The Human Battery Project™

The Human Battery Project™

The experiment

  1. MeasureDay 0 testing
  2. Change the inputs90 days of inputs
  3. Measure againDay 90 testing

Open enrollment. New starts on the 1st and 15th of every month.

Join the list anytime. It does not charge you.

  1. Day 0

    • 33 biomarkers
    • Physical capacity testing
    • Baseline measurements
    • Battery Score
    • Your starting point

  2. 90 days

    • Morning light
    • Sleep
    • Darkness at night
    • Minerals and hydration
    • Food timing
    • Nutrition
    • Movement
    • Training
    • Recovery
    • Daily tracking
    • Structured progression

  3. Day 90

    • The same tests again
    • The same biomarkers
    • The same physical measurements
    • A new Battery Score
    • Day 0 and day 90 side by side
    • A maintenance plan

Don’t guess whether it worked. Measure it.

What is The Human Battery Project

Your body is made of trillions of tiny batteries.

Low energy. Poor sleep. Brain fog. Stubborn weight. Trouble focusing. Slow to recover. Some of these may be because your batteries are not charging properly, or are losing charge.

A 90-day program. We measure your batteries with a blood panel and fitness tests. You follow a simple daily plan built on light, water, movement, food and sleep. At day 90 we measure again and show you what changed.

We draw blood at day 0 and again at day 90, thirty-three markers both times, through a partner laboratory near you. In between you follow a written protocol covering food, training, light, sleep, cold and heat. You log each day in your own portal. At the end you see both sets of numbers side by side.

Here is why it exists. Most of those markers already show up on an ordinary blood panel. They get reported as a wall of numbers you are told are normal. We read them as four subsystems and score each against a target band instead, because a result sitting at the edge of normal is exactly the person this program is for.

Start with the thing in your hand

You have been holding a battery all day, so you already understand this. Your phone tells you when it is at 20 percent. You have never once known what you are at. A bad cable charges a phone slowly. Your body runs on food and sleep, and light is the signal that times them. Apps you never opened keep running in the background, and in your body that is inflammation, using power all day until you notice you are at 15 percent by two in the afternoon. After a few years a phone says its maximum capacity is 78 percent, so it charges to full and still dies by lunch. Cheap material makes a battery that fades, and yours is built from what you eat. Your phone shows you the number. We are going to show you yours, twice, ninety days apart.

This is not a comparison

It is real electricity, and it is running right now.

The voltage is roughly 150 millivolts across a membrane about five nanometres thick. Work that out and it is near thirty million volts per meter, lightning-strike field strength, held continuously, in every mitochondrion in your body.

You carry only about sixty grams of that fuel at any moment. But you make and burn roughly your own body weight in it every day.

The Human Battery

You are not like a battery. You are trillions of them. Not as a figure of speech but as a matter of physics.

Inside every cell you have hundreds of tiny power plants. Each one pushes charged particles across a membrane to build up a voltage, then lets them rush back through and uses that flow to make fuel. It is a battery, charging and discharging, and there are trillions of them in you right now.

Cross-section of a mitochondrion building a voltage across its folded inner membrane Food and oxygen enter. The folded inner membrane pumps protons out into the space between the two membranes, so far more protons gather outside it than remain inside. Those protons flow back in through ATP synthase, which turns like a turbine. Water and carbon dioxide leave. Food inOxygen in Water andCO₂ out Protons pumped out ATP synthase
Cross-section of a mitochondrion. The inner membrane pumps protons outward, so many more sit outside it than inside. They return through ATP synthase, which turns like a turbine. That returning flow is the work.

Coherence: they have to stay in step

Trillions of batteries cannot each run on their own terms. A neuron, a muscle cell and an immune cell are built to hold different voltages, and they are all supposed to hold them while staying synchronised with the tissue around them and with the day outside.

That is coherence: cells keeping their proper electrical identity while coordinating their voltage, metabolism, timing and behavior with the tissue around them and with the whole organism.

Lose it and the symptoms arrive long before a standard panel flags anything. Tired at the wrong hours, wired at night, slow to recover. The circadian protocol is how we restore the timing, and the daily log is how we track whether it is holding.

Peter Mitchell worked this out and won the Nobel Prize for it in 1978. It is not a theory and it is not new. It is simply not something anybody measures.

Four things decide how well that battery works: how well you make charge, what drains it in the background, how much you can actually spend, and what the whole thing is built from. Those four are what we test.

What a low battery sounds like

These are some of the complaints heard most often across twenty-five years of listening to people describe how they feel. They are not a diagnostic list and they are not exhaustive. They are what people say out loud when someone finally asks.

