Ben Greenfield: The #1 Biohack Is Free (And It's Not Diet or Exercise)

I have learned a lot since being fooled into thinking that you can out exercise your diet and like chronic repetitive motion exercise is the healthiest way to go. Now I'm a huge fan of walking. >> These are all biohacking tools. If you only keep three practices, what would they be? >> Ben Greenfield is a worldrenowned biohacker and performance coach. >> From world class endurance to leading Breakthroughs in human health, >> he's spent decades testing what actually works. what's emerging around rejuvenation practices that are a little bit strange. >> The newer thing that I just discovered

is salmon sperm. >> What I'm hearing you say is that some of these technologies that have helped us in many ways live better also have a dark side. >> There's even a term called the paradox Of loneliness. I think it was surgeon general in 2023 identified loneliness as the equivalent of smoking like 15 cigarettes a day. And I used to think you got to make the money first. >> What made you kind of flip in terms of your priorities? almost getting a divorce. >> We seem to be in a protein craze right now. Are we

kind of going overboard on the too much protein side? >> I would hate to cause people to think That they shouldn't prioritize something like >> Well, Ben, it's been a while. It's been about 5 years since the podcast. You know, you you've been a really instrumental figure in helping a lot of people figure out how to uplevel their health. There's a term that's thrown around a lot by by people in the space called biohacking. It's like in some ways I I I like the term in some ways I don't >> and and the way I

think about it and I'd like you to define it is is the way I think about it is is anything that's going to help you optimize your health or improve your body's own functional systems >> and how do you how do you think about buying what would how would you define it? I I would say anything that you can use to optimize your cellular or metabolic health that would be considered something that allows you to Do it in a more timeefficient or efficient way then you might be able to do in a native state. Yeah.

>> So you're essentially hacking the OS you know using a tool or technology or you know whether it be a you know peptide or hyperbaric oxygen or red light therapy or anything like that. >> So the Native Americans out west who used to do sweat lodging they were biohacking. Well, I mean, you know, technically they Created a natural environment in which to increase heat. And maybe, >> you know, if we acknowledge that biohacking would be considered a more scientific approach, maybe if they were inside of some type of a, you know, electronically configured machine that

could get hotter than they might be able to create with a native sweat tent. >> Oh, those are those are pretty damn hot. Have you ever been in one? >> They are very hot and dark and there's Yeah. The drum beat gets pretty loud and you kind of want to bust out of there. Yeah. >> Yeah. But I agree that the term is used a lot and sometimes if I'm like going to give a talk on a stage or do a podcast and somebody introduces me as a biohacker. I don't know quite what to think.

It seems like they have the term biohacker. >> I mean Dave Asparized that and all the gizmos and gadgets. And I think >> at a very fundamental level for me though, it's about understanding human biology. >> Mhm. >> And and the levers you can pull to move it toward a state of more vibrant optimal health. >> Yeah. >> And there's a lot of things you can do from what you eat to different types of exercise to restoration tools, relaxation, Optimizing sleep. These are all kind of in sense biohacking tools. Yeah. But I think the things

that I talk to you about are the things that you've learned over doing this for 20 years about what works, what doesn't work. What's sort of the things that you used to lean on that you've now find maybe aren't all there were cracked up to be? And what are the sort of some of the newer things that that you maybe um weren't doing back then that you maybe have have changed And evolved and and maybe shifted more from just elite sports performance to more enhanced health? I would say probably the two top things that come

to mind would be my approach to exercise and my approach to community. I was was hardcore. You know, I I raced for Team Timex and Iron Man triathlon for 10 years. I switched to Reebok and raced obstacle course racing for another four years. Before that, I was two years as a bodybuilder. I mean literally just like Lean mean 3% body fat and 215 pounds and just like a piece of libidoless muscle who hang out on the couch and go visit the gym and drink protein shakes. So I experienced the extreme Yeah. Not iron man triathlon

and bodybuilding do not do those sports for health. >> Do them for photos and >> to climb your own personal Mount Everest, but don't fool yourself into thinking that those are actually healthy sports. Um, you and I think researchers Like James O'Keefe have popularized this idea that there's a so-called Goldilocks zone of exercise, right? Once you exceed I think it's about 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise and about 70 minutes of highintensity exercise, which we could define because I think some people get scared when they hear don't exceed 70 minutes of high-intensity exercise until they

understand what highintensity exercise truly is. But anyways, once once you exceed those Bounds, then you start to see things like atherosclerosis, increased risk of mortality, you know, arterial stiffness, a lot of the things that you would expect if someone was in a chronic inflammatory state without adequate recovery. And you know, if you look at, I don't know, you know, either the the bodybuilding or the marathoning craze of the 80s or the surge of CrossFit and fitness competitions, you know, Spartan, High Rocks, it's very easy to fall into That category of someone who overex exercises and

I certainly did for a long time. and um and experienced a lot of the issues that go along with that. You know, not to mention that I was also one of the early adopters of the whole keto low carb thing for endurance sports, which is another kind of nail in the coffin if you don't have it's not a bad approach, but if you excessively restrict carbs, you just don't have enough for for thyroid, for Testosterone, for the you know, proteoglycans and joints. think you can basically destroy yourself with excessive carb restriction married to excessive exercise.

