Transcript of “Brandon Routh: Hacking Hollywood & Avoiding Kryptonite

Transcript of “Brandon Routh: Hacking Hollywood & Avoiding Kryptonite - #162”

Bulletproof Radio podcast #162

Warning and Disclaimer

The statements in this report have not been evaluated by the FDA (U.S. Food & Drug Administration).

Information provided here and products sold on bulletproofexec.com and/or upgradedself.com and/or betterbabybook.com are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

The information provided by these sites and/or by this report is not a substitute for a face-to-face consultation with your physician, and should not be construed as medical advice of any sort. It is a list of resources for further self-research and work with your physician.

We certify that at least one statement on the above-mentioned web sites and/or in this report is wrong. By using any of this information, or reading it, you are accepting responsibility for your own health and health decisions and expressly release The Bulletproof Executive and its employees, partners, and vendors from from any and all liability whatsoever, including that arising from negligence.

Do not run with scissors. Hot drinks may be hot and burn you.

If you do not agree to the above conditions, please do not read further and delete this document.

2 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Dave Asprey: Hey everyone, it's Dave Asprey with Bulletproof Radio. Today's cool fact of the day is that the color in movies is often color corrected so that it will affect your emotions in a different way, and the first movie ever to do this was called O Brother, Where Art Thou? They adjusted the color in every single frame of the film to take what was green and turn into a dusty brown to make it feel that way and it took 11 entire weeks to do that. Now, for all I know we're color correcting what I'm talking with right now and I don't even know if my guys are doing it.

Today's guest is awesome and if you're watching on video you've noticed that it's actually a live interview, which is amazing because Brandon Routh, who you'll probably see very soon here on Arrow Season 3 and who also played the role of Superman and that was Superman Returns, was it?

Brandon Routh: That's correct, 2006.

Dave Asprey: All right. I'm actually sitting here in my makeshift biohacker labs while we're building the real biohacker labs with actually Superman, so welcome.

Brandon Routh: Thank you. I'm excited and happy to be here.

Dave Asprey: Thanks for coming out to my house to check this out. Seriously, we got a chance to meet in Vancouver. I was really JJ Virgin introduced us.

Brandon Routh: Yes.

Dave Asprey: Your story was amazing, and I was touched to hear like how some of the techniques of biohacking had really worked for you. I thought it might be useful for people who are listening in their cars or people who are watching on iTunes or on YouTube, just to hear like what the application of Bulletproof does to someone who has obviously very high-level performance like working as an actor is crazy. You grew up In Iowa just like I think Superman did and …

Brandon Routh: Yeah, just records.

3 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Dave Asprey: You're like … Are those different states, okay.

Brandon Routh: Lot of corn in both of them.

Dave Asprey: I wanted to ask you about your story and how you got to be where you are, and then because you are here and set up on Skype we're going to actually like hook you up to some electrodes and equipment and we're going to actually biohack you.

Brandon Routh: Yeah, and I'm excited. I'm excited to get let electrocuted and whatever else is going to happen on game.

Dave Asprey: How did you get into biohacking?

Brandon Routh: Well, thank you to my friend, Adam Carolla and his brother Eric. Adam, friend for long time, we were at a bachelor party in August of 2013, asked about if I tried this … I heard about putting butter and coconut oil in my coffee, and I'm like "Are you crazy?". He had on his phone the article, at that time the post and I read it and I was just blown away by what you were talking about with fat and my world was turned upside down and I was intrigued, instead of being scared, I was like, "What is this?"

I, that following Monday I think, I was traveling and from that two days after I heard it, I basically transforms my whole diet and way of eating and started on Bulletproof coffee and I've had it every day with exception of one day when I had … Two days when I've had tea instead of Bulletproof coffee and start eating a lot more fat and turned my brain on … Turned the light on in my brain, I didn't know it was off, it's like how I'd like to explain it. It's made so many different changes for me, allowed me to have so many different changes not just in my energy and in my ability to communicate and remember things and my social engagement, but also sleep and many other ways. That's the short story, but so I've been basically Bulletproof for a little over a year now and turning my family and all my friends as I can. My son is pretty Bulletproof.

Dave Asprey: How old is your son now?

Brandon Routh: He is two years old.

Dave Asprey: Two years old.

4 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Brandon Routh: A lot of this happened while when he was turning one, when we were starting to introduce, six months, you start to introduce solid food. It's all avocado and banana and sweet potato and we're getting to the point where we were deciding whether he was going to have animal protein, animal meat for the first time really and I had gone back and forth throughout the years and well, I never really been vegan or vegetarian, but I dabbled, I tried vegan. That made me start thinking about that whole lifestyle and raw vegan and I had sampled really good food on both sides, and in Los Angeles still it's kind of some of the best food that you can get, purest, cleanest food. Unfortunately it's only you can get in a vegan restaurant. There aren't many carnivorous restaurants that really do too much of that.

I was doing this kind of exploration about how I felt about it, saw this video on YouTube with this kid questioning what's before us and they had asked, "Maybe I should let my son have his choice." Then I read some things about processed foods to be given … Rice puffs to help their dexterity and learned about the whole extrusion process, what's their they, I started reading about grains and all the stuff, and then it was a couple of days after that, that my buddy introduced me to Bulletproof coffee. Those two things crossed path’s and explosions in my head. Now, I'm where I am, and he's eating a lot of meats, fish, beef, little bit of chicken, high fat, very … He's incredibly dense and intelligent and vocal and…

Dave Asprey: The density you've noticed?

Brandon Routh: Yes.

Dave Asprey: Tell me more about that.

Brandon Routh: Because he weighs … He is 25 months old, I suppose. He must weigh 36 pounds and he's about 36 inches tall … Three feet tall.

Dave Asprey: He's not unusually chubby.

Brandon Routh: No, no, no. He is just stocky, and I don't know where he pacts weight, it's in his bone … I mean it's in his bone density, and he loves all types of foods which is the exciting thing. One of my cunning victories for my wife and I is that he says yummy, yummy water all the time. That's a very good thing to have a victory, and he has over his egg every morning, especially his breakfast, and he is incredibly vocal for other reason not just his diet but I can guess, helped with his linguistic skills also us just talking to him in terms of the practice that we used, now

5 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

that we're here to talk about raising children, but he communicates very well at an early age and has a big vocabulary for …

Dave Asprey: You brought … Bringing fat in for kids as well as for yourself and you've noticed obviously, hardcore after missing two days of increasing saturated fatty diet it was doing something in your biology light, like if felt right?

Brandon Routh: I felt right. I noticed that hunger changed. One of the first things I noticed, I didn't have sugar cravings as badly because I was getting full and I'd need, as long as I had my vegetables and my fats on my vegetables and things with dinner, traditional dessert didn't sound as good because I was satiated. I have a couple of bites of dark chocolate or whatever it was and I'd be satiated. I can notice when I don't have enough fat those are days when I feel "Oh, I can really have something sweet and that would be really good, because I'm not getting enough from the fat." Also just hunger period, now I can go 7-8 hours without eating, not that anybody should do that, but there are times when that happens and I didn't lose my mind and I didn't get upset and you get cranky, like I used to all the time. It really helped with that.

