This is why you want to expand your knowledge and skill repertoire so that you can gain some competitive advantage.Combine a handful of skills that are rarely linked to each other, rarely blended together.Examples:<ul><li class="ql-indent-1"> 	 Doctor& YouTuber/Streamer</li><li>Computer Science & SEO/SEM Marketing</li><li>UI Designer + Mathematician</li><li>Historian + Lawyer + Statistician</li><li>Programmer + Philosopher + Public Spe  aker</li></ul>

Thriving in the Technology Era is a Harsh Sport

You are not trying to master and combine 50 different random skills and juggle an overwhelming amount of snowballs that can ultimately melt in your hands.You are simply spreading your wings just a little bit more, a well thought spread I might say. Flying across the world of various skills and playgrounds that can be rarely found in the same mix.

View yourself as an Experimenter

"If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough."- Albert Einstein:::Meaning = if you are not able to translate your thought processes’ outputs into meaningful, actionable advice one can learn and build on is a huge loss for the future of humanity.A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_interface_design">UI designer</a> might be a skillful wizard with his craft, but making your project understandable for a non-designer, making him appreciate and then build on its true value, that’s a huge leap in our communication infrastructure.

Translate your thoughts 

In today’s world, if your phone is not in your pocket, it feels like you have missing limb syndrome.Whether we like it or not, we are already on our way to becoming a cyborg, on a real path to morphing into an AI symbiote.

Your Phone: The Missing Limb Syndrome

Engaging in the Public Speaking sphere is yet another handy practice one should think about.It not only forces you to think logically, critically, and also strategically, but it can act as a stepping stone for your future live endeavors. This skill has extended real-life applications.Having and engaging in difficult conversations will stretch out your mental apparatus, making you more organized and prepared for what’s yet to come.

Engage in Public Speaking

These are some thoughts on how to become a specialized generalist in the digital and non-digital era. 

This is why you want to expand your knowledge and skill repertoire so that you can gain some competitive advantage. My solution is quite simple: combining a handful of skills that are rarely linked…

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

health

Health

education

Learning & Education

problemsolving

Problem Solving

How To Become a Specialized Generalist

I believe you can produce insight even if you are not an autistic genius.You can simply integrate massive amounts of stimuli per unit of time and change.Train yourself to get back to first principles thinking.

What type of genius are you?

If you are feeling sad, you can make other people love you.Make is a strong word, but hear me out! If you are sufficiently effective to prove yourself useful multiple times and produce things, people will be naturally more drawn to you.It is far more effective to build yourself an incubator where you can gather and have conversations with people on the same spectrum, but different in subtle ways.

Build a Growth Incubator Full of People (Part 1)

In the old days, if you owned something like an Inn, you pretty much had it covered. You would connect to people by default, providing food, drinks, and shelter on a rainy day. You could then make favors and have leverage. Remember the <a href="https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Vander">Vander</a> and the <a href="https://youtu.be/1KauKfmOsLk">first episode of Arcane</a>? mini-spoiler alert::::man: You folks need anything?woman: Leave us.man: You sure about that? Sounded to me like…woman: Piss off.man: Ah. ( object scrapes ) I think I know what you need.woman: You don’t seem to listen, barman…man: A bit of advice. Don’t threaten the guy who pours the drinkswoman: So you’re Vander.

Build a Growth Incubator Full of People (Part 2)

You can become lethal by developing skills as a non-technical individual, assuming that you have some blend of self-awareness and some method to absorb the world around you. If you storm through the city during rush hour, managing to solve micro-errands, texting, catching the bus, employing various and personal self-orientation techniques while keeping your head clear and protecting your decision-making capabilities, you are on the right track. If you believe what you want to do and gradually prove yourself legit, the world itself will shape around your goals. Less talk, more work.

Non-technical, but useful

Genius is such an overrated buzzword. You can become one in your own way.

Do that by sensing the inflections happening when you are surrounded by small and huge amounts of social energy. Do not blindly follow everything. Because everything can become anything. That can put…

business

Business

Become a strategic genius

Research suggests four leading indicators that together assess our fitness:
<ol>
<li>aerobic health</li>
<li>muscular strength and endurance</li>
<li>flexibility</li>
<li>body composition</li>
</ol>
Being skinny is not the same as being healthy. A 2008 study suggests you can be fat and fit and thin and unhealthy. A 2015 report indicates that many people with a seemingly normal BMI (body mass index) have a significantly higher risk of metabolic problems and death.

Your Level of Fitness

First, find your resting heart rate. The typical healthy adult's resting heart rate should be between 60 and 100 beats per minute. Then test your heart rate while doing aerobic activity. The numbers are different depending on your age. For example, a 25-year-old's target heart rate falls between 98 and 16, while a 55 year old's should be between 83 and 140.

