Train Your Brain

[Team Sergeant]

When you start reading this article you'd think the "scientists" had found the holy grail, until you read the last paragraph........ I'm sure three fourths of FAT America let out a sigh on that paragraph. (Highlighted below)




Train Your Brain to Work Like Elon Musk, Eric Schmidt, & Top Navy SEALs

By Jade Scipioni Published April 11, 2017 Technology

According to “Stealing Fire” authors Steven Kotler and Jamie
Wheal—there’s a new $4 trillion high performance revolution fueling the Navy’s SEAL Team Six and high profile executives in Silicon Valley and Wall Street to the top of their game—but no one on the mainstream level knows about it yet.


“It’s a simple idea that our regular waking state of consciousness, what we would call 21st Century normal—tired, wired and stressed—is just not the best tool for the jobs that we are faced with and the challenges of today. And the ability to shift our states—deliberately, intentionally and productively—is one of the best ways for people to heal trauma [and] boost learning [and productivity],” Wheal tells FOX Business.

Wheal and Kotler spent four years researching how Silicon Valley executives like Eric Schmidt and Elon Musk as well as top Navy SEALs are using technology to reach altered states of consciousness -- or a “flow state” -- to achieve ultimate performance.

Last month, Navy Rear Admiral Tim Szymanski told reporters during a conference in Washington, D.C. that Team 6 has been testing out special headsets that stimulate the brain to help the user maintain peak performance for several hours.
“The Navy is exploring multiple cognitive enhancement technologies to improve mental and physical performance. We plan on using that in mission enhancement,” Szymanski said. “The performance piece is really critical to the life of our operators.”

The headsets from Halo Neuroscience were originally designed to help athletes improve on physical training by stimulating the part of their brain responsible for muscle movement. And it’s not just the military experimenting with brain enhancing tech—but also Wall Street, according to Kotler.
“We’re seeing Wall Street traders zapping their brains with electros to kind of knock themselves out of normal waking consciousness before they are moving onto the trading floor,” Kotler says.

(break)


However, both the authors say that you don’t need to spend a fortune on high-priced gadgets to achieve your “flow state.”

“What we learned in this research is by sleeping more, by having a regular diet and nutrition practice. By moving consistently—by actually getting off our butts to increase neurological performance that actually gives us time back, because we are more effective in the time we do deploy versus always kind of ‘on’ and never fully recovered,” says Wheal.


http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/...avy-seals.html

[olhamada]

Long time no see, TS.

In addition to HALO Headsets, another piece of technology that Walter Reed, SEAL Team 6, and 3rd SFG, (A) are using (along with NASA, US Olympics, and various MLB/NHL/NFL teams) and seeing significant performance improvements, increases in mental clarity and focus, injury reversal, cardiac and neuro rehab, etc... is the VASPER system that Peter Wasowski developed. (Full disclosure - I'm on the Scientific Advisory Board).

Three foundational technologies combined with HIIT - katsu (compression resulting in lactic acid pooling), core body temperature cooling, and an electron sink. Of course, this isn't available everywhere and is not cheap, but you can buy katsu bands off Amazon and take cold showers.

There are so many amazing performance hacks coming out. If anyone is interested, I'd recommend following folks like Dom D'Agastino, Tim Ferriss, and Dave Asprey.

[Golf1echo]

Interesting that you brought this up TS, good stuff!
So is the

zapping their brains with electrons

the electron sink? How is that done?

Is the cooling similar to the Cryotheropy and does it also have the nutritional benefits? ie. places like this: http://www.coloradocryospa.com/ ?

I use to use a biofeedback or rather a galvanic skin response device while running and found amazing results although as I understand it was primarily alpha wave training vs the broader spectrum of brain waves.

I had just been reading up on this in articles like : https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...lear-your-mind

Just trying to recover from some stress and move on to a better place

[Flagg]

We're going to be playing around with the Halo headset, in fact it coincidentally arrived today in a super fancy box that makes Apple packaging look cheap.

I'm not convinced, but it's worth running some comparative tests.

Tangible, if only incremental, gains are worth pursuit if the bang/buck adds up.

But I would agree that most would benefit more from consistent sleep, hydration, nutrition and balanced fitness before they hit high performance diminishing returns.

At Stanford U there's a Professor named Baba Shiv who works in this cognitive space.

He was pretty generous with his free time for pestering nerd students like me.

But only if that time is while conducting a very brisk walk up to the Dish. The fittest and most mentally agile professor I ever had. Correlation/causation? He gets it.

Nootropics/cognitive enhancers are already being seriously worked on. Ritalin has been used and abused in hopes of improving exam scores with positive, but potentially long-term detrimental costs.

There's another headset (called Mindset) that my gut tells me might have some potential value:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mindset/headphones

But more in the focus/concentration space.

-----

Vasper reminds me of the ROM machine in magazine ads in the 1990's(no offence):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ht48PygqfiU

It will be interesting to see if independent controlled studies show any decent gains. If so, it opens up a new direction in human performance enhancement.

-----

On a related note.....the neurotransmitter serotonin mentioned in the Vasper article:

Serotonin levels begin to crash >40 years of age

People >40 pretty much have most of the power in the world, thus they are likely to be on the receiving end being pitched from everyone else with lesser power.

Pitch them as early in the day as possible while their Serotonin levels are higher and they are more accepting/suggestible.

I'm speaking at ILLC next month on the confluence of Moore's Law with the transposition of Military & Commercial tech R&D and how it will demand a transformation in non kinetic problem solving training & doctrine just to keep up with evolving off the shelf threats.

I'm trying to influence my way into an early morning slot for the tiny tailwind. Every little bit helps.

PS: It's worth mentioning I received overwhelming tangible and moral support for my successful research(now operational) project from a QP.

A QP who looks to be moving onto a VERY influential role.