That was significant, because I have realized that … I'm kind of a grumpy person sometimes and I didn't realize it. That's the other thing that eating this way has helped me realize is being much more aware of myself because, instead of being anxious and fearful and some of these other things, my brain and cognition is more in control, so I have more energy to spend focusing it more and seeing how I'm reflecting myself throughout the world.

I was always a social person but I would be kind of a wall flower in group and friendly situations like amongst my friends I would sit back and listen to conversations. Now I'm much more eager to engage in conversations lot of times because I'm talking of both yourself, and I'm very passionate about just like nonstop and my friends are like, "Well, Brandon, just shut up. He's used to never talk and now he just won't shut up." That's been a big shift as well. I mean there is a whole lot of stuff.

Dave Asprey: That's make a difference so that when you're like on the set or something because if you're in costume … I'm just guessing, I've not really been on a set in a real meaningful way, but you're in a place where you're not going to just pause because you've got cameras and budgets and whatever. To be able to keep

6 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

your cool, and keep your brain for 7-8 hours, I know for the little stuff I do, it's still liberating for me but in a high pressure situation that also made a difference?

Brandon Routh: It actually has. I mean I'm an actor, it's much different than most people's profession but stresses and anxieties they're all similar no matter what field you're working, right. There's pressure, pressure to perform, know your lines, look good, all of these things and then on top of that you have to be able to communicate with people. You have to be friend, you don't have to but it's in your best interest to be friendly to all of the crew, know their names if you can, because they're a lot and they're interchanging, so that's the challenge, but I like to do that when I can.

There are a lot of demands, and diet is always a hard thing because you don't have somebody making your food, they have catering and they have carafe service which is a … Well, that's filled with sugary stuff, donuts, things you can't eat and even the catering even though there are chefs the quality, food quality is not up to my standards now, and so I have had to make modifications and it's while at the beginning, I think I was like, "Oh, what I'm going to do," living this way and eating this way, I found my own go-arounds and the way that it works for me. I bring a lot of my own food, I source, when I go to a new place I search out a butchers topic, I go to the grocery stores, I find where I can get grassfed this, pastured this, organic, and I'll bring it, I'll buy myself at my own expense, it's worth it to me and I'll take it and I'll have them. Thankfully they're great and they make it for me.

Dave Asprey: Do people thing that you're obsessed or compulsive about food?

Brandon Routh: My wife will probably say that, at the beginning of this because I was over … I was like, I'm doing this, I'm eating fat, she says, "Well, just slow down, it sounds like you're a crazy person," and I was like, "No, I don't, like this is awesome, I feel great," and I was. "I was a real crazy, you're right, Courtney." I had to walk myself back off the crazy train and I have modified a little bit, but also she's been able to see because I've done testing now, she's like, "Wow, your cholesterol is amazing and you haven't had any of the effects and I see so many benefits," and she's on board with it too now, not that she wasn't before, she was just urging coffee.

Dave Asprey: It's scary, when I first started doing this …

7 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Brandon Routh: Yeah, I was worried about … I was worried about too, but I knew how great I was feeling so I was like, "I'm feelings are great, how can this be wrong?"

Dave Asprey: It's weird. I started doing Bulletproof coffee and I've read the research. I believe the research, but I was like, "What if I die?" I'm going to do Bulletproof coffee every morning with more than two tablespoons of butter, a lot more, I would do up to eight when I first started. I couldn't get enough fat. It was like I am drinking manna from heaven and after a couple of years when I saw membrane shifted I don't want as much.

Brandon Routh: Yeah, that's interesting. I've heard you talk about that before, and I was doing a lot more to begin. I would do … I switched it to butter and ghee because I had a little bit of dairy, suited me to have a little of dairy thing, but I was doing a lot of butter at the beginning and I would do four or five tablespoons. I would do that, I wouldn't do that much with … I wouldn't balance it with empty tea, I would do two to three …

Dave Asprey: Yeah.

Brandon Routh: Now, I do two of each, two tablespoon of ghee and two tablespoons of brain octane every morning, and I realized that I have overall, so that has shifted a lot. My afternoon, evening intake varies, I don't keep track of it, but that I haven't needed my body hasn't asked for as much as the morning intake.

Dave Asprey: Now, there's some people out there, I've seen in a couple of articles, now there's 460 calories, if you use four tablespoons of fat and two butter, two brain octane, did you gain weight when you switched to eating more than 500 calories in your coffee in the morning?

Brandon Routh: I did not gain weight. The facts, the first four or five months I've lost 20 to 25 pounds and that's yes because we have water weight from day-to-day. If you take out water weight that's probably 15 to 20 pounds that I lost, and while I was doing that it was very busy family and work time. I worked out, I'm being conservative to say two times a week, heavy weight training, absolutely no cardio because I have been off because I'm dealing with some knee stuff and absolutely no cardio just heavy weights and I wanted to test whether eating a lower carb diet would have any effect on my strength because I also lowered my protein, so I want to see if my strength could increase.

8 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Has it increased? I mean I think I did my biggest bench so far I mean this was we stopped kind of the heavy weight training a little bit ago, but it was the biggest weight that I benched at the time while eating this way, losing weight, feeling great, recapturing, not recapturing my life, but recapturing kind of some youthfulness and just …

Dave Asprey:

Brandon Routh: Yeah, it's just I have less lethargy for one brain fog cleared up, I mean that's a lot from cutting out, I finally know what gluten does to me, at least gluten that's in beer I can say I definitely get. I used to drink … beer was my alcohol choice and I wouldn't drink that much. I'd like to have a beer for dinner. It tastes really good, nice cool beer for dinner right. I'd have half a beer and I go man, I must be a light weight, I must be a light weight, I feel drunk already. Then I stopped drinking beer when I got on board for gluten out.

When I had, not a beer but I had recently seven months ago I tested, we tested for gluten, had an enhancing effect that I had when I drink and I didn't drink. I am bud, this is … I'm drunk because I felt like I was drunk, was drunk on gluten. It was amazing, I was slurring my speech and I was having trouble walking around. It was bizarre, I was not much of a lightweight; it was the gluten affecting me before the alcohol even did anything to me. Anyway so it's different for everybody but that's how it was for me.

Dave Asprey: On the new Bulletproof diet roadmap, the one that's coming out in the book, bulletproofdietbook.com please preorder the book, we hit number 25 on Amazon on the first day of the preorder campaign. I'm so grateful, this book has been so much work and just so much energy has gone into it, I last night was up until four before you came, doing the final run through of it. I'm never been more pleased with something that I have written, there is just so much in there.

Brandon Routh: How many times have you read it?

Dave Asprey: I couldn't even count that high, but what made me think of that is that you're talking about what beer does, and on the Bulletproof diet I mean in the roadmap there is bulletproof foods that decrease information, high fat, low carb low toxins kinds of foods. There are suspect foods where you're not sure if they're going

9 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

to make you weak or they're going to make you strong and you want to remove all those.

