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WANT TO BE SMARTER, HEALTHIER AND MORE PRODUCTIVE? NEW TECHNOLOGY THAT KEEPS TRACK OF YOUR HIDDEN DATA

COULD UPGRADE YOUR LIFE – TODAY B Y L U K E B E N E D I C T U S I L L U S T R A T I O N S B Y C H A R I S T S E V I S

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J ust relax,” says the chiropractor with a frown. Right now that’s proving something of a challenge. We’re in a windowless room the size of a matchbox. Inwardly, I’m already wincing in anticipation as he fastens his grip on my

shoulders to manipulate my spine. There’s a pause, then a violent wrench that forces a deep crack from my neck. Exhaling in relief, I gaze at the ceiling and groan.

My back has gone. Again. Every three months for the past five years, I’ve made the same laboured shuffle to my chiropractor on Sydney’s north shore. Every visit, as he’s twisted my spine through various grim contortions, he’s commented on the “chronic tension” in my body and berated me to do more to manage the stress that, he insists, is the root cause of the issue. Every time, I’ve nodded in earnest agreement. Then I’ve completely ignored him.

Why? Partly, I suppose, it’s the photos of native American chieftains on his wall that bother me. I mean, I like my chiropractor and everything, but those pictures do give off a faint new age whiff. But it is also because, frankly, I disagree with his diagnosis. If you met me, I might strike you as many things: deluded, cantankerous, tiresome, vain . . . but stressed-out probably wouldn’t sneak onto your hit list.

This time, despite my chiro’s decor, I’m ready to listen. As an otherwise healthy 30-something, I’m sick of the recurring twinges that regularly leave me with the hunched posture of a rice farmer. My fingers-in-ears approach hasn’t worked. It’s time to experiment and change tactics.

Walking outside, I realise that if my chiro’s stress diagnosis is right, then I’ve been suffering from a woeful

lack of self-awareness. The antidote to that, of course, would lie in the pursuit of self-knowledge.

A week later, I’m sitting with two new acquaintances in a half-empty pub in Sydney’s inner-west. Laurence Wolf is a muscular, shaven-haired figure wearing a CrossFit hoodie and an air of upbeat intensity. Opposite sits fresh-faced, sandy-haired Leon Wurfel, who projects the calm assurance of the quietly intelligent. I’ve met them through a movement known as Quantified Self.

Built on the promise of “self-knowledge through numbers”, Quantified Self is a multi-limbed community started by Gary Wolf (no relation to Laurence) and Kevin Kelly, two editors of Wired magazine in the US. Five years on, the movement has gone global, with QS Meetup groups (meetup.com) popping up in 62 destinations around the world.

Essentially, QS involves collecting data on a specific area of your life with a long-term view to improving it. Your focus could be anything you’re looking to work on. Weight loss, mood swings, productivity, too much booze . . . To the self-tracker they’re all made to measure. Once you’ve accumulated a reasonable wodge of data, you can analyse the patterns and attempt to take corrective action to nudge things in a positive direction. “QS is all about trying to optimise yourself,” explains Wurfel. “That’s how I got into it.”

For Wurfel, QS is a natural extension of his day job. Working as an engineering consultant, he looks after a portfolio of buildings and devises upgrades to improve their energy efficiency. “I soup up buildings for a living,”

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the 29-year-old explains. “It just fits well with my personality to want to soup myself up, too.”

Wurfel’s interest in QS was fired by American author Tim Ferriss, who helped to popularise QS principles with The Four Hour Body, a bestseller that documented his self-tracking experiments to enhance his physical, mental and sexual performance. “It just seemed to be like turbo-charged self-improvement,” says Wurfel. “What I really liked was that it’s about being able to measure your progress, and not just airy-fairy ideas.”

One of Wurfel’s first experiments involved trying to improve his concentration and efficiency at work. He began to train with Dual N-Back, a computer game developed as a cognitive training tool that involves recalling a flashing sequence of squares and letters. Wurfel took an IQ test, then played Dual N-Back every day for four weeks. “It’s not fun, it’s almost painful – like doing bench-press with your brain,” he admits. But these mental workouts delivered stark results. In the space of a single month, Wurfel lifted his IQ score by 14 points.