They get treated as separate conditions, by separate approaches, usually one at a time and usually for years. Read them together instead and a pattern shows up. Each one sits downstream of a system that has lost capacity, and the system it points to is often predictable.

Tired by two in the afternoon, no matter how you sleptCharge
Weight that will not move, on a diet that used to workCharge
Weight that all went to the middle and stayed thereCharge
Needing to eat every three hours or you fall apartCharge
Coffee is not a pleasure anymore, it is a requirementCharge
Brain fog: losing words, rereading the same paragraphDrain
Aches in joints you never injuredDrain
Bloating, and a gut that reacts to food it never used toDrain
Show more
Anxiety that was not there five years agoDrain
Wired at midnight, wrecked at sixOutput
Awake at three in the morning for no reason you can nameOutput
Eight hours of sleep and you wake up unrefreshedOutput
Drive gone: for training, for work, for anythingOutput
Libido that quietly disappeared and nobody mentioned itOutput
Cold hands and feet when nobody else in the room is coldOutput
A shorter fuse than you used to haveOutput
Slow to recover, sore longer than you used to beReserve
Training hard and nothing is changingReserve
Catching everything going around, and keeping it longerReserve
Hair, skin and nails that are not what they wereReserve

Chase these one at a time and you will be busy for years. Restore the capacity underneath them and many of them ease on their own, in the order the body decides, not the order you would have picked.

Any one of these can also have a specific medical cause that needs a physician. This program does not diagnose and does not replace that. It measures capacity, and it refers out anything that belongs to a doctor.

These experiences can have many causes. The Human Battery framework looks at patterns across multiple measurements rather than diagnosing symptoms individually.

Common complaints connected to the subsystem each one points to Eight complaints on the left, each joined by a thin line to one of four subsystems on the right. Tired by two and weight that will not move point to Charge. Brain fog and aches in joints point to Drain. Wired at midnight and drive gone point to Output. Slow to recover and hair, skin and nails point to Reserve. Tired by two Weight will not move Brain fog Aches in joints Wired at midnight Drive gone Slow to recover Hair, skin and nails Charge Drain Output Reserve
The complaints cluster. Each one sits downstream of a subsystem that has lost capacity, and the subsystem it points to is usually predictable. Eight of the twenty above are shown here.

I sleep eight hours and I wake up at forty percent.

The Battery Score

A composite index over four subsystems, computed the same way at day 0 and day 90.

Battery Score

Your Battery Score is a proxy, assembled from what can be measured today. It is not a validated clinical measure.

54

Day 0

  • Charge47
  • Drain61
  • Output52
  • Reserve58

Illustrative example, not a participant result.

Day 0

  • Charge 47
  • Drain 61
  • Output 52
  • Reserve 58

Day 90

  • Charge measured at day 90
  • Drain measured at day 90
  • Output measured at day 90
  • Reserve measured at day 90

Each marker is scored 0 to 100 by its distance from a target band, averaged within its subsystem, then combined by fixed weights. The target band is not the laboratory reference range. Markers absent from a panel are excluded rather than imputed, so a partial panel lowers confidence rather than inventing a value.

It is the measurement framework of The Human Battery Project and nothing more. It is not a validated diagnostic instrument and it is not used to diagnose or treat anything.

The four systems, and the thirty-three markers behind them

Most of these appear on an ordinary blood panel and get reported as a wall of numbers you are told are normal. We read them as four subsystems and score each against a target band rather than the laboratory's population range, because a result sitting at the edge of "normal" is exactly the person this program is for.

The four subsystems drawn as one system with fuel flowing through it Fuel enters on the left through Charge. Charge fills a central store. Output draws from that store on the right. Drain leaks away upward in copper. Reserve runs underneath as the foundation all three stand on. Charge Output Drain Reserve StoreFuel in
The four subsystems are one system, not a list. Fuel enters through Charge, is held in the store, and is spent as Output. Drain leaks capacity away from the side. Reserve is the foundation the other three stand on.

Charge

The reaction itself: oxygen in, water and CO2 out, and the voltage built in between.

On your phone: how fast you fill up. The cable.

Drain

What is consuming capacity in the background.

On your phone: what runs in the background. The apps you did not open.

Output

What you can actually spend.

On your phone: how much power you actually get. The screen brightness, the speed.

Reserve

What the whole thing is built from.

On your phone: battery health. What it is made of and how much it can still hold.

Charge 6 markers

Fuel delivery and oxidative throughput. VO₂max, RER and lactate sit beside the blood markers that show whether fuel reaches the machinery.

