After decades of struggling with a variety of mental illnesses that nearly cost him his life, award-winning cybersecurity expert Neal O’Farrell decided it was time to hack his own brain.

To use the skills and mindset he’d developed over decades to try to decode his own brain. His goal was to just better understand why he was the way he was and what if anything he could do about it.

The result of his research is the Brainisphere. 15 science-supported strategies, habits, and values that not only have the capacity to significantly improve brain and mental health, but can improve every part of your life.

He also used that research to create the PsyberResilience project to help address the mental health and chronic stress problems experienced by cybersecurity professionals, the world’s digital first responders.

That project led to Hacking Stress and how to use the hacker mindset as a way to more easily view, understand, and manage stress in any role.

He authored a proposal for the UNDRR, the United Nation’s agency for disaster risk reduction, focused on incorporating emotional and psychological resilience into disaster recover planning and especially in the face of climate change.

He created a mental health action cluster as part of the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Global Citt Teams Challenge to explore how future smart cities could sync with and improve the brain and mental health of their residents.

And in partnership with Northern Kentucky University he was the first expert to introduce stress management training to students completing cybersecurity degree programs.

If you’re interested, you can read his full security bio here.

We Are Not Our Thoughts

 

“I was closing in on 60 years old and reflecting on a life that been completely shaped by mental illnesses. Every decision, every relationship, every business and career path, and every outcome.

I understood enough about mental health to guess that it might be a little late to change anything, reverse it all, untangle all the tangled wiring.

But I was still curious. I bought a book in the 1980s called The Mind Machine and was hooked on how cleverly the brain runs everything about us – and how much control we can exercise over all that if we just apply our brain to it.

What if I could hack my chaos machine? I’d spent 40 years in the world of hacking and hackers, so maybe it was time to use some of those skills on myself.

So I did. And it wasn’t just brain changing but life changing. Best of all, the brain doesn’t just provide all the tools and secrets to get the best from it but will reward the effort with a better life.

The result is what I nicknamed my brainisphere – a collection of 15 life and lifestyle choices, behaviors, even disciplines that I call Pillars. Each one of them backed by solid science and credible and in some cases decades of research.

And each one shown to not only improve brain health and function but also lead to a longer, happier, and more productive and successful life.”