What is Mind-Body Hacking ?

We become obese by eating one bite at a time. We fail to live our lives by procrastinating one moment at a time. We suffer from anxiety and mental health by one small trigger at a time. We destroy relationships with one angry word at a time.

These small moments seem like nothing till they begin to add up. And then they turn into our dark Habits and our dark Identity. With passage of time, with every small moment, these problems become frustratingly difficult to solve. These are what I call ‘the monstrous problems caused by small accumulated behaviors’. Despite our best efforts, we find ourselves stuck, unable to make progress.

After having suffered at the hand of these small accumulated behaviors, I have discovered a powerful methodology that can help us break through these barriers and transform our lives. Mind-Body Hacking provides us with the tools and techniques we need to overcome our most difficult challenges, allowing us to achieve the success and fulfillment we deserve. With Mind-Body Hacking, you can finally take control of your life and become the best version of yourself.

The term Mind-Body Hacking takes inspiration from the term Ethical Hacking. Ethical Hacking is used by computer programmers to identify security loopholes in computer systems so that the computer systems can be patched before malicious hackers take control of the system.

Similarly, Mind-Body Hacking is used to identify the source of our niggling problems which lower our self-esteem and productivity. After identification of these problems, we can then begin to patch them by building new belief systems and new wiring in our brains. Mind-Body Hacking helps to form powerful new habits which act like magic and transform our lives for better. Hence, through dedicated Mind-Body Hacking processes, we can solve difficult personal problems such as obesity, procrastination, failing relationships, anxiety, anger, low self-esteem and low productivity.

For solving the Mind-Body Hacking problems, we need to build a manual for how our Mind and Body works. Additionally, before we can hack ourselves for better, we need to understand how the world hacks us for the worse. Hence, we also need to build a manual of how the World Works.

A lot of this website is about such topics which help us to rebuild the manual of both our Mind and Body along with a Manual of the World. And as I discovered, poring through the wisdom literature and scientific discoveries – once you get the correct manual for yourself and for the world, many of the false beliefs that stop your progress get exposed immediately.

What is the Mind-Body Hacking Methodology?

I spent over ten years agonizing over my weight. My story follows in the below section. I don’t want you to waste that much time. This brings us to our first problem.

Problem #1: The Loss of Hope

Life is difficult. This is a hard truth. This difficulty is caused due to billions of continuous interactions going on in the world. Because of the sheer number of these interactions, the way these interactions manifest becomes random. Even right information gets lost in this randomness and what we get is a figment of knowledge. This randomness and loss of information causes our misery and is at the root of the phenomenon I call as Loss of Hope and which scientifically is known as Learned Helplessness.

It’s not that the 1.9 billion overweight and obese people are not trying to lose weight. They try and they fail. Then they try again and then they fail again. I know – because I was one of them. For over ten years I tried to lose weight but I couldn’t. But then I lost over ten kgs (22 pound) weight in only two months.

Now, here’s a secret, the only reason I saw hope was because a very close friend of mine managed to lose considerable weight by changing his diet in a particular fashion. Because, he is my childhood friend, whom I know intimately, I felt hope that if I follow his method then perhaps I might be able to solve my weight issues. Then I spent over 6 months in learning everything about food metabolism, food habits and food choices. And with this, it only took two months to lose my excess weight. Surprisingly, this information had been available for decades!!

Before seeing my friend’s transformation in person, my mind was literally blocked from learning new information about the science of weight-loss. This is in essence learned helplessness. I have lived learned helplessness and suffered its consequences for over ten years.

Guess what – I can now see people going through the same learned helplessness when I discuss weight-loss with them. A lot of them, who don’t take my advice, are actually classifying me as a person who is always fit or who has got super self-control. This blocks any transfer of knowledge that I might do!! The same thing used to happen to me when I was in my learned helplessness state.

Jiddu Krishnamurti, captures the essence of this phenomena in his book The Art of Listening, He says, “Most people who think that they are seeking truth have already prepared their minds for its reception by studying descriptions of what they are seeking“. He goes on to say, “In talking to groups of listeners all over the world, I find that more and more people seem not to understand what I am saying, because they come with fixed ideas; they listen with their biased attitude, without trying to find out what I have to say, but only expecting to find what they secretly desire.”

Hence, the first problem that we need to solve is the Problem of Loss of Hope. Now that I have got full knowledge of this problem, whatever I wish, I never allow my previous assumptions to interfere with gaining new knowledge.