  • Glucose, fastingmg/dL
  • Insulin, fastinguIU/mL
  • Hemoglobin A1c%
  • HOMA-IR (calculated)index
  • Triglyceridesmg/dL
  • Triglyceride:HDL ratioratio
Drain 9 markers

Inflammatory load. What is consuming capacity in the background.

  • hs-CRPmg/L
  • Arachidonic acid : EPA ratioratio
  • GGTU/L
  • Kynurenine : tryptophan ratioumol/mmol
  • ALTU/L
  • ASTU/L
  • Uric acidmg/dL
  • White blood cell countK/uL
  • Homocysteineumol/L
Output 9 markers

The hormonal panel. What the system can spend.

  • TSHuIU/mL
  • Free T3pg/mL
  • Free T4ng/dL
  • Testosterone, totalng/dL
  • Testosterone, freepg/mL
  • DHEA-Sug/dL
  • Cortisol, morningug/dL
  • IGF-1ng/mL
  • SHBGnmol/L
Reserve 9 markers

What it is built from. Substrate, membrane composition and minerals, including the Omega-3 Index.

  • Omega-3 Index (EPA+DHA, RBC)%
  • 25-OH Vitamin Dng/mL
  • Ferritinng/mL
  • Iron saturation%
  • Vitamin B12pg/mL
  • Folate, serumng/mL
  • Magnesium, RBCmg/dL
  • Albuming/dL
  • HDL cholesterolmg/dL

Same body. Same conditions. Two time points.

Day 90 repeats the same laboratory wherever possible, the same fasting state, the same morning timing and comparable pre-test conditions. Reducing measurement variability is what makes the day 0 to day 90 comparison worth reading.

Charge is the only one that is not just blood. Food enters the mitochondrion, electrons are stripped from it, protons get pumped across a membrane, and oxygen combines with them at the end to make water. Carbon leaves as CO2. That reaction is what builds the voltage.

Nobody can measure that voltage directly in a living person. What we can measure is the throughput: how much oxygen you move, which fuel you burn, and where the system runs out. Cardiorespiratory fitness is one of the strongest independent predictors of all cause mortality in healthy adults, and the association is graded: each increment of fitness carries a measurably lower risk.7

The blood markers sit underneath that. They tell us whether fuel is even reaching the machinery. That is a fuel gauge, not an engine test, and most panels stop there.

Two of the blood markers are worth singling out. The Omega-3 Index is the most responsive marker on the panel. Red cell membranes turn over in about four months, so ninety days captures most of the change a diet can produce. And free testosterone at 450 means something entirely different in a man than in a woman; the scoring knows the difference.

Example of one marker moving from outside the program target band to inside it An example only. HbA1c at day 0 reads 6.1, sitting to the right of both the laboratory reference range and the narrower program target band. At day 90 it reads 5.2, inside the target band. The laboratory range is the wider, lighter band; the program target is the narrower one. Day 0Day 90 6.15.2 HbA1c EXAMPLE ONLY Laboratory reference rangeProgram target band
An example of a single marker moving. At day 0 this HbA1c sits outside the program target band, and outside the laboratory range too. At day 90 it sits inside the target. The wider, lighter band is what a laboratory calls normal, which is a lower bar than the target. Example only, not a promised result.
Example Battery Score readout at day 0 beside day 90 An example only. Two panels side by side. Day 0 shows a composite Battery Score of 48 with subsystem scores of Charge 44, Drain 52, Output 51 and Reserve 45. Day 90 shows a composite of 71 with Charge 74, Drain 68, Output 70 and Reserve 72. EXAMPLE ONLY Day 0 Day 90 48 71 Battery Score Battery Score Charge 44 Drain 52 Output 51 Reserve 45 Charge 74 Drain 68 Output 70 Reserve 72
An example of the readout a client receives: one composite Battery Score with the four subsystems beneath it, shown at day 0 and again at day 90. Example only, not a promised result.

I eat well and I am still dead by three.

Your body runs on electrochemical gradients

Every cell keeps a voltage across its membranes. Food is taken apart, electrons are passed down a chain, and protons are pumped to one side of a membrane inside the mitochondrion. Letting those protons back through is what makes ATP. That is the mechanism Peter Mitchell proposed in 1961, and it is how the energy in your body is actually made.1

The phone battery is an analogy. The voltage is not. A phone has one cell with one charge you can read off a screen. You have trillions of cells, each holding its own gradient, and no instrument reads them as a single number. When this site says battery, it means the analogy. When it says gradient or membrane potential, it means the physical thing.

Where that machinery runs badly, the consequences are not confined to one organ. Defects in oxidative phosphorylation have been proposed as a common thread under a range of degenerative conditions.3 This is a paradigm rather than a settled finding, which is why it sits in the contested tier and not the established one.

