is a really interesting Tool uh for a lot of stuff that the the fine-tuning of of the EEG isn't quite as effective for so yeah I want to try that out and I tell you what when I'm in London I'll definitely come and pay you a visit at the peak brain Institute I'd love to get that that mapping and see what happens I mean it sounds fascinating um yeah you can do acute mapping too so brain maps are the same day after day after day after day doesn't change much across months unless you do something but you can do something to it and see the acute changes so maybe you're really interested in paracetamol or something else in your lifestyle you can do a clean brain map and a contrast brain map with caffeine or something in your system and see in real time what your caffeine or racetams or methylated B vitamins are doing in real time it jumps right out visibly you can see performance and Brain Change even a single cup of coffee night and day for most people and it's super Illuminating to see what your Aderall does or your coffee does your cannabis does because it makes total sense to you and yet it crystallizes some perspective on what's Happening when you look at it so well Andrew it's almost four o'clock so I better go and eat pretty soon otherwise I gotta be too late on the Andrew Hill eating protocol uh but I've really enjoyed chatting to you again let's not leave it six years next time I know Tony let's definitely well you're welcome to come to London or Sweden for a map if you're in the UK if you're in the US of course too and for any folks listening they can get a discount on brain mapping at any of our offices so normally it's about a $500 or 400 pound uh membership throughout the year and you get access to Maps but we'll cut that in half so you can get a half price uh map for any listener if they want to come to the Stockholm or London office or any of the Us locations we'll get you guys a brain map for in the US it's 250 uh once a year for unlimited access sort of biohacker special to do all the investigation and overseas it's um the same rough amount of cash for two maps so you end up with this ability to do some testing yourself and get into the uh the brain coaching stuff with us over there well that's great we've got quite a few people watching live and then obviously when the podcast goes out next week um it'll be fascinating to see how people find that and I will report back once I do it as well great um unless we find something really bad and then I won't well if you find something really bad you can change it generally I mean there's nothing really bad for you right now I can tell you know there's a handful of things in the brain you can almost always change and there's a handful of things that are tough to change but those things that are tough to change are not happening for you so the things that are easier anxiety stress sleep attention mood speed of processing so a lot of stuff that we often think of as stuff happening to us is stuff you can actually get in there and manipulate which is great so Andrew great to talk to you thanks for everyone for watching and we'll chat again soon thanks Tony take care thanks for having me