5 key takeaways from Elizabeth Ricker’s Smarter Tomorrow
Published in September 2021, Smarter tomorrow was promoted as a must-read for 2022. The book, based on deep research and experiments, is about biohacking. Is it possible to upgrade your brain from wherever it is to another level of cognition, creativity and performance? Ricker says yes. Her argument is that it can take as little as 15 minutes a day for someone to “hack” the brain for continuous upgrades.
On the cover, Ricker promises “How 15 minutes of neurohacking a day can help you work better, think faster and get more done.” Ricker’s experimental journey through neurohacking includes athletes, gameshows, memory trips, CEOs, researchers and athletes. Ricker is an MIT and Harvard-educated neuroscientist turned Silicon Valley technologist. Her book is the result of a decade-long journey in experimentation. It promises to improve four areas of brain function to unlock success: executive function, emotional regulation, learning and memory, and creativity to predict success in work and relationships. The neurohacking techniques promise to unlock all four.
Ricker presents 20 custom self-experiments and a 12-week schedule. Ricker’s self-experiments are all based on personal tests with nicotine, video games, meditation or a little-known beverage from the Pacific Islands. Through his experiments, Ricker claims to have been able to transform her cognition, sharpen her memory, increase her attention span, boost her mood, and clear her brain fog.
Smarter Tomorrow by Elizabeth R. Ricker
Key takeaways:
1. The book actually makes the subject of neurohacking worth a coffee table discussion and makes the subject seem much less threatening than it sounds. You also get to understand the plasticity of the brain and how its abilities can be wired and rewired over time.
2. It will help you with what Ricker terms as “mental bottlenecks or small obstacles that prevent someone from achieving their inherent potentials such as mental fog, lack of sleep, ADHD, depression and anxiety that go unaddressed can prevent mental performance.
3. It defines the cycle of human irrelevance compared to the potential for radical human development. Ricker suggests that with neuro-hacking, individuals can extract their own abilities and give them more time to create value.
4. Ricker emphasizes the connection between gaming, brain function and executive abilities and shows how gaming can help build mental muscles to handle decision-making and control emotions.
5. Ricker’s book will ultimately teach you about self-regulation and the possibilities for continuous growth in the mind.
Smarter tomorrow is not a light read, it is more like a book to work with and an ideal choice for people invested in lifelong learning. If personal growth and development is of interest to you, go for it.