Light sets the clock, and does a little chemistry

Light does two jobs. The larger one is timing. A separate class of cell in the retina carries light to the clock in your hypothalamus, working without rods and without cones, and its job is to tell the clock what time it is.4 That signal sets when everything else runs, and it is what the protocol is built around.

The smaller job is real chemistry in your skin. Ultraviolet light converts a precursor in skin into previtamin D3, which is where your vitamin D comes from.2 The same light releases nitric oxide stored in skin, which widens arteries and lowers blood pressure.8 So light is a real energy input, and a small one.

Your skin absorbs a great deal of solar energy, and almost all of it becomes heat. You have no machinery for turning photons into ATP. Absorbing energy and converting it into biological work are different things, and that difference is why we do not tell you the sun charges you the way a charger fills a phone.

Follow people for long enough and sun exposure habits track with how long they live. In a Swedish cohort followed for two decades, women who avoided the sun had higher all cause mortality than those who did not.9 That is observational. It cannot separate sunlight from everything that travels with it, and it is filed as contested for exactly that reason.

The blood pressure half of that is one small trial, so it is contested rather than settled. The vitamin D half is not: skin photosynthesis has been established since 1980.

Red and near-infrared light come up often here, so it is worth saying where they sit. In the laboratory those wavelengths interact with cytochrome c oxidase in the respiratory chain, and studies report changes in mitochondrial enzyme activity under narrow conditions of wavelength, dose and distance.6 That work is contested, most of it is cell culture or device work rather than sunlight, and it is not part of this program. Nothing on your panel measures it. It is named here because it is the honest edge of the timing claim, not because it is something you will be doing.

What we measure, and why those things

The Omega-3 Index is EPA and DHA as a percentage of the fatty acids in your red cell membranes. It is a defined measurement with a literature behind it, not an index invented here.5 Red cells turn over across about four months, so ninety days captures most of the change diet can produce.

VO2max is on the panel because cardiorespiratory fitness predicts all cause mortality across large pooled populations.7 It is the one measurement here that tests the machinery under load rather than sampling it at rest.

Sources

  1. 1 Theory established

    Mitchell P. Coupling of Phosphorylation to Electron and Hydrogen Transfer by a Chemi-Osmotic type of Mechanism. Nature, 1961.

    The paper that proposed ATP is made by pumping protons across a membrane and letting them back through. It is the mechanism the whole battery framing rests on.

    10.1038/191144a0

  2. 2 Cell study established

    Holick MF, MacLaughlin JA, Clark MB et al. Photosynthesis of previtamin D3 in human skin and the physiologic consequences. Science, 1980.

    The primary source for vitamin D synthesis in skin. Ultraviolet light converts a precursor in the skin into previtamin D3. This is the established half of light's second job, the small amount of real chemistry, and it is why the program no longer says light is only timing.

    10.1126/science.6251551

  3. 3 Review or meta-analysis contested

    Wallace DC. Mitochondrial Genetics: A Paradigm for Aging and Degenerative Diseases?. Science, 1992.

    Argues that defects in oxidative phosphorylation sit underneath a range of degenerative disease. Contested because it is a proposed paradigm rather than a settled finding.

    10.1126/science.1533953

  4. 4 Animal study established

    Berson DM, Dunn FA, Takao M. Phototransduction by Retinal Ganglion Cells That Set the Circadian Clock. Science, 2002.

    Shows a distinct class of retinal cell carries light to the circadian clock without rods or cones. This is light's larger job, timing, and it is what the protocol is built around.

    10.1126/science.1067262

  5. 5 Review or meta-analysis established

    Harris WS, von Schacky C. The Omega-3 Index: a new risk factor for death from coronary heart disease?. Preventive Medicine, 2004.

    Defines the Omega-3 Index as EPA plus DHA in red cell membranes. The reason that exact measurement is on the panel rather than a general fatty acid panel.

    10.1016/j.ypmed.2004.02.030

  6. 6 Cell study contested

    Wong-Riley MT, Liang HL, Eells JT et al. Photobiomodulation directly benefits primary neurons functionally inactivated by toxins: role of cytochrome c oxidase. The Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2005.

    Tests whether cytochrome c oxidase is the photoacceptor for far red and near infrared light, by competing light treatment against a cytochrome c oxidase inhibitor in cultured neurons. This is the mechanism named at the edge of the timing section. Contested, and it is cell culture under LED arrays rather than sunlight.

    10.1074/jbc.M409650200

  7. 7 Review or meta-analysis established

    Kodama S, Saito K, Tanaka S et al. Cardiorespiratory Fitness as a Quantitative Predictor of All-Cause Mortality and Cardiovascular Events in Healthy Men and Women: A Meta-analysis. JAMA, 2009.