Then at the backend just like you did, you said, well I relaxed overtime as I figured out what worked for me, and then there is kryptonite foods, which is what could we have planned this better, right. The kryptonite foods are things that generally make everyone weak like there is no real reason to eat those foods.

Brandon Routh: Or maybe Bulletproof, but I…

Dave Asprey: It's really funny because beer is probably the most kryptonite food, it's got gluten and it's got ochratoxin A yeast that causes brain fog because of candida problems and it's one of the mouldiest of the foods out there. When you combine all those things there is blocking things you can do, like taking the coconut charcoal but even then if you're going to drink like there are just better choices, even though this beer is delicious and cold and good.

Many followers on the blog have figured out that same thing and cut it out and maybe you cut out all alcohol for 30 days and realized you sleep better and you have more energy, you're nicer. For me it's like once a year I'll do it and I'll take the hit, like well you're not bulletproof, you're weak. It's like actually no, like I know my kryptonite and like alcohol it doesn't agree with me.

There is other recreational substances you can use like coffee that make you feel good, that are just a different thing and you mentioned a few things about brain fog, I struggled greatly with brain fog too when I was concerned about my career, when I was, might be 20s, and there was it was such a challenge to pay attention. I really hurt remembering things, and I was especially really worried, I was stressed about it. What has switching over to higher fat, bulletproof diet, with what toxins done for you, like you are clogged your executive function things?

Brandon Routh: Amazing things. Want to talk about the whole beer thing, the alcohol thing. I don't have to drink in social situations anymore. In fact I see how much better I function and I communicate and I have so much more fun when I'm not, that I get giddy the fact that I don't need to have the alcohol where I used to have to have it or have to have it but I would take it relax me. Now I proudly say, no I am good because I can be so much more enthusiastic and energetic in the conversation and have a great time without having anything, if I do something, I

10 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

have something now, I have sake because I think it's kind of one of the more clean things but that's on a very rare occasion.

Being on a bulletproof diet, cleaning out my brain function has been really pretty groundbreaking for my work. I mean part of being an actor is memorization, and being also in the moment. You have to memorize and there are various ways you can go through the process when memorizing. I've tried a lot of them. One thing that I noticed is when I do my work and look at my lines and kind of dissect and find the emotional parts in the scene, I go through it a couple of times in the night before and in the morning and when I get to work often times over the last year I found that it just there, it's there and it's at my beck and call. I don't have force it.

I find when I do try to force it, when I get worried, when I tense up right before they are going to say action, remember this line remember this line, then that's when I … Everything tenses up and I will stumble or I'll lose a line or I'll flux the way I'm speaking. When I just relax and just go, no I got it, because I do it comes out and also wonderful things happen with the body relaxes and improvisation all that, it just takes a little natural humanistic things, humanisms come out which is just that's what you want as an actor.

Dave Asprey: Wow, so the ability to bring it cognitively, change the way you've done behind the camera, I had kind of a similar experience. People don't know this but I used to have stage fright, and I know it came from my sixth grade, I was like the school player and I forgot my lines and I was forever traumatized. That kind of stuff happens and then from then on you get like an impression of this.

When I was having brain fog I used to stutter a little bit because my brain was so slow because I was want to say something and then I would just not get the words out, and that wasn't really bad stutter, but it was enough that I was subconscious about it. I had some like ticks I would do and I would like do a stemming and things. I would be wooden and I learned to go up on stage and practice it and it was only after I got my mitochondria working that words would flow and I could go upon stage and I could not say all, and I could just like feel like I was present all the way, like all way down in my core.

To this day if you give me a beer the day before or I eat low quality food there is something goes well like a little spark that I'm aware of that's like it's a very core of just my energy, it's dimmer. My ability to emote and to project and like to serve the

11 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

audience I feel like it's not there. Do you have any … There are other words for this but do you kind of feel that if you're off your game.

Brandon Routh: I definitely feel, and it was just the other day well when I flew in, I worked a couple of days ago, I worked in the morning, had a late flight didn't get my sleep, it was only a two hour flight from L.A. to Vancouver but I didn't get a lot of sleep. From doing all this I've really figured out some things that don't work for me and sleep, I need sleep. I think I have 3, 3.5 hours sleep.

I just woke up and the coffee didn't as much. It just didn't turn me on, turn my brain on enough. I didn't even have a very big scene, but it's one of those … Had one of these lines that becomes like a tongue twister. I kept having an issue with it. We got over and it wasn't a terrible thing but for me it was, because I'm so on it now, I just couldn't let it, it didn't stick in my brain. I had to keep going over the line and looking at the script. I noticed that, the record skipped a little bit for me on that.

The following day I got plenty of sleep and woke up had a much better day and I had a huge five page scene which I have to speak on my own because my character does, and it was like it was all there. It's profound difference for me.

Dave Asprey: You said something awesome you got the words right that I've been reaching for it you said the record skipped. It's just a little glitch. I was interviewing Tim Ferriss and I could remember something. For me, if even one time a day something doesn't come effortlessly my immediate thing is like I did something or I didn't get enough sleep, like something in my environment is wrong because my natural normal state is effortless and it just comes and I … It's all here and it's all in there and I can just bring it forth and when something interferes that process it doesn't feel natural anymore, whereas before that was … There was always I could never …

Brandon Routh: You don't know that you're not, that's abnormal or that we can be better than that. That's why when I say the light switch turned on I didn't realize that I was malfunctioning or that I wasn't functioning as properly as I could be. That was the astonishing thing and that's why it was so addictive I guess, in a way and so easy for me to keep going because I just kept opening up more and more and more and having benefit after benefit after being on eating this way.

12 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Dave Asprey: One of the reasons that I believe bulletproof coffee has become so popular is that it does that, like you felt that within a day, and I've realized it's a gateway drug to biohacking to help people understand wait a minute. Is it possible for me to have my brain work like this and to feel this good on a regular basis.

No, it's like I'm trying to sell bulletproof coffee I'm not but like I say, I am this far in my business, but I'm not this is an informal, so I'm just like for me and for so many people you can say going this complex program and 30 days later magic will happen and maybe it will maybe it won't, 10 days cleanse whatever, but the first day like wait some things is different and there is that little thing that gets ignited and then you really want to keep it because it's precious. It changed my whole life it changed how I look, it changed my muscles. It changed how I think, it changed my relationships and it's not that hard to do it.

Brandon Routh: The short pitch is do you like coffee, okay and this is like okay that is going to change your like, that's how I talk, that's how I bring it up to everybody is call bulletproof coffee, you put butter and coconut oil in your coffee and like what and of-course you get that what face. Then you I've got much better over the year I'm doing the short pitch and choosing in a right words that people kind a understand and not going off the deep end because I went down the rabbit hole and love to talk and talk and talk about it whether I can get very sciency about it but I just, people go oh, I can see them grazing, going into brain fog.

