All protocols

A commonly used adaptogenic supplement taken to help lower cortisol and blunt stress reactivity. The dominant guidance is to use it in short bursts rather than continuously, with one recommendation warning against chronic use beyond about two weeks of regular dosing. Its appeal is that it may act as a fairly potent cortisol reducer, though the evidence base is still limited.

A seated or lying-down meditation that repeatedly returns attention to a single anchor, most often the breath, but sometimes a body sensation or a point behind the forehead/third eye. A typical version is about 13–17 minutes daily, with brief focused sessions also used before learning. It’s recommended for improving concentration, persistence, choice selection, and overall mood, and may be especially helpful for attention difficulties.

Build in regular steady-state endurance work each week, with most of the volume kept below the burn threshold so you can still talk in full sentences. A common target is about 150 minutes per week, including at least one longer continuous session of 20–30+ minutes. This kind of moderate aerobic work is highlighted for supporting cardiovascular fitness, mitochondrial health, capillary growth, and brain function.

A regular yoga practice used as a simple, accessible way to downshift stress and regulate the body. The emphasis is on easy poses and breath-led movement that can be done when running or other intense exercise feels like too much. It helps people breathe through heightened emotion, lower arousal, and create a sense of calm, synchronization, and even transcendence.

A structured, language-based form of cognitive behavioral therapy that asks you to recount difficult experiences in full detail, including internal feelings and memories before, during, and after the event. By identifying the thoughts and stories attached to the experience and then reshaping them, it helps reduce fear responses, process trauma, and replace self-defeating narratives with more workable ones.

Eat a more carbohydrate- and starch-heavy dinner or late-evening meal, often using foods like rice, pasta, oats, or potatoes, rather than keeping dinner very low carb. The idea is that evening carbs can help blunt cortisol, increase serotonin/tryptophan availability, and make it easier to feel calm, fall asleep, and stay asleep.

Shift most food intake into the earlier part of the day, and pair it with light exposure and exercise when possible. Eating earlier tends to move your body clock earlier, which can make you feel sleepy and wake earlier the next day, while late-night eating pushes your rhythm later.

A daily Tongkat Ali protocol, typically around 400 mg taken early in the day, used to support libido and raise free testosterone. It may work by weakly lowering aromatase and modestly modulating estrogen receptors, which can shift more testosterone into the unbound form. Cycling does not appear necessary for most people, though one suggested pattern was 11 months on and 1 month off.

Wear a glucose sensor on the arm that measures blood sugar about every 5 minutes, typically for around 14 days per device and often used for a short learning phase of roughly 30 days. It helps you see how specific foods, sleep, stress, and other behaviors affect your glucose in real time, so you can identify your personal spike triggers and make more effective behavior changes.

A potent glucose-lowering supplement used with doses explored around 0.5–1.5 g per day. It’s often discussed as having effects comparable to medications like metformin or glibenclamide, so it should be treated seriously and used with medical guidance. The main appeal is its ability to improve blood sugar control through a strong metabolic effect.

Use zinc at roughly 90–100 mg per day at the first sign of a cold, with an upper range around 120 mg per day; doses below about 75 mg per day are unlikely to help. The point is to shorten the duration of the illness, with one cited study of 90 mg/day zinc acetate reporting about a threefold faster recovery rate.

Choose a schedule you can do consistently and perform it as many days and weeks of the year as possible; aim to complete roughly 85% to 95% of workouts on average.

Use deliberate heat exposure to build heat tolerance and improve sweating capacity. Start conservatively—about 15 minutes total, or 3 x 5-minute bouts with breaks if you’re poorly acclimated—then progress toward 30 to 45 minutes as tolerated, ideally beginning weeks before an event rather than in the final days. The goal is to gradually adapt the body’s thermoregulation and trigger protective heat-shock and antioxidant responses.

Build a habit of walking every day, with a practical target of roughly 7,000 to 10,000 steps or about 30 minutes at a reasonable pace. The main value is that even people starting from very low activity can get major health gains from a modest increase in steps, and walking also serves as an easy way to improve mood, decompress, and support overall physical health.

Use a bright 10,000-lux light soon after waking when natural sunlight is unavailable, especially in darker seasons or for early indoor schedules. Place it nearby while you make coffee, journal, or get ready for the day for about 5–10 minutes rather than staring directly at it. The goal is to mimic morning daylight cues that help anchor circadian rhythm and improve alertness and mood.

If your main goal is muscle growth or strength, avoid ice baths, cold showers, or other deliberate cold exposure right after resistance training. The common recommendation is to wait at least 4 hours, and often 6-8 hours or until later in the day, because immediate cold exposure may blunt the inflammatory and mTOR-driven signaling needed for adaptation.

