Traditional Chinese Medicine's Nootropic for Hacking Yin and Yang

A delicious five-flavored Adaptogen that has been used for thousands of years to Biohack Yin and Yang.

Schisandra Chinensis is a notable herbal cofactor that enables the body to process other supplements and drugs.

This article is mostly going to focus on finding parallels between Traditional Chinese Medicine and what more recent research is saying about Schisandra and how this squares up with the self-experimentation reports coming out of the Biohacking community online.

Scientific Research

When it comes to Schisandra Chinensis research, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is an Armenian placebo-controlled, double-blind study of the stress responses of 71 athletes. From its abstract:

These results correlate with an increased physical performance in athletes taking adaptogens versus athletes taking placebo. In contrast after treatment with the adaptogen heavy physical exercise does not increase salivary [nitric oxide] and cortisol in athletes, whereas athletes treated with placebo heavy physical exercise increased salivary [nitric oxide].

Athletic Performance Enhancer

Schisandra is a hardcore athletic Biohack as it increases circulating Nitric Oxide in the blood. Nitric Oxide has been called the “master signaling molecule” that optimizes cardiovascular function. But before, you mega-dose Nitric Oxide supplements before hitting the gym, listen to my deep-dive interview with Mark Sloan, Nitric Oxide has some dark sides you should know about.

Flowstate Hack

It's popular with joggers and anecdotally potentiates runner's high, the flow state induced by extended endurance exercise. Author Steven Kotler talks about the hippie speedball - which is a cocktail of marijuana, espresso, and jogging - for getting into a sublime flow state. I've video blogged about getting into really profound flow states after combining marijuana with Heart Rate Variability training.So when I get back to Colorado, I will self-experiment with an adaptogenic hippie speedball by adding Schisandra. I bet it will be pretty rad!

The Vine

Referred to as Chinese Magnolia Vine, it grows around trees and is native to Central China and Eastern Russia.

Traditional Chinese Medicine

On the Traditional Chinese Medicine herbal spectrum, it's a 'Qi-Invigorating' agent in the Yang family of herbs because of its potent anti-fatigue effects. Schisandra berries themselves (Wu Wei Zi as it's referred to in China) have five distinct tastes; salty, sweet, sour, pungent, and bitter.

There's some debate online as to whether the Schisandra berry contains more Nootropic qualities than extracts of its bioactive agents, whether the whole is greater than its parts.It's a Tonic, which I was at first a little confused by, a tonic in Chinese Medicine is nothing like the tonic water you order at a cafe or mix with gin in your cocktail, it's a rather wide category of herbs that have been used historically to energize different dimensions of the human experience.In Chinese medicine, there are two categories of Qi tonics; Yin and Yang which correspond to...

* Yin - Parasympathetic nervous system

* Yang - Sympathetic nervous system

Schisandra is a full spectrum tonic herb that...

Enters all 12 meridians

* Lung (肺)

* Heart (心)

* Pericardium (心包)

* Triple Burner (三焦)

* Small Intestine (小肠)

* Large Intestine (大腸)

* Spleen (脾)

* Kidney (腎)

* Liver (肝)

* Gall Bladder (膽)

* Urinary bladder (膀胱)

* Stomach (胃)

Nurtures all five elements

* Heart

* Digestion

* Lungs

* Kidneys

* Liver

And tonifies all three treasures in Traditional Chinese Medicine

* Qi (Body)

* Jing (Mind)

* Shen (Spirit)

100 Days of Schisandra

Schisandra has a cumulative effect and some authors (who were perhaps reincarnated as Internet Marketers) of some of the seminal texts of Traditional Chinese Medicine recommended taking Schisandra for 100 days straight.

This seems to be an antidote to anhedonia; it turns up the volume on reality, it turns up the brightness on existence, and it puts life in high definition. To quote one herbal enthusiast:

i've been doing these tonics pretty heavily for the past few years and i have seen pretty dramatic results... i feel as tho i am getting my jing back. like in taoism they speak of returning to being like a child... i feel like this is happening with my health and vitality. the herbs really work, but the more you work on yourself, the more they work with you.

Energizing Nootropic

As an adaptogen, it modulates the hormones up and down, so sometimes it will make you more energetic, and sometimes it will make you more relaxed and tranquil. It makes your nervous system more permeable in its responses. A herbal enthusiast, Thorsten2, on Longecity reports:

Schizandra is best taken chronically and will enhance sleep, libido (to some extent), well being/mood and cognition (to some extent). All in all it just feels brain healthy and if you can handle Rhodiola with it, awesome.

And goes on to say...

Shizandra is supposed to enhance sleep and it did for me even after chronic use. I never noticed anything fatiguing about it or particularly energy enhancing...

On Pubmed

We find over 200 articles of human research, since the turn of the millennium for Schisandra Chinensis, which includes a total of 11 clinical studies. One of the criticisms of adaptogens as a category is that they lack a significant quantity of human clinical studies, compared with, say, the Racetams or B-Vitamins. The explanation posited for this is that since the adaptogens come from the natural world and have been used for thousands of years, it's more difficult to patent their pharmacological components. So there's a whole lot less profit motive for researching them.

Keep in mind that a decent double-blind, placebo-controlled human study, costs about as much as a new Ferrari. In between the salaries of the scientists, paying the volunteers, the lab time, the equipment, and what the scientific journals charge for publication - clinical trials run into the six or even seven-figure range. There's a lot of potential to cut the fat - hack away at the unessential - I'm sure, but it costs about the same as a Ferrari. Unfortunately, there's a whole lot less motivation to spend that money when you're dealing with natural medicine. Anyone can plant some seeds in their backyard and grow their own.

Cognitive Enhancer?

There appears to be some debate as