Body Optimization
Definition
Body Optimization is a set of methods and guidelines for defending the physical body from decay. It is especially important to those who use their mental ability more often than their physical ones. In Greek history, a perfectly balanced person was one that had a balance between physical self and mental self. (citation needed) This balance, for most people in society, is rapidly disappearing in many modernizing cultures.
The Body Optimization Problem Statement is defined as this:
"At some point in everyone's life there comes a moment of realization that the container that you exist in... will not last forever. Or perhaps a reality check - your first bad physical, first doctor's warnings about your health" [1].
Techniques
Environmental risk factor reduction
By avoiding sources of harm from your surrounding environment, you can decrease risk to your health.
Intelligent Consumption
Simply by making small, scientifically informed choices about dietary intake, many metrics can be improved.
Physical Training
"With minor improvements in physical training over time, it is possible to ramp up physical capabilities and thus make steady forward progress per active measurements" [2].
Extreme Body Optimization
Ray Kurzweil "literally intends not to die. With an acute memory of his father's early death, he's been getting weekly blood tests and intravenous treatments. He also takes pills - lots of pills, more than 200 vitamins, antioxidants, and other supplements every day. It's all part of his effort to "reprogram" his body chemistry and stop growing old. "I've slowed down aging to a crawl," he claims. "By most measures my biological age is about 40, and I have some hormone and nutrient levels of a person in his 30s" [3].