Phenylethylamine (PEA) is used as an occasional stimulant-like nootropic, typically at 500 mg, sometimes repeated with another 500 mg for especially demanding work. It’s taken to increase dopamine signaling and sharpen mental acuity, with some people using it as a substitute for L-tyrosine or stacking it with alpha-GPC, L-tyrosine, and caffeine for a stronger focus effect.

During rest periods in resistance training, cool the palms with a cool object, cool surface, or brief hand cooling rather than ice-cold immersion. The goal is to improve work capacity—often allowing more reps or total volume at the same load—by helping dissipate heat without triggering excessive vasoconstriction.

Take a short, easy-to-brisk walk after eating, most often after dinner or other glucose-spiking meals. A typical protocol is 10–20 minutes, though some recommendations extend to 20–30 minutes or a brief walk after each meal. The main goal is to blunt post-meal blood sugar rises, improve glucose clearance and digestion, and support metabolic health.

A supervised therapeutic approach to psychedelics such as psilocybin, LSD, or MDMA, used only in carefully controlled medical or clinical settings. The protocol typically includes preparation sessions before dosing, trained guides or physicians present during the experience, and integration afterward to help process what emerged. This structure is meant to reduce risk and make the experience more likely to produce durable benefits such as reduced depression, anxiety, or emotional burden from past experiences.

Take regular breaks from close-up work to look far away—ideally outdoors, toward a horizon, or at least beyond 10–20 feet—for a few minutes at a time, and pair this with a broader, open visual field rather than a tight fixation. A common pattern is to interrupt about every 30–45 minutes of screen or reading time with distance viewing, which helps relax the eyes and can reduce stress and autonomic arousal by shifting out of tunnel vision.

A red and near-infrared light therapy panel used at close range for a few minutes per session. The common protocol is about 10–15 minutes, 5–7 days per week, positioned roughly 1–2 feet away, with the goal of delivering long-wavelength light for skin quality and related photobiomodulation benefits.

Alternate heat and cold in repeated rounds, typically moving between sauna or hot exposure and brief cold plunges or showers. A common pattern is several cycles of about 15–20 minutes of heat followed by 1–6 minutes of cooling, sometimes ending on cold if the goal is metabolic stimulation. The idea is that the temperature swing itself is the stimulus, supporting recovery, vasodilation/vasoconstriction training, and a hormetic boost to mood, neurotransmitters, and cardiovascular resilience.

A generally low-to-moderate probiotic regimen used consistently to support gut microbiota diversity, with stronger use reserved for periods of dysbiosis, severe stress, or after antibiotic treatment. The main rationale is to help restore a healthier microbial balance, which may also support mood and gut-brain signaling in some people.

A metformin titration strategy used for PCOS-related insulin resistance and cycle/ovulation support. It typically starts with 750 mg at night, then adds 750 mg in the morning if tolerated; if symptoms persist or ovulation does not return, the dose may be increased to 1,000 mg twice daily. The goal is to improve insulin sensitivity and help restore more regular ovulation.

Do cardio or resistance training before eating, often soon after waking and after an overnight fast of several hours. This is mainly used to increase fat oxidation and fat adaptation, and it can be a perfectly reasonable choice when performance is not limited by fuel availability or when you simply feel better training that way.

Drink water soon after waking, often before caffeine or focused work, with some recommendations suggesting a larger first dose such as 16 to 32 ounces and optional electrolytes. The goal is to rehydrate after the overnight fast, which may help alertness and reduce dehydration-related headaches or migraine vulnerability.

A needle-based therapy used alongside fertility care, typically applied across the menstrual cycle to support reproductive function. It is described as helping regulate hormones such as FSH and improving pelvic blood flow, with the goal of supporting ovulation and overall female fertility.

Using a rowing machine for high-intensity interval training, often as a low-eccentric-load alternative to running or other impact-heavy conditioning. It’s typically programmed in vigorous intervals or mixed conditioning sessions, sometimes paired with assault bike work and lifting. The appeal is that it builds anaerobic capacity and conditioning while being easier on the joints and muscles than many other hard-effort modalities.

Use a brief active warm-up before workouts or practice, especially before lifting or other intense efforts. The common pattern is 5–10 minutes of movement plus a few lighter ramp-up sets on the first exercise, progressing from easy reps to heavier loads until joints, movement patterns, and the nervous system feel ready. This improves readiness and blood flow without the performance drop that can come from static stretching or jumping straight into heavy work.