Boost Brain Power by 25% WITHOUT a Pill (Brain Optimization Secrets) : 1305
The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey
Dave Asprey
4.6 • 7.3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2025
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You’re leaving brainpower on the table, and this episode shows you how to reclaim it. Learn how to boost cognitive performance by 25% without relying on pills, stimulants, or gimmicks. Host Dave Asprey sits down with global finance expert and cross-cultural thinker Richard Conrad to explore how your cultural programming shapes your biology, metabolism, neuroplasticity, and even your ability to reach peak human performance.
Watch this episode on YouTube for the full video experience:
https://www.youtube.com/@DaveAspreyBPR
Richard is the author of Culture Hacks and has spent over 30 years living and working across Japan, China, and the U.S. He’s a master of decoding hidden mental frameworks that influence perception, longevity, and decision-making. This is a must-listen if you care about brain optimization, functional medicine, and living smarter, not harder.
Together, they break down why different cultures process truth, time, and identity so differently and how these filters influence your beliefs about supplements, fasting, cold therapy, sleep optimization, and more. You’ll also learn why Americans are biologically wired for linear logic, how agrarian versus warrior cultures shaped meditation and nervous system regulation, and how to train your mitochondria to perform like a samurai’s.
You’ll Learn:
• Why your culture shapes how your brain processes reality
• How to shift from linear to systems thinking for better neuroplasticity
• The connection between meditation styles, nervous system wiring, and mitochondria
• How to apply ancient frameworks to modern biohacking and human performance
• Why longevity without financial planning is a broken strategy
• How to avoid cognitive bias by decoding relative versus absolute truth
This channel is packed with biohacking wisdom, from nootropics and ketosis to Danger Coffee, financial resilience, and how your beliefs about aging could be accelerating it. Whether you’re focused on hacking your brain, upgrading your metabolism, or extending your longevity, this is one of the most unique mind-expanding channels around. It is essential listening for anyone passionate about biohacking longevity, functional aging, mitochondrial testing, and next-gen human optimization.
Dave Asprey is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, founder of Bulletproof Coffee, and the father of biohacking. With over 1,000 interviews and 1 million monthly listeners, The Human Upgrade is the top podcast for people who want to take control of their biology, extend their longevity, and optimize every system in the body and mind. Each episode features cutting-edge insights in health, performance, neuroscience, supplements, nutrition, hacking, emotional intelligence, and conscious living.
Episodes are released every Tuesday and Thursday, where Dave asks the questions no one else dares, and brings you real tools to become more resilient, aware, and high performing.
Thank you to our sponsors!
- Quantum Upgrade | Go to https://quantumupgrade.io/Dave for a free trial.
- OneSkin | Get 15% off your first purchase at https://oneskin.co/ASPREY with code ASPREY.
- Generation Lab | Go to https://generationlab.com/, use code DAVE20 for $20 off, and see what your body’s really doing behind the surface.
Resources:
• Order Richard’s Book “Culture Hacks”: https://a.co/d/9122Q25
• Dave Asprey’s Website: https://daveasprey.com
• Danger Coffee: https://dangercoffee.com/DAVE15
• Dave Asprey’s BEYOND Conference: https://beyondconference.com
• Dave Asprey’s New Book – Heavily Meditated: https://daveasprey.com/heavily-meditated
• Upgrade Collective: https://www.ourupgradecollective.com
• Upgrade Labs: https://upgradelabs.com
• 40 Years of Zen: https://40yearsofzen.com
Timestamps:
• 00:00 Trailer
• 01:10 Intro
• 03:15 Middle East Perception Gap
• 06:53 China’s Strategy & Trade
• 09:53 Japan vs China Mindsets
• 14:28 Logic: East vs West
• 18:23 Cultural Tools for Life
• 24:23 Global Population Crash
• 30:18 Shifting Economic Power
• 55:33 Smart Finance Principles
• 01:09:28 Real Estate & Policy
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Here's something even the most dialed-in biohackers miss. |
| 0:03.0 | You can look great and feel fine, but you could still be aging fast on the inside in one area, but not another. |
| 0:10.0 | That's because each of your organ systems ages at its own pace. |
| 0:13.0 | And system age from Generation Lab can show you exactly how each of your internal systems, |
| 0:19.0 | your brain, your hormones, your mitochondria, |
| 0:21.3 | your immune system are holding up over time. This goes deeper than just blood sugar or cholesterol |
| 0:25.8 | testing. It tells you what's working and what's not. Is the daily supplement stack you're |
| 0:30.2 | taking actually making you younger? Well, now you can know. And you don't just get raw data. |
| 0:34.8 | They give you an action plan to improve. What nutrients is your |
| 0:37.7 | body missing? What to eat more of? Where your body needs extra recovery. Best part, it's a five-minute |
| 0:42.3 | pain-free blood test you do at home, and it gives you a level of data most people never see, |
| 0:47.7 | even with the functional medicine team. Go to GenerationLab.com. Use code Dave 20 to get $20 |
| 0:53.0 | off and see what your body's really doing behind |
| 0:55.6 | the surface. |
| 0:57.1 | Japan is one of the biggest book reading cultures out there. I don't know how it compares to China, |
| 1:01.7 | but China may be doing more tech. What is it about knowledge and wisdom transfer that happens |
| 1:06.1 | differently in the East than the West? The Japanese are very right-brained. What it means for |
| 1:10.1 | Americans is that we can |
| 1:11.3 | learn from the Japanese, I think, to help balance ourselves better. This is Richard Conrad, |
| 1:16.6 | a thinker and cultural decoder who spent decades immersed in Eastern philosophy and Western |
| 1:21.2 | Systems. In this episode, he joins Dave Asprey to unpack how our idea of truth isn't |
| 1:26.5 | universal, but shaped by culture tradition |
... |
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