    Meta-analysis tying cardiorespiratory fitness to all-cause mortality. The reason VO2max is measured at both ends rather than treated as a gym number.

    10.1001/jama.2009.681

  8. 8 Randomised trial in people contested

    Liu D, Fernandez BO, Hamilton A et al. UVA Irradiation of Human Skin Vasodilates Arterial Vasculature and Lowers Blood Pressure Independently of Nitric Oxide Synthase. Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 2014.

    Controlled exposure in people, lowering blood pressure through nitric oxide stored in skin, by a route vitamin D does not explain. Contested because it is one small trial.

    10.1038/jid.2014.27

  9. 9 Observational, in people contested

    Lindqvist PG, Epstein E, Nielsen K et al. Avoidance of sun exposure as a risk factor for major causes of death: a competing risk analysis of the Melanoma in Southern Sweden cohort. Journal of Internal Medicine, 2016.

    A cohort followed for two decades in which women who avoided the sun had higher all-cause mortality. Observational, so it cannot separate sun exposure from everything that travels with it.

    10.1111/joim.12496

  10. 10 Randomised trial in people contested

    Blades R, Mendes WB, Don BP et al. A randomized controlled clinical trial of a Wim Hof Method intervention in women with high depressive symptoms. Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2024.

    84 women randomised to cold exposure with breathwork, or to slow breathing with warm showers. Both groups improved about the same amount, roughly 24% on depressive symptoms. A single unreplicated trial, which is why cold and breathwork are carried in the protocol as contested rather than established.

    10.1016/j.cpnec.2024.100272

Suggested reading

Grouped by the same three tiers the sources above use, because a reading list that puts every author on the same footing would undo the distinction the rest of this page is built on. This is a bibliography. It says where the thinking comes from, not what to do about it.

ESTABLISHED

Settled science, or close to it. The mechanism is not in serious dispute.

  1. Nick Lane. Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death, 2022. The Vital Question: Why Is Life The Way It Is?, 2015. Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life, 2005. Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution, 2009. Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World, 2002.

    Transformer is the place to start. The Vital Question is the book closest to the thesis of this program, on why membrane voltage is the precondition for complex life.

    Transformer  ·  The Vital Question  ·  Power, Sex, Suicide  ·  Life Ascending  ·  Oxygen

  2. Michael Crawford and David Marsh. The Driving Force: Food, Evolution and the Future, 1989. The Shrinking Brain: Mental Health is Affected by Poor Brain Nutrition, 2023.

    The argument that DHA from marine food built the human brain. This is why the Omega-3 Index is on the panel.

    The Driving Force  ·  The Shrinking Brain

  3. Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden. Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology, 2014.

    Shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize. A careful treatment of a field that attracts careless ones.

    Library record

  4. Russell Foster. Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, 2022.

    Foster found the photoreceptor this page cites Berson for.

    Library record

  5. Douglas Wallace. No popular book. Papers.

    Mitochondrial DNA in evolution and disease, and the case for mitochondria as sensors of their environment rather than only as power plants.

    A mitochondrial paradigm of metabolic and degenerative diseases, aging, and cancer (2005)  ·  The rise of mitochondria in medicine (2016)

  6. Michael Levin. No popular book. Papers.

    Bioelectric signaling in development and regeneration. This is where Becker's line of thinking became rigorous.

    Bioelectric signaling: reprogrammable circuits underlying embryogenesis, regeneration, and cancer (2021)  ·  Molecular bioelectricity (2014)

  7. Colin McCaig. No popular book. Papers.

    Electric fields in cell biology, and what cells do when you apply one.

    Controlling cell behavior electrically: current views and future potential (2005)

CONTESTED

Real findings that are disputed, unreplicated, or carry an interpretation the field has not accepted.

  1. Fritz-Albert Popp and L. V. Beloussov, editors. Integrative Biophysics: Biophotonics, Kluwer, 2003.

    Popp is the origin of biophoton research, and van Wijk was his collaborator. This is an academic edited volume rather than a book you read straight through, so treat it as the reference behind van Wijk rather than the place to start. That living tissue emits ultra-weak light is measured and accepted. Whether that light carries information between cells is the open question, and it is Popp's claim.

    10.1007/978-94-017-0373-4

  2. Roeland van Wijk. Light in Shaping Life: Biophotons in Biology and Medicine, Meluna, 2014.

    The book-length account of the same measurements. The emission is real and very faint. The disputed part is what, if anything, it signals.

