So basically, I've been trying to think of what the "low hanging fruit" of optimizing cognitive/emotional functioning is, so to speak. Most of these take more effort than taking a strong nootropic, so not low hanging in that sense, but low hanging as in it's a fairly obvious intervention that should improve cognitive functioning for most people. As I was thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that there's way too many potential lifestyle interventions, so I'm trying to determine which are more beneficial, minimum effective dose/dose response curves(is there a term for this when it's behavioral interventions instead of medical), etc.
Sleep: Sleep when it's dark, silent environment, find the temperature that works best for you. Keep bedding and bedroom clean to avoid allergens. Eliminate any artificial sources of light, make room as dark as possible. No blue light for 2-3 hours pre-bed. Either wake with the sun or with a UV alarm, attempt to get as much natural light as possible during the day.
Cognitive / Emotional Behavioral Interventions: I think this and physical exercise are the two topics that aren't discussed as much as they should be. Some ideas for worthwhile interventions and ideas/thoughts on frequency
- Meditation. Improves attention, memory, mood. Something like 10-15 minutes seems like a good minimum, but how much will show a benefit? Is there a noticable difference between 30 minutes and 60 minutes? 60 and 120? Even people who go on months of retreat often don't go above two hours a day, but is there potentially a benefit to increasing even beyond that?
- Writing. Either getting thoughts on paper at the start of the day, or something like the 5 minute journal. This doesn't take much time, and there's definitely a benefit to setting your intentions for the day.
- Dual-n-Back: I've personally seen benefits to this, although I'm not sure it's particularly better/different than meditating, and studies certainly don't make it seem like a great use of time. Curious to hear what other people think on this. Does it become more useful with certain brain abnormalities?(e.g. adhd)
- Time spent outdoors. Beyond the obvious vitamin D / circadian rhythm benefits, it seems likely that our bodies function better with time in a more natural environment. For example, clostridium sporogenes is a bacteria that exists in soil, sediment, and preserved meat and dairy products. Current research seems to show it being the only bacteria that synthesizes detectable levels of 3-indole-propionic acid(IPA), which lowers TNF-a, is neuroprotective, antioxidant, anti-amyloid. I imagine there are other bacteria that are found in nature that have beneficial effects for people as well -- e.g., people who grow up on farms have less allergies. http://www.pnas.org/...ent/106/10/3698 https://www.ncbi.nlm...92/figure/Fig1/
- Actual memory training techniques? Curious on thoughts about this. I think it clearly has utility, but not sure if it's really worth the time to learn how to accurately use memory palace type techniques
Physical Interventions:
Cardio: Benefits of cardiovascular exercise are fairly well known at this point. It seems like low-intensity and high-intensity confer different benefits(e.g. HIIT and low intensity or jogging). There's been lots of research looking at a minimum amount for a benefit, but never a maximum. I'm suspecting that something more similar to hunter-gatherer tribes would be optimal, which is something like 6-16km/day, some small % high intensity and the rest low intensity. So something like 1-3 hours walking, and maybe 20 minutes of HIIT
Weight Training: Less commonly discussed, but also improves memory, cognitive function, attention, mood. E.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm...bmed/20101012/ For this, you can get pretty good benefits even with 30 minutes/day twice a week of progressive heavy training. Even athletes/bodybuilders rarely go above four sessions a week of 45 minutes or so, and there's definitely a sharp drop off in benefit beyond that.
Balance Training: Even less discussed. Balance training has been shown to improve memory and spatial intelligence. https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC5515881/ . Various ways of doing this, balance boards/slackline/acro/yoga/dance/martial arts/etc.
Nutrition: Obviously depends a lot on the person, but obvious things are no artificial sugar, no artificial sweeteners, roughly 3-4L of water, lots of dark green vegetables, either fish or supplemental omega 3, minimal processed carbs. Personally I go ketogenic as I have more stable energy levels and don't get hungry, which helps to not get distracted while focusing on work/studying
Basic Supplements(e.g.: not for a specific issue) : I'm less clear on this one. It seems ideal to get as much from the diet as possible. Getting most micronutrients from the diet seems easy enough if you eat lots of vegetables. My current "base" health stack is B Complex, Methylcobalamin, K2,Magnesium+Zinc(pre-bed), Vitamin D, Fish Oil(or equivalent from salmon), CoQ10, R-ALA, Longvida Curcumin, Creatine. Choline seems easy enough to get from food. Other considerations off the top of my head are ALCAR, Bacopa Monierri.
Advanced/Optional Supplements: Once basic supplements are dialled in, there's person-specific options. Probiotics if you have gut issues. Modafinil seems like one of the more benign of the "strong" options. Bromantane seems like it could be fairly beneficial. I'm pretty hesitant with supplements that are essentially experimental drugs though, it might help cognition in the short term but most seem questionable in the long term, although I'm open to being shown otherwise.
So, the lifestyle interventions is where I'm stuck. Say a person truly wants to improve their cognition, memory, and emotional control, and they're willing to spend a significant amount of time at it. What's the ideal balance? I'm thinking of something like:
10 Minutes - Morning Journal
45 Minutes - Alternate one day resistance training, one day balance training (slackline is my preference here due to being able to get time in nature)
20 Minutes - Alternate one day HIIT, one day flexibility/mobility work(given amount of activity, and activity improving cognitive function, avoiding injury has value)
2 Hours - Light outdoor hike. This covers both time in nature and low-intensity exercise, and you can easily do it with friends or family to get some social time. This could also occasionally be trail-running, which would double as balance training. Occasionally, if pressed for time, this could be substituted out for working at a treadmill desk.
30 Minutes - Dual-n-Back. This may not be better than meditating, but I'd like to A/B test it, and it's also sort of neat to have a way of tracking how different things affect your abilities(e.g. having daily scores, if you change something else in your routine or diet or supplements and it improves more than it improves from practice, you learn something)
60-120 Minutes -- Meditation. This is the one I'm most uncertain about. 20-30 minutes 2-3x/day is easy enough to accomplish, and obviously has benefits. Going higher likely has benefits as well, anecdotally it certainly does, and logically it should. But I'm really not sure the difference in cognitive/emotional benefit between 60 minutes and 120, or 60 and 180, is worth having 1-2 hours less to spend reading/studying/socializing/working. Curious on any thoughts on this
This totals an average of 4.75-5.75 hours/day, with roughly half of it being able to be a social activity(hike/resistance training/balance training). So this 4.75-5.75 hours/day would get you: 7-14 hours meditation/week, 70 minutes journaling, 3.5 hours dual-N-back, 14 hours outdoors, 14 hours low-intensity cardio, 1 hour high intensity cardio, 1 hour prehab, 3.5 weight training sessions, and 3.5 balance training sessions.
So, some questions
1. Are there any behavioral/lifestyle interventions I'm not thinking of?
2. Does it seem likely that more time outdoors would be beneficial? (meditating and time outdoors can be overlapped, I guess)
3. Does it seem likely that more time meditating would be beneficial? I'm particularly curious to hear about anybody who has tried multi-hour daily meditation for extended periods of time, or if anybody has studies comparing meditation duration and cognitive benefits.
4. What else would you do to optimize cognitive functioning assuming that money and time weren't an issue?
