Super Human

by Dave Asprey

  When it comes to blue light, we’ve already discussed how to reduce your exposure from electronic devices in chapter 4. Here are some additional ways to eliminate aging light sources from your environment:

  Starting at 8:00 P.M., dim all the lights in your home. Switch to lighting your environment with red LEDs (or candles if you want extra credit).

  If you can’t install dimmers and/or have to be in a brightly lit environment after sundown, wear glasses that filter out blue light. If you’ve seen me onstage, you’ve undoubtedly noticed the yellow-tinted glasses I wear indoors to filter out some (but not all) blue light. I probably would have gotten picked on in high school for this, but now I am convinced that they look cool.

  If you don’t want to use glasses that filter out blue light but have to be in a brightly lit environment after dark, wear sunglasses if appropriate.

  Go outside for ten to twenty minutes a day to get adequate (but not too much) UV light exposure. Try to do this in the morning before the sun is at its peak, and you won’t need sunscreen.

  STEP 2: Add Beneficial Light Sources to Look Better and Have More Energy

  Now you know how to avoid the junk light that makes you old. But what if you could also selectively add frequencies of light to your environment to help your body not only survive but thrive? Just as the wrong light frequencies overtax your mitochondria and cause inflammation and aging, certain beneficial light frequencies can improve mitochondrial function.11 This reduces inflammation12 and helps your body produce energy more efficiently, which leads to fewer hits to your system and ultimately a younger and more kick-ass version of you.

  Let’s take a closer look at the light sources that can help make you Super Human.

  RED/INFRARED LIGHT

  About twenty years ago, I was in two similar car accidents that each caused whiplash. After the first accident, it took me nearly a year of pain and headaches using all kinds of therapies to fully recover. The second time, right after a large BMW plowed into the back of my unmoving Ford at a stoplight, my first thought wasn’t about my car. It was dreading another year of suffering. Sure enough, within two days, my neck was sore, my right arm was cold and numb, and I had a dull headache. But by then I was keyed into the anti-aging community, so I had access to experts who could help me heal. A friend introduced me to a naturopath who met me for dinner in San Jose, California. In the parking lot after dinner, he pulled out a small, handheld medical laser and told me to put it on my upper back where I was sore. The laser was meant for racehorses and wasn’t even approved for use on humans.

  I was dubious at first, but when I realized it wasn’t the kind of medical laser used for burning or cutting, I gave it a try. Within just three minutes of using this laser to pulse red and infrared light onto my upper back, I felt a bolt of electricity shoot up my spine as the knotted muscles released. My arm grew warm, and my head cleared. The relief was faster than anything I’d ever experienced.

  I asked how much the device cost, only to find it was 50 percent of what I made in a month. When I compared that to spending a year going to physical therapy, chiropractors, and massage therapists while in pain, the medical laser looked like a bargain. I bought it, and I’ve been pursuing light therapies for the two decades since then.

  Red/infrared light therapy uses these wavelengths of light together to restore, repair, and protect tissue that is injured, degenerating, or even at risk of dying by activating the stem cells that normally become latent as we age while improving mitochondrial function.13 This actually increases the amount of energy your mitochondria can produce.14 Red/infrared light therapy also increases levels of nitric oxide, an important molecule your body produces that keeps blood vessels healthy. Having more nitric oxide increases circulation, which ensures that all of your cells are nourished by blood, oxygen, and nutrients.15

  Infrared light therapy also helps create exclusion zone (EZ) water, the type of water inside your cells. When you don’t have enough EZ water, your cells become dehydrated and their mitochondria stop functioning well. You can get more EZ water by drinking raw vegetable juices, fresh springwater, or glacial meltwater. And infrared light exposure causes EZ water to spontaneously form in your cells, boosting mitochondrial function. My company donated $50,000 to the University of Washington to study this recently discovered form of water that is important for our biology.

