Unconventional Ways to Power Up Your Brain & Perform Like an Elite Athlete

Nick Urban [00:00:05]:
If you ever watch the world’s best performing athletes on TV or in person or take note of the notable business people, they often have people in their court feeding them some little known but powerful information, whether that’s about the newest molecules that can help you perform at your highest level, seemingly unrelated health optimization strategies that also translate to performance, or just to update you with some of the latest scientific breakthroughs and findings. Our guest this week is one of those people on the front lines actually applying the newest science to athletes, taking notes, and iterating to figure out what actually works. As you may have guessed, in this episode, we discuss some of the lesser known but still interesting substances to optimize health, performance, and other facets of your life. We make a clear distinction between brain enhancing substances called nootropics and other substances that have nootropic like effects. We discuss one of our guests’ publications called the nootropics user manual, which essentially breaks down the difference between the mind and the body, the Cartesian split, highlighting some of the nuances and accuracy of the Cartesian split, how learning and memory actually work, and how you can use substances plus experience to enhance them, plus other ways of improving meta learning, the surprising link between your feet, your ribs, and your neck, and how those can influence everything from your thinking speed to your athletic Performance, and a whole lot more you probably haven’t heard anywhere else. Our guest this week is Andy Triana. Andy is a neurocognitive specialist who found his niche in the private consulting and professional sports worlds. He studied applied exercise science and then went on to postgraduate work in organic chemistry, neurophysiology, and behavioral sciences.

Nick Urban [00:02:09]:
You can find the links to the resources and the show notes for this one at mindbodypeak.com/andthenthenumber157. If you wanna check out the book that we Performance many times throughout the interview, that is called the nootropics user manual, and I’ll also put a link to that in the show notes, as well as Andy’s new course called the essentials of performance coaching. If some of the science terms that we mentioned are a bit complex or complicated, don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll still walk away from this interview with plenty of new ideas to test out for yourself. Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, and enjoy this conversation with Andy. Andy, welcome to the podcast.

Andrew Triana [00:02:52]:
Nick, pleasure to be on the podcast. I love getting a chance to do this type of stuff, and you clearly have an astute and wide range audience. So I think it’s gonna be a great episode.

Nick Urban [00:03:03]:
Absolutely. And you sit at the unique intersection between physical and mental performance, and you work with a lot of elite athletes and high achievers across all walks of life. So I’m excited to dive in with you. But before we get started, let’s warm up with, unusual nonnegotiables you’ve done so far today for your health, your performance, and your bioharmony.

Andrew Triana [00:03:27]:
Awesome. Funny you say that. So, I just wanna you know, this obviously isn’t an ad, but I just got the purple mattress. And I had never gone above and beyond on a mattress before, and it’s fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I’m really happy Peak the Purple Mattress. Like, I’ve even woken up groggy because it’s only been, like, 2 weeks, like, the last maybe 5 or 7 nights because I’m sleeping so deep. Lastly, to answer your question, my current nonnegotiables for waking up in the morning are get my feet in 2 different environments.

Andrew Triana [00:03:59]:
We all have it. We all have some type of creatine, whether it’s grass, ground, Nick, something senses, even if it’s Mind, you know, I get my feet in 2 different environments. And I think it greatly amplifies the sensory motor response to grounding, especially because if you think about our feet and homunculus, man, and I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that. I’m sure your audience might be at this point. Yeah. You’re nodding. Yes. So it’s a massive sensory motor hub, and we also creatine it’s the motor unit recruitment ceiling for all the muscles in our, like, interior pelvic chain and a lot of our abdominal musculature as well.

Andrew Triana [00:04:35]:
And I’ve just found over time that there’s almost like a foot rolling release response, as well as a nervous system awakening like response that I’ve had a lot of people anecdotally saves. They noticed it’s more potent with 2 than 1. So what I personally do is I’m I’m in Florida. We have Saint Augustine Nick, dewy grass in our backyard. So I’ll get my feet in that. I mean, I’ll get my feet in some concrete. And on the concrete, I’ll actually Mind grind the bottom of my skin into the feet, even not, like, actually causing abrasions, but, like, doing it a little bit aggressively on purpose. Now I found that has a tremendous neurological effect for me being ready in the morning.

Andrew Triana [00:05:18]:
I’ll also stare at the sun for about, like, 5 to 12 seconds. Not anything dangerous, but just stare at it. And I’ve found that has a drastic effect as well. Honestly, I’m working a lot, so I’ve been using some larger doses of choline, and I’ve found that that only has, like, a positive effect typically. And lastly, I do a funny little speech drill sometimes on days like today. If I take we take a a freestyle rap that I’ve listened to for years years. And what I try to do is while staying on cadence, I try to enunciate and speak as slowly as possible, because I’ve had it memorized at this point, while still staying on cadence and ensuring that I go through the full mouth shape and have sensory motor, like, responses of my tongue hitting my teeth and stuff like that. Because, obviously, rap goes pretty quick.

Andrew Triana [00:06:08]:
So I’m trying to go slow with my mouth and be very mindful while being on a quick cadence. So to sum it to me, it’s like music, eyes, and feet are, my, like, dialed social work type of nonnegotiables.

Nick Urban [00:06:22]:
Very interesting. And I had no idea that we had some parallels in our morning routine like that. Not the last one. I will have to try that. But being here in India, I’ve realized the value of a good mattress because in some of the Airbnbs I’ve stayed in, it’s not the feet. And substantia, I don’t sleep as Health. Like, last night, I’m definitely a bit sleep deprived today. But I still get outside in the morning, and I get on a couple different surfaces.

Nick Urban [00:06:46]:
We have the beach here, so I expose my bare feet to that, and then the water, and then the concrete also. And I do my morning sun gazing for 15 seconds, sometimes 30 seconds depending on how consistent I’ve been. But that last one’s a new one. I’ll have to try that.

Andrew Triana [00:07:01]:
How’d you get on to the sun gazing? Because, you know, I I tend to live under a rock. I got on to this from, Norman Doidge’s second book, The Brain’s Way of Healing, personally. So I was just curious, like, where you heard about it.

Nick Urban [00:07:14]:
I heard about it from studying Ayurveda. So I was looking for Urban solutions that the ancient cultures seem to have better under wraps, and they had better answers to some prevention based things. And when I was studying that, I came across the idea of sungazing. And at first, I thought it was ridiculous, then I learned about UV index and the intensity of UV rays. And I started trying it for maybe a second, then 5 seconds. And in Ayurveda, they recommend you work split I think it’s by no more than 15 seconds per day. So you don’t go out in the 1st day and stare at the sun for 15 minutes. You go for 15 seconds.

Nick Urban [00:07:51]:
And then the next day, if you do it again, you’re consistent in 30 seconds, and you can build up your exposure over time. And it’s a very tranquil spiritual, like, grounding, practice.

Andrew Triana [00:08:03]:
Yeah. Certainly so. And there is some cool physiology to back that stuff. And I think most importantly, what I recognized is we really truly are environmental creatures. You know, we’re not like humans creating the environment around us as much as we would love to believe it. We really are subservient to what’s around us. So I think the biggest thing I realized that respect for in a personal sense was moving from New Jersey to Florida. Like, three things changed drastically without me Triana, my sleep, my ability to wake up feeling good in the morning from an immune system standpoint specifically, and I’ll talk about that in a sec, and my midday energy feelings.