That's the short pitch and it changes people in whatever gets you in the door and it is a gateway drug not just for changing your whole diet but for me it changed my level of awareness. I was working on cultivating that, had an amazing trainer, Goody Goodnerson someday maybe you should meet. I think he is been on some speaking things that you've been a part of but that's … Not in person I think. Anyway JJ I know them. Anyway, he was one of the first people to bring me into the world of being more aware of my presence and a lot of other spiritual things. This has helped me maintain that and get back to that much more easily because my brain is more clear my brain is functioning.

I am in less of the state of fear and …. I mean it will take more responsibility for my actions, allows me to look inward and to see how I moving throughout the world and communicating with people and what am I … What I'm reflecting to people. Are they seeing me the way that I want them because I realized for very long time people were … What I thought people were saying of me, wasn't it, it was this other

13 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

version of me, to my friends, mostly to my friends because I put on it, I realized when I do interviews I put on this like other face, more of my bulletproof face, go with my friends I didn't have that same energy they were saying different person. Now I've become the person that I thought I was on the outside that I was from the inside.

Dave Asprey: It makes great sense. As the bulletproof diet book was kind of unfolding and you're thinking or you are going to right about, I realized that a lot of it was about will power and consciousness and my own path including the 40 years of Zen training, where you really spend a whole week with electrode structure, you had watching how you watch yourself.

You can't wiggle out of something like that but it helped me to develop this inner awareness, so that I find that when my mitochondria are working, mycellular power plants, that my ability to pay attention to myself as well as to perceive everything around me, it feels better and bigger. I catch myself like I'll conjugate, like I'm actually thinking really negative thoughts about that person. It's actually someone I like and like where does that come from, like that's not okay and I can shut it down, whereas before maybe I would have been a little tired and I wouldn't noticed myself. It wouldn't just been like a negative thing I'm carrying around me. I strive to not carry other people's baggage and having enough energy to notice when I'm doing it has been helpful for me.

Brandon Routh: Absolutely.

Dave Asprey: One of the things that I'm super strict about because you are here is that we actually have a chance to hack you directly. Should we get some biohacking. All right let's do it, first thing is have you heard about Pavlok?

Brandon Routh: No, what is it?

Dave Asprey: It's a behavior change, when you are here you grab that card. You shocked me.

Brandon Routh: This is my buddy Manish, of this company an advisor and investor. Pab lock actually makes a wristband for behavior change where if you are spending too much time on Facebook it will actually be able to post the Facebook so every friends can see you are spending too much time and let your friends shock you.

14 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Dave Asprey: Only friends?

Brandon Routh: Just kind of funny, but don't put on the class I mean hacking or shocking all the time.

Dave Asprey: That's kind of an idea, you don't wanted to be hacked, but it's a very minor shock when I get to hurt but it got your attention. I mean just to get your attention when you doing things that are working against. We're not going to actually do this kind of electrical stuff but we are going to do just some really cool things. It will take us a second to get set out.

Brandon Routh: Cool.

Dave Asprey: You are just telling me Brandon that you're feeling just a little bit tired like you're not quite on your game after you've been sitting here. Just so you know if you're watching on iTunes or YouTube or just listening in your car, we're sitting in a relatively dark room and behind the cameras here it's super bright and sunny and we're like looking out over Salt Spring Island and it's a bright day. Right now it sounds like being in the airplane where there is really bright light from just one point of visual field.

Brandon Routh: Yeah.

Dave Asprey: It could be various things causing this, whatever but here is little exercise that' called Eye Palming and I've done a lot of training in my visual system. I've been told that many people about it and I'm going to do all the detail. My left eye tends to turn off because when I was young, my eye teaming didn't work very well. You can't see it turn off and I don't feel it either. My brain was spinning so much energy just keeping the eyes lined up right that it was like it's easier to just read this one.

This is an exercise that causes eye relaxation. Since you're feeling a little bit of some kind of cognitive stress right now, I'm going to teach you a real simple exercise. If you're listening, you can do this exercise at home too. Sometimes it's profound, even just in a conference room, you're under force and lines all day. You'll be amazed what percentage of people have visual stress and don't know it. For about 20 seconds rub your hands together, you get your palms nice and warm. Then what you're going to do is you're going to take your hands and place the warm palms over both eyes. You don't want to press on your eye ball or you're cupping the eyes.

15 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

We actually call this cupping. What you do is you take a few deep breaths, your eyes could be open or closed. There should be no light coming in. This is going to reset your visual system and really just let the bring relax for just a second. You're not pushing on the eyes, you don't want them cold, and you don't want any pressure on the eyes, just a light pressure on the orbital sockets around. After you do that for even a minute or two, you'd be amazed how your visual performance increases. You actually can test about it on some visual tests. If you're going to go to the DMV and you palmed your eyes before the test, you might get one line down just from allowing your eyes and your brain to relax. I'm really curious to see, we feel like it's time to take your hands on you can but keep doing if it feels good, do as long as you want.

Brandon Routh: A dramatic effect.

Dave Asprey: Are you feeling different?

Brandon Routh: I mean holding my, covering eyes for more dramatic effect.

Dave Asprey: It's had con and cons, it's a condign and …

Brandon Routh: Centers me.

Dave Asprey: It is condign. Let's see if there is a difference. It may not even be a visual stress thing. Sometimes you'll find you just got tired for no good reason or your focus drifted a little bit, you felt a little bit punchy. It's actually because you're in a place, there's uncovered compact fluorescent bulbs shining down right above you.

Brandon Routh: I've got nice cranial tingling, so it's relaxing.

Dave Asprey: There you go, let's see what happens. While we're at it, I'm going to, I'm going to hook you up to this computer. We're going to do the Upgraded Focus Brain Trainer. In order to do it, I'm going to find, if I don't pull out a microphone here. I'm going to find a cable that's missing from our setup here. I think it's still missing. Or maybe we won't do that exercise right now. Here we go. I think that's the right one. This is called the Upgraded Focus Brain Trainer. It's one of the bullet proof biohacking devices. What it does, if I found the right cable for it anyway. What it does, is it teaches you to move more blood to the front of your brain, which is a really remarkable thing.

16 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Five minutes of training in this can actually raise your T.O.V.A. score, and T.O.V.A. is the, it's a standardized test of ability to pay attention. It's actually used in a clinical setting to diagnose people with ADD. They have a low T.O.V.A. score. If you don't have ADD and you would like to raise your attention level, it's an interesting signal. What we're going to do here is have you play a little video game.

Brandon Routh: I like video games.

Dave Asprey: It's for a reason that fun of a video game.

Brandon Routh: No.

Dave Asprey: It feels like lifting weights with your head, it's not a relaxation game. What you'll see if you're watching as I'll now just explain what this looks like to people. You will see hand that if you would; little flashing red light here on the world's coolest looking headband, that it's blue. What this is doing is shining that red light into your brain. It actually penetrates the skull a little bit and then bounces back into a little image sensor here, tells us how much blood is in the front of your brain. We're just going to tell you by having on the screen, we're going to have it have you just move forward on the screen like you're flying.

