To better understand everything that is to follow, make sure you have already covered my previous post Breath and Meditation so you can follow along. If you wish to start from the original article, check out my post The Roadmap to Overman.
In this article you will learn the following:
- How the health of your jaw determines your overall health
- Good jaw posture
- The optimal diet
- Hydration and supplementation
This post has been greatly inspired by the books “The Carnivore Code” and “Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic“. The science behind everything I will be talking about is explained in the two mentioned books so I highly advise you to read them if you find yourself doubting any of the things I am about to say.
In terms of oral-facial health issues, three core areas of cultural shift and influence appear paramount:
- Slack jaw and prevailing oral posture
- What we eat and how we eat it
- Indoor living and how we breath
We have already covered breathing in the previous section Breath and Meditation, but to reiterate the main point regarding your jaw health: “You should always breathe through your nose and never through your mouth”. Before we start with oral posture, make sure to watch Andrew Huberman’s video on oral health.
Oral posture
It’s not just the food you eat and how you eat it but also what your mouth is doing when you are not eating, when your mouth is at rest. The correct oral posture is holding the mouth closed with teeth in light contact and the tongue resting on the roof of the mouth.
You may have heard of mewing, well this posture is exactly that. I will let Mike Mew explain it himself:
An easy way to train your jaw muscles and your posture is to practice the following chewing gum protocol:
- Start off chewing for 20-25 minutes a day for 3 days a week, and build up to 1 hour every day (No more)
- Chew on both sides
- When chewing, make long pauses and pay attention to how long you can keep teeth in contact as you swallow
A big disclaimer is that you must do your own research before starting this protocol. Consider using xylitol gum as it has many health benefits.
Diet
Our jaws are built for a Stone Age diet, but we are living in a Big Mac environment. If you eat hard foods, you’ve got to do a lot more chewing. The evidence shows that abundant chewing of hard foods in youngsters paves the way for proper oral-facial development.
Always chew your food until it liquefies, chew with lips together, and always begin your swallow with the teeth of upper and lower jaws touching. Feel free to consciously pause for 2 seconds before you start swallowing.
The diet that I believe is the optimal diet for humans is the carnivore diet. It will boost your cognitive and physical performance, your mental health, and physical health and in general, make you feel and look better. I encourage you to at least try it for a month yourself and make your own conclusions. This way you will not have to take anyone’s word for granted.
Here is a video explaining the diet:
Also, you should consider implementing fasting in the morning for as long as possible. Not only is it good for you physically but you will also be able to focus much more without food in your stomach.
If you are worried about losing weight, keep in mind that you can always put more fats into your meals and eat fattier pieces of meat.
Acne
This is a bonus section that I decided to include as I personally struggled with acne for a good part of my life. Naturally, I wish to help anyone who has the same problems as I did, so here is a quick list of things you should do to get rid of your acne.
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- Follow the full diet plan that we discussed. Even if you decide to go for a hybrid diet, there are three rules you must obey.
- Eliminate sugar, both natural and artificial.
- Eliminate dairy products.
- Eliminate wheat
- Follow the Wim Hof method.
- Have a cleanser that you use to wash your face and an exfoliating solution. I use CeraVe cleanser for washing my face (there are different cleansers depending on your skin type so watch this short video to find yours) and Sona cream for exfoliation (again do your research on what exfoliating solution you want to use). For the amounts you should use and how many times a day, you should follow some online guides. I wash my face at least twice a day (morning and night) and exfoliate a maximum of twice a day. Consider using a moisturizer and a sunscreen if you have problems with dry skin.
- I use Imunolak probiotic, Omega-3, Collagen, vitamin C and Bioptron lamp as bonus “supplements” for my acne. The Bioptron lamp is indeed a little bit on the expensive side, so you should look to buy a used one.
- Crucial habits to start implementing: never touch your face, clean your face regularly if you are somewhere hot and dirty, shave only at night before going to sleep, change your pillow sheets regularly, in general become mindful of your skin.
- Follow the full diet plan that we discussed. Even if you decide to go for a hybrid diet, there are three rules you must obey.
If you are to follow just the diet, it will certainly be enough to clear out your skin but it never hurts to take the extra steps of precaution. You don’t need to do all of the stuff mentioned, but at least try and implement the habits that cost you no money.
Finally, check out Andrew Huberman’s video on acne and skin health.
Hydration and supplementation
When it comes to supplements, you don’t need to use any if you prefer it that way. I personally like using a couple of them because of their performance and health-boosting effects. Do your own research before using any of the supplements listed below:
- Creatine – 10g/day
- Boron – 9mg/day (2 weeks on 1 week off)
- Tongkat Ali – 400mg/5 days on 2 days off (2 weeks on 1 week off)
- Zinc Picolinate – 15mg/day
- L-citrulline – 6g/day
- Rhodiola – 500mg (before hard workouts)
- Omega-3 – 2.5g of EPA & 1g of DHA/day
- Vitamin D – 4000IU/day
- Imunolak – 1cap./day
- Taurine – 3g/day
- Vitamin B complex – 1cap./day
- Magnesium glycinate – 300mg/day
- Vitamin E – 200IU/day
Xylitol gum – 6g/day
The last thing we will cover is hydration. Water is vital to our health. It plays a key role in many of our body’s functions, including bringing nutrients to cells, getting rid of wastes, protecting joints and organs, and maintaining body temperature. For those reasons, I have included a couple of simple tricks and formulas to help you keep up with your body’s hydration needs.
The amount of water you should drink depends on your body weight so here is a simple formula to help you: drink ½ ounce per pound of body weight (This number doesn’t account for the daily loss of bodily fluids). Drink an additional 125% of the fluids that you lost (The easy way to know how much you lost is to weigh yourself before and after the workout, keeping in mind any fluids that you drank during the workout). Here is one additional equation to help you calculate how much water you should drink while training or running: Drink (body weight in pounds / 30) ounces every 15-20 minutes
The trick for daily hydration is to drink a lot of water first thing in the morning, that way you already started hydrating and you won’t be disrupting your sleep as you would if you did this before bed. If you want to drink water at night, focus on only sipping the water for the last 3 hours before you go to sleep. The faster you drink the water the faster your system will try to get rid of it, so it is crucial to take in the water slowly by sipping.
Conclusion
With the knowledge you have acquired so far, you are ready to optimize your eating habits for performance, health, and happiness. You also now know how to maximize your facial appearance and fix any possible breathing problems that were caused by bad oral posture.
Actionable step:
- Do the carnivore diet for a month.
- Start mewing.
Once you have done all of the actionable steps, move on to the next post Building the Body of Zeus.