Andrew Triana [00:08:45]:
The sun completely ameliorated any 1 to 3 PM energy crash, that I was experiencing in New Jersey. And it’s funny. It’s not like you know, like I said, same person. Right? I knew the same stuff for the most part. I’m sure it’s I’ve gotten a little smarter in the last year. But you know what I Peak? Like, it’s not like I completely only just now discovered how to live my life. So I was doing a lot of the same things, and I still was having a crash around, like, 1 to 3 PM. Nothing drastic where I I had to crawl into bed, but something enough where you felt it coming, and it was, like, tangible and timing.

Andrew Triana [00:09:18]:
Like, you knew it was gonna happen. My sleep, I just couldn’t get as deep, and I also realized when I was tired, it was so much easier for me to sleep in in New Jersey. And for some people, that might sound like a good thing, but that’s not always a good thing. You actually should be like, the point of that AM hormone rush is to supersede things, and then you’re going and so on and so forth. So we we are 100% such environmental creatures that there’s no way we can dissociate from that. And when you start to kinda, 1, believe that and then reverse engineer your life, your habits, a little bit of your ethnic heritage, and what you do for work and what you’re passionate about, 100% will mesh or not mesh with your external environment.

Nick Urban [00:10:02]:
And it’s funny. You actually feet me it perfectly without even knowing it. I was going to ask you about the relationship between the feet, the ribs, and the neck because I know those are important to you. And you just mentioned the feet briefly, but tell me about why you care so much about those for both physical performance and cognitive or mental performance.

Andrew Triana [00:10:25]:
Yeah. Great question. I’ll start by answering it with, like, how I view it in my head, if you will. Where I view the implications of anatomy and anthropometrics specifically, you know, I’m kind of a weirdo sometimes, and I I just have these images that pop up in my head. So I view it as this top down umbrella chart, almost like a hierarchy chart when you look at, like, a large company. It’s like, you know, the board of directors are up here, and then it’s, like, they’re, like, assistant managers and whatever it else turns into. You know? And you see that flowchart where there’s interns at the bottom, and there’s a blood of them. The way I view it is we have our feet, ribs, and neck.

Andrew Triana [00:11:02]:
They’re gonna be these centralized hubs at the top of this drop down umbrella chart, if you will. And they’re gonna directly, in my opinion, with, like, emphasis on the word directly, impede or facilitate everything else around them. So like I said, the feet are that sensory motor hub, and everyone pretty much realizes what makes sports not weightlifting is there’s multiple planes involved. The frontal plane, especially of the pelvis, is where most people struggle from a skill standpoint Andy anatomical control standpoint. So if you’re trying to move your pelvis in the frontal plane Andy we don’t have a foot based sensory motor hub that’s properly taking in information and managing forces, you know, calcareally and with the arch of the feet, you’re certainly not be able to move in the frontal plant, the pelvis Health. And when we talk about the coolest stuff in sports, cutting like a sick golf swing, like pivoting, being able to stop, start, accelerate all this stuff. It’s rotating the pelvis to some degree, whether it’s internal rotation towards or away, making a lot of difference there. We look at the ribs.

Andrew Triana [00:12:10]:
We look at respiration. We’re automatically also talking about the vagal nerve. Andy we’re also automatically talking about the vasculature. Your rib and pelvis association and how the diaphragm is functioning is going to directly implicate blood pressure, your ability to rotate or sagittally move, and a lot of other things as well. And most importantly, if we view our respirations rate per minute, there’s obviously a bandwidth. Right? You you can’t get down into, like, the single digits, really, unless you’re, like, an elite level Mind. And you’re certainly not gonna get into, like, the triple digits ever. So within this range of respiratory dynamics, what we notice is you can only participate as much as you have a bandwidth for.

Andrew Triana [00:12:56]:
For example, if you’re going in to start a workset of exercise or a sport practice and you’re already in a hyperventilatory state, while your work capacity will absolutely be diminished no matter how much hormone sensitive lipase and any other enzymes you may have in, like, a plentiful amount, you will have a diminished capacity. Also, if you’re hyperventilating, this starts to lead us up to the neck. There’s other things that we can for sure know are going on that will for sure impede sports performance, and a lot of them are anatomical. So at the neck, if we saves an impediment of freeman Magnum, meaning a it Andy up being almost a posterior tilt of the hole where the spine and brain meet, we’re gonna have neurological Optimization that directly can mess with your vagus nerve. So these Triana anatomical hubs, in my opinion, it’s not that they’re maybe more special. Maybe they have more responsibility, if you will. But the reason I’m so big on them is the best starting point for any coach, practitioner, or athlete to go with. So if your bicep hurts, if your leg hurts, no matter what hurts, in my opinion, start at the ribs, neck, and feet.

Andrew Triana [00:14:05]:
Then reassess, and then start going from there.

Nick Urban [00:14:09]:
Are there any at home diagnostics or easy senses or things that we can do to help make sure that we have, optimal range of vision, and either those 3 are the issue for us?

Andrew Triana [00:14:23]:
Yeah. Totally. One of the easiest ones to knock out is the ribs and neck at the same time is to lay flat on the ground with your knees bent and feet flat like the middle school sit up test for, Americans in our age group. You know? Everyone in the room is doing that. So you get in that vision. You just lay comfortably for a quick second, and someone looks at you from, like, the side on. And it’s the size of the arch in your back and the angle at your sternum points at Andy as well as the arch behind your neck and the angle, like, your chin, mouth, and, nose are Mind pointing at. Those vectors, we kinda don’t wanna see them, like, creatine this shape where it’s, like, double 45 degree angles projecting out.

Andrew Triana [00:15:03]:
They’re never gonna be perfectly flat. And in fact, perfectly feet, probably not great either. We just wanna see you below that theoretical 45 degree projection of both the sternum and the arch in both sections. And then in the foot, similar concept. If I was to look at the side view, I would just wanna see some type of arch. You know, people really using your feet to skill. I’ve seen people with especially pro athletes who have cleat foot for more in cleats for, like, a bazillion hours a week Andy a day a month, a year, etcetera, that’s quite small arches, but rotate better than anyone you’ll find. Then I’ve seen people with, like, really, really nice feet, you know, nice feet, so to speak, that rotate quite poorly.

Andrew Triana [00:15:43]:
And then even funny, like, have tissue quality problems. So as long as I can see some arch and there’s some balanced distribution of the toes that does not let the width of the actual foot get too much wider than distribution of the toes, if that makes sense, you know, then we’re cool. Like, I want it to be like a pizza shape with the slice of a pizza. I’d like to see the widest part be like the crust at the top of the toes, and everything slightly gets narrower to some individual degree as we go towards the heel.

Nick Urban [00:16:13]:
Yeah. That makes sense. And so when people are not playing sports that require them to wear cleats, are you a fan of the more minimalist saves, or do you prefer something totally different?

Andrew Triana [00:16:24]:
I’m going back and forth over the years. You know, I minimalist shoes are a great start for a lot of people who just have no awareness of their foot. You know what I mean? The homunculus man. Homunculus man, the feet are pretty big. And in this theoretical person, homunculus man’s feet are small. That’s really bad.

