Smartphones -The Top 4 Biohacking Apps You Must Have

 

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Whether it’s a laptop, iPad or smartphone: the modern day human is addicted to gadgets. More and more people are pointing out the negative effects that these devices bring with them and the topic of smartphones in particular is becoming more sensitive. While there are a 1000 ways of using your smartphone for good, there are 1000 ways of using your smartphone for evil (by evil I don’t mean programming the downfall of the human race, I’m referring to playing mindless games).

Whether you want to hack your sleep, forge new habits or boost your brainpower: your smartphone can do that and more.  Here’s a list of my top 4 favourite apps that you can download straight to your device:

1. Sleep Cycle App 

This is hands-down the best tool you’ll find if you want to monitor your sleep. The app measures the sleep phases your body goes through and compresses the nights result in a graph. Based off of that the sleep cycle app will provide you with the quality of your sleep in percentage.

But how do you make use of this information? Tracking your biology for the sake of tracking is a waste of time. This is where the “sleep notes” come in handy: every night you can take note of things that you did or that happened throughout the day, which could impact your sleep (e.g. drank coffee, worked out, took magnesium). The app stores this information and shows it to you, allowing you then to now which different activities impact your sleep.

This information helps you to optimize everything from your nutrition to your pre-bed rituals.

Believe it or not, the tracking function is merely a side function of the apps actual purpose: waking you up in your lightest sleep phase in the morning so that you’re full of energy. Instead of setting the alarm for an exact time, the sleep cycle app allows you to set your alarm in a time range. This means that the app wakes you up between, for example, 6:00 and 6:30 AM. The alarm goes off when you’re in a light sleep phase, waking you when you’re naturally closer to doing so anyway.

I consider this app a must for anyone who’s interested in waking up full of energy and/or optimizing his or her sleep.

2. Lumosity

If you’ve read my blog post “How To Become Smarter: Enhancing Intelligence And Boosting Brainpower” then you’re already familiar what Lumosity is. In sum: Lumosity is a research backed brain trainer, which is designed to improve all aspects of your brains function (speed, problem solving etc.).

You can sign up for free and upgrade to full membership anytime you want. Full membership offers more games and additional options such as comparing your LPI (Lumosity Performance Index) to that of people in your age category. Every day Lumosity sets up a training program of 3-5 games, which have been chosen for you based off of your brains strengths and weaknesses.

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t download the free app and give your noggin some work.

3. HRV4Training

Tracking your heart rate variability has taken the health and fitness community by storm. Heart rate variability is the variation in time between your heartbeats. This relies on two things: your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

The parasympathetic nervous system kicks in when your body is in a relaxed state. It promotes a slower respiratory system, as well as investing more energy into digestion and sexual arousal.

On top of that, the parasympathetic nervous system slows down your heartbeat and primes your body to react to its environment. If you’re in a relaxed and recovered state, your heartbeat will show its reaction to your environment by making micro changes in the time between each individual heartbeat. Therefore, high heart rate variability means that your body is in a prime, stress durable state.

The sympathetic nervous system is the counter to the parasympathetic nervous system: it is responsible for your “fight or flight” instinct. The sympathetic nervous system kicks in when your body detects danger in your environment. It prepares you to either face the challenge or flee (hence the term “fight or flight response”). In both cases the sympathetic nervous system will increase your bodies blood pressure, slow down your digestive system, increase sweating etc. and decrease your heart rate variability (due to your body not making micro adjustments as a response to the changes in your environment).

As you can tell, the sympathetic nervous system has its uses- when you’re about to get robbed for example. But many people develop chronic stress or are overtraining in today’s world, thus increasing the dominance of the sympathetic nervous system.

Chronic stress (mental or physical) is bad for our health. Yet by knowing that stress decreases your heart rate variability, we can use technology to find out if our body is stressed or not. This can be very useful for athletes and high paced individuals, as they can use technology to find out if their body is truly overworked or not.

Until recently, detecting your heart rate variability required a heart rate monitor and an app on your phone. Nowadays however, you only need an app on your phone. Whilst the heart rate monitor variant may still be superior, one can get good feedback from a smartphone as well. The app that I use to measure my heart rate variability is called HRV4Training. It’s a good, reliable app that only costs a few dollars to use. The information you receive when measuring your heart rate using the cameras lens is broken down is such a way that you can easily see in which direction your going to: primed versus overworked. Based on your measurements of the past few days, the app will tell you if you should work out that day or take a rest.

HR4Training is a great tool to optimize your training, by giving you reliable data on your bodies state.

