If you watched the movie “Limitless” or the TV show with the same title, you would most likely pay a large sum of money to get your hands on some NZT.
The NZT makes you access 100% of your brain’s potential and become a 500+ IQ genius for a couple of hours. Who wouldn’t desire this, right?
You have probably heard that our brains have untapped potential, that we use only 10% of our brains and that there are special people who use more.
This 10% myth is a misunderstanding as scientists have explained, all healthy people use all of their brain but not all at once.
The 10% is probably more relating to the untapped potential. We use 10% of the full potential of our brain while some people who are considered genius use more.
But why do some people use more? Are they inherently special or does this suggest that we can all tap into this ‘Limitless’ potential within us? The answer is ‘Yes we can’.
Our evolution pushed us to stretch our limits, but not more than we had to. In different environment, with right stimulation we could have evolved to use more of this potential.
We probably use more of our mind’s potential in the society we live right now than people used in the society 1000 years ago due to our hectic, rushed and stimulated lifestyle.
But can we access our limitless mind power? Yes. How? There are couple of ways. And these are not some watered down ‘be charismatic’ tips, these are real and tested formulas.
If you haven’t heard of L Theanine, it is an amino acid that is found in tea leaves. It promotes relaxation and facilitates sleep by contributing to a number of changes in the brain like elevating levels of GABA chemicals, as well as serotonin and dopamine.
These are calming chemicals, known as neurotransmitters, and they regulate emotions and mood, concentration, alertness, sleep, appetite, energy, and other cognitive skills. Increased levels of these chemicals results in relaxation and better sleep.
At the same time it increases the calming chemicals, L Theanine reduces the levels of chemicals responsible for stress and anxiety. It protects brain cells from age related damage. It’s overall effect results in triggering the release of Alpha brain waves that enhance relaxation, focus and creativity.
Ok, so now we know how L Theanine benefits our mental state, and we know that caffeine is great for concentration, improving attention, and focus. But why should we mix these two and why is their effect so big when consumed together?
The answer is synergy. The combination gives you the power to perform better than taking either alone. They add up to each other’s benefits while removing their drawbacks. For example, Caffeine can give you an anxiety but L Theanine will prevent this. So combining them both you have a powerful cognitive performance booster, and you will use most of both without drawbacks.
You probably wonder if consuming these together is safe. Combining L-theanine and caffeine is incredibly safe. There are countless independent studies that prove this. If you want to super boost this already powerful combo, you can add a dark chocolate to your mix.
Most of us are focused on learning more, but rarely who tries to learn how to learn better and faster. This is they key to unlocking more of your potential, not to acquire more tools, but to sharpen and optimize the ones you already have.
You hear of people reading a book per day, and you wonder how much free time do these people actually have. But these people know how to read better and faster than normal folks. They have learned something called Fast Reading.
By learning how to Read Fast you will reduce the amount of hours it takes you to read a book at least three times. Tim Ferris gives a short but very insightful lesson on Speed Reading. It’s all about knowing the biology of your eye, how they move, and reading smarter.
There are countless skills like this that are actually enhancers of default skills. These meta skills will sharpen your already learned skills, like reading in the previous example. This will enable you to double, if not triple your overall performance.
Some meta skills you can learn are Speed Reading, Time Management, Automatization, Data Chunking, Self Reflection, Balance Exercises, Core Muscle Training, Learning How To Learn Faster, Improving Memory and Idea Management just to name a few.
Time management will teach you how to optimize the 20% of your effort that brings 80% of your results. Automatization will teach you how to automatize things that you need to do but You don’t have to do them. Data chunking is learning how to zip big mental info into a smaller mental file. Self reflection will help you act more out of reason, balance exercises like yoga and core muscle exercises will help you with any other exercise. And learning how to learn faster is a course that will help you a lot.
What is a flow state? As scientists have described it, this is the optimal state performers find themselves in when they perform their best and feel their best. It’s a state of mind where the little judging voice disappears and we are immersed in what we do without distractions or self criticism.