When that happens, it means you're moving blood and when you fly backwards, it means bloods draining out of the front of your brain. More blood equals more oxygen equals more metabolic activity. The front of your brain is where your ability to pay attention resides. It's such a human brain.

Brandon Routh: I should be good at this.

Dave Asprey: I suspect as much. Here we go. Is that comfortable?

Brandon Routh: Sure.

Dave Asprey: Okay.

Brandon Routh: Does it look awesome, because that's really all that counts.

Dave Asprey: All right. What's going on here is when you're flying forward, you're literally putting blood into it. You don't want to get moving.

17 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Brandon Routh: It follows if I follow this?

Dave Asprey: Yeah. You're doing something without moving your body, just with moving your mind. Stand up straight. That's right. Now, without moving your body at all, just do whatever it takes inside your head. You could try breathing or not, breathing just won't really help. It's a skill that you don't have consciously right now. You're building the skill to move forward.

Brandon Routh: I'm thinking about moving forward.

Dave Asprey: Yeah. We're thinking about, feeling about, intending, you're grasping for the new control system. The control is there and move blood inside the brain. You just don't know the label or where it is. Inside your mind right now, you're like, okay, what's going to make me move forward because it feels very natural to your visual system to fly forward. It's like you're soaring like an eagle. When you fly back or it doesn't feel good. Right? You feel unsafe when you fly backwards because you can't see what's behind you. It's very primal.

We're giving you a signal and no you want to go forward. When you go backwards it doesn't, now you're going forward. That feels expansive, you're soaring like an eagle. Bam, I crashed the software. Love live demoes of software I haven't updated in a little while. Rather than taking a lot more time on the camera, let's do this after we're done shooting. Basically what you are just doing, that you got to feel for it, like it felt different when you're moving forward.

Brandon Routh: Kind of. I was trying I mean it was blood going on. I want to do it again.

Dave Asprey: We're waiting for later.

Brandon Routh: You are.

Dave Asprey: Well, not later, I mean, if you want it on we can do it again.

Brandon Routh: If you want it on we can do it again.

Dave Asprey: Yeah. We'll do that, we'll give you a …

18 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Brandon Routh: When it moves forward, I'm not controlling it, it is controlling, I'm just thinking about moving forward and this forward and backward when the camera and the thing moves backward.

Dave Asprey: The movement itself that's happening is just to teach your nervous system what's going on. In the raw data, we can actually look at that too.

Brandon Routh: Yeah, because I want to know and I'm curious.

Dave Asprey: There we go, let's do that again.

Brandon Routh: It's just like, what, going backwards.

Dave Asprey: There you go, you just had a burst of blood and to the front of your brain and you're soaring forward. I apologize if you're sitting in your car right now and it's a little bit quiet. I want to get Brandon at least like 20 seconds of quiet, so instead of just thinking what I'm just saying he's going to think about how he's soaring forward here. When you soar forward in your current game, you soared up to 3.2%. There's 3.2% more blood in the front of the brain than it was before. In this session, on average you raised your levels of blood in the front of your brain by 0.8% or 0.9%.

If you do this for about five minutes, you'll actually start to feel a little bit tired. You're learning a skill, the brain will maintain the skill like it's a new thing that you get. This is incredibly powerful, if you want to build a pay more attention at work or at school and its device that you can use all the time. You can do your whole family, you can do you whole neighborhood, if you want to. It's a fundamental biohacking tool. This is actually handmade and we deliver them to people and there's a bit of a wait for them.

For me this has really helped me to be able to just bring it when I want to bring it. I also want some more biohacking tech here. We'll play with this tonight, you're going to stay over, so we got lots of time to hack. You just pop it on, it's Velcro. Okay. Now, the sleep induction, that isn't something you're really likely to use but do you use one of these guys?

Brandon Routh: I do. I use it every night, I travel with it.

Dave Asprey: You travel with these?

19 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Brandon Routh: Yes. I roll it up and I travel with it, I saw somebody YouTube the pictures, somebody puts it on. The suitcase of anybody tries to steal from me. Something that gets spike, which is pretty awesome. I use it every night. I love it, sometimes I fall asleep on that, wake up a couple of hours later and like "Oh".

Dave Asprey: You've actually slept on it for two hours?

Brandon Routh: I think I fall asleep, sometimes its 30 minutes, sometimes it's a couple of hours later when I've gone to bed. I look at the clock and actually not the clock on but sometimes I'm curious to see along, so look at my …

Dave Asprey: We have similar experience, I fall asleep on mine most nights. I wake up, I think about a 20 minutes later on average and I just toss it off the bed. One time when I was writing the book, I stayed up basically five nights in a row, I slept two hours a night from about 6AM to 8AM and I was just in the total flow state it was remarkable. I was using all the electricity, all the supplements, just like stretching my biohacking legs and just doing nothing but writing and really just absorbing myself in to it. I woke up after two hours of sleeping on this and it was like glued to my back. It was the weirdest feeling just peel off, I was like I was part of a piece of Velcro. For the most part, I find it profoundly relaxing.

Brandon Routh: I don't have any issue with going to sleep usually. Some days I have a really busy brain before I go to sleep. It just it's almost like it's another thing that tells my body it's time to sleep. It's just an easier and even easier way to fall asleep and most of the time I do fall asleep on before like 20 minutes or what I tried to do every night, it's about what I try to attend 20 minutes and the roll up and go to sleep right away.

Dave Asprey: When you first lie down do you feel like a bit of a stress response?

Brandon Routh: I do a little bit, my bed is not solid enough to put as much pressure. I like to do it in my floor but I don't do it, do it on the floor would be even more. Then I fall, probably if I fall asleep then I'm on the floor, I have to get up into bed. On the floor, I love that because I kind of dig the pain sensation actually because I feel even more released with it. I do definitely feel a calming, it just helps me focus against another thing. It helps me focus breath deep calm and helps me kind of go through a practice of, I'm working on going to practice of like going to the day or

20 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

being grateful and those kind of things to the bedtime. If I'm on the induction then I do those things, I just go to bed and I kind of miss, it's kind of a trigger, and it's kind of an impetus to do some of those things.

Dave Asprey: The sensation I have when I was developing this with the longer spikes and all. Is I lay down and right away my I should get off this, like this hurts. I'm like wait and then I kind of go through this inner dialogue when my body was like "Oh, you're going to die on a bed of nails" and then the brain, the mind, is a little bit more like, "We're just going to chill", and after like 30 seconds now, maybe a minute, like the body relaxes and just goes limp like a puppy, like if you ever had a struggling puppy and you're holding it. I feel like it happens to like my inner Labrador and that's when just the endorphins come and it's a peaceful thing, whereas at the beginning for me it's not really comfortable.

Brandon Routh: I don't, and like I said, if I had a really flat hard surface that I was lying and say would be more of that, although I think I would get didn't want to have done it still not as bad. It definitely feel, it helps me feel where I'm holding tightness. Where I'm holding and restraining because it helps relax so much and it calls attention for me, calls attention where I am holding even more.