>> Yeah. >> So, I have learned a lot since being fooled into thinking that you can basically out exercise your diet that the more is better and especially that like chronic repetitive motion exercise, you know, like running and cycling and Swimming that I did a lot of is the healthiest way to go. >> Now, I'm a huge fan of walking. Um, >> wow. That's a big iron man. Huge fan of walking 100 mile race. >> I run occasionally. So, well, if I'm playing pickle ball, I guess that counts as running. >> Pickle ball or family

tennis on Wednesday nights. And then occasionally when I walk down to the mailbox, cuz we have a long driveway, I'll be like, "Okay, I'm going to grab the mail and run back up the driveway." >> Um, yeah. I mean, Mark Sison just wrote a book about this, Born to Walk. You know, it's about this whole idea that human beings are more biomechanically >> designed for walking and it's more favorable for cardiovascular adaptations without excess damage to the body compared to running >> which I think is a good idea. >> Chase and catch an animal, right?

>> You do, but for very short periods of time, not at a slow pace, you know, in short bursts. And >> I consider that to be like like a healthy form of running. But yeah, 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise. First of all, that definition would be not necessarily what people might think of as like going for a walk or gardening or cleaning the garage or even tooling around your house with a 10 pound weighted vest on if that's your thing. Like I consider all of that to be just primal natural >> movement >> movement.

You know, in physiology, you know, you'd call it neat, right? Non exercise activity thermogenesis. >> Yeah, I did a lot of that. It's called fidgeting. You used to know your what they call crazy. >> The fancy name for these what? There was a there was actually a study that came out on glycemic variability and doing This. They called them a solius push-ups, >> which is basically what you and I probably call a seated calf raise. But you know, those type of little things, none of that falls into the category of the 150 minutes of moderate

exercise that if you exceed would be bad for you. We're talking about like the frowny face like jaunt on the treadmill for 45 minutes a day or the triathlete or marathoner or swimmer or cyclist who's Getting like, you know, one and a half to two hours of moderate intensity aerobic exercise. >> Definitionally, if you wanted to get into the physiology of it, you know, you've got your aerobic threshold. You technically have you have two different thresholds that you cross during exercise. VT1 and VT2. VT1 is ventilatory threshold one. That's when it starts to get hard

to carry on a conversation and that's when you've Reached what's called aerobic threshold. That's what a lot of people now call zone 2. I think for example probably Dr. Peter Aia has has popularized the most this notion of zone 2 exercise. >> That's right. >> Zone 2 exercise. That'd be kind of like the zone you get into when you get to VT1. And then you exercise and exercise and you're gradually burning more and more carbs and less and less fat and lactic acid is starting to build up and You're beginning to be hungry for oxygen

and you eventually reach VT2 which is when lactic acid starts to accumulate more quickly than it can be removed. Some people will also call that like the anorobic threshold. So that 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise that if you exceed is no longer that great for you is that whole stretch between VT1 and VT2, right? And so again, most people who are just moving around during the day, they're still Below VT1, right? Like I can I walk on my treadmill sometimes when I'm doing a podcast, right? And that all counts as just, >> you know,

nothing close to the type of exercise that would be bad for you. And then the 70 minutes that if you exceed that per week is also bad on top of the 150. >> Right. Exactly. It's not the the combinatorial effect of the two of them. It's like don't exceed 150 minutes of Moderate intensity exercise or at least try not to exceed it too much and then also don't exceed 70 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise >> within that 150 minutes or in addition like 220 minutes or >> they would be I so so let's say you

are give you an example. Let's say you're an endurance athlete and you're barely doing any vigorous intensity exercise, but you're logging like 300 minutes of moderate intensity exercise throughout The week. You would be past the Goldilock zone regardless of whether or not you've done the highintensity stuff. And similarly, if you're a CrossFitter who's logging like 100 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise per week and barely doing any of the 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise, you'd also fall into that no zone. that that would be risky to get into the 70 minutes, that highintensity exercise, that

would be all the stuff that's past VT2. That Would be pretty intense burn going pretty hard. Most people >> during that >> you walk into the average gym and one person out of a 100 might really truly be in that zone. But it's still there's still a lot of people who do I keep saying this word. I don't want to throw them under the bus, but like CrossFit six times a week or, you know, they're training for something very intense, obstacle course racing, you know, an Athlete who's heavy in training. Again, like I have no