Nick Urban [00:16:41]:
Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. And that reminds me of, like, the Russian approach to training, the Pavel Tatolini, where you keep 1 in the chamber at all times. You don’t actually, like, destroy yourself, and you’re spending a day or 2 recovering, unable to help your neighbor lift their groceries and everything, because you just destroy yourself in the gym.

Andrew Triana [00:16:57]:
Yeah. And that tax also comes when there’s a lot of emotions involved. And I think oftentimes, we forget that when we look at, like, these some of these older Easter block training methods that were incredibly successful, we often forget about lifestyle. One, a lot of times, these people lived lifestyles where they wanted to be out all day long. Like, going home might not have been the best. They were likely impoverished, or they likely were trying to escape dangers, like child labor or something else. So it was beneficial in their personal life to be training all day long. Additionally, if you wanna be able to train all day long every day, you need, like, a couple things.

Andrew Triana [00:17:35]:
1, fantastic skills, and that’s why we saw them doing monotonous skill work, not in hours, but in years’ lengths of time. We see in a lot of these eastern blood that the highest level athletes are still doing the same fundamental drills, albeit maybe for a shorter period of time, that the starters are doing. So we see that if you wanna do something every day, you need a bonkers level of repeatability with success. The other thing you need is very balanced tissue quality, which younger children inherently have taken care of for them. And then lastly, you need some type of sociocultural ambition, which I talked about first. So if you had those three things, you can participate in anything.

Nick Urban [00:18:19]:
For those in the other end of the spectrum, the one, like, a minimum effective routine to build strength or endurance, are there any technologies, modalities, training styles that you like for, let’s say, the busy business URBAN who only has a certain amount of time a couple times a week?

Andrew Triana [00:18:33]:
You know, this exact protocol I’m gonna give you, and I vary it for a lot of Peak, it shocked me. I’ve seen people legitimately quadruple their creatine kinase values doing this stuff. And, like, people I wouldn’t split. Because everyone, like it’s somewhat easy to manipulate creatine kinase value. Andy I’m talking, like, plasma. I’m not talking about, like, the specific isoforms like MBE and neurologically bound and stuff. I don’t know, like, a simple creatine kinase class that costs, like, $29 off, like, AltaLab tests.

Nick Urban [00:19:04]:
Tell me why you do wanna manipulate that. Because from what I understand, creatine kinase is a measure of, like, muscle damage, and so I just think that means that you’re, like, creating a really large stimulus, and that and that’s a good sign.

Andrew Triana [00:19:15]:
This is why I think details matter. Creatine kinase phosphorylates phosphocreatine. And phosphorylation in general biology, chemistry is either an on switch or an off switch. It means, typically, it also relates to kinase enzymes, but that’s not a coincidence in this scenario. Kinase enzymes tend to phosphorylate things. They can do other stuff, but that tends to be what kinase enzymes do. Let’s even backtrack for a second. Why would it be dangerous to have phosphocreatine, like that, powerful substrate we all love, to be, like, unadulterated and, like, unprotected in its usage.

Andrew Triana [00:19:50]:
That it could just be used at Andy time. We would have a lot of issues with anxiety and vigilance, 1. And in the flip code of that coin, any anxiety and vigilance would make you waste all of your creatine Andy ATP likely. So, one, we need some type of enzymatic system to properly, phosphorally, like I just taught everyone, phosphocreatine to protect ourselves here. Right? So what we see with creatine kinase values, really, is it’s how much enzymatic opportunity do I have to hydrolyze ATP Nick? So it’s not necessarily. And, obviously, when you did your training relative to the blood test will have an impact on it, but it’s more so that what we’ll see is creatine kinase values in the blood are a marker of opportunity. Obviously, if you had a heart attack the day before, it’s gonna be a different type of value. But when we look at blood work in general, we have to ask ourselves always, even if it’s the simplest blood glucose test, how did these values get here? Because think about it.

Andrew Triana [00:20:59]:
Atherosclerosis starts as an embryo. Right? You You know what I mean? We are a constantly moving chemical reaction forever. So when we look at blood work, I can take your blood, punch you in the stomach, and take your blood again, and you would look like 2 totally different people. So if we’re that sensitive, we need to ask ourselves, what was happening to bring this individual here? So now to finally answer your question, what I have people do is, throw, whether it’s a vertical toss, a chest pass blood jump, or some type of explosive medicine ball throw. I have them pair it with a relaxing respiratory drill, Andrew have them pair it with some type of sensory motor awareness drill. Something as simple as a balancing act, and it’s something as simple as quick, like, hot towel or some shit that everyone knows about. Simple breathing adderall. Pair that with a medicine ball throw.

Andrew Triana [00:21:50]:
Run through that. You know, some people need to start at 10. Run through it until you can get to 20. 20 is kinase the ROI value I’ve seen for a lot of people. Elite athletes I’ve seen get up to, like, 30, 40, 50, 60 before. But if you can get your average person to do that for 20, if you think about it, being able to sustain a higher creatine kinase value through the later part of your lifespan will logically protect Andy, in my opinion, ameliorate stress put on the substantia nigra to degrade its function. Because what do we need a dopaminergic substantia nigra, even including the basal ganglia here? What do we need these things to do? We need these things to hold on to tools and to interact with the world around us. And what is a wonderful biological enzymatic analog for quickly intervening with the world around us? I just talked about creatine kinase and why it’s wonderful that and why the more you may have of that in your blood, the more opportunity you likely have to respond to the world around you.

Andrew Triana [00:22:54]:
And I’ve seen this, repeatably in a lot of different people. Creatine kinase values below 200 just don’t tend to correlate with Peak, where from what I’ve seen, that can be, 1, versatile in their passionate and exciting activities, and 2, have a ability to work for long periods of time without side effects.

Nick Urban [00:23:17]:
Yeah. So interesting. When I went Nick my lab work done a while back, they looked at my creatine kinase, and they wanted me to, come in again for a follow-up, make sure I didn’t have any heart issues. And I’m like, you guys never even asked me what I did the day before or couple days before. And, yes, I had a double training day and, like, a very intense load. And sure enough, my next blood work showed that there wasn’t an out of reference value range because her value because I just didn’t work out the day before, and it went right back down to the baseline.

Andrew Triana [00:23:51]:
All that stuff really matters. And even more so, like, be you know, being more general in the Optimization, because I am a big fan of fatigued and nonfatigue blood work. I think getting blood work when you know you’re healthy and seeing you’re healthy is just a check. It’s like, alright. Cool. Like, when I think I’m healthy, like, my, assumptions are probably correct. But you also need to see how you compensate when things are difficult. So more importantly, if you can be mega lazy and your creatine kinase value isn’t double digits, and then you code actually exercise pretty hard, And more importantly, you’re creatine kinase value is not your bond value, blood Triana, nitrogen, and it’s not your creatinine value.

Andrew Triana [00:24:31]:
It’s also far different to see that creating Nick value be high, Triana hard, and then have bun and creatinine be in range even if you’re training hard or only slightly out of range if you’re training hard as well. Bloodworks really like seeing a story. It’s seeing how all these little points come together and create a full picture.

Nick Urban [00:24:50]:
So far in this interview, you’ve mentioned several times senses, and you’ve talk feet talking about, like, visual a vision. And I’ve heard you talk about that a lot Andy the importance of not just noticing where your vision going, but then also using visualization with the business people, the athletes, everyone who’s successful, who you work with. Why is it that you’re a fan of visualization?