Dave Asprey: Awesome. All right. The next thing that we're going to do on here and I want to make sure people are listening in their cars are getting so to like a running area. If you got a chance to see this one, this is worth going on iTunes, go to Bulletproof radio and we got a please leave a review if this is cool because I'm just opening up all the biohacker stuff. You see really we have a really … this is actually a very old electoral stimulation machine, I think it might have come out of Russia, perhaps. I haven't used it in a while, it's got like dials and knobs and stuff. I thought we do is we could actually both electrify. We'll do one bicep on you and one bicep on me at the same time and we'll see basically which of us voices out first.

Brandon Routh: Can we swap sides?

Dave Asprey: Sure.

Brandon Routh: Because I'm going to just …

Dave Asprey: Yeah, which one do you want?

Brandon Routh: Right on.

21 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Dave Asprey: We'll balance.

Brandon Routh: What's going to be best to do my right on?

Dave Asprey: We'll balance you out afterwards. I'll make sure that we do both of your arms, so neurologically it won't matter. This is just for a demo. All right. What I want to do here is get some electrodes and actually I got because I'm standing on the Bulletproof vibe, which you haven't tried, yet, have you?

Brandon Routh: No.

Dave Asprey: We are going to get you on there next. First, let's get some electrodes going. This device is a prototype that is actually out of Russia and it's going to be pretty cool. Just roll up your sleeve. This is your left arm, I'll do my right. I'm going to put this on the front here and we'll do this red one on the back.

Brandon Routh: It'd be even more of a task because I've lost control.

Dave Asprey: On the left side, that's right.

Brandon Routh: The left side.

Dave Asprey: That's all right. What we're going to do is we're going to show the difference. For the camera, sure if you got in on both arms, just so we can see like what's going on here. To see the difference like you're pretty ripped to be broadcast. You look like you might be playing some kind of super hero on TV.

Brandon Routh: I think I have about 16 inch biceps right now.

Dave Asprey: Nice. We should like measure.

Brandon Routh: Measure it.

Dave Asprey: We should, nice, we should quantify that. Like before and after this.

Brandon Routh: I think we could try and oh yeah.

Dave Asprey: Yeah. We could still like wrap something around them but with the hack we'll just do it. I guess we'll do my left arm because I'm going to be

22 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

controlling this machine with my right arm. I'm going to do the same setup here. It's an electrode on the inside of the bicep and one on the triceps. What these electrodes are doing is they're stimulating the muscles that causing to contract and it'll feel kind of like pain but when you look at it, it's not pain, it's just incredibly strong contraction of the muscle. What we're going to do here is just see how they feel and what I'll do is like you just kind of, you say this really like, okay, this is as much as I'm willing to take right now. Then we're going to …

Brandon Routh: I think you can step it out after I level off.

Dave Asprey: Level off and then you can just do a curl, like that. One, maybe two, and you're going to find out what was it 10/10 like wow, this is your body telling you I can't take anymore. Then once you're sure the body will take more, it's like oh I was wrong and what you thought was your max was nowhere near your max. Let's see here.

Brandon Routh: I understood all of that because of the Focus Brain Trainer.

Dave Asprey: Nice. Are you feeling anything?

Brandon Routh: No. Yes.

Dave Asprey: How about now?

Brandon Routh: Yes.

Dave Asprey: All right, here we go. Now snap your fingers for me. Good. You still have neurological control. Like you here, muscle getting harder. Now do a curl for me, I'm feeling this. Does it feel less intense, now you just did one curl?

Brandon Routh: Yeah, definitely.

Dave Asprey: Straighten up.

Brandon Routh: Releasing back, this thing right here, whoop, like a funny.

Dave Asprey: This is awesome.

Brandon Routh: Maybe it's …

23 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Dave Asprey: Straighten yourself now. This is mind over matter right here. I've done this for like, there you go, and look at that, your will power is causing your wrist, even though there's electricity, you just opened your wrist. Now do a curl for me.

Brandon Routh: Well, it's like let's go back more.

Dave Asprey: It's all right. You're going to run that.

Brandon Routh: Yeah. There's a point where it gets easier.

Dave Asprey: Yeah. Did you see how intense it was, now just from forcing it by do something.

Brandon Routh: It's easy to hold here and then coming back.

Dave Asprey: I'm experiencing the same level you are but my nervous system is trained to take more electricity. More electricity equals more myelin on your nerves. More myelin equals faster twitching. How are you doing, can you handle that?

Brandon Routh: Well, I'm almost not even trying, it's making me contract.

Dave Asprey: There you go, ready? No. can you straighten that out, you got your wrist straight. Keep up, don't let the wrist bend. Just focus on that, you do have control of that. It feels like, you know, but you do. Like, even though we're at the same level, I can still.

Brandon Routh: I'm sweating now.

Dave Asprey: Your whole body is going to go into like you've had had your workout, you'll be wet in a minute. Ready? How're you doing, tell me if it's too much. You should be able to curl this when your nervous system is all right, it can be. It's here so.

Brandon Routh: Well, I think it is, okay.

Dave Asprey: This maybe a little too much for you. Move your elbow down and straighten arm if you … you got it, you're winning. Okay. Now, once you straighten

24 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

out, we're going to get you to, we're going to take the electrodes off in a minute. We're going to just have you …

Brandon Routh: You're just standing like nothing's happening.

Dave Asprey: Even up here, I have a little bit of a hard time snapping my fingers. My nervous system is trained but like this is one of the primary ways that I maintain what I do. All right. I'm going to turn this down and just for reference. We're at about 55% of what's possible there. Now, take your electrodes off real quick, just being stick into the counter. I'm going to turn it up, I can probably do a 100 right now. You guys may have noticed, we are not actually using this thing, this is an automotive testing device from the '50s.

That's the coolest looking piece of like Steampunk art ever. What I'm going to do now is I'm going to turn this up to the point where I really have a hard time doing it. We're at the level where we were before and I'm going to go a lot higher. Ouch. I'm at about 75% now in a on a single bicep, that's about what I'm ready to do.

Brandon Routh: It's bringing muscles out better even.

Dave Asprey: All right. Now, it's stopped turning. I'm going to turn up some more. I should be around 80%, 75%.

Brandon Routh: It's helping you if you relax or you're doing that kind of like work.

Dave Asprey: A lot of this is just my body is feared of this, so.

Brandon Routh: Right, yeah. I realize it the more I fear, that it's going to contract our breath and relax and release it.

Dave Asprey: What is going on now is and so it was we both do this. Let me take this off and we're going to show the camera the difference between left and right. You'll be amazed at how much blood is in one arm. Just hold up again and let's see. Can you see a difference or feel a difference, this is a one that we are working on and it's like, I mean, you're in great shape but you just got more vascularization like this bicep is bigger there and you see your left arm.

For me the same thing, I'm not I do have my biceps or anywhere near, I'll measure them in a while. The difference between left and right to me like it's noticeable and

25 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

this is my weak arm. Right? It's kind of and then you're going to find that you're sore to move.

Brandon Routh: The triceps, I mean, let's give the triceps too.

