All protocols

Do not overdo high-intensity interval training; two HIIT sessions in a day can reduce cognitive performance after the second session due to reduced cerebral blood flow.

Prioritize compound movements to generate arousal/energy and support cognition via adrenaline and norepinephrine pathways. Examples given include squats, deadlifts, bench presses, dips, pull-ups, and rows.

Train the whole body to maintain symmetry of function and strength and to offset injuries.

If feeling tired, start moving and specifically engage core muscles to increase energy via adrenaline pathways. Warm-up examples include air squats, running in place, and jumping jacks.

Include some form of jumping in weekly exercise to load the skeleton and likely stimulate osteocalcin-related brain benefits, especially jumping where you control the eccentric or landing portion. Examples include jump rope, high-knees jump rope, double unders, box jumps, and jumping on or off boxes. Progress slowly and safely because eccentric work increases soreness and injury risk. This work can be added at the end of a run, zone 2 day, or HIIT day.

Include some proportion of weekly resistance training focused on slow controlled contractions and lowering phases to emphasize nerve-to-muscle pathways and muscle-derived signals that benefit the brain. In one example, move the weight as quickly as possible on the concentric phase, lower it at least twice as slowly, pause while keeping the muscles under tension, engage the target muscles before the rep, and avoid setting the weight down until the end of the set.

Suggested surface for explosive jumping with eccentric landing.

Use a box for jumping up and down with controlled eccentric landing; start with low boxes and progress slowly.

After about 10 days of no cardiovascular or resistance training, brain oxygenation and other markers begin to decline.

If you have not been exercising, start with a ramp-up or warming phase rather than jumping in aggressively.

If illness, injury, family event, or stress requires a week off, do not obsess; recover and then ramp back up after a couple of days.

At least once per week, do a psychologically and physically safe form of exercise you strongly dislike in order to engage the anterior mid-cingulate cortex and support resilience and super-aging-related brain benefits. Examples given include deliberate cold exposure and rope flow.

Used for rope flow; a thick rope from a hardware store, like a dog-leash-type rope, can work.

Place a hand on your heart during grounding or self-soothing exercises to come back into your body; pair it with compassionate self-talk if helpful.

Use simple sensory orientation such as naming visible objects to reset boundaries and return to the present.

Use this when someone else's upset dysregulates you, to remind your body that activation is not danger.

If your pulse rises above your threshold, stop texting or responding until you calm down; unless there is a true emergency, your response can usually wait.

Create periods of separation from devices to reset your relationship to speed and stimulation.

Use a dedicated physical container, such as a wooden box, to place phones out of reach; creating a separate container acts as a physical barrier and changes your relationship to the phone.

When a task feels impossible, pause, breathe, and come back later if needed rather than abandoning it entirely.

If a task feels impossible, reduce the first step until it feels doable; keep shrinking it until you can start. Examples include reducing writing from article to page to paragraph to sentence to word, saying a difficult word out loud repeatedly as a micro-step, writing down what you want to say before a hard conversation, and practicing the conversation with another person first.

Use hand-on-heart contact as a simple self-regulation practice and pair it with compassionate self-talk such as 'parenting is really hard,' 'I'm doing enough,' and 'I'm not messing up my kid forever.'

Deliberately place yourself into situations that moderately increase adrenaline, then cognitively and emotionally calm yourself while activated in order to raise stress capacity over weeks to months. This can be done by bringing heart rate very high through high-intensity exercise such as sprinting or going hard on the bike, then relaxing the mind while the body is highly activated. Practice about once per week; it does not need to be done every workout.

A basic telescope is sufficient for beginner stargazing; a $50-$75 telescope can let you see moon craters, Jupiter's moons, and Saturn's rings.

Use/access designated dark sky communities for better stargazing; examples given include Julian, California and Borrego Springs in Anza-Borrego Desert.

Use inexpensive optical filters to block narrow-band outdoor lighting, such as sodium vapor lighting, to improve viewing conditions.

Use a biofeedback game to learn to increase and decrease arousal and eventually control pupil size, which influences arousal and temporal segmentation. A 'poor man version' is to look in the mirror, deliberately ramp up autonomic arousal and watch pupils dilate, then relax and make them smaller.

Practice very intense visualization as part of learning to create stronger physiological and learning states.

Develop triggers that shift your psychology and physiology so intellectual study carries stronger somatic intensity.

Never do cyclic hyperventilation or long exhale-emphasized breathing while in or near water, or while driving, because blowing off CO2 suppresses the gasp reflex and can lead to blackout, drowning, or accidents.