I achieve this by converting my wish into a Mind-Body Hacking project. Once, we convert the wish into a project, it takes a concrete form. As an example, if you wish to become productive and put a morning routine – just simply convert it into a ‘Morning Routine Mind-Body Hacking project’.

After making the project, take the time to study successful people and information regarding this new project for a period of four to six months. This four to five months of study period is critical to strengthen the concreteness of the Mind-Body hacking project. By studying these successful people, we help to open our blocked minds by showing that these successful people are not someone from another planet. They are also simple humans like us. They just have a different identity. Once you understand this identity, you will be very surprised that problems which remain unsolved for years, will get resolved very very quickly.

But after overcoming the Loss of Hope problem, we run into our actual resistance to change. I call this the Lack of Emotional Management problem.

Problem #2: The Lack of Emotional Management

Emotions such as Love, Lust, Desire, Attachment, Hate, Anger, Guilt, Fear and Aversion have so much power over both our mind and our body that they convert humans into mere puppets.

Luckily, we are living in the golden era of neuroscience and brain science. By mapping the brains, scientists have a number of puzzling brain phenomenon such as the puzzling phantom limb phenomenon.

You might have heard of our Lizard brain or our reptilian brain. In Mind-Body hacking we will get highly familiar with all parts of our brain especially the part which performs lots of functions automatically. This ancient brain is the seat of our emotions. It houses ancient brain structures such as the Amygdala, the hippocampus and the basal ganglia. Since, these ancient brain structures are found in reptiles, hence it is popularly called as the reptilian brain. These reptilian brain structures are responsible for our responses such as the Fight, Flight or Freeze response.

On top of this ancient brain, sits our modern mammalian brain called as the pre-frontal cortex. This is our thinking brain. This part of the brain helps us to do complex analysis – such as perform neuroscience or determine that Earth revolves around the sun. This is our awareness center.

Earlier, I used to try and Control my behavior. As I learnt, Control is a lousy technique for emotional management. The reason is that Control is a modern brain system. The ancient brain systems are extremely fast as compared to the modern brain systems. The speed of the ancient brain causes our bodies to be flooded with emotions in an instance. The Control functions residing in the modern brain are extremely slow and hence are unable to Control this emotional flooding. Learning this, I have found that it’s much better to befriend emotions than try to control them.

As Mind-Body hackers, knowledge of Brain functions is essential to change and rewire ourselves for better habits. The basic re-wiring required for your Mind-Body hacking project is a genuine and positive open-minded attitude to allow new information and insights into your mind. Along with a message to our ancient brain to pause self-defeating old habits.

This takes the shape of radical self-awareness, where instead of allowing ourselves to be flooded with emotions, we first spend time in studying our emotions and becoming self aware. After this awareness, instead of getting dismayed and negative, we pause and allow the emotions to gently tone down while patiently teaching our old brain to minimize damage. If this sounds confusing, don’t worry!! – My whole website will be peppered with practical articles to achieve this.

But even after having a stellar Emotional Management, we come to a third problem when many-a-times the right insights to our problems continue to elude us.

Problem #3: The lack of Insight

We cannot solve our old problems with our old mental models. Hence, we end up facing the problem of how to build the Insight required to see beyond what we know so that we can actually make our change effective.

And this is not an easy task, because the information available in the world is highly undependable. We use the yardsticks of Science and Authority to get our information and insights. Unfortunately, many-a-times, these very yardsticks get compromised by malicious interests or past dogmas.

My past experience in many of the self-improvement projects that I have undertaken has revealed that you have to really tear through this mix of information and misinformation and then see what works and what doesn’t. And in our complex world its definitely not one shoe which fits all.

As a Mind-Body Hacker, we are very solution oriented. The whole idea is to start and make some improvement. After that we iteratively hone our insights to improve on our self-improvement project. Additionally, we are always on the outlook for a new nugget of insight which can help us improve even more.

My journey of weight-loss reflects this methodology. The first time I lost weight was with the help of Low-Carb Keto diet. Because, Keto diet is so radical, I took four to five months of studying food metabolism and how triggering Ketogenic pathways can lead to rapid weight-loss. This deep study helped me to get the required Insights regarding Keto diet with both its positive and negative consequences. While Keto diet leads to rapid weight-loss, I also became aware of negative consequences of Keto diet. These include Keto Flu (when your body transitions from burning sugar to burning fat), and the inability to maintain Keto Diet for long periods due to its restrictive nature.

After losing my initial weight, I went on a maintenance phase with Keto for a period of two years. At the same time I was looking for any methods to improve on Keto diet. This is when I started researching Fasting with it’s additional benefits of anti-cancerous autophagy.