Dave Asprey: In ways that are just not normal. People sort of wonder when I talk about not exercising. My kettlebells are right here and I do exercise but I do very high intensity. High intensity you can do with a kettlebell or you can do with electricity. That's one of the biohacks that's kind of amazing. You're feeling a little bit of. Now you really looked tired earlier. Running some current through that we can.

Brandon Routh: Yeah, I know. It was that endorphin rush and everything else.

Dave Asprey: I travel with this device if I'm going to be doing a lot. Because you can also do some less, you can do some like anti-inflammation things with the electrical current to that are profound. This is gives us a 100 of these made or handmade and it's a prototype that I hope will someday be on the market. Now, let's have you up on the Bulletproof vibe here. You never tried this before?

Brandon Routh: No.

Dave Asprey: You'll notice, this is just here in my office with my place where I record things. Can I have you just give it a shot.

Brandon Routh: Step up?

Dave Asprey: Step up and I'm going to turn it on here. Okay? Now, if you're listening on your radio and you're not hearing this, what's going on is Brandon standing on this plate, it's about a two feet by two feet and about four or five inches tall and it's vibrating pretty strongly. Now, you don't want …

Brandon Routh: Do I look like I'm shaking as much as I feel like I'm shaking?

Dave Asprey: You probably feel it more because your head shaking and bend your knees just a little bit so that you don't experience a lot of acceleration of the skull. Try doing just a light squat without knocking this thing down. You feel it in your legs in a weird way? What's going on 30 times a second, we're moving you up and down just a little bit.

26 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Brandon Routh: Yeah.

Dave Asprey: You're getting a signal from your body that you're doing 30 squats a second.

Brandon Routh: I would say that my legs feel stronger, I'm doing it actually it feels more supportive.

Dave Asprey: It's interesting on the nervous system. Right?

Brandon Routh: Yeah. If you like it's sit more in this position for longer than if I didn't have the primary.

Dave Asprey: It's probably because when you go up, you're going to have small relaxation and but the muscles are basically doing this 30 times a second. With this other device, we're doing about 500 times a second. This though when you stand on it, it gets lymphatic circulation. These way like muff and top things can really go away because you're just getting lymph out and if you don't have time to go for a walk to do that, what you're doing here is you're helping it happen faster.

Brandon Routh: Ujjayi breathing with that.

Dave Asprey: Yes. Ujjayi breathing if you haven't heard that, you'll learn this in a good Pranayama yoga class. It's a kind of breathing, I'll show how you're doing that when we were doing the electrical sim thing. Ujjayi breathing is they call like seashell breathing. It's in through the nose and the very back of the throat to make a special sound. You might want to and help you learn it or google it, Ujjayi, "U-J-A-Y", and it's a profound way to go to sleep. Four Ujjayi breaths when you're trying to go to sleep, bam you're out. How are you feeling, pretty good?

Brandon Routh: It's awesome, yeah.

Dave Asprey: It's very stimulating.

Brandon Routh: It is.

Dave Asprey: I'll work with my …

27 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Brandon Routh: Very relaxing and stimulating at the same time. It's just rocking around.

Dave Asprey: I'll do it at my stand desk. Or like I'll do my work and then I'll just walk over and do it for one minute. Sometimes, just to get a little bit of a break. You'll feel in your hips and you look back, it's like a whole body massage. This is something that I don't have enough time to go for a long walk because I'm on the phone all the time or whatever. This is kind of part of keeping my movement happening. I'm not capable of like on a re-bounder at 30 times a second. This is 30 times a second. It's a short cut. Now, what else do we do, Pulsed Electromagnetic Frequency?

Brandon Routh: Oh, my leg.

Dave Asprey: Let's play with PEMF. This is from my buddy Dr. Bill Pollock at Summer Pulse. This is something that also came out of NASA. It uses a pulsed electromagnetic frequency, basically these are electro magnets. You can stack them up in a pattern that creates the strongest field and that they increase circulation and increase nitric oxide levels in areas that are injured. They speed healing.

When you have sore joints, even some kind of strange headache kind of things, you can use these to improve how you feel. When I travel, it's very common, you'll see me wearing like cargo pants. There's one of these tucked in the front pocket and I have these over my lower spine. You can wear them 24/7, they kind of eat recycle the batteries. I have a little battery charger, so I can keep the nine volt batteries charged. Lots of people have this, are there real pain that's been out for a long time.

In three four minutes they feel it and if you leave it on there, it tends to get better over time. This is called the Soma Pulse. There's a code to say like a lot, its code is amazingly it's either Bulletproof or BPE and they'll be they're demoing these. You actually get to try one and we'll have some max there as well. I'll pack this one in the back, I don't know if we're going to have time on this video to do it. That our whole body pulsed electromagnetic frequency devices. Hang on to those coils and if you have anywhere that feels like you want top, if not put it right here over like your naval.

Dave Asprey: Yeah. And we could actually wrap it on your knee if you wanted to. I don't know if you feel it in the amount of time we got. You catch for one either

28 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

side of the knee with this moved aside towards the body. That'll be the right way to do this. In the time we got it, probably won't work. If you're listening to this, this thing is about the size of half an iPhone, a little bit thicker. It's very portable but it's something that speeds healing and reduces pain. It's kind of a really neat device. One that I have actually gifted a lot of the Bulletproof team with one of these because they feel better.

This device, old-school biohacking. If you're a regular listener and you watch the show on YouTube, you might have seen this flashing light behind me. What this is, is from probably the early '80s, it's an antique bar game. One of the first memory training memory testing games out there and its coin operated. I'd ask you to play this real quick.

Brandon Routh: Okay.

Dave Asprey: All these four buttons, just remember the order that they light up in. it will sit down our Summer Pulse here and you'll get to play that for nine. We'll give you lots of time with it. All right, you're ready?

Brandon Routh: Yeah.

Dave Asprey: We'll make sure that our cameras can see you here. You got three seconds once it lights up.

Brandon Routh: That is on.

Dave Asprey: 1000s are watching. If you're 40 you probably remember this game from a bar somewhere which is kind of cool. You'll see here, if you get a score between 57 and 90, they call that average but there's marketing in that. A lot of people don't get that high. Here, Brandon, who actually is Superman, just passed average. He's excellent. That's pretty impressive like your first game ever.

Brandon Routh: I'm listening to you talk.

Dave Asprey: Nice. I was just talking too.

Brandon Routh: 110.

Dave Asprey: 110 is absolutely, check it out.

29 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Brandon Routh: Excellent.

Dave Asprey: Excellent. Rock on. That's actually an amazing score. This game is going to be …

Brandon Routh: I'm totally biohacked.

Dave Asprey: You could do this on your iPhone. This is amazing with the sound, it's just fun. We're going to have this old-school biohacking technique. Over here is a stress meter, on the other side, which is kind of cool. This thing will also be there. You can get this in a tiny sensor for $20. We're bringing the old-school type in because biohacking has a history that goes way back. I don't know if it's really worth seeing how stressed are but let's give it a try. All right. Let's see, I think it's the deposit for the. Right. Now just put your fingers on those two things.

