Behaviors

He strongly warns that cannabis use in adolescents, teens, and young adults up to age 25 disrupts brain development, accelerates prefrontal cortical thinning, and raises later risk of anxiety, depression, and psychosis.

Avoid cannabis use entirely if possible, especially for adolescents, teens, and people age 25 or younger. If cannabis is used at all, keep both frequency and potency very low to reduce the risk of psychosis.

Foundational prerequisite for mental health, physical health, and performance; also described as part of the general environment of health.

Measure ketones and adjust the diet based on ketosis level and clinical response; Palmer mentions both general ketone measurement and specifically recommending urinary ketosis in Atkins-style ketogenic approaches because clinical benefit often appeared only once patients got into ketosis.

If reducing psychiatric medications, do it safely, cautiously, gradually, and with supervision from a mental health professional or prescriber; do not stop cold turkey because rebound symptoms can be severe or dangerous.

Use frequent contact and education rather than simply prescribing a diet and checking back months later; Palmer describes weekly visits as useful for adherence and adjustment.

Monitor glucose levels alongside ketones during ketogenic interventions.

Avoid sleep disruption because Palmer says it impairs mitochondria and mitochondrial function.

Avoid tobacco smoke because Palmer says it impairs mitochondrial function.

Do not drink the same amount of alcohol you normally would while on a ketogenic diet, and do not drive after your usual amount, because blood alcohol levels may be much higher and could be dangerous or even deadly.

Use behavioral sleep measures first when keto triggers sleep disruption or hypomania: get at least six hours of sleep per night, stay in bed and try to fall back asleep if you wake very early, and aim for three nights of decent sleep in a row, which Palmer says often extinguishes hypomania.

For serious mental illness patients on keto who cannot sleep despite behavioral measures and supplements, Palmer uses prescription sleep medication only as a temporary stopgap to get 3-7 days of decent sleep and break hypomania.

Use fasted exercise/cardio as a way to stimulate GLP-1 release; presented as a vote in favor of fasted exercise for this purpose.

Figure out your body weight in kilograms and use 1–3 mg/kg as the range to explore for a single caffeine dose.

Look up the caffeine content of your beverages and foods online, especially commercial coffees, sodas, teas, etc., to know how much you are actually ingesting.

Be careful about very high caffeine intake over long periods because it can bias toward anxiety, electrolyte depletion, headaches, irritability, and microvasculature disruption.

If you like exercising fasted, caffeine just prior to exercise can be a fantastic tool.

If you are not accustomed to caffeine or are very sensitive to it, do not use it for the first time on the day of an important mental or physical challenge.

Brief bouts of intense exercise ranging from about 10 to 50 minutes after learning can improve memory for information learned beforehand.

He is not a fan of drinking coffee or espresso right before a nap; prefers restricting caffeine to early day and using naps or NSDR without pre-nap caffeine.

Consume caffeine every other day to maximize many positive effects while reducing tolerance and avoiding the misery of longer abstinence periods.

Leverage caffeine's reinforcing effects to increase preference for desired foods or beverages, and avoid pairing caffeine with things you want to stop craving. If trying to reduce sugar cravings, avoid co-ingesting sugar with caffeine, such as chocolate with caffeine or coffee with pastry, because caffeine further enhances sugar reinforcement.

Use some portion of your income for prosocial spending; giving money to others or causes is associated with significantly greater happiness than personal spending.

Regularly seeing faces, especially in the morning and late afternoon, is described as positively impacting emotional wellbeing.

Brief unstructured interactions with a dog, even an unfamiliar dog, can reduce stress and increase positive affect. If you cannot own a dog, walk foster dogs or neighbors' dogs to gain the wellbeing benefits of interacting with dogs.

Engage in consensual, context-appropriate nonsexual tactile grooming behaviors to promote bonding and wellbeing. Examples include brushing or combing someone's hair, using a lint roller on them, haircuts or hair styling, manicure, pedicure, skincare, or massage. Human-to-animal allogrooming also applies: petting or brushing dogs and cats can increase oxytocin and bonding-related neurochemistry.

Use idle time to reset attentional resources after cognitively demanding effort.

Allow positive mind wandering as a way to reset the brain's ability to focus after demanding cognitive effort.

If a child has obesity, puberty is described as a particularly effective time to reset lifestyle and habits and improve body composition.

Avoid deliberate overeating to gain both muscle and fat; recommended indefinitely across the lifespan, especially during growth and puberty because excess body fat can accelerate puberty and limit height.