A lot of people think that you are born with a certain level of intelligence, and that essentially dictates your ceiling in life. They think that even if you work as hard as possible, once you reach your brain’s capacity, you can’t go any further.
That is far from the truth.
When talking about the first 2 secrets to success, stress resilience and motivation, I said that suboptimal health was the main culprit behind the lack of both. So it’s not shocking to say that your intelligence is highly entangled with your health.
Better brain function is one of the most significant predictors of health and longevity, as measured by IQ, reaction time, working memory, etc…
Even without any disease, as people get older, their IQ and cognitive function drops dramatically, but this doesn’t have to be the case…
If you suffer from brain fog or inflammation, your cognitive function similarly decreases a lot. You might notice you have to put in more effort in focusing or you start to read the same sentence over and over again. It can get extremely frustrating.
Don’t get me wrong, your genetic tendencies do play a part in your intelligence, but there are many ways to optimize your genetic expression to become more optimal.
This can be a game-changer, especially when it comes to your career. Working memory, focus, speed, executive function, and logical reasoning are extremely important for workplace performance. You may think I’m exaggerating the importance of these, but they truly make a world of difference. In fact, we test for these skills as a part of our application process!
We designed custom questions that specifically test our applicants abilities in these 5 categories, and all hires have to perform well on each subject.
The thing is, when I have inflammation and brain fog, I can’t even pass these tests myself – and I created them!
So, by understanding your genes, you can tweak your environment and lifestyle to work better with your genes and create the perfect lifestyle that’ll boost your intelligence, and help you achieve your lifelong goals.
How To Create Your Success Using Your Genes
As I said before, working memory, focus and processing speeds are really important in being successful.
There are many genes that are involved in health AND brain function.
The genes that you’re born with are only a part of the equation, and by understanding your DNA, you can hack the whole equation and come out with the solution you want!
Which is exactly what I did. When I first started on my biohacking journey, I suffered from so many health issues which mostly stemmed from my chronic inflammation. I initially started research on how to solve my chronic inflammation, but I was taking a really long time to get through the scientific articles, and it was very hard to focus.
But after implementing some changes to decrease my inflammation – based on my genetic data – I started to realize that I was now speeding through these articles and retaining information at a much more efficient pace. So I started looking into brain function.
That’s when I read that brain fog – which causes slow processing speeds, lack of focus and working memory, and so much more – happens because of inflammation in the brain!
The one gene that particularly stood out to me was the NFKBIL1 gene, because I carry the negative variant.
NFKBIL1 gene creates a protein that suppresses inflammation. Not having enough of this protein can contribute to many inflammation-related health issues like brain fog, which really decreases your cognitive function.
The negative variant of the NFKBIL1 gene doesn’t naturally produce enough of this protein, which is why I was experiencing intense brain fog.
Does that mean that I’m forever stuck with a life where I can’t process information quickly?
Quite the opposite actually. Because I knew this about myself, I was able to tweak my environment and lifestyle to counteract the negative effects of the genetic variant I carry.
Start Hacking Your Genes Today
My main focus today was on intelligence, but if you go back and look at this again, you’ll notice that these cognitive dysfunctions were all caused due to my overall health.
When I started implementing my changes, my working memory, focus, and processing speeds were just one part of so many other health issues that were solved in the process.
That’s why it’s so important to really get to know your body. If you want a mind that functions like the people who are inventing self-driving cars and other world-class technology, then you can’t settle for the hand you’ve been dealt when it comes to your health.
It’s time to take back control and remove the limits you’ve put on yourself.
Find out what your brain can really do when you give it what it needs to function optimally.
With SelfDecode, you can download your Brain Fog DNA Report and discover personalized recommendations for gene-based hacks to supercharge your brain power.
Plus, find DNA reports to optimize all areas of your health including mood, stress, inflammation, and 25+ more!