Since then, he has continued to tinker, including even going so far as to experiment with “smart drugs” such as piracetam and modafinil to sharpen his mental clarity. “My KPIs (key performance indicators) have all increased by 30-50 per cent since I started down this path, so something is working,” he says.

Across the table, Wolf, a 37-year-old entrepreneur, was drawn to QS after he began reflecting on the health of his parents. Between cancer, diabetes and prostate issues, it wasn’t a cheery picture. “Although I wasn’t in the worst shape, I realised that, as you get older, the onus is on you to take care of your health even more,” he says. “I looked at my parents’ health and thought, ‘I do not want to end up like that – I want to be fit’.”

QS practitioners tend to share what they’ve learnt from their DIY trials by circulating their findings online. Consequently, Wolf began experimenting with some of the ideas he discovered. His food intake is now governed by a form of intermittent fasting that is claimed, among other things, to increase longevity, mental clarity and insulin sensitivity. In Wolf’s case, this involves following a 16:8-hour fast/feeding ratio. You might eat your last meal at 8pm, then not eat until noon the following day, when you’d consume all your food within an eight-hour window. “It helps you sleep, it helps you perform, it helps with fat loss,” he insists.

When he does eat, Wolf follows a high-fat diet, believing that it improves cognitive function. This idea was popularised by Dr Seth Roberts, professor of psychology at Tsinghua University in Beijing and a prominent QS figure. He shared the results of a long-running experiment on his brain function, in which he timed his speed to complete 32 easy arithmetic problems on his computer every morning. Roberts found that eating four tablespoons of butter (60 grams) every day shaved 30 milliseconds off his time to solve the problems. When you’re busy, every millisecond apparently counts.

Sure, some of these ideas may sound wacky – even dangerous. But QS retains an open-minded outlook to

trialling fresh ideas. “The beauty of QS is that you just give something a go. Try it out and see the results,” says Wolf. “You don’t always need piles of clinical studies to act – try something out for a month and if it works for you, then great.”

“Why listen to what someone else is telling you when you can measure it and figure it out pretty simply for yourself?” adds Wurfel, taking a sip of his beer.

Inspired by the meeting, I’m going to take a QS approach to my back problems by tackling my stress. During the monthly conference call for the Sydney QS Meetup group, I’m recommended two gadgets to help me.

New technology is what’s driving QS into the mainstream. An increasing array of gadgets and apps are making data collection easier than ever. Tracking your metrics no longer requires you to be anally retentive or numerically astute. Instead, new gizmos can painlessly record your stats before computing the mad tangle of raw figures into a readily comprehended graph.

One of the first areas I’m advised to work on is improving my sleep. The link between poor-quality sleep and stress is well documented. Lack of sleep, for example, is proven to affect your production of testosterone, with studies at Florida State University showing that men suffering from this hormone deficit tend to have a higher risk of anxiety.

To monitor the amount and quality of my sleep each night, I start using a Zeo Mobile Sleep Manager Pro. I go to sleep wearing a headband with embedded sensors that link up to an app on my iPhone. Waking up in the morning, I receive a “ZQ” score that measures my total shut-eye, REM, deep sleep and light sleep, plus the number of times I’ve woken during the night.

The second gizmo I start using is the emWave2, a handheld

biofeedback device about the size of a deck of cards. Researchers from the University of Calgary found the device can help to reduce stress. Since then, it has become widely used within the US military and by NASA.

The emWave2 uses infrared sensors to measure your heart rate variability (HRV), which is the amount of time between each heartbeat. High HRV signals relaxation, while a low rate shows your sympathetic nervous system is under strain, causing your body to release stress hormones. Using the emWave2 for 10 minutes each day allows you to monitor your HRV and bring it to an optimal level through controlling your breathing and calming your thoughts.

A number of psychologists are convinced this new generation of devices and apps will prove highly beneficial in helping people with personal goals like weight loss. “Apps have huge potential because they let you self-monitor and track your progress without the trouble of carrying around a diary,” says Dr Eric Robinson, a behavioural psychologist at the University of Birmingham.

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Hear that rumble in the distance? It’s the sound of start-ups in Silicon Valley – in fact, all over the world – scrambling to develop new gadgets and software to service the growing ranks of self-trackers. What was once the preserve of forward-thinking geeks is rapidly gaining momentum as this technology explodes into daily use.

