Elizabeth R. Ricker - Smarter tomorrow : how 15 minutes of neurohacking can help you work better, think faster, and get more done

The future is already hereits just not evenly distributed.

W ILLIAM G IBSON

Time Investment: 11 minutes

Goal: To understand what you will and wont get out of reading this book

One question has driven me from city to city. It has pushed me to hunt down experts across the world. It has motivated me to scour hundreds of research papers. It has compelled me to jump from working in neuroscience research to technology startups and back to researchbut research of a far more personal type. Finally, it has fueled my testing of dozensno, lets be honest, hundredsof apps, wearables, devices, and substances on myself. If I could answer this question for myself, I figured, I could answer it for others, too:

How can I upgrade my brain?

Not how can my doctor upgrade it. Not my teacher. Not my boss. Not my family or friends. How can I do it?

What does a brain upgrade mean? For me, it means getting consistent access to the best version of myself, not the one who slouches up on an average day. I want the version who learns fast, who recalls details that others forget, who juggles daily responsibilities without dropping anything important, who says just the right thing to make a friend feel better. The version of me who is bold, reliable, kindand gets shit done.

Science fiction shows us what a dramatic mental upgrade could look like. With the help of a pill, a man becomes a financial wizard in weeks. With neural implants, a woman masters helicopter piloting in seconds. Other stories describe flawless memory, effortless language learning, and boundless creativity.

What if it didnt have to remain fiction, though? Even everyday upgrades could be life-altering: What if we didnt forget someones name 10 seconds after meeting them, didnt snap at our significant others when they interrupted us (sorry, honey!), didnt click uncontrollably from silly cat video to silly cat video when faced with a deadline? What if we displayed monk-like calm when our siblings or toxic coworkers tried to provoke us? In short, what if we could tap into our better, smarter selves, not just some of the time but most of the time?

Did your school report card include phrases like seems bright but is not working to her full potential? If so, my elementary school days might sound familiar to you. One day, my teacher made the following announcement to the class: Elizabeth is going to a special tutor because she does not know how to read like the rest of you. My cheeks burning, I toyed with the idea of running away rather than climbing the steps to the reading tutors office. After a few minutes with Ms. Lecto, however, two things became clear. First, she didnt think I was a hopeless case. Second, she both challenged me and trusted me to progress at my own pace. With my previous teachers, I had daydreamed and doodled constantly. With Ms. Lecto, my brain finally turned on.

With her help, I went from being one of the worst readers in my grade midway through the year to fully caught up by summer break. By the following year, I was reading and writing above grade level. A few years later, I was nearly unrecognizable. Instead of being the kid who doodled through class every day, I was earning top grades and winning writing competitions. Later, I earned one degree from MIT and another from Harvard.