  Infrared light therapy is also extremely effective at treating muscle fatigue and injuries,16 factors that keep too many people from getting adequate exercise as they age. Think about that—this one technology gives you advantages in several pillars of aging. More stem cells mean you can replace old cells, more mitochondrial function means less inflammation, and an increase in exercise and circulation mean you can prevent cell loss!

  While each wavelength affects your body differently, the most effective wavelengths for healing range from 630 nm to 670 nm (red) and 810 nm to 880 nm (infrared). Light at these wavelengths penetrates up to 8 to 10 millimeters into the skin and affects your cells on a biochemical level. Red light deployed very close to the skin can impact all the surrounding skin layers, blood vessels, lymph pathways, nerves, and even hair follicles. This decreases inflammation, improves skin tone, repairs sun damage, fades scars and stretch marks, promotes hair growth, and even stimulates collagen production in the skin, which reduces the appearance of wrinkles and prevents new ones from forming. It also heals wounds17 and age-related macular degeneration of the eyes.18

  There are many ways to take advantage of red and near infrared light therapy. Many qualified professionals offer these treatments, including dermatologists and estheticians, trainers, and sports medicine practitioners. Some medical spas offer red light therapy, and we offer it at Upgrade Labs, the chain of human upgrade facilities I started. You can reap the health benefits of red and near infrared light therapy in your home with personal red light therapy devices like the medical-grade options from Joovv. Somewhat similar to LEGO blocks, their unique modular design allows you to build out a full-body system over time. You can also pick up some inexpensive red and infrared bulbs for $25 to cut down on artificial blue light exposure at night. Keep in mind that simply installing red lights around your home like I do helps your circadian rhythm by balancing out excess junk light, but it is not light therapy. You have to use bright LEDs placed very close to the skin to be effective.

  Being a professional guinea pig has its perks, such as having a full-blown biohacking laboratory at my home on Vancouver Island. I use a medical-grade red light therapy machine that looks like a tanning bed. Instead of frying my body with harmful waves, its more than forty thousand red and infrared LED lights illuminate my entire body to help me recharge my mitochondria and grow healthier collagen. The difference in my skin since I started using it is remarkable.

  Of course, this kind of thing is generally cost prohibitive to put in your home (a Tesla is a better investment), plus it takes up space—so I recommend going to a facility to use a bed like this for forty minutes starting at once a week. You can also get results with inexpensive red light panels you install at home; the only drawback to these is that they cover less of the body. Still, using smaller red light panels at home has proved to be a surprisingly effective treatment for my occasional nausea and headaches, and I’ve lost track of how many times my wife, Dr. Lana, and I have used these panels to successfully treat our kids’ stomachaches and other pains.

  Another way to benefit from infrared light is to spend some time in an infrared sauna. These differ from regular saunas in that they heat the body from the inside out rather than from the outside in. While traditional saunas heat the air around you, in an infrared sauna the light directly penetrates and heats your body tissue. As a result, infrared saunas don’t get as hot as traditional saunas. This means you can stay in these saunas longer without feeling like you’re going to pass out. I’ve been using an infrared sauna for years, initially to detox from mold and mercury exposure, and I’ve found it to be hugely benef
icial.19

  Spending time in a sauna (infrared or not) also leads your body to produce heat shock proteins (HSPs), which prevent protein degradation caused by oxidative stress. HSPs scavenge free radicals, boost glutathione levels, and make sure proteins retain their proper structure, protecting you from several pillars of aging.20 You can find infrared saunas at day spas, yoga studios, and gyms. Start with twenty- to thirty-minute sessions two or three times a week, and work your way up from there.

  YELLOW LIGHT

  Also known as orange light or amber light therapy, yellow light therapy utilizes wavelengths in the range of 570 nm to 620 nm. Yellow light therapy increases your mitochondria’s ability to produce ATP, cellular energy, but it doesn’t penetrate as deeply as red or infrared light. It is mostly used to treat skin conditions such as spider veins, rosacea, and damage from too much sun exposure.

