Always consult a trusted board-certified physician before adding or subtracting any behavioral, nutritional, supplementation, or prescription drug protocols to ensure safety and appropriateness for your individual health.
Form the foundation of mental health, physical health, and performance by implementing specific actions and avoiding others, such as viewing morning sunlight, exercising, and avoiding late-night bright light.
Establish nutrition as the second foundational layer, as no amount of supplementation can compensate for poor nutrition long-term. Aim for 75-80% or more of your food intake from non-processed or minimally processed sources.
When exploring targeted supplements, test single-ingredient formulations for about a week each, without changing other protocols, to identify minimal effective doses and rule out ineffective or detrimental compounds. This helps isolate variables and understand individual impact.
Before and after about four to eight weeks of taking any hormone-modulating supplement, get blood tests to objectively evaluate its effectiveness and ensure it’s not causing unwanted negative effects.
Begin any new supplement regimen with the minimal effective dose and gradually build up protocols over time, playing the long game to find what works best for you in both the immediate and long term.
Ingest four servings a day of low-sugar fermented foods (e.g., refrigerated sauerkraut, kimchi, Greek yogurt, kombucha, kefir, natto, pickles with brine) to greatly improve gut microbiome function, enhance the immune system, and reduce inflammation.
For comprehensive coverage of vitamins, minerals, digestive enzymes, adaptogens, and probiotics/prebiotics, consider a broad-spectrum, multi-ingredient foundational supplement, especially if your budget allows for about $100 or more per month.
If on a limited supplement budget, prioritize a high-quality omega-3 fatty acid fish oil, aiming for 1-3 grams of EPA per day, to support mood, metabolic, cardiovascular, cognitive function, and focus.
View morning sunlight to increase cortisol levels early in the day, which is crucial for focus, alertness, immune function, and ensuring lower cortisol levels at night for optimal growth hormone and testosterone release.
Avoid bright light exposure to your eyes between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. to enhance mental health, physical health, and performance by supporting healthy sleep architecture.
Limit or eliminate caffeine intake after 2 p.m. (or even noon) to prevent disruption of sleep architecture, which can diminish mental health, physical health, and performance the following day.
Avoid food intake within two hours prior to bedtime to facilitate growth hormone release during sleep and improve your ability to fall and stay asleep, but ensure you’re not so hungry that it prevents sleep.
Incorporate strenuous exercise, including both cardiovascular and relatively short (under an hour) bouts of intense resistance training a few times per week, to dramatically alter and improve hormone profiles.
Ingest vitamin and mineral supplements with food, ideally early in the day, to prevent stomach upset (especially from B vitamins) and optimize absorption.
If taking probiotic/prebiotic supplements, ensure they contain low enough levels to avoid potential issues like brain fog, which can be associated with excessive intake.
Consider magnesium threonate or bisglycinate to shorten the transition time into sleep and deepen sleep, as they readily cross the blood-brain barrier and induce mild drowsiness.
Consider apigenin, a chamomile derivative, to lower anxiety prior to sleep, helping to reduce rumination and facilitate falling asleep.
If you wake up in the middle of the night and struggle to fall back asleep, consider taking 900 milligrams of myo-inositol to help shorten the time it takes to return to sleep.
If you experience excessively vivid dreams that cause you to wake up jolted or anxious, avoid theanine supplementation (typically 100-400mg) as it can intensify dreams for some individuals.
Use melatonin only occasionally for specific purposes like jet lag, as it primarily induces sleepiness but doesn’t maintain sleep, can impact other hormone systems, and often has inconsistent dosages in supplements.
Every two weeks or so, or perhaps every month, take one night off completely from all your sleep supplements or leave out one sleep supplement, ideally on a non-critical night, to assess any real or placebo-based dependency.
Explore shilajit, containing fulvic acid, to augment multiple hormone systems, potentially increasing FSH, testosterone, estrogen, and libido, but cycle its use (e.g., 8 weeks on, 2 weeks off) and adhere to recommended dosages.
Use ashwagandha to reduce cortisol levels, which can indirectly lead to increased testosterone; however, avoid taking high dosages for more than two weeks at a time.
If experiencing lowered libido, consider maca root, which can increase libido in both men and women, including those on SSRIs, by augmenting dopamine and upstream hormone pathways.
If using Fadogia Agrestis (600mg/day) to potentially increase libido, sperm production, testosterone, or estrogen, cycle its use (e.g., 8 weeks on, 2 weeks off or 12 weeks on, 1 month off) and never exceed recommended dosages due to potential toxicity at high levels.
Explore Tongkat Ali (200-600mg/day) to potentially increase libido and free testosterone by reducing sex hormone binding globulin; start with a minimum dose, scale by body size, and allow 8-12 weeks for effects to manifest.
For fertility support, consider orally ingested L-Carnitine to improve sperm motility and quality, and egg quality, noting that injectable L-Carnitine requires a prescription.
Ingest caffeine (1-3mg/kg body weight, 30 minutes before activity) for enhanced alertness and focus, noting that pill form can be more potent than coffee/tea, but avoid late afternoon intake and exercise caution if prone to anxiety.
If consuming Yerba Mate for caffeine or other purposes, always choose non-smoked varieties, as smoked versions are carcinogenic.
Take Alpha GPC (300-600mg) to enhance focus by augmenting acetylcholine pathways, providing a non-stimulant increase in cognitive attention lasting 4-6 hours.
Consider L-Tyrosine (500-1000mg) as a dopamine precursor to increase focus without the jittery feeling of stimulants, but be aware that some individuals may experience a ‘crash’ afterward.
Be very careful when considering alpha yohimbine (rauwolscine) as a stimulant for alertness and fat loss, as it is potent and can cause significant anxiety in some individuals.
When exploring cognitive enhancers, try stimulant-based supplements (e.g., caffeine) and neuromodulator-based supplements (e.g., Alpha GPC, L-Tyrosine) separately before combining them, to understand their distinct effects on alertness versus focus.
Strongly avoid hormone augmentation supplements for individuals under 20-22 years old, unless specifically recommended and closely monitored by a board-certified physician, as the body and brain are still developing.
Women should be prepared to adjust dosages or cease certain supplements (e.g., Shilajit, Tongkat Ali, Maca) at different phases of their menstrual cycle, as hormonal shifts can alter their effects and comfort levels.
Aim for approximately one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, primarily from high-quality sources, to support protein synthesis, recovery from exercise, and muscle building.
Prioritize good quality sleep of sufficient duration as the most effective cognitive enhancer, as it is during sleep that neural connections remodel and learning is consolidated.