4. Lift

Habits can either be a guiding force that keeps you doing something well in life, or a hurdle that one must overcome in order to achieve a goal. A good habit can be your best friend; a bad one can be your worst enemy. To be successful, you’ll want as many habits as possible working for you.

To ensure this, you can use the Lift app. The Lift app is a habit-forming tool, which is used to keep you accountable as you’re forging your new habits. It’s set up so you can support people (and therefore will receive support too) and give them advice on different ambitions.

You can set up a Lift account for free and start building new habits in this instant!

Any praise, criticism or something you’d like to add? Then please comment below!

My Monthly Learning List

                       

“Model someone who’s already successful… Because success leaves clues”

-       Tony Robbins, Author

(source: www.blogs.adobe.com)

When you look at successful people, you’ll usually find that they have the following in common: they learn. Whether it’s through books, podcasts or documentaries, successful people have the habit of improving themselves on a daily basis.

It’s not just the knowledge that’s the key though; being able to apply it is equally as important.

Knowledge + Application = Real Improvement

What are good sources to learn form you ask? Since this is a health, fitness and lifestyle oriented blog; I thought I’d share my “knowledge sources” for this month in the hope that you’ll find them useful.

Book of the month: Smarter by Dan Hurley. This is a great book for all you biohackers out there. If you want to learn how to “hack”/enhance your intelligence, this is a great book to start with.

Dan Hurley provides an in depth look into the world of brain enhancement. He covers everything from brain training to nicotine patches and shows studies that back up his claims. In some chapters of the book however, Hurley investigates into the world of medical disorders and their treatments (such as down syndrome). Although this may be interesting for some people, the information won’t be of any practical use for the average person.

Smarter still remains a favourite of mine however, as it’s a well written, easy to comprehend book and therefor a great addition to ones library.

Podcast of the month: The Tim Ferriss Show. Tim Ferriss, for those of you who don’t know, is an overall kick-ass guy. Whether it’s angle investing, getting fit, cooking or fighting: Tim Ferriss has done them all and with great success. He’s written three New York Times bestsellers (The 4 Hour Body, The 4 Hour Workweek and The 4 Hour Chef), produced a TV show and now, he’s entered the world of podcasting.

In each episode of his podcast, he invites a high achiever and talks to them about their life, habits, philosophies and much more. His guests range from Brain Pickings Maria Popova to nutritionist Dr Rhonda Patrick. Each episode is loaded with useful, motivational and inspirational content. Find out how the best in the world achieved their success!

Blog of the month: www.calnewport.com/blog

I heard about this blog from an interview with Ramit Sethi. When I checked it out I was fascinated immediately: the blog had great content on time management, productivity and writing. Cal Newports posts are relevant for anyone who works in an academic field of some kind. The blog posts are easy to comprehend yet very informative at the same time. Definitely worth checking out!

Website of the month: www.lef.org Life Extension

As far as nutritional websites go, this has got to be one of my favourites. Life Extension is an information-loaded website that offers a great researching ground for aspiring nutritionists or health oriented individuals. Countless time-relevant studies can be found in their “News” section, which I highly recommend you take a look at.

Goal Setting: The Most Powerful Tool For Success

Reading time: ~6 minutes

(photo: http://peerlessgolf.ca)

Remember those new years resolutions from last year? Have you achieved any of them? Chances are you’ve either forgotten them or you didn’t even make any. That’s normal – most people (including myself on numerous occasions) often fail to set themselves clear, systematically to follow goals/resolutions. There are numerous reasons for this.

#1 Too Lazy. This sounds rather intrusive, but it’s the truth: most people are just too lazy to set themselves daily, weekly, monthly and annual goals. It requires work and time to set good goals and that’s why most people fail to do it (I’ll list some criteria for a good goal later on). I definitely fall into this category as well, as I fail to set myself daily goals every now and then.

#2 Poorly set goals. Another problem I have and believe many others face is the issue of setting goals you either think you can’t or don’t even want to achieve. This problem arises when one doesn’t put enough thought into the goals they’re planning for themselves. Often times I find myself goalless in the late morning (ideally one should be preparing their to-do list either before bed or early in the morning) and so I quickly jot down whatever comes into my mind.

Later on in the day it turns out that some of my goals are contradicting, time wasting or unimportant. This leads (rightly so) to a low comply rate and the importance of the goals therefore lose in value. So not only do you fail to achieve your mediocrely set goals, you also lose the appreciation for setting them in general.

#3 What is “Goal Setting”? Although we’re already half a page into this blog post, I’m sure there are still some of you out there who don’t know what setting goals truly means. Is “take out the garbage” a goal? Or is it something along the lines of “Get an A in my next math exam”? This confusion coupled with the natural laziness of humans can easily lead to one not setting any goals.