  Yellow light therapy is relatively unknown in the world of biohacking, but many studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of yellow light therapy on the skin. In a large study that tracked nine hundred patients over two years,21 participants received either yellow light therapy alone or in combination with other light therapies. The patients who received yellow light therapy alone saw a softening of the skin, a reduction in fine lines, and a decrease in photoaging (aka sun damage). Another study revealed a reduction in signs of photoaging in 90 percent of subjects using yellow light therapy. Their skin had a smoother texture and a reduction in hyperpigmentation (age spots). Most notably, 100 percent of the patients showed a marked increase in collagen production.22

  Additional studies show that yellow light therapy speeds healing after a patient receives other types of more invasive therapies such as laser skin resurfacing.23 Given these findings, researchers have begun exploring yellow light therapy to help patients with cancer recover more quickly from radiation treatments. In one study, a group of patients undergoing radiation also received yellow light therapy, while a control group only received radiation. Of the control group, 68 percent had a painful skin reaction from the radiation, while only 5 percent of the group receiving yellow light therapy had a similar reaction.24 That’s huge!

  The only multi-waveform amber light device on the market as of the time of this writing is the TrueLight energy square, which emits red, infrared, and amber lights and costs a few hundred dollars.25 However, it is not approved for any medical uses. Doubtlessly many more devices will soon become available.

  We’ll discuss some additional options for reversing the visible signs of aging later on in chapter 13. For now, though, remember that it’s much more effective to prevent and reverse your aging from the inside out and then use strategic anti-aging tools to correct any remaining damage on the outside. Treating the visible signs of aging first will take longer, be less effective, and do nothing to prevent the cellular damage that caused the aging to begin with. When your mom told you, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts,” she wasn’t kidding.

  INTRAVENOUS LASER THERAPY (IVL)

  If you really want to go all in with light therapy, you can try intravenous laser therapy (IVL), which was developed in the former Soviet Union in the early 1980s. This is a type of oxidative therapy with hormetic effects, meaning that, like exercise, it stresses your cells a strategic amount, causing them to strengthen in response. A doctor administers IVL by introducing UV light directly into your bloodstream. In studies, it has been shown to reduce inflammation, boost mitochondrial efficiency, and stimulate the production of more ATP.26 It also produces a huge wave of activated vitamin D3, far more than sun exposure can achieve. Though Russian scientists have been using IVL to treat heart disease and many other conditions since the 1980s, odds are you’ve never heard of it because the American medical establishment hasn’t yet embraced this therapy.

  Recent anti-aging research from Dubai shows that by replenishing blood cells, IVL affects the vascular system, the immune system, and the endocrine system. The study concluded, “It can lead to lower the incidence and number of vascular diseases, and indirectly to the reduction of the number of diseases in other organs and even systemically, thus helping to prolong the lifespan.”27 I aim to do IVL once or twice a year. It costs about $250 for a treatment. Unfortunately, it is still hard to find practitioners who administer IVL outside of a few major cities, but it’s remarkably cost-effective.

  For most people, the interventions you’ve learned so far—eating the right food, getting enough quality sleep, avoiding junk light, and adding exposure to beneficial light—add up to enough of a defense strategy to avoid or lesson many of the cuts that cause aging. I wish I’d had access to this knowledge when I was suffering as a young person. Making simple yet consistent changes to my diet, sleep, and light exposure has helped restore my function as a regular human.

  Seeing the profound impact that these relatively small changes could make, I was inspired to keep going, to continue undoing the damage I had unwittingly caused and seeing if I could proactively prevent taking so many hits in the future. If I could feel and perform so much better after changing my environment, sleep, and dietary routines, what would become possible for me if I took things up a notch?

  In other words, I had successfully stopped dying. Now it was time to start aging backward.

  * * *

  Bottom Line

  Want to not die? Do these things right now:

  •Make sure you are exposed to some red or infrared light every day, or aim for fifteen to twenty minutes of natural sun exposure a day.

