Biohacking the Edge: My Sleep Deprivation Survival Kit

Underslept? It happens to even the best Biohackers sometimes -- fortunately, there are some effective hacks for operating at almost 100% while sleep-deprived.

The obvious solution to get better sleep: do meditation and go to bed earlier, avoid screens before bed, wear blue-blocking glasses, take magnesium or melatonin before bed - stuff you've no doubt heard of before. But sometimes even the best sleep hacker finds themselves sleep-deprived. I'm no stranger to it myself as I've been a salsa-dancing pickup artist, a digital nomad, an obsessive entrepreneur, and now - a brand new dad!

The month of fatherhood that I've now got under my belt has really validated my mission as the internet's "Smart Drug Dealer" - Nootropics have proven themselves indispensable in keeping me productive, alert, vigilant, and - importantly - unreactive emotionally. Historically, I have a bit of an anger issue, and so far, I haven't yelled at my baby or my wife in the midst of the overwhelm. I pity new parents embarking on this same wild adventure without Nootropics flowing in their veins daily!

A lot of Biohackers reach for the powerful anti-narcolepsy drug Modafinil when sleep-deprived. But Modafinil is problematic - it stays in your system for 12-24 hours and may prevent you from getting the sleep you really need the next night (bad things happen when sleep deprivation compounds). Fortunately, there are some superior solutions in the lifehacking arsenal...

L-Tyrosine

I list this Nootropic first because it's my go-to on sleep deprivation days. As I mentioned in my meta-analysis of it, it's an intervention worth keeping in your Biohacker armamentarium for both moderate and severe sleep deprivation.

a smaller dosage of as little as 800 milligrams will give you an extra few hours of alert mindset. And according to a Naval Aerospace human study) to counteract even extreme sleep deprivation take 150 milligrams per kilogram of your body weight - I'm 63 kilos (138 pounds) so that would be north of 9 grams. A later American study noted improved performance on several tests and another military paper named it as a countermeasure to performance decrement in military sustained operations.

I notice myself being a bit more energized, optimistic, and motivated after stacking about 800 milligrams of NALT with a few grams of Creatine in the mid-morning, which enhanced the Nootropic effects and kept me alert on a few days when I was a little underslept. Tyrosine is one supplement that you can take a lot of - you might want to try a few grams on days when you are really dragging.

Here's a purity-verified source of the extra-potent N-Acetyl-L-Tyrosine (NALT) form.