Jim Kwik: What I Take to Biohack Brain Speed and Focus : 1312

The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey

Dave Asprey

Fat, Health & Fitness, Meditation, Biohacking, Lifestyle, Diet, Science, Self-improvement, Fasting, Nutrition, Hacking, Fitness, Brain, Wellness, Education

4.6 • 7.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Want to think faster, remember more, and rewire your brain for high performance? This special archived episode breaks down the real nootropic stack, neuroplasticity tools, and brain optimization protocols Jim Kwik uses daily, plus the biohacking routines that rebuilt his cognition after traumatic brain injury.

Watch this episode on YouTube for the full video experience:

https://www.youtube.com/@DaveAspreyBPR

Host Dave Asprey sits down with world-renowned brain coach Jim Kwik, bestselling author of Limitless and advisor to billionaires, athletes, and Hollywood performers. After being labeled “the boy with the broken brain” as a child, Jim transformed his life through functional medicine, nootropics, cold therapy, neurorehab, and smart supplementation. He’s now the go-to expert on learning how to learn, with cutting-edge insights on memory, speed reading, focus, and cognitive recovery.

Together, they reveal the most effective supplements for brain optimization, how to stack smart drugs with sleep optimization, the surprising downside of alpha GPC, and why things like ketosis, mitochondrial support, and even Danger Coffee are essential for modern cognition. You’ll also hear why your brain speed depends on your metabolism, the forgotten science of post-traumatic growth, and how to combine breathing, fasting, and cold therapy for massive neuroplasticity gains.

Jim also shares his Brain Animal system, a new way to personalize your learning, decision-making, and communication based on your unique cognitive style. From performance to parenting, he shows how your “brain type” influences every part of life and how to hack it for focus, clarity, and flow.

This episode is packed with high-impact strategies for biohacking your brain, improving human performance, upgrading memory, and building real resilience using smarter not harder protocols.

You’ll Learn:

• What Jim Kwik takes daily for brain speed, cognition, and mental stamina

• The exact nootropics Dave Asprey uses (and the ones he avoids)

• How sleep apnea nearly destroyed Jim’s performance and how he hacked it

• The connection between mitochondria, memory, and metabolism

• Why brain inflammation blocks focus and cognitive clarity

• When to use cold therapy, hyperbaric oxygen, and stem cells for brain repair

• How to know if your brain needs more acetylcholine and what happens if you overdo it

• The best biohacking tools for focus, speed reading, learning, and flow state

• Why your brain animal determines how you learn, lead, and connect

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, Thursday, and Friday (audio-only) where Dave asks the questions no one else dares, and brings you real tools to become more resilient, aware, and high performing.

Keyword Index:

Acetylcholine supplements, Alpha GPC vs CDP choline, Post-traumatic growth brain, Stem cells for brain repair, Hyperbaric oxygen therapy for TBI, Brain inflammation supplements, Learning disabilities recovery, Best supplements for neurogenesis, Brain fog biohacks, Brainwave training programs, Smart drug protocols, Cognitive stack routines, Mitochondrial support for cognition, Electrolytes for brain performance, Danger Coffee brain benefits, ADHD nootropics protocol, Sleep apnea and cognition, High dopamine supplements, Brain types and learning styles, Upgrade Labs review

Thank you to our sponsors!

Generation Lab | Go to http://generationlab.com/, use code Dave20 for $20 off, and see what your body’s really doing behind the surface.
GOT MOLD? | Go to http://gotmold.com/shop and use DAVE10 to save 10% and see what’s in your air.
BodyHealth | Go to https://bodyhealth.com/ and use code DAVE20 to save 20% off your first order of PerfectAmino.

Resources:

• Jim's Website: https://www.jimkwik.com/

• 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:

• 0:00 — Introduction & Brain Health

• 0:47 — Childhood Injury & Struggles

• 2:53 — Adversity & Purpose

• 6:31 — Nootropics & Optimization

• 18:49 — Daily Biohacking Habits

• 32:14 — Exercise & Brain Function

• 34:21 — Learning & Cognition

• 38:06 — Sleep & Resilience

• 41:41 — Brain Types Explained

• 52:16 — Parenting & Neuroplasticity

• 57:19 — Limitless Update & Wrap-Up

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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 body missing? What to eat more of? Where your body needs extra recovery. Best part, it's a five-minute pain-free blood test you do at home, and it gives you a level of data that most people never see, even with the functional medicine team. Go to GenerationLab.com. Use code Dave 20 to get $20 off and see what your body's really doing behind the surface. I'm not a big fan of a lot of the brain games and I think a lot of them been debunked. There's like a technique to learning and to study and just to take tests. And it really made a difference for me. Your brain is only 2% of your body mass. It requires 20% nutrients and some of those nutrients are a little bit different
1:11.1	than the rest of your body. I had three like bad kind of accidents with when it came to my my head injuries. I wish I didn't have those injuries. But also it got me to where I am today. We hear a lot about post-traumatic stress. We don't hear a lot about post-traumatic growth. What's the weirdest thing you've ever done, fix your brain? You're listening to
1:28.2	the human upgrade with Dave Asprey. It just feels like more and more people out there having
1:35.4	serious brain problems. So tell me about what happened when you were young, what it did to you,
1:40.3	and how you improved and recovered, because I think that's going to help a lot of people know what's possible. Yeah, the quick of it, when people see me at your events, sometimes if there's time, I'll do these demonstrations where we'll pass around a microphone and people introduce themselves and I'll memorize names or challenging, you know, long words, like 100 words, whatever, and I'll do it forwards and backwards, but people are surprised to hear that I don't do this to impress them. I do this to express them what's possible, because the truth is, I feel like we could all do that regardless of our age or background or career, educational, level, financial situation, gender, history, IQ. We just weren't taught. So I think it's a deficiency in our school system that they taught us, like on what to learn, math and history and science,
2:19.7	no classes on how to learn. And I think it's an important subject. And so that's part of the
2:23.6	nature of why I wrote this book and do these talks to show people to really showcase what
2:28.9	they're capable of. As you alluded to when I was five years old, I had a traumatic brain injury. I was in kindergarten
2:35.3	class and I lost my balance standing on a chair. I went head first into a radiator. My parents
2:41.6	said I was very playful and curious, very energized. I became very shut down emotionally and it was
2:49.0	challenging. I had sensory issues,atic issues I couldn't you know
2:52.7	maintain my balance sometimes I was the last one pick for sports I had these chronic migraines
2:57.9	and I never even realized that it was in normal not to have headaches every single day when I was a
3:02.2	kid and that was just um that that was a challenge teachers would repeat themselves over and
	...

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