Aerobic Health

There are two types of muscular fitness assessments:<ol><li>Muscular-endurance tests assess the ability to resist fatigue.</li><li>Muscular-strength tests assess the maximum amount of force an individual can produce in a specified number of repetitions.</li></ol> Test your muscular endurance with a push-up and sit-up test.<ul><li>Count how many push-ups you can do. Your chin should touch the floor. A 35-year-old woman should be able to do 19 push-ups without stopping or 30 sit-ups (or crunches).</li><li>For muscular strength, a personal trainer can help to assess your muscle strength.</li></ul>

Muscular Strength and Endurance

Flexibility demonstrates an individual’s overall health profile because it tells the story of joint, muscle and tissue health. Regular stretching can help lessen the natural decrease in flexibility. Check how flexible you are: Sit down with your legs out; line up the bottom of your feet with the 15-inch line on the yardstick. Then, reach forward three times for at least one second and record your farthest distance. A 65-plus should be able to reach from the 17.5- to 15.5-inch mark. A 25-year-old should reach the 19.5- to 21.5-mark.

Flexibility

Measure your waist just above the hipbones. According to the Mayo Clinic, women with a waist circumference of 35 inches or more and men with waist circumferences of 40 inches or greater are at greater risk of heart disease and diabetes. Another way is to use a BMI calculator that uses your gender, age, height and weight and the circumference of your waist. A healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9.

Body Composition

A proper fitness assessment considers aerobic health, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and body composition. Here's how to test these variables in yourself.

exerciseandfitness

Exercise & Fitness

Health Is Not Defined by Fat and Skinny. Test These Metrics Instead.

There’s a pattern that goes like this: it’s late, given when we’ve got to wake in the morning, but instead of going to bed, we stay up. The next day, of course, we feel sluggish and weary and we promise ourselves an early night. Then it happens again: it’s already midnight and we’ve got a normal start the next day but we don’t turn in. It’s not that we’re full of energy – we actually feel desperately tired – but we resist going to bed. And the following day it’s the same: we’re worn out yet we don’t turn in until a very late hour. And it keeps on going.

The Problem With Rising Early: We Can't Sleep Early

At times during this erratic sleep cycle, we feel deeply frustrated: we call ourselves idiots and worse: obviously we need to get to bed early, yet we are too stupid, stubborn and self-sabotaging to do so. And to our profound exhaustion, we add the burden of self-disgust. But our anger at our own behaviour doesn’t lead us to change our habits. If our partner complains about our late hours we dismiss it as nannyish nagging – and it’s all the more irritating because we know they are right.

We Know We Are Wrong Yet Continue Our Sleep-Wake Cycle

It’s one of the weirdest features of being human: a completely clear sense that how we’re behaving is bad and counter-productive doesn’t get us to stop. Harsh criticism is the utterly entrenched human tactic for getting people to change – just as self-condemnation is our instinctive strategy for self-improvement – yet it doesn’t actually work. It induces panic, shame and despair but doesn’t bring about the desired alteration.

The Paradox Of Being Wrong

For many years, through childhood, night-time seemed immensely exciting. It was a secret, mysterious zone when from our darkroom we might hear the grown-ups laughing around the dinner-party table, talking of things we weren’t supposed to know about and catch, perhaps, the sweet scent of cigar smoke. If we were ever allowed to be up late it was for some special occasion; or there was the thrilling time we had to take a late-night flight at the start of an overseas holiday and the world seemed enormous and filled with adventure.

Childhood Nights

And even though such lovely associations may not be at the front of our minds, we continue to have a subterranean, but significant, sense that to go to bed early is to miss out on the joys of existence. Our late-night activities might be utterly prosaic but just by being awake into the early hours, we’re participating in an ideal of what adult life is supposed to be like. And so, night after night, the bed is there, quietly waiting for us to draw back the sheet, turn out the light, lie down and close our eyes, but it’s half-past midnight or 2 am and we’re still up.

Associating Life With Late Night Adventures

The thrills that have implanted themselves in our memories were only by accident linked to being up late. The conviviality, the sense of discovery and adventure, the feeling of exploring big ideas and the experience of emotional intimacy have no intrinsic connection to the hours of darkness. The deeper engagement with a friend or a lover, the determination to investigate a neglected area of our potential: these aren’t late-night speculations; they are the tasks of our day-time selves – requiring for their proper accomplishment, our poised and well-rested minds.