Mid-sentence, David Asprey calmly picks up his right foot and wedges it right behind his neck. We’re sitting at a cafe by the water in Elizabeth Bay and this surprise yoga trick draws wide-eyed stares from the next table. Asprey, though, remains completely unfazed. The 39-year-old American is used to ignoring conventions. In fact, that’s what’s enabled him to go beyond the limits of ordinary men.

A towering figure dressed all in black, Asprey is visiting Sydney for a work conference. By day, he’s vice-president of Cloud Security at Trend Micro, a global computer company. But he’s better known in QS circles as “the bulletproof executive”.

Asprey made his first million at 26 as the co-founder of a company that pioneered modern cloud computing. But as his career hit overdrive, Asprey’s health began to suffer. Overwhelmed with stress, his weight rose to 111 kilograms, while an ominous medical revealed he was at severe risk of stroke and heart attack. “I thought I was going to die unless I fixed this stuff, so I made it a really big priority,” he says.

Most people would take a holiday to sit on the beach and unwind. Asprey opted to spend $250,000 to upgrade his body and mind. He put himself through an extensive battery of tests and experiments to collect a mountain of personal data. He delved into his health in microscopic detail, checking 85 variables, from his nutrient, hormone and mineral levels, to his risk of cancer and diabetes. At the same time, he painstakingly analysed his cognitive function with a succession of scans and tests. Having used QS techniques to measure his performance, Asprey then began to explore the best ways to raise his game.

This quest for self-improvement led him to tap the expertise of an army of biochemists, nutritionists and meditation experts. He also experimented with cutting-edge technology. Asprey once spent a week (and $20,000) in a private facility in a Canadian forest rigged up to an electroencephalography amplifier that bounced electrical signals into his brain. “In seven days, I learned to put my brain into a mental state that would normally take over 40 years of zen meditation to achieve,” he explains.

Today, he’s whittled his 1.95-metre frame down to 95kg and moved from the highest risk category for stroke, heart attack and diabetes to the very lowest. After being diagnosed with arthritis in his knees as a teenager, he’s now capable of extreme flexibility, as witnessed in the cafe. He’s also raised his IQ by 30 points through smart drugs, dietary tweaks and gadgets that are literally mind-bending. By sharing his techniques and findings on his website, bulletproofexec.com, Asprey has inspired a cult following.

Self-tracking, he insists, was the key to these mental and physical upgrades. “If you have an innate desire to improve and to further evolve, then it’s very hard to do that without a map,” he explains. “What Quantified Self does is gives you a map and a GPS. That’s priceless.”

Today, Asprey continues trying to navigate shortcuts to higher performance. This morning, for example, before

MADE TO MEASUREUse these self-tracking solutions to help you gain control and raise your game

HEALTHThe tool: Tonic ($2.99, iTunes)What it does: This multipurpose app helps you stay healthy by remembering and recording all your related activities. Symptoms, supplements, spikes in blood pressure – Tonic keeps track of the lot. Winner of the 2011 prize for “Best Mobile Health Solution for Behaviour Change” at the Mobile Health conference.

ALCOHOLThe tool: Boozerlyzer (free, Android) What it does: This drinks-tracking app counts your drinks and their kilojoules, while monitoring your current blood-alcohol level. You can also play a range of simple games that measure your coordination, reaction time, memory and judgment (or worrying lack thereof).

ACTIVITY LEVELSThe tool: Fitbit ($119.95, harveynorman.com.au)What it does: Like a super-charged pedometer, this measures your daily activity, from number of steps, to stairs climbed, to distance travelled. Research from Fitbit claims that 88 per cent of the device’s users increase their average number of steps by 43 per cent.

HAPPINESSThe tool: MoodPanda (free, iTunes)What it does: This mood-tracking website and iPhone app allows you to rate your happiness on a 0-10 scale, with the option of adding a brief note on what’s influencing your mood. Use it to identify specific things that cheer you up or bring you down.

WEIGHT LOSS The tool: WiScale (free, iTunes store)What it does: After you step on the scales, this wi-fi-enabled device uploads directly to your smartphone. The ability to track your weight, BMI and fat mass levels can help you to pinpoint the areas that are leading you astray.