The flow state itself has incredible health benefits like boosting our immune system and increasing our overall happiness. As scientists researched this state they discovered that many groups of people, seemingly unconnected, were seeking some form of flow state with their activities.
For example, surfers, guitar players and people who love going to festivals were seeking the same goal, to get their ego mind dissolved in the activity, whether through surfing, through playing the strings, or through immersing in the synergy the DJ and the crowd participate in a festival.
Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal describe the science of Flow States in their book “The Rise of Superman” and they say that there are 17 main flow state triggers. These triggers are separated in 4 groups: Psychological, Environmental, Social and Creative. The basic dynamic of getting into a flow state says that what you are doing should be challenging enough to test your skills but not as much as to overwhelm you. It should have immediate feedback, risk, and the most critical element, focus, as well as deep embodiment in the task at hand.
The biology behind a flow state shows that it is a state that creates probably the most addictive combination of chemicals. The brain produces a giant cascade of neurochemistry. You get norepinephrine, dopamine, anandamide, serotonin and endorphins. All five of these are performance enhancing neurochemicals.
There are countless shortcuts to achieve a flow state. One is to run sprints, drink two shots of espresso, two shots of vodka, watch a video of extreme surfing or snowboarding with a dubstep soundtrack and with tones that stimulate Alpha Brainwaves, in this order. If you want to learn more about Flow States you should definitely check The Rise of Superman.
Most people live their day to day lives in manner that drains their energy, deprives them of Dopamine and increases their stress levels. No matter if you actually have a NZT you will not be able to access your limitless potential with this lifestyle.
The formula of a perfect lifestyle for achieving a higher mental performance exists. We’ll call The Formula SCILEM. Sleep at least 8 hours, Cold shower, Intermittent fasting in combination with eating foods rich in protein and low in saturated fats, Listen to your favorite music, Exercise, and Meditate, and you can do these in any order except for the Cold Shower.
Intermittent fasting means to not eat food for 16 to 20 hours per day. It also says to not eat your breakfast 6 hours after waking up. According to some studies, fasting has been shown to increase brain derived neurotrophic factor, a chemical that helps your brain to build neurons.
More neurons means more learning capacity and more processing power in your mind’s supercomputer. Fasting also causes the brain to enter a state of autophagy, which means that it breaks down old cells and waste materials to be recycled into new hardware. It increases your level of vigilance and it improves your mood.
Adding all this to the effects of a good night sleep and the effects you will have of your morning Cold Shower, this combo will be a powerful boost to start your day like you are on NZT. Exercising leads to more efficient utilization of energy, it builds confidence, it increases your mental focus and makes it easier for you to grow new neural connectors.
Listening to your favorite music lights up all areas in your brain and let’s energy flow smoothly, while meditation, especially mindfulness meditation relaxes your mind and promotes a state of wakefulness and clarity. Living each day in this manner creates a stage for you to tap into your mind’s Limitless potential.
Have you noticed that simply by watching movies with characters who act like geniuses, or just watching the movie Limitless you are, for a short period of time raising your cognitive power as well? This might be a placebo, a role play, or a bluff, but it stimulates you to embody this higher potential.
No matter what it is, if you embody the limitless potential for a long period of time you will learn how to tap into it by yourself. And you can do this through various ways.
You can create an optimized body posture that stimulates you to transform yourself into a person with unlocked limitless potential. The way you act and carry yourself has an impact on your brain chemistry.
According to a Harvard study there are ‘Power Poses’ that enhance confidence, mood and behavior. The findings indicated that how people carry themselves is reflected in the chemistry their bodies secrete.
Adopting high power poses increases explicit and implicit feelings of power and dominance, risk taking behavior, action orientation, pain tolerance, and testosterone, while reducing stress and anxiety.
You can create a list of movies, songs or any videos that channel this super performing and high potential mental state within your mind. You can get books that speak about this mental state, read science about it, or just read anything that enhances your mental powers.
Imagine what you can accomplish if you follow all of these 5 suggestions!
References:
– https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18681988;
– https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/9547823/13-027.pdf?sequence=1;
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