Have A Thrilling And Complete Life In Day Time

We will, at last, be able to let ourselves turn in early – and get the sleep we need – not when our irritation with ourselves reaches an unbearable peak and we renounce as hopeless our search for adult happiness and finally submit to the banality of an early bedtime, but when we relocate our longings and seek our pleasures where they can more realistically be found: in the bright, energetic hours of the new day.

The Bottom Line

Read our article - How to Go to Bed Earlier. The School Of Life has a huge collection of interesting articles, read now.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

How to Go to Bed Earlier - The School Of Life

Just a night or two of exposure to faint light is enough to raise your pulse and increase insulin resistance - factors that increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, researchers find.The findings tie into a broader body of evidence that indicates being exposed to light at night may be harmful in a variety of ways and could predispose people to chronic diseases.

Sleeping with Even a Little Light Can Be Unhealthy

<ul>
<li>An extensive study showed that unlike those who spent nights in the dark, the test group exposed to the light had elevated heart rates throughout the night.</li>
<li>They also had increased insulin resistance in the morning, meaning they had more trouble getting their blood sugar into a normal range.</li>
<li>Artificial light at night can suppress melatonin levels, and scientists have found a link between the disruption of melatonin and several diseases, including cancer and diabetes.</li>
</ul>

Physiological Effects of Light On Sleep

The body's "master clock," called the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/suprachiasmatic-nucleus">suprachiasmatic nucleus</a>, is found in the brain, but organs and tissues throughout the body have their own cellular timekeeping devices. Cells in the pancreas that secrete insulin are one example. Disrupting the sleep-wake cycle can affect their ability to appropriately secrete insulin, which in turn controls blood sugar.
If this pattern continues for a long period, it increases the risk of various chronic diseases.

Increased Risk of Chronic Illness

Just a night or two of exposure to faint light is enough to raise your pulse and increase insulin resistance — factors that increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, researchers find.

habits

Habits

Sleeping with even a little bit of light isn't good for your health, study shows

Light is a powerful stimulus for our mental and physical health.  Light controls when we are asleep and when we are alert. Lights directly affect how our nervous system functions.

Light affects your sleep and your energy levels


Wake up, go outside and get 5 - 20 minutes of bright light exposure. 	If you get up before sunlight, use bright artificial lights.  The aim is to get as much bright light during the day and as little as possible between 10 PM and 4 AM. This will have enormous physical and mental health benefits. Bright light exposure through windows or windshields doesn’t work as they filter the light that activates your neutrons. Blue light is great to create alertness and well-being throughout the day.

The best way to get sunlight exposure

Cortisol is a key hormone for health. Every 24 hours there is a peak cortisol release. This wakes you up in the morning and gives you focus. If you wake up early, you will get a peak early in the day. But when cortisol arrives later in the day, people get mood issues. Late-shifted cortisol is also contributing to depression.

Cortisol in the body

Your peak of alertness happens about 90 minutes before your natural sleep time. While it will pass, it can give you a useful indicator of your optimal bedtime. Before bedtime:<ul><li>Taper off thinking and anticipation.</li><li>Non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) is a powerful tool that helps you relax, and reduce stress and anxiety. </li><li>Yoga Nidra and Reveri (a self-hypnosis app) can help you relax your nervous system before you go to sleep.</li></ul>

Evening routine

Behavioural tools are the foundation of sleep and wakefulness. When you learn progressive relaxation techniques, you get better at falling asleep and feeling alert when you wake up.Supplements and prescription medication can be great, but they don’t rewire your brain as behavioural tools do. Supplements that can help with depth and transition to sleep:<ul><li>Magnesium threonate or magnesium bis-glycinate (100 to 200 milligrams)) makes you feel drowsy.</li><li>Apigenin (50 milligrams) is taken 30 - 60 minutes before sleep.</li><li>Theanine (100 to 400 milligrams) has positive effects on jitteriness and anxiety.</li></ul>

Behavioural tools before medication and supplements

Ideally, you should sleep in a cold room and cover yourself with warm blankets. If you get too hot, you can jump heat by extending your feet or hands. Take a cold shower or ice bath to heat up in the morning. You will experience a dopamine increase. When you expose yourself to cold water, you build a reservoir of heat generation.

Temperature is an important stimulus for wakefulness

Naps should be shorter than 90 minutes. Most of the rewiring and neuroplasticity occurs during deep sleep and also during a short nap. Short naps accelerate neuroplasticity and learning, especially if you nap after an intensive learning session. If you have problems with the afternoon slump, delay your morning caffeine for 90 to 120 minutes after waking.