  •Protect yourself from junk light by changing the bulbs in your home, and get some glasses that block some (but not all) blue light. Don’t be afraid to wear them indoors after dark—even in public! Sunglasses will help a bit if you don’t want to purchase special ones, but they’re not as effective.

  •Consider trying an infrared sauna to aid in detoxification and boost your mitochondrial function. For help with wound healing, muscle fatigue, or tissue repair, look into red and infrared light therapy. And if your concerns are primarily skin-deep, yellow light therapy may be an easy fix.

  * * *

  PART II

  AGE BACKWARD

  If you stop reading this book right now and just focus on not dying, you’re already destined to hit the Super Human level. The stuff you’ve already read about that is going to kill most people also makes them weaker, slower, and less happy with age. If you just hold the line on the Four Killers, you’re already going to perform better than most of your peers by the time you’re old. Unless, that is, you cultivate friends who share in this knowledge and put it to work, in which case you’ll obviously have Super Friends. (Sorry, couldn’t resist it.)

  The problem is that if you’re anything like me, you’ve already taken more hits than you’d prefer. If aging is death by a thousand cuts, or at least death by seven decomposing pillars, wouldn’t it be great if you could reverse some of the damage you’ve sustained so your biology would actually get younger? This is a new kind of Super Human power: to reverse the effects of aging. When you start by doing things that will help you avoid dying and then work on aging backward, you’ll experience a better life on every level.

  Family and friends were amazed to see how drastically I had transformed my biology and halted my premature aging by making relatively small changes to the environment around me. What they didn’t know is that along the way I was fortunate to tap into a powerful community of top scientists and researchers who were exploring anti-aging technologies unheard of in mainstream science. This provided the opportunity to keep pushing further so that I could surpass the typical cosmetic anti-aging approaches and actually begin to age backward from the inside out.

  Some of the things I’ve tried since then were new and by definition unproven, but all of them met the risk-reward ratio I wanted, and all of them had enough evidence to be plausible. I’m not here to encourage you to try everything I’ve done. In fact, you probably shouldn’t, even if you also are setting out to overcome a subpar start
in life and you share my risk-reward perspective. Do your research and make decisions based on your body and your goals, not mine, and work with professionals on things that are higher risk.

  Even if you never try the advanced techniques, there are plenty of simple things you can do to get more energy and more power in the short term and continue aging backward in the long term. After all, if you start now so you live longer, there will be plenty of time for “unproven” techniques to become more affordable and mainstream. I’d feel bad if you missed out on all the amazing anti-aging things that are coming your way because you didn’t get started on “not dying” right away.

  It’s totally okay to delay the expensive stuff—it will get cheaper eventually. For perspective: The cost of sequencing the first human genome was $100 million in 2003. As I write this, you can get your entire genome sequenced for free if you share your data, or you can pay a few hundred dollars and get your data in a week or two. Rejuvenation technologies are on the same path.

  6

  TURN YOUR BRAIN BACK ON

  As your cells die off with age and are not replaced (thanks to the Seven Pillars of Aging), your brain begins to shrink and, over time, degenerate. This is why, when we picture an old person, we see that dreaded image of someone who can’t remember his or her own name. Well, I believe we’ve arrived at a point where we can and should erase that image for good and replace it with a new one—an image of someone who is as mentally sharp at eighty as he or she was at twenty. Because the truth is, if you take care of your brain, your brain will take care of you. And even if you are already experiencing some signs of brain aging, you can stop them and reverse the damage starting today. I know this because I’ve done it.

  When I got the results of my first brain SPECT scan, it provided undeniable proof that the cognitive dysfunction I’d been experiencing for years was not only real but also had a physical basis. It was one thing to have a doughy, stretch-mark-covered, aching body, but a prematurely aging brain was quite another. In addition to my poor performance on exams while in business school, every day I experienced many of those tip-of-the-tongue moments when the right word just wouldn’t come to mind, and I’d often lose track of what I was doing in the midst of some ordinary task. I’d find myself at the store not knowing what I wanted to buy or staring at my to-do list trying to remember what tasks I’d already decided to tackle.