    Library record

  3. Gerald Pollack. The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid and Vapor, 2013.

    This is where the term structured water comes from. This protocol does not use it, and nothing on your panel measures it. Ordered water at a surface is real, and inside the respiratory complexes ordered water forms the channels protons actually move through, so water at an interface does have a role in cell function. What is not accepted is Pollack's larger claim: that this amounts to a fourth phase of water, extending far from the surface, holding charge and storing energy the cell can later spend.

    Library record

  4. Gilbert Ling. Life at the Cell and Below-Cell Level, 2001.

    The association-induction hypothesis, a serious alternative to the membrane pump model that never won. The pump model is what the textbooks teach and what this program assumes.

    Library record

  5. Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose. “Consciousness in the universe: a review of the Orch OR theory,” Physics of Life Reviews 11, 2014, 39 to 78. With Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind, 1989, and Shadows of the Mind, 1994.

    This is the furthest from the panel of anything on this list. It concerns consciousness, not metabolism, and no part of the protocol depends on whether it is right. It is here because microtubules and quantum effects in warm biology are the same territory Al-Khalili covers, and because leaving it out of a list that already names van Wijk and Pollack would be a selective kind of honesty.

    The 2014 paper was published with open peer commentary, so the objections are printed alongside it. Read the issue, not the paper on its own.

    10.1016/j.plrev.2013.08.002  ·  The Emperor's New Mind  ·  Shadows of the Mind

HISTORICAL AND OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM

Work that came first, or that sits outside where the field went. Read for where the questions came from.

  1. Robert O. Becker. The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life, 1985, with Gary Selden. Cross Currents, 1990.

    The regeneration and bone-healing work was real and ahead of its time. The later electromagnetic-hazard material is not where the field went. Read beside Levin.

    The Body Electric  ·  Cross Currents

  2. John Ott. Health and Light, 1973. Light, Radiation and You, 1982.

    A time-lapse photographer who noticed that light quality changed living things decades before anyone had a mechanism. The observations were sharp and the explanations were guesses. Berson 2002 is the mechanism Ott did not have.

    Health and Light  ·  Light, Radiation and You

Peter Mitchell wrote no book for this. There is only the 1961 Nature paper, already cited above, and it is the one thing on this list that is settled beyond argument.

The model, and how sure we are of each part

The program is built on a working theory of how the body captures, stores and spends energy. Some of that theory is settled science. Some is actively argued over. Some is frontier speculation that shaped how we designed the protocol. We tell you which is which.

The quantum floor

Tunnelling in enzymes, spin chemistry in photoreceptors, light-handling networks in the cytoskeleton. Real physics, running at timescales far below anything a ninety-day protocol touches. It is part of why the rest works, not something we can move.

WORKING MODEL

The membrane

What your cell membranes are built from determines whether the energy machinery assembles correctly. Omega-3 status is measurable, dietary, and moves inside ninety days.

ESTABLISHED

Light as input

Light sets circadian timing through the eye, which sets the hormonal cascade beneath it. We treat light as the timing signal and food as the load, which is why the protocol puts morning light before the first meal. It is the button that turns the whole system on, and miss it and the day runs on the wrong clock.

ESTABLISHED

Hormesis

Cold and heat exposure as controlled stress that builds capacity. The physiological effects are real, but the best-controlled trial to date is a single unreplicated study, and in it a warm shower with slow breathing did about as well as cold exposure with breathwork.10 In the protocol, honestly labeled.

CONTESTED

Behavioral load

Connection and purpose, cognitive engagement, movement and muscle, light and sleep timing, emotional load. Logged daily.

ESTABLISHED

What we do not know. We cannot tell you in advance what your numbers will do. Everyone runs the same protocol, which means we cannot fully separate the effect of the protocol from the effect of being paid close attention to for ninety days. We will not pretend otherwise, and we will not present the group's results as proof that the protocol caused them.

What we can tell you is exactly what changed, marker by marker, between two draws ninety days apart. That is a real thing to know about yourself, and almost nobody has it.

Anyone in this field who tells you they are certain is selling you something. We would rather measure.

The path from morning light to the hormones that run metabolism and sleep Morning light reaches the eye. The eye sets the body clock. The body clock sets the hormone cascade, and those hormones run metabolism and sleep. This is why the protocol puts morning light before the first meal. Morning lightEyeBody clock Hormones Metabolism and sleep
Light reaches the eye and sets the body clock, and the body clock sets the hormone cascade that runs metabolism and sleep. That is why the protocol puts morning light before the first meal.

The daily inputs

Nine controllable inputs. They are not nine separate interventions. They feed one system, and the panel reads the result across all four subsystems.