The short nap

The two most common reasons for waking up at night:<ul><li>Too much or too little exercise throughout the day. Generally, 150 to 180 minutes per week of zone 2 cardio and resistance exercise 3 or 4 times a week is sufficient.</li><li>Going to bed too late. Every hour of sleep before midnight recharges you deeper than the hours after midnight.</li></ul>

Why people wake up in the middle of the night

Caffeine creates wakefulness in the body and brain. It also increases the sensitivity of the dopamine receptors.<ul><li>It makes us more motivated to go out and pursue goals.</li><li>It makes us focus on things outside our immediate experience.</li></ul>However, try and taper off caffeine toward the afternoon for better sleep.

Caffeine boosts adenosine

The Basal ganglia are important for controlling and integrating thought and action. Some of the circuitry in basal ganglia pathways are involved with the “go” action and “no-go” suppressing functions. As children, we learn no-go behaviours (don’t interrupt, sit still). As adults, everything is “go, go, go” and we seldom rehearse the no-go functions.  We need to continue to keep the no-goes circuits in working order., e.g. resisting the urge to pick up your phone.

Tips to control bad impulses

Dr. Andrew Huberman explains how small behaviours can make a huge impact on your health. 

 Leading neuroscientist and Stanford University School of Medicine professor Dr. Andrew Huberman goes in-depth on how small behaviors can make a huge impact on your health.  Dr. Huberman offers essential insights into how light affects your sleep and your energy levels, which supplements actually work, tips to control bad impulses, exercises to slow the aging process, and so much more.   Dr. Huberman has made numerous significant contributions to the fields of brain development, brain function and neural plasticity, which is the ability of our nervous system to rewire and learn new behaviors, skills and cognitive functioning. Huberman is a McKnight Foundation and Pew Foundation Fellow and was awarded the Cogan Award in 2017, given to the scientist making the most significant discoveries in the study of vision. His lab’s most recent work focuses on the influence of vision and respiration on human performance and brain states, such as fear and courage.    --  Want even more? Members get early access, hand-edited transcripts, member-only episodes, and so much more. Learn more here: https://fs.blog/membership/ Every Sunday our Brain Food newsletter shares timeless insights and ideas that you can use at work and home. Add it to your inbox: https://fs.blog/newsletter/ Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish 

productivity

Productivity

podcasts

Podcasts

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

Master the best of what other people have already figured out so you can use their lessons in your life to create an unstoppable advantage.   Shane Parrish is an entrepreneur and sought-after speaker. His newsletter (https://fs.blog/podcast) offers timeless insights you can use to change your life.    In The Knowledge Project, Shane interviews people at the top of their game. Every episode is packed with hard-earned lessons that you can use in your life. Tune in to create an unstoppable advantage.   Sit down and learn from the best. Previous guests include Reid Hoffman, Esther Perel, Daniel Kahneman, Tobi Lutke, Marshall Goldsmith, Kunal Shah, Ander Huberman, David Sinclair, Ret. General Stanley McChrystal, Marc Andreessen, Patrick Collison, Robert Cialdini, Walter Isaacson, Chris Bosh, Kat Cole, Adam Grant, Angela Duckworth, Seth Godin, Matt Mullenweg, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Maria Konnikova, Bill Ackman, Annie Duke, Derek Sivers, Jim Collins, Naval Ravikant, and many others. They reveal hard-earned lessons on leadership, decision-making, hiring and firing, productivity, habits, and more.   New episodes are released every second Tuesday.   Learn more at https://fs.blog/podcast

The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish

#133 Andrew Huberman: The Science of Small Changes

“The United States is experiencing an extreme teenage mental-health crisis. From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study. This is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded.”

Teenage Mental-Health Crisis

“In the 2020 Atlantic feature “What Happened to American Childhood?,” Kate Julian <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/childhood-in-an-anxious-age/609079/">described </a>a related phenomenon that affects families a bit more broadly: Anxious parents, in seeking to insulate their children from risk and danger, are unintentionally transferring their anxiety to their kids.”

The “Rug Rat Race”

“I want to pull out two points from Julian’s complex essay. First, children are growing up slower than they used to. Today’s children are less likely to drive, get a summer job, or be asked to do chores. The problem isn’t that kids are lazy (homework time has risen), or that scrubbing dishes magically dispels anxiety disorders. Rather, Julian wrote, these activities “provide children with two very important things”: tolerating discomfort and having a sense of personal competence.”

Children Are Growing Up Slower In Real Life, But Faster Online

“Second, researchers have noted a broad increase in an “accommodative” parenting style. If a girl is afraid of dogs, an “accommodation” would be keeping her away from every friend’s house with a dog, or if a boy won’t eat vegetables, feeding him nothing but turkey loaf for four years (<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/childhood-in-an-anxious-age/609079/">an actual story from the article </a>). These behaviors come from love. But part of growing up is learning how to release negative emotions in the face of inevitable stress. If kids never figure out how to do that, they’re more likely to experience severe anxiety as teenagers.”