Fasting is even more extreme and scary!! Hence, I took another five to seven months to study fasting, do some small experiments and test whether I can build fasting into my lifestyle. Finally I started fasting on Thursdays.

After a couple of months, I realized that fasting on Thursdays is not really that great because after cleansing my body on Thursday, I ended up junking it up again on Friday and the weekend. Hence, I shifted my fast day to Monday. Now, my lifestyle includes the following – Fast on Monday (either 24 Hours or 36 Hours), Low Carb from Tuesday to Friday Afternoon. With Five days of clean eating every week, I can easily let my guard down and enjoy a variety of foods on the weekends and whenever I holiday or travel outside.

All this experimentation is possible when we become aware that (1) We lack Insights which are beneficial for us (2) We don’t know which information is correct and which is wrong and (3) We have to experiment and test with open mind keeping in mind both positive and negative issues associated with any approach. This process will lead to Insights which are uniquely suitable for you.

As an example you might be a Vegetarian or a Vegan. Being fit, healthy and energetic while being a vegetarian or a Vegan is totally possible once you understand how your body metabolizes food.

A big hint is that once you make up your mind, it takes anywhere between four to six months of dedicated research to achieve the Insights and new Mental Models required to take the next step. And, the next step is to actually START on your Mind-Body Hacking project.

Problem #4: Failing to take the required Action to Start, Re-Start and Re-Re-Start!!

I hope that you get the message. The fourth problem is that there will be many-many and many pauses in solving your Mind-Body Hacking project. Pausing is OK and totally normal. As a Mind-Body Hacker, Stopping is never OK.

As I write this, I just had a month long pause from my Weight Management Body Hacking project, my Morning Routine Body Hacking project and my Physical Fitness Body Hacking project. I was travelling, there were continuous social events and what not!!

But hey!, after a month I have again re-started. Re-starting fasting was very difficult, re-starting push-ups was very difficult. But Hey!! I am a Re-Starter and a Re-Re-Starter.

Pauses are normal. Usually the pauses are a week long, sometimes they extend to a couple of weeks, sometimes to a month – all for very genuine reasons. If you are hospitalized you can’t really do push-ups.

But when the pause becomes too -too long, then it is time to go for Insights and see how to adjust our schedule and problem so that we can Re-Start.

To solve the Problem No 4 – know when a Pause is genuine or when it is flimsy. Don’t worry now, over time you will develop a feeling for it.

About Me: How I became a Mind-Body Hacker – My Story

I’ve always been a self-improvement nerd since my college days. My hunger for self-improvement led me to chase after some of the most competitive educational institutions in India. I poured my heart and soul into cracking the IIT Joint Entrance Exam, reputed to be the toughest exam on earth. For the uninitiated, Indian IIT’s boast people like Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai as alumnus.

After graduating from IIT Kharagpur, I went on to earn my MBA from IIM Lucknow, where I honed my skills in strategic thinking and problem-solving. My academic successes paved the way for an exciting career journey, where I’ve had the privilege of working with esteemed firms such as Goldman Sachs.

Since childhood, I had aspired to become wise. My aspiration was to write the ultimate Book of Wisdom. That was my calling.

By reading over 50 books a year, I was trying to master wisdom literature across 6000 years. From the Ancient Indian Upanishads and Gita to Western Philosophy of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Hume to developments in psychology and personality science brought by Carl Jung, to the modern Neuroscience and philosophy of Chaos popularly known as the Butterfly Effect.

But I never really felt wise and the prime reason was that I had become overweight. As I stared at my tummy, now hiding the sight of my feet, I wondered how could I call myself wise if I couldn’t muster the motivation to get fit.

Over time, I had become another 9 to 5 corporate guy who was overweight and trying desperately to balance a full time job with a growing family and social life.

Overweight & Obesity Problems

For over ten years I tried to lose those not-so-endearing love handles around my tummy. But I failed. My Pant size crept up and started causing me backache problems. I let out a cry of desperation.

Luckily the universe answered!!

I got my Nirvana moment in 2017 when I lost over 10 Kgs (22 pounds) in two months. What I wasn’t able to do in ten years, I managed to do in two months!! Moreover, even after five years, I have been able to maintain my weight constantly.

This transformation opened up my eyes to the possibility of radical self improvement which I call as Mind-Body Hacking. Following Mind-Body Hacking, I have discovered that every problem that we face in our life is extremely unique.