We're going to see how stressed you are. That's really an annoying beep, isn't it? If this is in a bar?

Brandon Routh: That's going to stress you out already.

Dave Asprey: Well, if this is in a bar, wouldn't that like everyone looks, you have normal stress. I think most people do on this. This isn't that functional of a thing but it did take your quarter, well actually that's my quarter. It's really interesting how this stuff from 30 plus years ago has made its way into, there's a video game based on this technology, this is called [inaudible 00:58:30] response. We think biohacking is something new but getting a real time feedback was possible long time ago but it took these big clunky things and the signals were not very good.

You have things like Lumosity now. Doing that train, that are far superior to this but it's still interesting to see what's your working memory, can you change it. These are part of the brain side of biohacking. Finally, just for fun, I don't think we're going to have these this year, Captains of Crush. Tim Ferriss hooked me up with one of these things in his Quarterly.Co package. I know about my own Quarterly.Co thing because Tim was kind enough to introduce me to those guys. What this is quarterly get a package of specially selected things from someone like Tim or now it's for me.

What it contains is stuff that you would just like because you follow the person's blog and what not. Tim sent one of these high intensity grip string trainers. I've been training myself just a little bit, I ended up buying the whole set and it's amazing, just

30 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

the difference I've gone from relatively strong grip to way stronger on here. Let's see the hardest one of these though, if you look at that thing, it's like 365 pounds. There's a registry of people, I don't even know how to like really bend it very much.

Brandon Routh: You should try with left even though my biceps not.

Dave Asprey: Let's try one in the middle and see if it's closable, I'm curious. I'm really into quantifying things, I have a digital grip strength meter. That one's just crazy. Let's see if this one's doable. 99% close.

Brandon Routh: Did it get burst.

Dave Asprey: I think this is about 200 pounds of pressure. Not bad, you're not training your grip. When you got a grip that's about as strong as mine because you are lifting because you have a really good trainer, I'm guessing here. Brandon, got to ask you the final question for the Bulletproof podcast.

Brandon Routh: Yes.

Dave Asprey: The one that I almost forgot to ask.

Brandon Routh: I was waiting to, I want to just add something.

Dave Asprey: That question, the final question is when you know because you listen to the podcast. Your top three recommendations for people who want to perform better and whatever it is they're here to do. You want to kick more ass, do these three things.

Brandon Routh: This is tough and I've tried not to over the year, listening to podcast program and try to figure out what I was going to say. I just finally crystallized on seaplane right over. I think number one is "Taking responsibility." Taking responsibility for actions has been made a huge impact on my life and being able to let go of a lot of things and move forward. Taking responsibility when we think other people are causing us or a bad day and realizing that even if a guy cut you off, at least you had the ability to swerve out of the way and prevent him from hitting you and hitting somebody else. Take responsibility and be grateful that you had the ability to do that and you know how to make that … ruin your day either.

Dave Asprey: Do we just say response?

31 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Brandon Routh: Anger out of that, it's like "You idiot", so it's like well okay that guy obviously was not paying attention. I'm glad that I was able to pay attention and avert disaster here and that keeps you going on your way. What does that anger serve? Taking responsibility for your actions, you can't take responsibility for him when he's driving, so you can take responsibility to how you react to the situation. Right?

Dave Asprey: I love it.

Brandon Routh: Then next would be, everybody's said, many people have said, gratitude. "Gratitude and love." I started really fostering about and making it a more daily practice. A few months ago and it's made an another huge impact on my life and my ability to stay positive and happy throughout the day and to not find and not get into little fits of what was me or if I find my brain going around and around in circles trying to solve a problem, even though it doesn't make sense, I go to gratitude, find something to be grateful for in the moment. Has nothing to do with what I might be thinking about but it pulls me out of the circular thoughts.

I'm trying to push those thoughts, those problems that I want to solve and have a specific time in the day. That's all about figuring out whatever that problem is and I wanted. Instead of while I'm doing something else and that thought comes into my head, distracting me from both things and not being able to focus totally. The gratitude helps me do that, get back to awareness and push that to another day and helps me be happy in my relationships, with myself and with other people.

The last would be I guess: fear. "Pay attention to your fear." Fear stops us from doing a lot of great things. Something that I've had to find where the fear resides in me. Even though I've been fairly successful in my career, fear creeps in, doubt, self-doubt as an actor, how you present yourself to the world, what do other people think of me? I found that fear doesn't serve me when I find it. When I have the awareness to look back, when I take responsibility and find the gratitude, sometimes I find the fear underneath there. That just helps me open up and just experience more and share more and have a happier upgrade existence.

Dave Asprey: Those are some massively awesome answers. Seriously, you're sort of living the superhero ideal now. You played them on TV and in movies but seriously like those answers are exactly what makes people at least in my mind that is a superhuman performance. It's more important to be able to grasp what's going

32 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

on internally. Because what you just described is a person who is happy and resilient. Resilience was never a strong suit for me, historically and to be able to build with practices is remarkable. You're living that, man, it's awesome, and I'm impressed.

Brandon Routh: Well, it's cheesy as it is. When I went through the process of becoming Superman on camera, I had to investigate what it would be like to be the most powerful being on earth. Basically God like, mentally, emotionally, the way he moved, that did to move the training all the kind of things that I had to just kind of go there and be there. When I came out of it, feeling a couple of things. One, I was worried that I would be people would perceive me because I learnt all these things about myself.

The state I wanted to be in but then I thought people would think I was trying to be like I thought I was Superman. I started to go inward. As a result, after the movie, hide, and things, and that's going to process over the years that I've come out and it's okay to be me, it's okay to be an awesome human being because we all have the ability to do this. I'm not any more special than anyone else. I have different circumstances and different history of my life but we all can achieve all of these things. Don't show yourself short, we can all be Superman and that's Superman, Superwoman; that's my goal anyway. That's what Bulletproof is all about which is why I love it.

Dave Asprey: I'm grateful that you took the time to come up here and to be on this show, Brandon. Thank you.

Brandon Routh: Thank you.

Featured

Brandon Routh on IMDb

Twitter - @BrandonJRouth

33 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

Brandon Routh on Facebook

Brandon Routh (Unofficial Site)

Resources

Weston A Price Foundation

Gudni Gunnarsson

Pavlok

Eye Palming

Test Of Variables of Attention (TOVA) Score

Ujjayi Breathing

Pranayama

Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields (PEMF)

SomaPulse PEMF Device

Galvanic Skin Response

Lumosity

Dual N-Back Training (Brain Workshop)

Quarterly, Dave Asprey Box

Bulletproof

The Bulletproof Diet Book

34 Bulletproof Toolbox Podcast #162, Brandon Routh

40 Years of Zen

Maneesh Sethi: Hacking Habits, Accountability, & Time Management with Pavlok - #158

Focus Brain Trainer

Bulletproof Sleep Induction Mat

SomaPulse & Electromagnetism with Dr. Bill Pawluk – Podcast #73

Bulletproof Whole Body Vibration Plate