Accommodation Is Breeding Anxiety

”Why American Teens Are So Sad" made me realize the big lesson from a movie I recently enjoyed. This beautiful man, King Richard, protected his daughters from early pressure and burn out. Let kids be kids. The combination of working hard from a young age, but keeping the work manageable and fun turned Venus and Serena into some of the greatest athletes of all time.

Learn From King Richard 

This article was amazing. Many of these ideas have been on my mind recently.

Four forces are propelling the rising rates of depression among young people.

mentalhealth

Mental Health

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Why American Teens Are So Sad

It's important for a bunch of reasons. It jump-starts your metabolism and stops you from overeating later. Plus, studies show that adults who have a healthy breakfast do better at work, and kids who eat a morning meal score higher on tests. If a big plateful first thing isn't for you, keep it light with a granola bar or a piece of fruit. Just don't skip it.

Have Breakfast

It'll help you save time and money in the long run. Block out some time, then sit down and consider your goals and needs. Do you want to lose weight? Cut back on sugar, fat, or carbs? Add protein or vitamins? Meal prep keeps you in control. You know what you're eating and when. A bonus: It'll be that much easier to skip those doughnuts in the breakroom at work.

Plan Your Meals

It can do so many good things for you. Staying hydrated is at the top of the list, but it may also help you lose weight. Another reason to go for H2O? Sugary drinks are linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes. If you aren't a fan of plain water, add flavor with slices of orange, lemon, lime, watermelon, or cucumber.

Drink Plenty of Water

Don't just grab another cup of coffee -- get up and move. Do some deep lunges or stretches. It's great for your body and mind. Just 30 minutes of walking five times a week may help keep the blues at bay. And if you can't do those minutes all at once, short bursts help, too.

Take an Exercise Break

New skills help keep your brain healthy. Sign up for a dance class or a creative writing workshop. Better yet, master a new language. The mental work it takes can slow the signs of aging and may even delay the effects of Alzheimer's disease.

Learn Something New

Super-healthy people know that simple steps are all it takes to stay that way. Make their habits yours -- start today! This WebMD slideshow will let you in on their secrets.

food

Food

12 Habits of Super-Healthy People

Iñigo San-Millán, Ph.D. (@doctorinigo) is an internationally renowned applied physiologist. His research and clinical work focus on exercise-related metabolism, metabolic health, diabetes, cancer metabolism, nutrition, sports performance, and critical care  Iñigo San-Millán returns to The Drive to take a deep dive into Zone 2 training. He and Peter Attia breakdown metrics and levers of elite athletes, how to assess Zone 2 threshold, training levels for optimal health, and touch on learnings gathered from studying the mitochondria of long COVID patients in the ICU.

Podcast Introduction

<ul><li>Tadej Pogačar’s unique characteristics: can sustain high amounts of power output over long periods of time, recovers well, highly trainable.</li><li>Functional threshold power (FTP), lactate measurements, and watts per kilo predict performance – you really know where you stand before the race.</li><li>The Tour de France is won and lost in minutes when your ability to put out power really sets you apart.</li><li>Algorithms and metrics that work with the general population don’t always translate as well into professional athletes because they can mentally ignore a lot more.</li></ul>

Insights From Work With Tour de France Winner Tadej Pogačar

<ul><li>The sport of cycling has changed over time: watts and power output have decreased from the era drug use were rampant.</li><li>It’s feasible that the future of cycling will include real-time physiology & output metrics of riders.</li><li>Tour de France racers like Tadej spend 70-80% of the time in zone 2 training during winter months and increase intensity as the race nears.</li><li>Each energy system has a time in the calendar to achieve the desired output.</li></ul>

The Sport Of Cycling

<ul><li>Zone 2: the exercise intensity at which you are stressing mitochondria and oxidative capacity the most.</li><li>Tenants of zone 2 training: recruits mainly type I muscle fibers, mobilizes the highest amount of fat oxidation, and stimulates bioenergetics (fat & glucose in mitochondria).</li><li>Lactate is the preferred fuel for most cells in the body.</li><li>Lactate is oxidized in the mitochondria back to energy.</li><li>The purest way to estimate zone 2 training is indirect telemetry which will give us information about fat oxidation.</li></ul>

Zone 2 Training

<ul><li>Hook the device up to yourself then ride a bike or machine and gradually increase the intensity, measuring VO2 and VCO2</li><li>Consumption of oxygen production of carbon dioxide – which tells us total energy consumption (in kcal per minute).</li><li>Ratio of VO2 and VCO2 tells us how much energy comes from fat oxidation and how much is glycolytic.</li><li>In a more glycolytic state of fatty oxidation state, you still consume oxygen but don’t produce as much CO2.</li></ul>

Indirect Telemetry

As exercise intensity increases, you need more oxygen so VO2 increases then you give off more CO2 – you are recruiting type II muscle fibres, using more glucose for energy, consuming more oxygen, and producing more CO2.Mitochondria oxidize fuels differently at different exercise intensities – an elite athlete can still recruit slow-twitch muscle fibres at high intensities and rely on fat to produce energy while the average person fully relies on glucose (instead of fat) to sustain the effort.