  • Morning sunlight Timing first: the signal that entrains the clock. Also a small real energy input through the skin.
  • Darkness at night The other half of the same signal, and the one most people have lost.
  • Sleep When repair happens, and the input the rest of the protocol is built around.
  • Water and minerals The medium the work happens in. Mineralized and adequate.
  • Food quality Substrate. What membranes and enzymes are built from.
  • Food timing When fuel arrives relative to your own circadian phase.
  • Movement Low intensity, accumulated across the day.
  • Training Deliberate load on a schedule that can actually be held.
  • Recovery Where adaptation lands. Without it the load is just cost.

The color on each one is the subsystem it shows up in most directly. Charge blue, Drain copper, Output teal, Reserve green.

Only one of the nine carries Drain. That is deliberate. Drain is largely subtractive, and the removals sit inside food quality and recovery rather than existing as inputs of their own.

Ninety days, in three phases

Each phase has one job. You do not get the whole protocol on day one, because nobody sustains that. You get the next thing.

A ninety day timeline in three phases with a blood draw at each end Day 0 opens with a blood draw. Three phases follow, each thirty days: stop the drain, recharge, then build capacity. A weekly call marks every week along the top. Day 90 closes with a second blood draw. Stop the drainRechargeBuild capacity Blood drawBlood draw Weekly callDay 0Day 90
Ninety days in three phases, with a blood draw at each end and a call every week. Each phase has one job, and you get the next one when the last is holding.
Days 1-30 Stop the drain

Remove what is costing you capacity before adding anything that builds it. Sugar and alcohol come out, sleep gets a fixed window, morning light becomes non-negotiable, and you start logging every day. Most people feel the first change here, and it is usually sleep.

Days 31-60 Recharge

Now the inputs. Protein target, real training on a schedule you can hold, cold and heat exposure, and a meal timing window that lines up with your own clock rather than someone else's. The daily log keeps running, and the weekly call is where we adjust it.

Days 61-90 Build capacity

Load goes up, and the work shifts from repair to headroom. Day 90 ends with the second blood draw and a session comparing it against day 0, not to celebrate but to decide what you keep doing for the next ten years.

What you get

All of the following is included in the program fee. Laboratory costs are separate and are listed under what it costs.

  • Day 0 testing

    Thirty-three markers at day 0, ordered through a partner laboratory on a physician-signed requisition, plus VO2max and grip.

  • Battery Score

    Your composite at day 0, read as four subsystems and explained marker by marker.

  • The 90-day protocol

    The full written protocol covering food, training, light, sleep, cold and heat, phased across ninety days.

  • Your portal

    Your own login. Documents, results, the daily log and your Battery Score at both ends.

  • Daily tracking

    Structured logging of the behaviors and inputs that the protocol turns on.

  • Weekly support

    One weekly one-hour group call, open to everyone in the program.

  • Day 90 testing

    The same thirty-three markers and the same physical measurements, under the same conditions.

  • Your comparison

    Day 0 against day 90, marker by marker and subsystem by subsystem.

  • Maintenance plan

    What the comparison says you should carry forward, and what you can stop.

Who this is built for

  • You are functioning, but running on less than you used to
  • Your bloodwork came back normal and you did not feel any better
  • You will log something every day for ninety days
  • You are willing to change what you eat and when you sleep

And who it is not for

  • You are looking for treatment of a diagnosed condition. This is not medical care
  • You want a plan you can follow when it is convenient
  • You are pregnant, or managing a condition that needs a physician directing your nutrition and training
  • You want the bloodwork without the ninety days

What it costs

The Human Battery Project

$249.99

90 days, plus sales tax in your state

What the $249.99 covers

Everything listed under what you get: the written protocol, the portal, structured daily logging, the weekly group call, your Battery Score at day 0 and day 90, and the review comparing them.

How you can pay

  • All at once. $249.99 when you start.
  • Two payments. $125.00 on day 1, $124.99 on day 45.

What you pay someone else for

  • The blood panel, twice. Ordered on a physician-signed requisition through a partner laboratory, billed to you directly. We do not have a price to quote you here. It depends on the laboratory near you, and they bill you, not us.
  • The Omega-3 kit, twice. The Omega-3 Index Complete Test from omegaquant.com is $109.95, or $93.46 each if you buy two at once. You need one at day 0 and one at day 90.
  • VO2max, twice. A lab test with a mask runs $150 to $300 at most sports performance centers and university labs.
  • Your own food. You buy your own groceries. We do not sell food and take nothing from anyone who does.

Supplements

Optional, and never a condition of the program. We do not sell supplements and take no commission from any retailer. Nothing in the protocol requires a purchase beyond the testing above.