For over ten years, I had tried traditional methods of losing weight. I tried to exercise, I tried to remove fat from my food. These methods failed. What worked was information that I had never had – such as finding out that our body has two stores of energy instead of only one and how sugar gets converted to fat in our bodies through a process called as ‘de novo lipogenesis‘.

If an intellectual person like me can fail miserably at the simple task of losing weight, then for the larger population the possibility becomes even more bleak. No wonder there are now 1.9 billion obese people in the world as of 2023.

Even after becoming wiser in losing weight, I did not become wise in other things in life. With creeping family responsibilities and a full time corporate job, my married life was feeling the stress.

Marital Issues

I still remember being parked in a basement of a shopping complex and angrily googling for “Why women nag their husbands?” I bought over ten books on marriage including one which recommended that you can improve your marriage without talking about it. That particular book got thrown back in my face!!

But then suddenly, like magic again, the solution presented itself. I and my wife became aware that we see and feel the world very differently. My interpretation of any event and her interpretation of the same event are very different. We experience different feelings. I experience anger as my go to emotion. On the other hand, she experiences anxiety and sometimes that anxiety bubbled up into catastrophic thinking. I was not even aware of a phenomena like catastrophic thinking. I kept on interpreting such episodes as illogical outbursts!! Instead of managing each other emotions in a difficult and unforgiving world, we were fighting over interpretations and subjective casual accusations.

It took us more than two years, but we finally resolved our differences. I’ve finally stopped denying my wife’s emotions and she has stopped nagging me!! We aim to be an example to our two beautiful children as mature individuals instead of being egocentric immature adults.

Along the way, I realized that the knowledge of things like Personality Development, Egocentrism, Brain Science and Emotional Management are severely missing in easily available formats. Hence, my idea of writing a wisdom book evolved to include the ancient literature along with modern cutting science into a robust easy to use framework.

Little was I to know that there are still many learnings that I have to get!

Time Management & Morning Routines

I was churning out my Book of Wisdom at the rate of approximately 17,000 words in a whole year. The book was supposed to be finished in a couple of years. But then it dragged into the third year. Then it went into the fourth year. I hoped to finish it when I turned 38. I wasn’t able to. Then I turned 39. And still the final 20% of the book was left.

Nearing my 40th birthday – my wife asked me what gift I wanted. “I just want to finish my book.”, I had replied in frustration.

And then the Universe helped again. As my 40th birthday gift – I joined a Morning Routine forming online class focusing on ‘Deep Work’ . In the first month itself, I churned out 17,000 words and nearly completed my book.

From 17,000 words per annum, I managed to churn out 17,000 words per month. That was a 12X productivity gain. All the while having a full-time job along with full-time family responsibilities and a very active social life. Again, it turned out that I was not the type of person ‘who could not put a Morning Routine’.

Finishing my Book of Wisdom, I realized that it is impossible to write a Book of Wisdom for other people. All such books are merely Books of Knowledge. They become Wisdom in the hands of the reader.

“Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”, Herman Hesse wrote in Siddhartha. Any book on Mind-Body Hacking necessarily needs to come with this disclaimer.

But within this disclaimer, we can try.

This website is an attempt to distribute the knowledge required to radically alter your life through the process of Mind Body Hacking. As I discovered over the years, either a lot of literature on the subject is incorrectly written or else it is misinterpreted. Our progress gets stopped due to False Beliefs which get implanted in our brain. In a way we get stuck on problems like Obesity, Lack of love, low productivity because we have been hacked.

The Mind Body Hacking methodology tries to reverse that process by distilling the problems of a hacked person to the core.

Emotional Management by Managing Mental Health:

In this section I will cover the following:

• Brain Science
• Meditation Techniques
• Articles and Insights on Psychology and Behavior

Managing Weight & Health

In this section, I will cover the following:

• Food Metabolism – How the body processes food
• Fasting
• Various diets such as Keto Diet, Low Carb Diet etc
• Fitness & Health with exercise

Managing Work & Time

In this section, I will cover the following:

• Morning Routines
• Undertaking Deep Work
• Removing Distractions and Digital Minimalization
• Upskilling for Work

Love & Relationship Habits

In this section, I will cover the following:

• Personality Science which helps to understand individual differences
• Personality Development
• Love & Relationship Habits

Book Reviews

In this section, I will review Books with a special emphasis on how to use them for your Mind-Body Hacking projects.

Philosophy of Chaos

In this section, I will present my ideas on How the world functions using the science of Large Complex Systems and Chaos. In this section I will cover topics like Butterfly Effect and Science of Complex Adaptive Networks. This section is very helpful in adopting an ultra-modern science driven view of How our Complex World functions.