Andrew Triana [00:25:14]:
It’s low hanging fruit first off. We have 5 senses, and what we see is people with high IQs, when they write in cursive, they actually have parts of their auditory and speaking parts of their brain active, even if they’re silently writing in cursive. What we see in neurodivergent children is they have to use executive functioning to do basic tasks. So it’s almost like the opposite. Like, they need to recruit a lot of their brain to do something simple. It’s not that that’s bad. What I’m saying is there’s this large divergence here. Right? So there is some type of correlation, if you will, that how much of your brain you need to do certain things makes a difference.

Andrew Triana [00:25:59]:
So as we start to kind of see these things, I started getting into the fact that especially iconic people who work really hard, they’re like 1 sense individuals. It’s like, hey. Can you do this ultra basic foot drill? It’s like, yeah. I almost fell on the ground. It’s like, that’s a problem. It’s like, hey. I want you to go outside. I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to listen.

Andrew Triana [00:26:22]:
And I I missed all the city noise that you’re in. I want you to hear the wind. Can you do that? Nope. All I hear is traffic no matter what I do. That’s another problem. So my point is we’ve become 1 senses creatures in a lot of places. Think about it. Everything is your eyes.

Andrew Triana [00:26:39]:
And even though we would love to say it’s touch, touch is actually going backwards with the innovation of technology. We don’t even really need to worry about specific like, pressure because your phone does that for you. As long as you can pick up the groceries and hold on to them and hold your phone, that’s the most hand based bandwidth of, like, skill that a lot of people need to get through their day. And that’s a whole nother scary thing. So I started realizing most of the issues of anxiety, lymphatic drainage of the eyes, headaches, EMJ like issues are coming from the fact that, yeah, the eyes are powerful Andy the gateway to the nervous system is the exact terminology a lot of research Andy textbooks use, and you’re abusing it. It’s overloaded. And we know basic neurological and cellular function are the same. When you run the engine hot and metabolic waste builds up, things don’t go the same.

Andrew Triana [00:27:37]:
It’s simply that visualization or some auditory drills or some visual drills where oftentimes dissociate focal vision from the task. Something as simple. I have a lot of iconic people who are busy and maybe elderly or on the left athletic code, stare at the wall or TV and try to play catch with a tennis ball, not looking at it Andy don’t lose balance Andy try to catch it multiple times in a row. You might have to throw it slower Andy all this stuff Nick exposing people to cadence training. Don’t just go up there and do rows. Like, you’re fast. You might go super fast. And if you’re slow, you might have, like, your mouth open like some, social media body builder who’s been going mega slow Andy doing sets of 35, but it takes them 4 minutes.

Andrew Triana [00:28:22]:
You know, you need to be able to do both, and more importantly, you need to get maximum sensory motor recruitment from both. So that’s why I’ve so gotten so into the feet, the eyes, the ears, the touch properly. I love skill games for this. I’ve encouraged people to do things like a kendama darts. Go do things that require this fine touch and, like, orientation of your body with the world around you and your eyes and multiple senses.

Nick Urban [00:28:52]:
Yeah. That’s awesome. And so much of skill in the physical world revolves around motor control and motor skill development. And I also wanna discuss in a moment some of the ways that you can amplify that and improve it using substances or other practices. But what is a good benefit overall if someone’s to saves, look away from the wall and throw a ball at it and try and catch it multiple times in a row? What will they see in other facets of their life when they’re not doing the drill?

Andrew Triana [00:29:20]:
Depending on what, obviously, issues you have, the if you’re in the brain fog category, typically, it’s like a decreased amount of lag time to get going, because in that category or demographic, if you will, a lot of times, it’s under Optimization, white noise, or some type of low grade neuroinflammation that’s stopping the brain from recruiting multiple areas at once properly. The reason I love cadence based training, like, put on a 50 Peak YouTube cadence for your rose, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom. Not just because you’re gonna have greater activation of a lot of areas in the brain, but when we talk about muscles Andy cadence, you’re now specifically orienting fibers and how to recycle ATP. My problem with a lot of different cadences, like I said, the bodybuilder who goes mega slow and they’re fatigued, it takes 30 seconds to get one more rep. You are not using the same fibers. You’re not using the same molecules to recycle Peak. And what you’ve really done is essentially created 2 portions of a long rest pause set. You might have done, like, 30 reps, where the last 5 were purely aerobic Andy the forced production was through the ground.

Andrew Triana [00:30:33]:
And then the first ten were megaalactic and mega creatine based, Triana the middle ones were glycolytic reps, and it was really a feet pause set with 3 different categories of reps. When it comes to, like, recommendations for how to organize whatever it is, I saves Mind some type of supplement, even if it’s friggin’ water. Water’s a weak acid, and it does something when you drink it. Everyone will tell you that. You know, it’s 2024. There’s no dangers in using zinc, in using chromium, in using, you know, a a little bit of, you know, whatever it is, astragalus, cytotcholine, alcohol GPC. Like, these things are here to help you. You don’t need to eat.

Andrew Triana [00:31:13]:
I always make a joke. I think it’s, like, 9 bags of spinach to get your folate needs for the day. Andy furthermore, we can be even super specific. When you eat spinach and get that folate, 1, it’s always different, just like a steak, because of the other unknown and semi known constituents of food, which make absorption and utilization, which are two different things. Absorption happens or transport in the gut, and Optimization, absorption, bioavailability in the bloodstream are different. So it usually makes that a little smoother, but you’re also getting many different forms. For example, vitamin k. We have menaquinone, 7.

Andrew Triana [00:31:53]:
We have menaquinone 4. We have phylloquinone. So when you get all this stuff, you’re getting in different amounts. We can, in 2024 Andy 2023 and many years prior, specifically say, I want 5 MTHS folate only, and I’m gonna get that through a pill, and it costs me, like, $9. You know? So I think we need some type of supplemental synergy to go along with the behavioral action you’re doing. And I found oftentimes vision, once you align yourself with those two things alone, goes a long way, and people tend to make less bad mistakes or poor decisions when I, like, set them up on that type of thought process, too. So let’s say your goal is to relax after work Andy you really suck at it. You don’t wanna know why you really suck at it because you probably are poorly skilled at what you’re trying to do.

Andrew Triana [00:32:41]:
So it’s a really helpful tool. Use a supplement. Maybe use CNE or URBAN ashwagandha patent because Body knows there’s, like, 12,000,000 of them at this point.

Nick Urban [00:32:51]:
And is that mainly to create an association between the 2, and to, like, give your body a cue, your brain a cue that these 2 go together is when you introduce the substance or the behavior in the future. Your body and brain more easily shifts into that state.

Andrew Triana [00:33:06]:
Yeah. There’s a couple of prompt things there. That’s certainly one of them for sure. 2 is that it gives me a greater likelihood of success in the task that you’re about to complete. Andy, as I’ve already talked about how important success ratios are, but in general, we talk about compliance. The more successful someone is, the more likely they are to do it again And the less friction that they feel amiss trying to do it again, the more likely they are to do it again. And lastly, if you do it right, this also ensures compounding adaptive effect. Oftentimes, people do stuff Andy they’re only doing it for an acute effect.

