Tools of Titans

by Timothy Ferriss

  TF: Phase III trials are critically important for rescheduling psychedelics, which would make them prescribable by qualified physicians. As noted earlier, nearly all psychedelics are currently Schedule I drugs, defined by “high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical treatment use in the U.S.” These substances are largely non-addictive, so the abuse claim is unfounded, but this is difficult to prove in long-term human studies given current legal constraints. Therefore, the more efficient path to “prescription-legal” is demonstrating a clear medical application for conditions such as treatment-resistant depression or end-of-life anxiety in terminal cancer patients. Since quitting the investment game (see page 384), I’ve redirected much of my financial focus to this area.

  Funny aside: During the 1972 presidential race, Hunter S. Thompson claimed that Democratic primary candidate Edmund Muskie was addicted to ibogaine. Hunter made the whole thing up but used it to spin the media into a tizzy.

  The Iboga/Ibogaine Experience

  NOTE: Traditional ceremonial doses of ibogaine/iboga, while incredibly promising for eliminating opiate (e.g., heroin) addiction in record time, can also produce fatal cardiac effects in roughly 1 out of every 300 people. Even certain antibiotics interact with ibogaine/iboga and can cause arrhythmias.

  For this reason, both Dan and Martin generally reserve its use for dire-straits addicts, who are likely—without a successful intervention—to die prematurely from drug use or related violence. Based on notes from non-addict friends who’ve done “full-ride” iboga and microdosing, microdosing twice weekly appears to provide at least 50% of the anxiolytic (anxiety-reducing) benefits with a tiny fraction of the risk.

  The typical ibogaine experience is long-lasting—up to 36 hours total—and has three major phases. It tends to keep patients awake for several days. Martin explains:

  First Phase

  “The first [phase] is a visionary component, which can last anywhere from 3 to 12 hours, and these hallucinations are perceived almost like watching a movie of your life.

  “It’s a life review, and people report that in the back of their eyelids they have gigantic screens where they see images from their childhood. They see opportunities they missed, people they’ve hurt, and unfinished business that they need to resolve. I think being confronted with who they really are, and not being able to look away, can be difficult. Patients who are using opiates are generally trying to numb themselves. They don’t want to think; they don’t want to feel. Ibogaine really forces them to have that discussion. Look what you’ve done, look where you will end up if you continue using. So it is not a fun experience.

  “Many cases of addiction are linked to post-traumatic stress disorder. This can also be resolved with ibogaine because it allows a person to go back to that traumatic event and experience it without any emotional pain. One is able to go back and let go of the experience, come to terms with the experience, or just re-contextualize the experience.

  “Like Dr. Engle was saying, a lot of trauma that happens is pre-verbal. . . . The brain stores this as an emotional charge because there are no words associated with the experience. Ibogaine allows them to go back and see what happened, almost as if they were floating in the room as an observer. Because they’re seeing this experience through the eyes of an adult, it allows them to put it in a different context.

  “Other imagery that comes up during the ibogaine experience is related to the sentience or intelligence of plant life, the creation and the fate of the universe, and our own mortality. There are certain images that can be disturbing to patients. You do see spirits and images of dead people. In Africa, they say ibogaine is a ‘controlled-death experience.’ So you go into the land of the dead, and you’re given information by your ancestors, which you can then take back into this world and apply to your life.”

  Second Phase

  “The second phase is a phase of introspection and this can last up to 24 hours. Opiate withdrawal is pretty much gone [at this point], as well as the craving. Ibogaine has a very potent antidepressant effect, so people who take it feel an elevated mood for a period of time afterward.

  “In terms of the differences between ibogaine and ayahuasca, I think that introspective life review is more pronounced with ibogaine, although only 70% of people have it. So a full 30% experience no visions at all. I don’t know the statistics with ayahuasca, but it might be more reliably psychedelic in that regard than ibogaine.”

  Third Phase

  “The third phase, which takes place after the clinical experience, is referred to as the ‘temporary freedom’ or the ‘window of opportunity,’ as noribogaine, a metabolite of ibogaine, continues to do its work for up to 3 months, making it easier for new patterns and habits to take effect. This is referred to as the ‘integration phase,’ where a person takes action to fuel the necessary positive changes that were revealed through the experience. It is important to take advantage of the learning and growth opportunities in this phase, and to develop habits that will help sustain self-control once noribogaine flushes out.”

  Biochemically, Why Is Ibogaine So Oddly Effective?

  “[Ibogaine isn’t] just masking the withdrawal like a substitution drug would. For example, if somebody on heroin takes methadone, they won’t have withdrawal for a period of time, but as soon as the methadone leaves the system, the withdrawal comes back. This is not something that happens on ibogaine. You take ibogaine, and the withdrawal is gone—90% of the withdrawal is completely gone. That’s telling us that the ibogaine is actually changing the receptor to the way it was before the person started using. It’s actually restructuring and healing it. Ibogaine appears to affect almost every major class of neurotransmitter, primarily via opioid, NMDA, serotonin, sigma, and nicotinic receptors. A prominent ibogaine researcher, Dr. Kenneth Alper [of New York University School of Medicine], has stated in presentations that certain aspects of ibogaine defy traditional paradigms in pharmacology.”