SLEEPThe tool: Zeo Mobile (US$149.95, harveynorman.com.au; accompanying app free in iTunes store)What it does: How did you sleep? The Zeo tells you in detail right on your smartphone. Going to sleep wearing the Zeo headband measures your total sleep, REM and deep sleep, and provides you with an overall ZQ score that you can chart over time.

STRESSThe tool: emWave2 ($240, macquarieinstitute.com)What it does: This handheld device measures your heart rate variability, a physiological gauge of your stress. Follow the emWave2’s flashing prompts to control your breathing and achieve calm, so as to reach a state of “coherence”.

leaving his hotel, he put on a prototype headband that measures bloodflow to the brain. He spent 10 minutes increasing the flow to his prefrontal cortex by five per cent in the belief this makes him mentally sharper.

Using this prototype reflects Asprey’s willingness to pounce on emerging ideas and nascent technology. Working in computer security has given him the mindset of a hacker – he’s always angling for the solution, “with the least amount of time and energy invested”. Rather than wait for the sanctioned approval of large-scale medical studies, Asprey is willing to forge his own route based on his research and experiments. Admittedly, things don’t always work out. Earlier this year, he sustained first degree burns to 15 per cent of his body after an experiment testing the effects of extreme cold went badly wrong. Becoming a human guinea pig clearly has its dangers.

Another potential flaw with self-experiments on a sample group of one is the risk of the placebo effect. Asprey agrees this form of distortion is a genuine risk. “But that’s why quantifying things and collecting accurate data is so important.”

What QS does, he insists, is provide you with hard facts rather than the fuzzy logic of a subjective hunch. As a result, it can keep you better informed about what’s really happening with your body and mind. “Whether you’re a stay-at-home parent or a CEO, everyone benefits from becoming more mindful of their own system and their impact on themselves and other people,” he insists.

Faced with the Zeo’s read-out every morning, I start to explore the variables that may affect my score. Sadly, alcohol seems to have an adverse effect, particularly on my deep sleep and the number of times I wake in the night. Positive influences, meanwhile, include daytime exercise and taking a magnesium supplement an hour before bed.

On Asprey’s advice, I also begin sleeping on an “earthing mat” ($261, barefoothealing.com.au), which

claims to help your body rid itself of positively charged electrons that accumulate over the course of the day. The benefit of this is that it supposedly helps to accelerate recovery, lower inflammation and increase resilience. The sceptic in me initially recoils, but when I discover that Lance Armstrong slept on an earthing mat during the Tour De France to optimise his rest, I figure I’ve got nothing to lose. Over the next few weeks, my REM sleep actually

creeps up by eight per cent. That’s enough for me to persevere with earthing for a longer trial.

Practising daily with the emWave2 is also proving beneficial. When your HRV is low, a red light on the emWave2 glows. By controlling your breathing and actively calming your thoughts, your aim is to turn the light to green and reach a physiological state the emWave2 describes as “coherence” between your blood pressure, breathing and heart rate. This balances your body’s nervous system and reduces your blood pressure. Soon, I’m hitting coherence for increasing lengths of time and move up to the device’s next level.

Occasionally, it strikes me that poring over these daily stats is narcissistic and borderline obsessive. Yet large organisations have always relied on numerical evidence to gauge how they’re shaping up. Businesses study balance sheets, governments scrutinise trade figures, TV networks analyse ratings. The corporate maxim, “if it’s not measurable, it’s not manageable”, hammers home a basic truth: what numbers deliver is an objective yardstick to measure your progress against. Reducing your life to a spreadsheet of data may seem a little impersonal, but viewed from a broader perspective, monitoring your individual metrics is a logical extension of the numbers game.

“I’m just going to put on my headphones to walk and talk at the same time,” says David Dembo over the phone from Melbourne. “That way I can remain healthy and live longer.”

Paul Kittson was in trouble. The persistent niggle in his knee had degenerated into patellofemoral syndrome. As it worsened, the 26-year-old was left in chronic pain until just standing up made his knees shake. Kittson, who works in human resources for the Victorian police service, made regular trips to his physio – in vain. “I was terrified because I was a healthy young guy and suddenly my mobility was taken away,” he says.