Andrew Triana [00:33:42]:
So let’s say you have brain fog and your memory kind of sucks that day and you slept poorly. That’s a logical time for caffeine. And caffeine may have a nootropic like effect when you’re brain fogged and tired and all that stuff. But that’s only because it’s like that synergistic aid, I said, to support you when you’re inappropriately prepared. However, if we switch you in that scenario, you woke up, dialed, you took a day off before, you know, the sun woke up and like shined on your face Andy like, you know, life is amazing that morning and blah blah blah, and you take caffeine. Suddenly, you might have anxiety, trouble with your Peak, and an inability to focus. And I promise you, caffeine on the GRAS list for the United States, adderall, recognized as safe. So that means, like, it’s not the supplement’s fault.

Andrew Triana [00:34:37]:
If you make it on the GRAS list in the United States, it means that there’s minimal difference between Andy, that it’s gonna act very similarly every time you take it. You have to be, like, almost purposeful in your ability to get sick from it. So it’s your fault, not in a mean way, not the Kathleen’s fault. You chose an improper supplement to match with the behavioral tools you wanted, and that’s why you had a negative outcome. It wasn’t the fact that you respond different to monster than pre workout.

Nick Urban [00:35:07]:
Yes. Exactly. And, Andy, you brought up something there that I wanna highlight and dig into because when I read your nootropic user manual, this came up, and it wasn’t a distinction that I’d heard before, and that is the difference between a true nootropic and nootropic like effects.

Andrew Triana [00:35:23]:
Yeah. That’s what I would love to highlight, in feet, because what we creatine is we’re obviously shut up to learn. Like that like, I I think it’s always funny when people talk about evolution. They’re, you know, it’s because of our vitamin d pathways that we were able to evolve because we’re one of the only creatures that were able to scapegoat, like, massive overdose split base effects. That’s a weird reason to believe we evolved or Health saves language and, like, this and that. And, like, you know, maybe I’m biased. Right? Because I’m, like, a nootropics neuro. I think neuro and sports and skills are my Nick, but I think it’s because we can learn so easily.

Andrew Triana [00:35:59]:
And that’s where nootropic a nootropic like effect begins to be instilled. For example, I don’t need to have legitimate confirmational change in structure or function of my brain if I put my hand on the stove. Maybe the first time it happened as a kid. You know, you might have some confirmational change. And over time, you know, heuristically, it might even fall into place. You don’t even need to think about it anymore. My point being, if as an adult, you burned your hand on the stove, unless your skin melted off like you saw the inside of your frigging hand, you’re probably not gonna have call informational change. However, you will have learned not to do it again, and some of this sensory information, all the information going up to the brain will cause some change.

Andrew Triana [00:36:48]:
So nootropic like effect is like how you take an Adderall Andy you’re, like, Mind of blasted. And the excitement of all those neurotransmitters motivate you to do something and be productive, and you’re happy, and you probably smell bad at the same time but don’t code, and all this stuff that happens is Adderall. Right? And that would be a nootropic like effect. It wasn’t that BDNF was secreted Andy all these other derived nootropic factors were engaged in certain cortical areas to cause a plastic change and make this happen. They were secreted and enacted due to the fact there was a massive surplus of neurotransmitters. And if we look at, you know, evolutionary biology in a positive light, what does a massive surplus of neurotransmitters tell us? Some something’s important, something’s happening right now that really matters. You know what I mean? Yeah. Might not.

Andrew Triana [00:37:44]:
So that is what the nootropic like effect is. We have a bolus of neurotransmitters that are causing a novel effect in the brain, and that’s what’s gonna respond. I think, a really important thing to realize, nootropics Andy in their true nootropic effect means there’s not this massive bolus of neurotransmitters feet through antioxidant functionality and mechanisms of some sort, BDNF, GDNF, or some type of blood flow based effect to a cortical area is increasing its ability to structurally and functionally adapt thereafter to what it’s exposed to. So that same red hot effect of learning on one area of your brain that Adderall caused through just dumping is happening through an antioxidant mechanism. And that’s the delineation scientifically between the 2.

Nick Urban [00:38:36]:
And one is more conducive to learning and memory Andy the potential benefits of cognition than other.

Andrew Triana [00:38:42]:
So I probably made it sound that way. In reality, more view it as the cost and the tolls you pay. If you use Adderall for nootropic Nick effect anyway, even if you use caffeine in higher code, it’s taxing. You I promise you won’t feel as good tomorrow. No matter what, you just won’t. You might get more done today, but you won’t feel as good tomorrow. And what we also see with learning is the blood down effect or what happens thereafter through LTP really matters for retention. So while we have nootropic like effect, we’re paying way higher tolls, and we have to therefore thereafter manage recovery to ensure it all goes smoothly.

Andrew Triana [00:39:24]:
Antioxidants, the cost of utilization is quite low, and they also foster the after effect of making sure that what you learn will stick, if you will, as well.

Nick Urban [00:39:38]:
Yes. And I know when I was looking into meta learning and how to learn and retain things more effectively, the author of several books mentioned that if you just arouse yourself emotionally enough Andy you’d convince yourself this is the most exciting thing in the world, without any substances, you can still, like, facilitate long term potentiation and learn that material better than if you just are Mind bored. You go into a little sleepy, you yawn, and you just tell yourself before you even start looking at the material that it’s not worth remembering.

Andrew Triana [00:40:08]:
100%. I implore people to see the brain as a tool that you can manipulate. It’s not like this, like, pink squishy, like, tractor worker upstairs. Like, you know that, like, cartesian showed as a kid where she’s, like, pulling on levers Andy, like, you lift your arm and you know what I mean? Like, it’s there for you to use it. It’s not, like, keeping you alive. Of course, keeping you alive. But you have a lot more implicit control over what goes on in between your ears than you would like to believe. Understanding that you can supercharge any of your habits instead of doing something just because you create that relationship with your brain and your feelings, and you can make any habit work way better.

Nick Urban [00:40:53]:
So if someone wants to use a nootropic a true nootropic to improve their habits, what are your go tos?

Andrew Triana [00:41:02]:
Tropoflavin and eutropoflavin, are some of the strongest and best acting. And this is through a really, really great antioxidant based mechanism. Whereas, when we look at something like cerebrolysin, this is a proprietary extract of a lot of these growth factors and nootropic factors. The reason I don’t love that is because you have slightly less control and responsibility over those. When you take maybe, let’s say, you take a ton of Noopept. Eutroploflavin Andy tropoflavin are more similar to NUPET than they are cerebrolysin. You take a ton of those. You have a ton of antioxidant, antihistamine effects, and signaling going on, and that’s what makes it happen.

Andrew Triana [00:41:43]:
So the likelihood of target cell issues of the supplement happening, if you take excess or chronically are very low. You know, realistically, most people fall asleep if they just take way too much nupraft or other nootropics, like their sickness u shaped curve. Excited excited excited excited. Take the best nap of all time. Tends to be what happens when you overdose on them. What we see, in that scenario with cerebrolysin is now we might be talking about activation, you know, some type of hypertrophy like response and utilization of growth factors where we don’t want them. And now we have a totally different conversation to have that’s more along the lines of, like, you know, potential support or even of neuroinflammation, cancers, and other things, and it’s not what you want. So amoxapine Peak a novel one because it really, really does potently bolster the immune system, whereas I wouldn’t be able to tell you that new paps would be great for handling neuroinflammation.