  TF: I have noticed that microdosing seemed to increase my happiness “set point” by 5 to 10%, to peg a number on my subjective experience. This persists for several days after consumption. Preliminarily, the effect appears to relate to upregulation of mu-opioid receptors. From one study: “. . . in vivo evidence has been provided for the possible interaction of ibogaine with μ-opioid receptor following its metabolism to noribogaine.”*

  MARTIN: “[In treating chemical dependency] it’s opiate-specific. We have seen some benefits for certain psychiatric medications, but not for benzodiazepine or alcohol withdrawal. These two withdrawals are actually dangerous. When somebody gets the shakes, it’s DT (delirium tremens) and that can be deadly. So, it’s a very delicate process and somebody who’s physically addicted to alcohol should not take ibogaine. They need to detox first, and then they can take ibogaine for the psychological and the anti-addictive benefits.”

  Hold the Gold—Keep It Close to Your Chest

  Following powerful healing experiences with psychedelics, Dan’s strong recommendation is “Hold the gold.” He explains:

  “Keep that experience really close and private. When it feels right to share, share it with people who are very sensitive to the fact that you just went on a strong life-altering journey, and who are going to be supportive of that.

  “[Pick people who are] not going to ridicule it or judge it or persecute it, because all of that flavors your primary experience. So many people, when they have a big experience, want to go share it, and sometimes the response they get isn’t always supportive. That alters the healing that they just received.”

  Resources

  Heffter Research Institute (heffter.org): I’ve interacted most with this organization. Founded and run primarily by PhDs and MDs, Heffter facilitates cutting-edge research at universities like Johns Hopkins, NYU, University of Zurich, and others.

  MAPS (maps.org): Founded in 1986, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit research and educational org
anization that develops medical, legal, and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana.

  ICEERS (iceers.org): Based in Spain, the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service has the primary goal of bridging the ethnobotanical knowledge of indigenous cultures (primarily iboga and ayahuasca) with Western science and therapeutic practice.

  GITA (ibogainealliance.org): The Global Ibogaine Therapy Alliance is an international group of ibogaine providers, researchers, and advocates. They recently published the first established standard of care guidelines for ibogaine treatment.

  Related and Recommended Books

  Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon by Stephan V. Beyer. This book did not come up in the podcast, but it is the most comprehensive book related to ayahuasca that I’ve found.

  The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby

  Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. This was one of the more impactful books that Dan read while living in the jungle. Steve Jobs had this book passed out to attendees at his funeral.

  The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami by Radhanath Swami

  Ibogaine Explained by Peter Frank

  Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad by James Oroc. Martin considers this a fantastic read because it looks at the 5-MeO-DMT experience from a Buddhist and Hindu perspective.

  The Toad and the Jaguar by Ralph Metzner. A quick read on 5-MeO-DMT from a pioneer in psychedelic therapy and research.

  * * *

  * Bhargava, Hemendra N., Ying-Jun Cao, and Guo-Min Zhao. “Effects of ibogaine and noribogaine on the antinociceptive action of μ-, δ-and κ-opioid receptor agonists in mice.” Brain Research 752, no. 1 (1997): 234–238.

  Spirit animal: Lion with three lotuses

  * * *

  Kelly Starrett

  Dr. Kelly Starrett (TW/IG: @mobilitywod, mobilitywod.com) is one of my favorite performance coaches. He has trained CrossFit athletes for more than 150,000 hours and 11 years at San Francisco CrossFit, which he founded with his wife in 2005. It is one of the first 50 CrossFit affiliates, out of a current 10,000+, in the world. Kelly’s clients include Olympic gold medalists, Tour de France cyclists, world record holders in Olympic lifting and powerlifting, CrossFit Games medalists, professional ballet dancers, and elite military personnel. He is a treasure trove of one-liners and the author of the New York Times bestseller Becoming a Supple Leopard.

  Behind the Scenes

  Just before recording our second podcast together, Kelly offered me a cup of coffee. Once I’d downed it, he showed me the bottle: It was a cold brew concentrate that you’re supposed to dilute. I’d just consumed about five cups of coffee. Kelly calls it his “cup of fear.” We hit record and I immediately started to sweat like I was being chased by hyenas.

  Kelly has done standing backflips at a lean 230 pounds. At the same weight, he completed an ultra-marathon with no training runs longer than 5K, courtesy of Brian MacKenzie (page 92). Kelly has also power cleaned 365 pounds, but he has a bum wrist and catches the weight with one arm bent across his chest like a salute.

  He drinks an incredible amount of water, and he drops a small pinch of salt in his water when he can. Why? The bigger risk isn’t dehydration but hyponatremia, or dangerously low concentrations of sodium in the blood. From a 2005 study by CSD Almond et al in the New England Journal of Medicine: “Hyponatremia has emerged as an important cause of race-related death and life-threatening illness among marathon runners.”*

  Kelly is a legitimate fantasy and sci-fi nerd. He knows Dune by Frank Herbert and The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson inside and out. For whatever reasons, many men in this book like precisely these two fiction books. Kelly has daughters and texted me about the latter book, which follows a young female protagonist: “How do you raise girls that are of the system but crush the system while rebuilding a better one?”

