Lessons from Dave Asprey

Dave Asprey, the founder of Bulletproof and a leading figure in the biohacking movement, has spent decades researching and experimenting with ways to enhance human performance, health, and longevity. [1][2] His work, which has inspired a global community, centers on the idea that we can take control of our own biology to feel better, work smarter, and live longer. [3]

On Diet and Nutrition

"Quit eating sugar. If you make one change to improve your gut health, make it this. Bad bacteria love sugar and feed off it." [4][5]
"The best thing you can do to live a long time is to eat the highest-quality food." [4][6]
"Don't make yourself crazy about getting it perfect all the time—stress like that makes you old. Just aim to get it mostly right at home, and you'll be so far ahead of the curve that you'll feel it." [4][7]
"Sugar is the enemy of neurogenesis." [4][5]
"Super Humans don't eat fried food, even if it's crispy and delicious." [4][8]
"Get all the crap out of your diet, just do it right for a week. Then just see what can happen." [9]
"That's right – avoiding grains and sugar helped me reduce inflammation, stabilize my blood sugar, get smarter, and change my personality for the better." [5]
"The Bulletproof Diet, created by Dave Asprey, is designed to support fat loss and muscle maintenance while targeting and lowering inflammation in the body." [10]
"Danger Coffee...is packed with minerals and electrolytes...mineral and nutrient deficiencies are a big deal. They make you feel sick, tired, and stressed, and they can give you brain fog." [10]
"Fasting dramatically boosts autophagy, keeping your cells young and healthy." [4][8]
"For the first time, I understood that the greatest gift of fasting is that it helps you divorce your story about food from the reality of your biology." [5]
"What I'm trying to do is help people understand if for one day they could have the best day ever, where their energy and their focus and everything is super clear and they feel like a great golden god...if you do that one time you know you're capable of it and you can start working towards that." [9]
"The Bulletproof Diet is the richest in the fats that help brain function. If you want to be smarter or rewire your brain to be more efficient, you do need more energy. That's why you should eat more healthy fat because it is the most energy dense." [10]

On Biohacking and Performance

"Biohacking is the art of controlling yourself and the things that affect your biology are the things outside your body the things inside your body and the software in your head." [11]
"If you're not feeling amazing, there is always a reason!" [5]
"Making small changes in your environment can really ramp up what's possible for you. Perfection not required." [4][8]
"If you spend a lot of time in a noisy environment or one with bad lighting, your brain has to use a lot more energy to filter out all of the distractions." [4][5]
"Mastering your sleep is an important way to eliminate some of the cuts that are aging you and take control of your biology." [4][8]
"A sleep tracker is an anti-aging device with one of the highest ROIs." [5]
"You can build your 'willpower muscle' the same way you strengthen any muscle in your body: by doing hard things you don't want to do." [4]
"Scientists have proven that there are a limited number of decisions you can make each day before you reach 'decision fatigue.' Each decision requires energy, and when you're tired, hungry, or have already made a lot of decisions, you run out of energy and start making bad choices." [5]
"It is possible to gain energy as you age, instead of losing it." [5]
"I have learned to prioritize my actions into three buckets: things that drain my energy, things I don't mind and are important and useful, and things that give me energy and bring me joy." [4]
"If you take care of your brain, your brain will take care of you." [4][8]
"An inflamed brain is an unhappy, low-performance brain that will make you act like a jerk even when you don't want to." [4][5]
"My background, I really am a computer hacker... I understand the mindset of changing a system to get the outcome that you want." [9]
"Biohacking uses medical techniques, nutritional techniques, electronics, big data and quantified self, getting data from your own body. This allows you to understand what you are feeling and you can tell what worked and what didn't work." [12]
"Regular cold exposure can help improve physical and mental health." [10]

On Mindset and Consciousness

"Gratitude is the most important biohack of all." [11]
"Your job is to turn off the first f-word fear because it sucks the most energy." [2]
"When you learn how to generate an internal sense of safety...the people around you also feel safe and they don't know why because their mitochondria are listening to your mitochondria." [2]
"The thing that causes the most pain the most trauma...in entrepreneurs...is two traumas...betrayal...and injustice." [13]
"If you don't learn how to let that go it will eat you up." [13]
"I believe is that people will spend a little bit more for something that is objectively higher quality." [13]
"When you successfully do the things you don't want to do, everything else seems easier by comparison. Your willpower grows." [4]
"It is through play that the Lion Cubs develop agility." [14]
"What creates that alignment of course is meditation and self-awareness." [14]
"Consciousness starts inside the cells in your body." [14]

On Health and Longevity

"Less stress equals less aging." [4][8]
"If you plan to live longer than you're supposed to, CoQ10 must be on your short list of supplements at 100 to 200 mg per day." [4][5]
"When you activate autophagy, you slow down the aging process, reduce inflammation, reduce your cancer risk, and increase your body's ability to function at its best." [5]
"Spend more time in nature to boost your own natural killer cells and enhance your immune system." [5]
"I recommend banking your stem cells right away if you can." [5]
"If you are over forty, I recommend getting a calcium score to measure your calcification levels." [5]
"Getting a massage, sharing a bed with a partner, playing with a dog, and even giving someone an eight-second (or longer) hug all boost oxytocin levels." [4][8]
"The only people who care about health are sick people and the only people who care about youth are old people." [12]
"My mission is to give you the...tools, knowledge, and power to take back control of your body and mind." [1]
"Eighty-seven percent of entrepreneurs deal with mental health issues versus just 48% of regular people." [3]
"You have the ability to control your biology. When it is done correctly, you change how you perform and how you feel." [12]
"Your body is listening to stuff that you might not be listening to so you set things up in the world around you so that it's easier on your body so your body has more energy for you." [2]

Sources:

Books by Dave Asprey: "The Bulletproof Diet," "Super Human," "Head Strong," "Game Changers," "Fast This Way," and "Smarter Not Harder." [15]
Podcast: "The Human Upgrade" (formerly Bulletproof Radio) [16][17]
Websites: DaveAsprey.com, Goodreads, QuoteFancy, AZ Quotes, Mindvalley Blog, Entrepreneur.com, High Intensity Health. [4][5]
Interviews and Talks: Various YouTube videos and podcast appearances. [11][14]

Learn more:

Lessons from Dave Asprey

On Diet and Nutrition

On Biohacking and Performance

On Mindset and Consciousness

On Health and Longevity

Written by Antoine Buteau

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