Bulletproof coffee founder Dave Asprey: How to live longer

Jeanne Louise Calment of France has proven it is possible to live to 122 years old. When she died in 1997, she set a Guinness World Record as the oldest person ever.

But the entrepreneur who started the Bulletproof coffee craze (it’s coffee with butter and coconut oil), Dave Asprey, has set a goal to live to 180.

Asprey, 46, founder of food and supplement company Bulletproof 360 and a former Silicon Valley tech executive, has no scientific or clinical background, but he said he has spent more than 1 million dollars and two decades to “biohack” himself with devices, food supplements. and neural devices.

He has a long list of daily rituals (including taking up to 150 supplements a day and using transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDSC) that he believes will keep him functioning properly. and live longer, although some health care professionals dispute his approach as not based on science and say that some may be potentially unhealthy. (Asprey says he’s pored over thousands of studies, medical literature, and talked to countless researchers to back up his claims.)

However, Asprey says his two most important life-prolonging tricks are simple things that anyone can do, with no additional or equipment required.

Asprey says he doesn’t get 7-9 hours of sleep a night, he only gets 6 hours and 10 minutes. But “it’s not how long I slept, it’s how well I got the job done [sleep] last night,” Asprey told CNBC Make It.

According to Asprey, how well he sleeps is due to his rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, as he believes that loss of REM sleep leads to aging. While research hasn’t identified a lack of REM sleep as a cause of aging, as you age, you spend less time in REM sleep. And some studies have linked a lack of REM sleep to a higher risk of certain health problems: In people with dementia, it can increase the risk of anxiety or depression, and those who are sleep deprived. REM sleep may be associated with an increased risk of dementia. Research has also shown that REM sleep is higher with improved energy, performance, and memory.

To boost REM, Asprey says he creates a dark environment in which to sleep — he unplugs or covers all light-emitting electrical equipment and uses blackout curtains, which anyone can do. A study from 2017 found that sleeping in complete darkness can improve your sleep quality but doesn’t specifically measure REM sleep.

He also puts his phone on airplane mode to reduce the electromagnetic radiation it emits, which he believes can affect sleep. Science is mixed about whether phone exposure can affect sleep quality: A small 2008 study funded by cell phone companies found that radiation from Cell phone use can disturb a person’s sleep while a 2012 National Institutes of Health study found no link.

However, Asprey also uses a wide range of equipment from the companies he invests in.

Asprey uses blue-blocking glasses (he owns a company that sells them) a few hours before bed at 10 p.m. to block wavelengths of blue light – the kind of artificial light found in LEDs, for example. and electronic equipment. According to Scientific American, although all light disrupts sleep, blue light can disrupt sleep more, and some studies have shown that people reading books on devices that emit bright light Greens before bed tend to have less REM sleep, according to Scientific American. However, some doctors consider blue-tinted glasses an exaggeration, unscientific.

Asprey also uses a device Oura Ring (of which he’s an investor) to track his sleep (as does Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey). Asprey is also an investor in the Sonic Sleep Coach app, which he says uses your smartphone’s microphone to sense your breathing to determine if you’re in REM sleep. are not. The app then plays specific sounds to help boost someone’s deep sleep, he said.

“If it makes noise, it even plays acoustic sounds to block out the sounds of the city so your sleep won’t be disturbed,” Asprey writes in her book, “Super Human.”

However, some experts dispute the app’s ability to do anything useful when it comes to tracking what’s happening while you sleep.

Intermittent fasting – where you eat normally for eight hours a day, say from 9am to 5pm, then eat nothing but drink water, coffee or tea for another 16 hours – has become mainstream. trend among Silicon Valley celebs and categories, and Asprey says it can help you live longer.

Asprey says that intermittent fasting can prolong your life because it has all sorts of health benefits. While research shows that intermittent fasting can reduce fat (which is beneficial when it comes to things like heart health and cancer risk), other health and longevity benefits have largely been studied. in rodents, but not in humans. For example, the National Institute on Aging found that intermittent fasting improved cardiovascular and cognitive health, prevented symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in mice, and protected nerve cells. from dysfunction and degeneration.

Several studies have shown that fasting can help boost brain activity.

Asprey also says that short-term fasting can stimulate automatic exhalation, the body’s way of clearing damaged cells to regenerate newer, healthier cells, which can help prevent things like this. such as cancer and dementia (although most studies on fasting and automatic breathing have been done in animals).

Asprey said he tends to skip breakfast and only eat lunch and dinner. And when he does, he eats healthy fats like avocados, vegetables, and grass-fed meats. Asprey also avoids grains, legumes, and sugar to stabilize blood sugar and reduce inflammation.

Experts advise against fasting for some people, including the elderly, pregnant women and children. And they warn that there are risks when fasting and fasting lasts longer than 24 hours.

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