Andrew Triana [00:42:46]:
It certainly does, but I might pick a different herb that has different polyphenols if my goal was just to tackle neuroinflammation? Along those lines, we even have antioxidants that have nootropic like effects that aren’t quite nootropics themselves. Hesperidin, vitexin, and isobitexin are antioxidant polyphenol like compounds that are neurologically active and can have nootropic like effect that aren’t true parrot nootropics. So, ultimately, what it ends up being and that’s why I made that recommendation to basic. It’s like intuitive habit plus supplement Andy put them together. Andy as long as they’re similar enough, it goes pretty well. Even ginkgo biloba and things like acetylcholine reuptake inhibitors or acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, work quite well and saves nootropic like effects that are somewhere in between caffeine, but not quite a nootropic either. Nicotine is used quite often for its nootropic like effects, just because of its effects on acetylcholine. It’s not the question of how code I never participate in something negative? It’s more a question of how do my supplements and behaviors, 1, synergistically help me Andy, 2, combat potential negatives.

Nick Urban [00:44:03]:
So what do you like to combat the potential negatives of ethanol alcohol?

Andrew Triana [00:44:08]:
When people drink, I think the best thing to follow it up with is oftentimes a small fast, a little bit of glutathione, and a little bit of sulfur donation support. So many things donate sulfur. Some of my favorite ones at the moment, all I have to say is the b one variable, Benfotiamine, would probably be the one I’m using the most at the moment. I think that one pairs fantastically here with glutathione, quite honestly. Taurine is obviously the most famous one to pair with glutathione. It works quite well, Andy there are multiple other compounds and molecules that kinase it. The reason I think glutathione works so well here, because there are some ethanol specific compounds out there, but the problem is the b vitamin inhibition and the cellular dehydration associated with ethanol can’t be solved by only tackling one enzyme. So what I found is a little bit of a healthy endogenous interleukin Nick response from the fasting, some of the immune benefits, a little bit of glutathione, had some sulfur to allow it to last longer in our plasma, and pairing that with getting outside and some of the other stuff we’ve talked about, I’ve seen work quite well.

Nick Urban [00:45:22]:
Yeah. A lot of different things we can do. And I was on going on the plane the other day, and I wanted to choose a nootropic to get some work done. And I was I think I was looking in some of the Russian nootropics, and I was looking for one that could potentially help with hypoxia or low oxygen environments. And I was wondering if that would help on a plane. Of course, it would help at altitude, but what do you think? Like, are there any you’d recommend for travel like that?

Andrew Triana [00:45:48]:
Great one. You know what’s funny is because a lot of times, I think and this is why I try not to be biased or make connotations. I think we can Mind rig up nootropic like effects to help us sometimes. So I think something like inositol Triana Pyrophosphate or ITP would be fantastic there because you’re gonna get that prooxygenic, like, effect. We’re gonna have a decrease in that blood pressure. You know, everyone gets that elevated systolic blood pressure in response to flying, whether it’s just from the behavior and stress related to it or the flying itself. You’ll ameliorate that, Andy, subsequently, you will have then, therefore, better flow Andy hemodynamics available for your brain. So you could do something as simple as a little bit of passion, I t p p and GPC, and you don’t even need a nootropic there.

Andrew Triana [00:46:41]:
But to answer your question, I think amoxicene would work fantastically there. I think if you wanted something in the nasal spray category, that’s funny. Cmax, Celynt, Noopept, and Dopamine or Andamax is the new one. They’re all l Progliocene derivatives. They’re just altered for delivery. So that’s also Mind what you end up seeing too in the nootropic world, is a lot of these are very, very similar. Like, the racetams family is acetylcholine management and alteration, plus Nick tickling nootropics. You know? So if you want something that’s a little more on the pizzazz end, you go for the racetams.

Andrew Triana [00:47:19]:
If you want something that’s maybe slightly more on the relaxing end, you might go with more of a true nootropic on the uterofolavin, tropoflavin, noopept type, category. If you want something that is a nootropic and also has, like, some other boosts, if you will, amoxapine is a great choice too.

Nick Urban [00:47:36]:
I’ve certainly had that experience where I’ve completely cycled off all nootropics, all supplements for a bit, And then I will wake up one day, feel great, and just be wired, dialed in. And then I’ll think to myself, what am I on right now? And then I creatine, oh, Peak, literally nothing. And realizing that I was thinking that I needed these things or at least they helped me get to a certain state, and sometimes it was true Andy sometimes it wasn’t.

Andrew Triana [00:47:59]:
I think that’s actually a little bit of a problem that’s going on with injectable carnitine at the moment because it’s so like, there are, like, metformin. There’s a lot of supplements that fall into this category that have, like, a large bandwidth of potential results and positives they can drive. So people justify it by taking it every day. Because, oh, it does this. Today, I take it for this, but that’s different than the reason I took it for yesterday. And I think that’s that’s a nicotine. Because when you use something constantly, you lose the ability to use it for anything else. What makes carnitine cool is that it’s cheap.

Andrew Triana [00:48:36]:
There’s no side effects, and I can use it for 15,000,000 different things. So if I use it for only one thing, I’m literally ignoring the coolest part about carnitine that I can do almost anything for you.

Nick Urban [00:48:47]:
Yeah. Exactly. And I think I heard you also bucket rapamycin as one of the hot longevity therapies into that category of things that people are using indiscriminately, not every day because it’s not meant to be used that way, but with potential drawbacks because the immune system dictates so much of our overall health and performance.

Andrew Triana [00:49:06]:
Growth hormone and similar immune g coupled protein receptor complex based mechanisms of action are always environmentally friendly. And that’s why I bring that up so often. What you did today that may be acting through that mechanism might not be the same in 3 hours, won’t be the same tomorrow. So if you wanna use something like these, cerebrolysin falls into this as Health, even though it doesn’t necessarily act through those g coupled protein receptors. Saves concept in the sense that the environment you’re placing this in is going to make a drastic difference. Metformin, in a scenario where you eat a lot of McDonald’s and don’t exercise, will 100% make you more unhealthy. And same thing was about quarantine. Now you’re also opening up the door to negatives by proxy of poor philosophy and poor reasoning for your supplement usage, because everything can have a negative.

Andrew Triana [00:50:03]:
Anyone who tells you this is a 100% safe, Triana only be applied to that scenario. It might be a 100% safe in this scenario, but I cannot tell you that abuse of x will not ever bring a side effect.

Nick Urban [00:50:16]:
Yeah. I was thinking about that actually. I had some cerebral license a while back, and I was going through, like, a really tough, like, stressful period. I’m like, this is probably the worst time for me to potentially use this because I don’t wanna, like, amplify any neural changes that are happening right now. Perhaps I’ll just hold off, and I’ll wait until I get through this until I’m on a different Triana, and I’m picking up a new skill. I’m trying to develop that, and my stress is lower, perhaps that’s a better time for me to actually use this.