Increase In Exercise Intensity

<ul><li>The independent variable is workload (in watts); the dependent variable is blood lactate.</li><li>People with metabolic syndrome have high resting lactate (almost 2 mmol) – it’s possible that resting lactate will eventually be a tracked biomarker (the same way we use blood glucose).</li><li>Once lactate exceeds 2 mmol you are leaving zone 2 and entering zone 3.</li><li>A healthy person starts with a lactate of about 1 mmol; an elite athlete starts at lactate of about .5 mmol.</li><li>The fitter the individual, the higher the absolute capacity for fat oxidation.</li></ul>

Muscle Physiology, Lactate, & Fat Oxidation

The metabolic stress of an elite athlete is not the same as a recreational athlete or layperson at the same blood lactate – 2 mmol of stress in an elite athlete might be higher than 2 mmol of stress in the average person because of the intensity it takes the elite athlete to get to 2 mmol in the first place

Metabolic Stress

<ul><li>The lactate in the blood reflects mitochondrial oxidation: someone with high power output who needs a lot of glycolysis to produce energy will produce lactate.</li><li>Lactate is the byproduct of glycolysis – the higher the glycolysis, the higher the lactate.</li></ul>Two routes of lactate: <ol><li>From fast-twitch muscle fibres to slow-twitch muscle fibres; </li><li>Export to blood.</li></ol><ul><li>Every time you use glucose you produce pyruvate; every time that pyruvate will be reduced to lactate.</li><li>No matter how fit you are, at some point, you have to produce lactate.</li><li>When lactate can no longer be oxidized it’s transported to the blood.</li></ul>

Producing Lactate

<ul><li>A reasonable measure of how zone 2 should feel: you can carry out a full conversation, maybe not as comfortably as if you weren’t exercising, but still without much strain.</li><li>You want to know your actual maximum heart rate – zone 2 will be about 70-80% of your realized maximum heart rate.</li><li>Zone 2 will depend on fatigue as well – heart rate variability will be lower on days you are tired or didn’t sleep well.</li><li>Heart rate variability is actually a strong indicator of how hard you should push or back off exercise.</li></ul>

Identifying Your Zone 2 Level

<ul><li>Zone 2 really involves steady-state, sustained cardio.</li><li>If you only train once per week, you will deteriorate overtime – two days per week you might maintain what you have – three days or more, we see improvements.</li><li>Ideal parameters of zone 2: ideally train 1 hour-1.5 hours, 4x per week.</li><li>If it’s difficult to start out with one hour, start with less and work your way up.</li><li>If you look at the workload of an elite athlete, most sessions are of lower intensity – it’s not all about intensity and interval training.</li></ul>

Starting With Zone 2 Training

You can accomplish very important mitochondrial adaptations and very important metabolic adaptations by exercising for one hour…3-4 days per week.

<ul><li>Four pillars of fitness: (1) stability; (2) strength; (3) “low-end aerobic” or zone 2; (4) high intensity/anaerobic capacity.</li><li>VO2 max is highly correlated with longevity.</li><li>Longevity is also highly correlated with mitochondrial function and metabolic health.</li><li>High-intensity training is not sustainable over time, the same way extreme diets are not sustainable over time.</li><li>High intensity is critical for sustaining glycolytic capacity, especially as we age – but thankfully it can be improved in just a few months.</li></ul>

The Four Pillars Of Fitness

<ul><li>Some studies point to elevated lactate levels in patients on metformin</li><li>Metformin carries a lot of potential long term benefits but it’s difficult to parse out effects on mitochondrial function</li><li>NAD levels decrease with ageing, but many other metabolites are also downregulated with ageing</li><li>Taking NAD is not going to increase longevity, I don’t think so, that’s my opinion because longevity is not just one supplement or two or three or four or five, it’s a compendium.</li><li>NR &NMN are precursors to NAD – but we should be cautious when considering – a lot of fads come and go in longevity research</li></ul>