Desperate for a solution, Kittson began self-tracking.

BACK ON TRACK: CASE STUDYHow one man used QS to reclaim control of his life

He kept a journal and every morning and evening he would rate his pain from one to 10. This simple process enabled him to compare the effectiveness of the various treatments his physio had suggested. “The first thing I learned was what didn’t work,” says Kittson. Gradually, through measuring the results, he found the most beneficial treatment was to use a foam roller to massage his iliotibial band and quads.

Keeping the journal also brought Kittson valuable perspective. Rather than starting to despair on

a day of intense pain, the log was a reminder that the tough days were only fleeting. “When I had a flare-up, it reassured me that it wasn’t the end of the world.”

Since bringing his pain under control, Kittson has begun using QS tactics to master other issues, ranging from repetitive strain injury to hayfever. “When there could be 1000 different variables, it’s up to you to investigate yourself because obviously the doctor doesn’t have the resources.”

Having suffered from depression in the past, Kittson has

gradually come off the medication he took for the condition. But he uses the self-tracking app MoodPanda (see “Made to Measure”, page 110) to monitor his state of mind. “I’m keeping track of my mood just in case, so if I start to go south I can talk to someone before it gets any worse.”

Kittson admits to being “evangelical” about the transformative benefits of QS. “Once you learn about the factors that affect your life, you can take control of them,” he says. “It’s very motivating and empowering.”

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Melbourne is shivering through a bitter cold snap. But Dembo, the organiser of the Australian QS Meetup group and, until recently, a managing director at Microsoft, prefers to take his calls striding through the winter chill.

There’s a good reason behind this. Eighteen months ago, Dembo began measuring his activity levels with a Fitlinxx 3D accelerometer that he attaches to his shoe. He was horrified to discover that he was regularly sitting for up to 13 hours a day. “That scared me,” he admits.

Dembo was already familiar with research showing that sitting for just four hours a day can negate the benefits of exercise and increase your risk of heart disease. Yet until he began self-monitoring, he was oblivious to the severity of his situation. “What’s scary about the human body is that it’s completely opaque,” he says. “You have no idea how well or badly you’re doing until it’s too late.”

Since then, he’s declared war on his sedentary lifestyle. Every day he tracks his daily number of steps and the minutes he’s spent sitting down. Every evening, he uploads the data via USB to pinpoint the times he’s most sedentary and the areas – like talking on the phone – where he can make amendments. For added motivation, Dembo became involved with LEAP4LIFE (leap4life.com), a wellbeing program that challenges its members to accrue reward points and financial incentives for the number of steps they take each day. He now sits on its board.

“That’s the way I was trained, so it’s hard to escape that. But I do think it’s prudent,” he says.

For him, the main value of QS is less about medical breakthroughs than it is about enabling you to help regulate your behaviour.

“Look, if you eat well, sleep well and exercise, you’ll be healthy – that’s not rocket science,” he says. “What excites me about the Quantified Self movement is these devices kind of force you to do the fundamentals of looking after yourself.”

And the truth is they actually do. Measuring my sleep with the Zeo has forced me to prioritise my shut-eye for the first time in my life. Suddenly, it’s harder to justify hours of late-night TV or mindlessly surfing the net. Confronting my ZQ score each morning has subtly coerced me into becoming more accountable for my sleep.

Eight weeks on, my sleep data certainly reflects this. I’ve improved my nightly rates of REM and deep sleep to drive up my ZQ average. My overall score is now 17 per cent better than the average guy my age.

The effect of the emWave2 is more profound. Previously, I’d always struggled with anything that resembled meditation due to my pitiful attention span. But I found the emWave2 more engaging, as the instant HRV feedback turns your 10-minute sessions almost into a game. Receiving this flow of data sharpened my focus by turning the otherwise nebulous concept of relaxation into something more tangible. Daily practice with the device has taught me breathing techniques that have pushed my HRV into coherence for extended lengths of time. The sessions are calming and mentally restorative – I definitely plan to continue with them.

The overall impact of this two-pronged attack on stress is that my back is now fine. I haven’t suffered a twinge since the week I started using the emWave2 – and haven’t visited my chiropractor for almost six months.