Andrew Triana [00:50:43]:
Yeah. I’d say so a lot of times, especially that’s why I like to be so specific about nootropics in the learning aspect because there might be times where you don’t wanna use them. Certainly so. Especially, like, if something Nick failure is involved, they could say you’re trying to learn a new skill Andy you just performed horrendously. I might advise against taking new feet post work out there. You know? And it’s interesting because when we look at the because some of the reason nigra picture gray area and, realistically, the reason with any gray area supplement is that it’s trotting the therapeutic pharmacological line. And when you mess with big pharma’s money, legal stuff happens. It’s not that they don’t want you healthy.

Andrew Triana [00:51:24]:
You know, there are some things I believe that might be true, but gray area supplements is not one of them. It’s that they’re impossible to define. So So something like carnitine could legitimately, when paired with fasting and red light therapy and some stuff like that, maybe some steps could legitimately be a type 2 diabetes pharmacological cure. However, it’s really a therapeutic effect that’s amplified tenfold by the red light therapy and the walking and the a little bit of fasting, perhaps. So it’s really gray area. Same thing as, like, maybe, you know, Cartesian, GW 501516. It’s like, wow. This could legitimately be you know, I’m you’re laughing.

Andrew Triana [00:52:03]:
I speak about that every now and then when this subject gets brought up. This code legitimately be a pharmacological aid for blood pressure, dyslipidemia and all this stuff. But it also could be purely therapeutic. Therapeutic means it’s 1 prescription from a doctor Urban to it ameliorates effects that might lead to disease, but it’s not intended for disease itself. Pharmacological drugs are meant to prevent, alter, ameliorate, whatever, cure a disease. And when you start getting close to these lines, like I said, big pharma or the government or whoever it’s gonna be are gonna step in and make sure that that is quite a clear line you can’t cross. So when we talk about some stuff like that, 3 real life Andy being a major one, if we gave that to someone potentially with Parkinson’s or CTE, it might be a incredible opportunity to get their life back on track. Now if you did that after smoking your first pack of cigarettes Andy then, like, went and beat up your little sibling, I promise it might promote you being a bad person.

Nick Urban [00:53:11]:
Yeah. Not recommended. But if we were to use the Noopept or other nootropics strategically, you’ve mentioned post workout. So do you wanna pair a particular nootropic, say, noopept with fitness, and then saves was learning a new skill, say, dancing, would I wanna pair a different nootropic with that skill? And, of course, you’re gonna be wary of, like, the half lives. We’re not taking something that’s gonna stimulate you late in the evening when you wanna sleep. But imagine, like, the profile the pharmacological profile aside, is that a good way to do that?

Andrew Triana [00:53:43]:
The protocol tends to reign supreme. New noopept does have some effects that slightly bias, in my opinion, split, whereas tropo and neutrophilament slightly might bias, like, academia. But that doesn’t mean you can’t at all have crossovers. Because, like I said, that mechanism of action of antioxidant based function, specifically causing derived nootropic factors, whether from from brain, glia, you know, vascular, factors, etcetera, etcetera, whatever it’s secreting or causing to secrete is is gonna give you that opportunity. So, for example, let’s say you just need a skill based this practice. Any nootropic in that family will allow the cooling period to be enhanced, will improve an LTP response, and will most likely improve retention of that skill. It might take more than 24 hours for you to be able to go again, in in most skill scenarios, but it will certainly foster that recovery and improve the sticking effect, if you will, of that. Like you said, you have to be cognizant of what you’re doing.

Andrew Triana [00:54:53]:
For that, it’s not just time of day. It’s also what you’re doing. Because what’s interesting is that, maybe you did, like, a skill based workout. You know? Let’s say you’re a baseball player. You’re practicing your swing. Right? And you took the new post workout. If you did have a relaxing period after that where there is minimal stimuli, maybe a little bit of temperature change, whether you were hot and get cold or cold and get hot, whatever, and, like, a a block of time where you didn’t do much engagement, that would work actually quite differently because that would be more of allowing it to work. Like I said, there’s target cell, whereas if you were a baseball swing, practiced it for a couple hours, took the new peptid, went right to a photoshoot, now that new peptid is more of priming the neurological effects associated with the photoshoot because it’s now potentially not potentially.

Andrew Triana [00:55:47]:
It’s probably very likely gonna do this, Impede and cause some interference with your sports skill practice.

Nick Urban [00:55:52]:
That’s a important thing to underscore. So if you are going to use something like noopept to improve a skill or to learn something, you wanna increase the amplitude of, like, baseline to the excitement to back down to baseline, and you wanna make sure you have that entire spectrum. And if you go from one exciting thing such as building that skill to another exciting thing, you’re gonna weaken the effects, or you’re gonna distribute the effects to, like, the learning benefits to other things as well.

Andrew Triana [00:56:25]:
100%. That’s not all supplements work for for the most part, quite frankly. They’re all environmentally friendly, and all of their functionality is dictated by the external environment and your brain’s perception of it. So think about this this is a funny one. Right? Let’s say I drop, so for people that don’t know, dynamine is caffeine with one less methyl group, so it should be in and out a little faster. But it also might hit you faster. Let’s say I gave you 800 milligrams, which is a real solid dose of dopamine, and I sent you on a a 24 hour hike, you probably would have less of a panic like response because you’re, yeah, I’m overstimulated, but I’m hiking this creatine mountain for another 22 hours. So this is probably gonna come in handy, and it’s probably also easier to handle that overstimulation because you have this wide visual field and all this information you’re taking in.

Andrew Triana [00:57:22]:
If I gave you even a portion of that at the supermarket, you’re gonna have a panic attack. Now I’ve made this joke plenty of times, but it’s because it’s environmentally friendly. At the supermarket, it’s in every culture pretty much. You’re supposed to be calm, somewhat respectful, you know, all this stuff. So now adderall, if you had glutamate and neurological norepinephrine as a neurotransmitter out your butt, you’re 100% either gonna have a panic attack or paranoia or something at the supermarket, whereas I could pharmacologically induce that in an environment where it might be more acceptable, and you won’t feel that. Think about sports. Like, UFC is the perfect, most logical example. We’re literally cheering on guys, beating the crap out of each other Andy furthermore, training to beat the crap out of each other.

Andrew Triana [00:58:12]:
Yeah. I want you to be the most skilled at beating the shit out of someone else, which is what we’re asking them to do. Right? Kind of funny. At any other time outside of the UFC, if that happens, that is not the cultural accepted response.

Nick Urban [00:58:26]:
Yeah. Absolutely. You have an analogy in your user manual that I found really helpful to understand this in a nutshell, and it’s the analogy of a blacksmith. Can you share that with us?

Andrew Triana [00:58:38]:
Oh, yeah. Great one. So it’s funny. I always think of Blood of the Rings when I think of this one for all the, the Lord of the Rings fans in our age group, like, when, like, they’re making the swords with the orc eye Andy then slamming it, and, like, they toss it aside when it’s done. That’s always what I think of. Like, they go through this cycle so fast. You see, starts out with, like, this metal block. You know, it gets heated, and the heat allows the metal block to be moldable.

Andrew Triana [00:59:04]:
While it’s moldable, you have a small period of time where you code change it up. Once it cools down, it’ll become rigid. If you try to mold it when it’s rigid, it’s likely gonna break. You have to start the cycle all over again. And this is really how nootropics learning happen. It’s a cyclic three step phase that I’ve Mind spoken about and taught people about rather than, like, a long continuing linear graph. So phase 1 is gonna be the heating portion of it. We get it hot, then we’re gonna go into a molding portion, then we’re gonna go into a cooling portion.