Supplements and Use Of Metformin

<ul><li>Patients with long COVID, even if previously healthy, end up looking mitochondrially like patients with type 2 diabetes in terms of fat oxidation and lactate production.</li><li>Metabolic test results of patients with long COVID often have normal pulmonary function tests and normal cardiac function – but they struggle to go up a flight of stairs at 50 years old.</li><li>It’s suspected that COVID produces a global insult to mitochondria (maybe in skeletal muscle) and leads to severe mitochondrial dysfunction, even one year later.</li></ul>

Patients With COVID in The Long Form

<ul><li>The brain dies if the liver can’t produce glucose continuously</li><li>Muscles deplete glycogen because of high utilization but the liver has plenty of glucose because of gluconeogenesis</li><li>It’s plausible that muscles eat themselves to feed themselves and the rest of the body – so getting some sort of load-bearing training (even moving extremities in bed) and supplementing with amino acids could improve outcomes</li><li>Two main parameters that are predictors of mortality in ICU: (1) high cortisol levels; (2) high lactate levels</li></ul>

ICU Patients: An Observation

You’d much rather err on the side of hyperglycemia than hypoglycemia under a period of stress

 View the Show Notes Page for This Episode  Become a Member to Receive Exclusive Content Episode Description: Iñigo San-Millán is an internationally renowned applied physiologist and a previous guest on The Drive. His research and clinical work focuses on exercise-related metabolism, metabolic health, diabetes, cancer metabolism, nutrition, sports performance, and critical care. In this episode, Iñigo describes how his work with Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar has provided insights into the amazing potential of elite athletes from a performance and metabolic perspective. He speaks specifically about lactate levels, fat oxidation, how carbohydrates in food can affect our lactate and how equal lactate outputs between an athlete and a metabolically unhealthy individual can mean different things. Next, he discusses how Zone 2 training boosts mitochondrial function and impacts longevity. He explains the different metrics for assessing one’s Zone 2 threshold and describes the optimal dose, frequency, duration, and type of exercise for Zone 2. Additionally, he offers his thoughts on how to incorporate high intensity training (Zone 5) to optimize health, as well as the potential of metformin and NAD to boost mitochondrial health. Finally, he discusses insights he’s gathered from studying the mitochondria of long COVID patients in the ICU. We discuss:  The amazing potential of cyclist Tadej Pogačar [3:00]; Metrics for assessing athletic performance in cyclists and how that impacts race strategy [8:30]; The impact of performance-enhancing drugs and the potential for transparency into athletes’ data during competition [17:00]; Tadej Pogačar’s race strategy and mindset at the Tour de France [24:00]; Defining Zone 2, fat oxidation, and how they are measured [26:45]; Using fat and carbohydrate utilization to calculate mitochondrial function and metabolic flexibility [35:45]; Lactate levels and fat oxidation as it relates to Zone 2 exercise [40:00]; How moderately active individuals should train to improve metabolic function and maximize mitochondrial performance [51:45]; Bioenergetics of the cell and what is different in elite athletes [57:30]; How the level of carbohydrate in the diet affects fuel utilization and power output during exercise [1:08:30]; Glutamine as a source for making glycogen—insights from studying the altered metabolism of ICU patients [1:15:00]; How exercise mobilizes glucose transporters—an important factor in diabetic patients [1:21:00]; Metrics for finding Zone 2 threshold—lactate, heart rate, and more [1:25:00]; Optimal Zone 2 training: dose, frequency, duration, and type of exercise [1:41:15]; How to incorporate high intensity training (Zone 5) to increase VO2 max and optimize fitness [1:51:15]; Compounding benefits of Zone 2 exercise and how we can improve metabolic health into old age [2:01:45]; The effects of metformin, NAD, and supplements on mitochondrial function [2:05:15]; The role of lactate and exercise in cancer [2:13:30]; How assessing metabolic parameters in long COVID patients provides insights into this disease [2:19:00]; The advantages of using cellular surrogates of metabolism instead of VO2 max for prescribing exercise [2:25:45]; Metabolomics reveals how cellular metabolism is altered in sedentary individuals [2:33:45]; Cellular changes in the metabolism of people with diabetes and metabolic syndrome [2:39:15]; and More.   Sign Up to Receive Peter’s Weekly Newsletter Connect With Peter on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube

 View the Show Notes Page for This Episode  Become a Member to Receive Exclusive Content Episode Description: Iñigo San-Millán is an internationally renowned applied physiologist and a previous guest on The Drive. His research and clinical work focuses on exercise-related metabolism, metabolic health, diabetes, cancer metabolism, nutrition, sports performance, and critical care. In this episode, Iñigo describes how his work with Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar has provided insights into the amazing potential of elite athletes from a performance and metabolic perspective. He speaks specifically about lactate levels, fat oxidation, how carbohydrates in food can affect our lactate and how equal lactate outputs between an athlete and a metabolically unhealthy individual can mean different things. Next, he discusses how Zone 2 training boosts mitochondrial function and impacts longevity. He explains the different metrics for assessing one’s Zone 2 threshold and describes the optimal dose, frequency, duration, and type of exercise for Zone 2. Additionally, he offers his thoughts on how to incorporate high intensity training (Zone 5) to optimize health, as well as the potential of metformin and NAD to boost mitochondrial health. Finally, he discusses insights he’s gathered from studying the mitochondria of long COVID patients in the ICU. We discuss:  The amazing potential of cyclist Tadej Pogačar [3:00]; Metrics for assessing athletic performance in cyclists and how that impacts race strategy [8:30]; The impact of performance-enhancing drugs and the potential for transparency into athletes’ data during competition [17:00]; Tadej Pogačar’s race strategy and mindset at the Tour de France [24:00]; Defining Zone 2, fat oxidation, and how they are measured [26:45]; Using fat and carbohydrate utilization to calculate mitochondrial function and metabolic flexibility [35:45]; Lactate levels and fat oxidation as it relates to Zone 2 exercise [40:00]; How moderately active individuals should train to improve metabolic function and maximize mitochondrial performance [51:45]; Bioenergetics of the cell and what is different in elite athletes [57:30]; How the level of carbohydrate in the diet affects fuel utilization and power output during exercise [1:08:30]; Glutamine as a source for making glycogen—insights from studying the altered metabolism of ICU patients [1:15:00]; How exercise mobilizes glucose transporters—an important factor in diabetic patients [1:21:00]; Metrics for finding Zone 2 threshold—lactate, heart rate, and more [1:25:00]; Optimal Zone 2 training: dose, frequency, duration, and type of exercise [1:41:15]; How to incorporate high intensity training (Zone 5) to increase VO2 max and optimize fitness [1:51:15]; Compounding benefits of Zone 2 exercise and how we can improve metabolic health into old age [2:01:45]; The effects of metfo

Expert insight on health, performance, longevity, critical thinking, and pursuing excellence. Dr. Peter Attia (Stanford/Hopkins/NIH-trained MD) talks with leaders in their fields.

The Peter Attia Drive

#201 - Deep dive back into Zone 2 | Iñigo San-Millán, Ph.D. (Pt. 2)

Most workplace wellness programs focus on supporting self-care, such as gym memberships, meditation apps, or paid time off. Researchers who study employee well-being applaud the genuine concern but are also increasingly concerned that the emphasis on self-care may undermine, rather than support, employee wellness.

Workplace wellness programs

The problem with programs supporting self-care is that it fails to take into account that we are social animals. Our psychological health is grounded in attachment to and acceptance by others. When we feel disconnected from others, it poses a significant health risk. Human connections are critical for addressing the effects of stress, anxiety, and burnout. When organisations focus on individual solutions, it conveys a message that employees are left to manage their pain alone. A real solution requires an entirely different approach to workplace suffering.

Human well-being is not achieved alone

Research shows that when teams framed setbacks as if they belonged to the whole team, even if only some members were affected, they increased their communication and acknowledged and helped one another. This improved their function as a group. By contrast, teams who tried to cope with adversity individually became isolated, stopped communicating, and became physically and socially distanced. Team functioning declined, leading to errors and increased stress.

Frame adversity as belonging to the collective

A relational pause is a temporary, often brief, break from ongoing task work, where people are invited to ask and answer the question, “How is our work affecting us as human beings?” This pause aims to foster sincere and genuine connections between employees that enable individual well-being. It does not require people to be friends but instead to actively help group members engage productively.

Create and foster relational pauses

When adversity is framed as collective, individuals experience themselves as part of a joint struggle. Everyone can look at each other with compassion and empathy. They come to see each other as having both strengths and weaknesses. This helps the group as a whole engage in more mature interactions.

Struggling together creates well-being for all

When the team is in the grip of anxiety, it is difficult to think clearly or regain composure. The act of describing an emotional experience, and receiving compassion, in turn, cause each team member to shoulder some of the burdens.

Hightened emotions are dispersed and processed

As teams practice relational pauses, they learn to understand their own dynamics. They start to know each other and the difficulties in more nuanced ways and recognise when emotions triggered by adversity may lead them astray. The team learn to pause so they can reflect and make a deliberate choice about their path forward and how they will struggle together.

The team learns to recognize and reflect on their behavior

Individual distress is a collective problem.

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Human Resources

Stop Framing Wellness Programs Around Self-Care

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