This may just prove a temporary fix. But the broader message I’ve learnt is that measuring an aspect of your behaviour compels you to become more mindful about it. Whether your focus is physical or mental, self-tracking provides you with a virtual training log to chart your steps (and stumbles) to solve your problem or reach your goal. If knowledge is power, QS presents you with the heavy artillery to take control.

Ask Dave Asprey why you should try QS and he thinks for a second, then shrugs. “It just makes a ton of sense,” he says. “Who doesn’t want to kick more ass?”

1FORTIFY YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM

The easiest way to crank up your immune-boosting powers is by taking vitamin D3 supplements, says Asprey. Its advice backed by a study in the British Journal of Nutrition showing that people with the greatest vitamin D levels in their blood were the least likely to suffer respiratory infections. To ensure your vitamin D levels are on target, Asprey recommends asking your doctor to run a simple blood test to find out where you stand. Current Australian guidelines recommend a minimum of 50 nanomoles per litre (nmol/L) of blood.

2NAIL YOUR NUTRITION“The key point is that you have

to get your primary types of food right,” he says. Make sure you ace the bulk of your diet with quality protein, fresh foods and healthy fats before getting too distracted. “Don’t eat cheese just for the calcium or drink wine just for the resveratrol in it,” says Asprey. Your first priority is securing your macronutrients before you sweat the small stuff.

3RELAX THEN STRENGTHEN YOUR BODY

“If you’re holding tension in a particular part of your body and you’re not aware that you’re doing it, it will be there for a long time,” says Asprey. That’s bad news. Research at Tokyo Medical University shows that people whose bodies are more limber have about five per cent less arterial stiffness – a marker for heart disease. Asprey recommends making an effort to unlock your muscles by going to yoga classes, getting regular massages or visiting an acupuncturist.

4BUILD BREATHWORK“Learning to breathe the

right way will help you to relax, improve your brain function and control your heart rate,” says Asprey. To perfect this vital skill, seek instruction from a yoga teacher or a breathwork expert from the Art of Living (artofliving.org). But to get started try this simple exercise: “Breathe into the diaphragm for five seconds, hold for five seconds and release for five seconds,” says Asprey.

TOP BIO-HACKS Dave Asprey (pictured) spent $US250,000 to upgrade his mind and body. These are the bulletproof executive’s top tips for improving your own performance

As Dembo paces the streets of Caulfield, he’s embodying his belief that individuals should take greater responsibility to safeguard their long-term health. This fervour is based on bitter experience – he’s seen how things work from the other side.

For six years, Dembo was a practising GP. The experience left him disillusioned with how modern healthcare works. It is, he says, impossible for doctors to take a remotely holistic view of your health because their contact with you is so limited and episodic. “During the 45 minutes or so a year that you spend with your GP, there’s only time for them to delve into the current crisis you have, whether it’s the flu or gastro or high blood pressure.”

The resulting problem, he argues, is that our healthcare is largely focused on treating sickness, not preserving wellbeing. What self-monitoring offers is the chance to fill in the gaps where the medical system is unable to help. “The emergence of these devices can empower you to benchmark your state of health and not necessarily rely on a doctor to be your agent of wellness,” he says. “It’s an unbelievably exciting time.”

Ultimately, Dembo still believes in the authority of medicine. He doesn’t follow the more extreme bio-hackers like Asprey who push the boundaries with bold experiments. Dembo treads the middle ground, continuing to defer to the scientific proof of clinical trials.

5TRAIN YOUR HEART“Heart rate variability training

is a more quantifiably precise way of doing breathing exercises,” says Asprey. Spending 10 minutes a day controlling your HRV with an emWave2 can help you beat stress, boost your immune system and improve your sleep. In the US, professional sportsmen such as NFL kicker Billy Cundiff use the emWave2 on the sideline to help remain calm and focused under pressure.

6UPGRADE YOUR HEAD“Do whatever it takes

to develop mindfulness and become more aware of how you’re thinking.” To start, set your phone to bleep three times during the course of the day and check in to observe how you’re thinking and feeling. “Doing that is a really powerful practice,” insists Asprey. The pay-off? Researchers at West Virginia University found participants who underwent “mindfulness meditation” saw a 44 per cent reduction in psychological distress over three months.

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