Andrew Triana [00:59:41]:
And this is a great way to understand nootropic like effect versus nootropics. In the scenario where I blast you with caffeine or dynamine, you neuro you’re going to get super, super hot. And the nootropic like effect will allow moldable aspects to be happening in step 2, but we’re gonna do the complete opposite of what we need for step 3 Andy blood down. Cool down involves not just after LTP and parts of LTP ensuing, but involves the vagus nerve intervening and gaining tone and calming you down. Andy it also involves some after effect of calcium ions being stuck in the cytosol postsynaptically of neurons and stuff. So what we see is these three phases, creatine, just involves your heart rate getting up into emotional excitement, molding, which is the actual adaptive effect and stressor put on you to make that change, and cooling, which is almost the complete opposite. Nootropics are gonna support all 3 of these typically. They’ll least support the heating effect.

Andrew Triana [01:00:43]:
That’s pretty much on you, but that should always be on you. Right? They’re gonna foster the molding and the cooling effect the best, which is why you can totally take them post workout. Eutropics are ubiquitous and all work so similarly that wouldn’t actually be helpful to anyone. If you can kinda get your head wrapped around how they work, you can literally do whatever you want.

Nick Urban [01:01:06]:
Well, Andy, that’s a perfect way to start wrapping this one up because we’ve been going for over an hour so far, and there are so many other things we can cover. I still have, like, half of a a note sheet full of topics. So, hopefully, we can do another one of these at some point. But for today, if people want to connect with you, to work with you, or to grab a copy of the nootropic user manual, how do they go about that?

Andrew Triana [01:01:30]:
So the nootropics user manual is available on Mark Bell’s power project website. That’s something I exclusively did for him. So that is the only place to grab that ebook at the moment. I am not currently working with anybody. I haven’t been for a little bit. I do have some stuff, and I’ll do a consult every now and then for someone that really needs the help or whatever, because I just struggle to turn people down. I I love doing that stuff, but it’s not public necessarily. I do have a course that I have opened, on Thinkific, I believe is how you say it, over over 8 hours of video content with thought prompts.

Andrew Triana [01:02:09]:
There’s how to program like me. So I took the concept of coloring inside the lines and did that with periodization. So I did a full 16 or 20 week muscle maturation based periodization outline for you to color in the lines. So it might say, like, you know, substrate day, your Mind or third exercise selection based movement should cause local desaturation and glycolysis at, you know, a synergist. And it’s, okay, I tell you what that is along the way. So by the time you get to the end, blood. Not only do I know what that means, I can just crank out these sessions. [email protected] is an email monitored by my substantia, so the response racetams is pretty good there.

Andrew Triana [01:02:52]:
Otherwise, honestly, I’m a I am a little tough to get a hold of.

Nick Urban [01:02:56]:
Perfect. And thank you for creating that program and putting all this out in the world Andy all the other interviews I’ve seen you on because you’re a wealth of knowledge adderall stuff, health, performance, cognition, athleticism, workout programming. So thank you for your work. And before we go, a couple other questions for you. If there was a worldwide burning of the books and all knowledge on Earth is lost, you get to save the works of 3 teachers. Who would you choose and why?

Andrew Triana [01:03:24]:
Anatoli Bondarchuk. It’s difficult to understand. I mean, because he’s, like, eastern fifties. But when it comes to gaining a vernacular and understanding to be as creative as you want in periodization, he’s the best, in my opinion. A lot of times when we read about sports performance periodization, you’re learning someone’s direct methods, and they’re teaching you exactly what they did, how they did it, how to use their system or method, and why they believe it worked. Health I think is fantastic about Anatoli Bondar, Chuck, is he did do that in the second volume of his transfer of training books. However, the entire first volume, which I think was the better book, is him teaching you how he thinks, talks, speaks, and how to organize your time. And I think that is far more valuable that I think most people just jump to the first thing they do is write a program.

Andrew Triana [01:04:18]:
The, oh, I just got this new client. I’m on Excel, and I’m typing in squats. And, like, that’s you should be well into your thought process before you get there. And I think he’s a wonderful teacher for that. 2nd, I think Norman Deutsch, I think the brain that changed itself and the brain’s way of healing expose you to such a large bandwidth of neurology, and give you so much insight into humanity that it’s just, like, too good. Now I would love to say Jay Shulkin as my final person here, and I would also love to put Robert Sapolsky. But because of the nature of the game and question you asked, I feel like I have to cover as much spectrums as possible. So I’m actually gonna put Gary Taubes here.

Andrew Triana [01:05:05]:
Gary Taubes is good calories, bad calories, and all that stuff, I think, provides a wonderful history and perspective on blood. And similar to Antalya Bondar, Chuck, allows you to create your own opinions really well rather than tell you what should, has to be, or what is right. So I think Anatoli, I think Norman, and I think Gary would be my 3, like, you know, on an island style question for this.

Nick Urban [01:05:34]:
Alright. Last one. And that is, what is one thing that the Go superhuman tribe does not know about you?

Andrew Triana [01:05:41]:
I’ve seen this. People, a lot of times, think I’m, like, somewhat cherub or, like, I can just, like, pull this stuff out of my butt, or, like, I didn’t work. Like, I just, like, woke up one morning, and I I knew all this crap. So, a lot of times Peak, like, put a lot of expectations on me, and, I still have to work hard to be dialed just like you guys. And I still have to you know, I still get fatigued and all that stuff, and, like, you know, I still have to go through processes and, like, look stuff up and remember it. And the reason I bring that up is because I’ve had a couple of mentees who you know, I worked for I think the shortest time I’ve ever worked with a mentee was, like, 8 months. I like to go really in-depth for long periods of time with these Peak. And a lot of times, people start, and they’re like, you know, I don’t know how to get to this Andy point.

Andrew Triana [01:06:31]:
I wanna be x, and I don’t know how to get there. And I think people let that intimidate them. I think the coolest part about humanity is that we can really do just about whatever we want. So I started at a point where I didn’t know a lot of this stuff either. And I was able to, through these practices Andy just grit, get myself there. I wasn’t born this way. It’s easy to look at social media or icons or I’m not saying that I’m one of them or anyone that you think is good at something Andy be like, damn. Like, they just got it.

Andrew Triana [01:07:06]:
I just don’t. You know? I think that’s a cop out in every sense possible.

Nick Urban [01:07:11]:
Well, Andy, that is a perfect way to wrap today. So thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. It’s Been a pleasure hosting you, learning from you both in your manual and on the Podcast, and now here.

Andrew Triana [01:07:24]:
My pleasure. I’ll certainly be on for another code, Andy, the kind words are appreciated.

Nick Urban [01:07:29]:
Until next time. I’m Nick Urban here with Andy Triana signing out from mindbodypeak.com. Have a great week, and be an outlier. I hope that this has been helpful for you. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and hit the thumbs up. I love knowing who’s in the 1% committed to reaching their full potential. Comment 1% below so that I know who you are. For all the resources and links, meet me on my website at Mind Body.

Nick Urban [01:07:58]:
I appreciate you and look forward to connecting with you.