In my opinion there are different types of goals that depend on the time frame you’re looking at.

Short-term goals:

The first type of goal I’ll introduce you to is the “short-term goal”. These goals are ideally set daily and are, as the name suggests, short term. The purpose behind them is for you to have a clear plan on what you’re going to set out to achieve in the upcoming day. Having concrete to-do lists allow you to be more productive throughout the day and also give you the sense of accomplishment in the evening when you’re in the winding down phase. On multiple occasions we find ourselves clueless, running around and trying to do everything at the same time. What have we achieved at the end of the day? Not much. This problem doesn’t occur when we have a good to-do list to follow.

I could go on for ages, listing countless examples out of my to-do list journal, but I think you get the idea: short-term goals make sure you get very specific activities done in the day. These activities should go hand in hand with your mid-term goals. The time frame we’re looking at here is daily and/ or weekly.

Mid-term goals:

The idea behind a mid-term goal is to have something more meaningful than a short-term goal yet not as seemingly unreachable as a long-term goal. It’s best to explain this using an example:

Long-term goal:      Become a karate black belt

Mid-term goal:        Win the 2014 karate open championships

Short-term goal:     Go to karate training today

As you can see, the mid-term goal forms the bridge between the rather tiring daily grind and the seemingly impossible yet desirable distant future. By setting yourself mid-term goals you can make your short-term goals more precise and meaningful (in this case, your participating in the karate training in order to win your fight, and your fight brings you close to your black belt).

Here, the mid-term goal served as a means to an end, not a means in itself. Your mid-term goals don’t necessarily have to be in direct relation with your long-term goals however. One can perfectly apply this to the example above: instead of dedicating your life to becoming a black belt, you are perfectly happy to finish your karate “journey” with the competition. In this case your long-term goal falls away and you’re left with a mid-term goal that, once fulfilled, is over.

Mid-term goals should be set monthly and/or annually.

Long-term goals:

I already gave an example of what a long-term goal is, but let’s have a look at it in more detail. Long-term goals should be thoroughly planned and prepared. After all, your mid- and short- term goals are in the majority of cases a result of your long-term goals. You’ll probably only have a handful of these goals, as they’re “big ticket” items that take a lot of work and time to achieve. Looking back at your life, you’d ideally be satisfied with who you are and what you’ve done. As always, here are a few examples:

 Long-term GOALS:

1.    Do at least one Muay Thai fight in Thailand

2.    Publish a book on Nutrition

3.    Receive PhD in Biochemistry

As you can tell, your long-term goals are something you constantly work and strive for. Achieving them should be one of your highest priorities in life.

However, if for some reason you lose your interest in one of your long-term goals, don’t hold on to do them forever. Strike them off your list and set out for new ambitions that you’re passionate about.  Just make sure you’ve only given up your goal because you truly aren’t interested in it anymore, not because you realise it’s hard to achieve. Remember this quote: “If it were easy, everyone would do it.” Don’t quit in hard times.

To finish off this blog post I’d like to list some criteria on what makes up a good goal, so you can start setting goals for yourself right away.

Goals should be…

   ·      Clear and direct (“Do 100 push ups today” instead of “Do push ups today”)

   ·      Short-term goals should work for your mid-term goals (“Do all required reading for history exam today” supports “Get an A on history exam”)

   ·      Long-term goals should be broken down into mid- and short- term goals (see karate example above)

Was this post helpful? Any constructive criticism or opinion you’d like to share? Then please leave a comment below. Thank you!

   

Powerful Pancakes!

Healthy Pancake Recipe

One of the biggest and most prevalent problems regarding nutrition nowadays is the notion of depravation. In other words: suffering in order to be healthy. Think about that last sentence. Suffer to become healthy? Rather than dragging you down, your eating program aka diet should be empowering, energy giving and delicious. That’s why I’m sharing this healthy and taste-bud satisfying pancake recipe with you. It’s my favourite as far as pancakes goes and it tastes great, so try it out.

Ingredients:

·      4 eggs

·      1/3 cup of ground buckwheat

·      1 banana

·      1 TBSP of peanut butter

·      3 4cm squares of dark (85% or more) chocolate

Instructions:     1. Place all ingredients into a plastic cup.

                          2. Using a hand-held blender, mix all ingredients until smooth

                          3. Use coconut oil on your pan to make the pancakes

Tip: If it’s possible, buy free-range eggs and make the pancakes slightly more underdone. This will make them nice and gooey inside!

Did you like it? Have any criticism or praise? Then comment below! Thanks!