No cost is hidden from this page. Laboratory pricing varies by region, which is why one number above is a range and one is absent rather than invented.

Questions

What exactly is the Human Battery Project?

A ninety-day measured program. Thirty-three blood markers plus physical capacity testing at day 0, a written protocol in three phases, and the same measurements repeated at day 90 under the same conditions.

Is this medical treatment?

No. The Human Battery Project is a health coaching and research program. It does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition, and nothing in it replaces care from a licensed physician.

What gets measured?

Thirty-three blood markers across four subsystems, plus VO2max and grip strength. The same panel and the same physical tests at day 0 and day 90.

Why 90 days?

Red cells live about 120 days. HbA1c reflects roughly three months of glycaemia and the Omega-3 Index reflects roughly four months of intake, so ninety days captures most of the change diet can produce in either without requiring a complete turnover.

What is the Battery Score?

A composite index over the four subsystems, each marker scored against a target band rather than the laboratory reference range. It is this program's measurement framework and is not a validated diagnostic instrument.

What happens on Day 0?

Blood draw on a physician-signed requisition at a partner laboratory, VO2max and grip testing, and your baseline Battery Score across all four subsystems.

What happens on Day 90?

The same panel and the same physical tests, repeated under matched conditions, followed by a review comparing day 0 against day 90 marker by marker.

When can I start?

On the 1st or the 15th of any month.

Is enrollment always open?

Yes. Enrollment is open and ongoing. There is no cohort cap and no limited number of places.

What does the $249.99 include?

The written protocol, the portal, structured daily logging, the weekly group call, your Battery Score at day 0 and day 90, and the review comparing them.

Are laboratory costs included?

No. Laboratory costs are separate and billed to you directly. The Omega-3 Index Complete Test is $109.95, or $93.46 each buying two. VO2max testing runs $150 to $300. Blood panel pricing varies by region and we do not quote a figure we cannot stand behind.

Do I need supplements?

No. Supplements are optional and never a condition of the program. We sell none and take no commission from any retailer.

What if I already exercise and eat well?

You are placed in a higher tier. Placement uses seven questions on the application covering training, cold, heat, fasting, food, morning light and sleep.

What happens if my laboratory testing shows something abnormal?

Any result outside the laboratory reference range is reported to you with a referral to an appropriate licensed professional. We do not interpret an individual marker as evidence of a condition.

What happens to my data?

It is handled under the privacy policy and the consumer health data privacy policy. Research use is a separate, optional consent that can be declined or withdrawn without affecting the program.

Can I delete my data?

Yes. Access, export and deletion are available on request under the published policies.

Medical and scientific boundaries

  • This is not medical care. The Human Battery Project is a health coaching and research program. It does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition, and nothing in it replaces care from a licensed physician.
  • The Battery Score is not a diagnosis. It is the measurement framework of this program, built to track change across ninety days. It is not a validated diagnostic instrument and should not be presented to a clinician as a medical measurement.
  • Abnormal findings are referred, not interpreted. Any result outside the laboratory reference range is reported to you with a referral to an appropriate licensed professional. We do not interpret an individual marker as evidence of a condition.
  • Hypotheses are labeled as hypotheses. Every claim on this site carries an evidence tier: established, contested, or working model. Working-model reasoning never appears in marketing copy, a consent form or a results write-up.
  • Your data is handled under the published policies. Collection, sharing, research consent, export and deletion are governed by the privacy policy and the consumer health data privacy policy. Research consent is separate, optional, and withdrawable.

Start when you’re ready

The Human Battery Project operates on open enrollment. New participants begin on the 1st and 15th of every month.

  1. Join the waitlist
  2. Complete onboarding
  3. Day 0 testing
  4. Start on the 1st or 15th
  5. The 90 days
  6. Day 90 testing
  7. Compare your results

Join the waitlist

Start on the 1st or the 15th of any month. Applying does not commit you to anything. We will send you the full protocol, the panel and your start date, and you decide from there.

Joining the list does not charge you.

What happens next

  1. Submit your application.
  2. Receive onboarding information.
  3. Complete day 0 testing.
  4. Confirm your start date.
  5. Begin on the 1st or the 15th.
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Seven questions about how you live right now. There are no wrong answers. We are not testing you, we are working out which of the four protocols to send you. Answer honestly. People who answer these to look good get a protocol they cannot hold, quit in week three, and learn nothing. You can move up later.

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We collect your name, email, state, and the seven answers above so we can send you the right protocol. The seven are habit questions. There is no question here about a symptom, a diagnosis or a medication, and there will not be one until you are enrolled and have consented to it separately.

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