  Boner or No Boner?

  “Men, if you wake up and you don’t have a boner, there’s a problem. Yes or no? One or zero? Boner, no boner?”

  TF: “Quantified self” tracking doesn’t need to be complicated. It’s easy to miss the flashing red signal in front of your face while chasing the cutting edge of blood testing, genomics, etc. For men, the “boner or no boner” test is a simple but excellent indicator of sleep quality, hormonal health (GH, FSH, testosterone), circadian rhythm timing, and more.

  The Campfire Squat Test

  “If you can’t squat all the way down to the ground with your feet and knees together, then you are missing full hip and ankle range of motion. This is the mechanism causing your hip impingement, plantar fasciitis, torn Achilles, pulled calf, etc. That is the fucking problem, and you should be obsessing about [fixing] this.”

  * * *

  “The most dangerous sport to middle-aged men is a track workout [because the body is working with high force production at unfamiliar (end) ranges of motion].”

  * * *

  On the Overhead Squat

  “[Greg] Glassman [the founder of CrossFit] valued it as one of the most important capacities. In fact, one of the earliest, best CrossFit workouts—I think it’s called ‘Nancy’—is run 400 meters, and then overhead squat 95 pounds 15 times. So innocuous, right? Then [repeat that sequence] 5 times. What you’re going to see really quickly is, everyone can fake it for 3. But then, as you start to fatigue, or your positions aren’t robust, you bounce off the tent. You no longer have access to compensation. The world gets really small, and then you really start suffering. . . .

  “All we’re doing when we say ‘overhead squat’ is I’m saying: ‘Show me you can squat with your torso upright.’ And that looks a lot like sport, doesn’t it? If you have to lean forward really far to do that, then it says you have incomplete hip and ankle function and you don’t know how to create stability in your trunk.”

  TF: Doing light-weight overhead squats with a narrow stance, in combination with Cossack squats (page 87), for 3 months is what helped me get 99% toward passing the “campfire test” above. My left ankle is still sadly bone on bone.

  “If you can’t breathe, you don’t know thy position.”

  In other words, if you can’t breathe in a given position, you haven’t mastered it.

  The Top Mobilizations to Do Every Day

  “Here are a few things you should probably do every day:

  Everyone can benefit from something that looks like the cow stretch (also sometimes called “cat-camel” in yoga classes). It’s a low-level static stretch that gets you into this extension pattern, and out of the other pattern of sitting in the rounded flexion position.

  Spend as much time in a lunge as you can. [TF: One simple way to check this box prior to workouts is Eric Cressey’s “walking Spiderman” exercise. I touch my inside elbow to the ground before switching sides. This is also a game-changer for hip flexibility in AcroYoga.]

  ‘Smash’ your gut (i.e., roll on it) for downregulation before bed with a medicine ball. [TF: This really works as a sleep aid. My favorite tool was actually designed by Kelly, the MobilityWOD Supernova (120 mm). Amelia Boone (page 2) always travels with one.]

  Internal shoulder rotation is so crucial. Doing the Burgener warmup will help show you if you have full internal rotation of your shoulder.

  All of these things have to be normal.”

  “Throwing compression socks on [post-workout] is a game-changing experience.”

  Kelly currently likes SKINS brand.

  Sleep Hygiene

  Dark means DARK. “They’ve done studies where they shine a laser on the back of someone’s knee, and people pick it up. It’s light. You cannot have your phone in your room. You cannot have a TV in your room. It needs to be black, black as night.”

  Soft is the solution for bedding. “Today’s modern human needs to sleep on a soft mattress. Ideall
y, you would be sleeping in a hammock. You should be waking up in the morning feeling amazing without having to loosen up your lower back. Most athletes and people are extension-sensitive because of excessive sitting and extension-biased training (e.g., running, jumping, squatting). Sleeping on a hard bed actually puts you into extension, which is the exact opposite of what you want if you’re extension-sensitive. Yes, you’d ideally be able to sleep on the floor and wake up feeling great, but we are not those people anymore due to excess sitting and inactivity.

  Kelly’s Mattress Checklist

  The softest mattress you can get your hands on is ideal, but avoid those made solely of memory foam, as it locks you into extension.

  Lie on a bed at a mattress store for 5 minutes. If you have to cross your feet, your bed is too hard. [TF: Kelly found a Stearns and Foster model works well for him.]

  If you need to put a pillow under your legs to put you into flexion, then you need a softer bed. You should also focus on opening up hip extension.

  Pulse Oximeter Go/No-Go

  Kelly uses Restwise software alongside pulse oximeters (for measuring blood oxygen saturation) in the morning to determine whether his athletes should exercise or not. Their technology answers the question (and provides the clever tagline) “Am I training too hard or not hard enough?” The company claims 62 world championships won by athletes using the system. There are many subtleties to the system, but here a basic observation: If your pulse ox reading is 1 to 2 points lower than normal, it can indicate lung inflammation and the onset of a cold. It’s best to postpone training in such cases.