problem with people going out and doing an Iron Man or, you know, training for CrossFit or anything like that. What I'm saying is that I used to think that that was heart-healthy activity. >> And now I can see that, oh, it's it's more something that's great for perseverance, for endurance, for character, and to again climb your own personal Mount Everest, but it's not Healthy for you. And I used to think that it was, and I've changed my stance on that. And so the data basically is that if we over exercise in the ways you just

talked about that you increase your risk of inflammation, oxidative stress, right? >> Cardiovascular disease, vascular stiffness, all things you don't want as you get older. >> Yeah. >> Now the problem has been I don't think Most people even come close to 150 minutes. >> I think I think we're speaking to the subset of the population that's that's like the gym junkies, which you know I think is still a significant portion of people. And then the other thing >> during during co I I I went to Maui and you know there wasn't a lot to do

because every like so I work out strength train in the morning and then I would go for a 2 and 1 half hour bike Ride with 2500 feet elevation for get my heart rate up. I don't know I felt great during then I might play tennis in the afternoon. I was probably overdoing it >> possibly which you can do for for short stints of time. And then the other thing is like you and I were talking about biohacking. I doubt that any of the studies that have looked into excessive exercise have taken those training populations

and given them like normate or hyper ice recovery boots and a Hyperbaric chamber and some red light therapy and cryotherapy and all these things that can accelerate recovery of the neuromuscular and the muscularkeletal systems. So, it's possible that if you have the right tools at your disposal, you could go significantly beyond those two zones that have been identified as, you know, excess exercise. >> That's where the you might you might be able to hack it a little bit cuz I I Know like if I'm able to like be at home exercising and I'm using all

my special tools at home, like laying on a PMF mat or, you know, breathing oxygen or, you know, hitting the red light bed or something like that, I feel way better than if I'm traveling and I do the same workout. I'm just like back into the hotel room. So, >> so now I walk um I do a little bit of uh super slow weightlifting like two or three times a week moving >> the Have you ever done super slow training? >> I've heard about it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Doug McGuff uh I think he was a

emergency room physician. He wrote a a great book called Body by Science where he gets into the fact that when you move muscles very slowly, very high amounts of what is called time under tension up to about 2 minutes or so, that you can get really great strength and cardiovascular Results with a very low amount of training volume and a low risk of injury because you're moving the muscles in a very predictive and controlled fashion. >> You use heavier weights to do that. >> Use heavier weights. Well, I use there's a lot of machines now

that can make it easier. Like there's the tonal. >> I have one of those. I was just working out. >> Tonal has got a setting on there. It's the eccentric setting, the burnout Setting. Like like you can literally load up your tone with let's say um deadlift, chest press, pull down, >> squat, row, and overhead press. But there's a setting on the tonal where instead of choosing number of reps, you can choose number of seconds. You set that on 120 seconds and you just do one set of each of those exercises. You put the tonal

on burnout mode and preferably also on eentric mode, right? So, it's pulling you back every time that that You're finishing a rep. That would be a perfect example of super slow training. And the nice part about it is it's over with quickly and you get really great strength adaptations with a lower risk of injury. The sucky part about it is it sucks. It's like it's not only a little boring, but it hurts a little bit going for 2 minutes and you you know, you think you're at about like you think you're at about 115 seconds

and you look at the screen and it says like 65 or Something like that. >> There's the ARX. Um, that's the one that I use and that it's kind of a horse. I mean, it literally is like a two horsepower engine. I tell my friends it's like fighting a giant robot. But same thing, that one will push and pull you through a range of motion, but again, it's just one single set for each exercise. So, when I'm at home, I do that about three times a week. And when I travel, I kind of try to

use like Nautilus machines at the gym or free weights to do the same thing. Or I use blood flow restriction bands, which you can put around the arms and the legs to >> trick your muscles into thinking they're under a heavier load than they actually are because the lactic acid isn't able to get the muscle. >> I did like 10 lbs with bicep curls. I feel like we like rehab or when you don't have access to much training equipment. I mean, if I'm traveling like Here in Austin, even though I've actually had access to fantastic

training facilities since I've been here, I always throw in my bag one elastic band, some BFR bands, and one of those doorframe suspension straps that you can do pull-ups with. And that's like two pounds worth of equipment. Yeah. >> And I can get a great workout in my hotel room or at a park just about anywhere. >> Yeah. So, there's simple ways to do that. >> Yeah. walk, I do that. And besides that, just like play pickle ball, play tennis, uh built a frisbee golf course on the new property. So, >> yeah, besides that, it's

just sports. But if you would have talked to me like back to the root of your question, like, you know, 10 years ago, I would have been like, well, I wake up in the morning and I ride my bike back to the Gym and I swim 2,000 meters, then I go upstairs and I hit the weights and then I ride home and then later on that afternoon I go for a run. >> And when you did that, did you feel okay or did you feel badly? >> I thought I felt okay. And now I have

way more energy, way more libido, my inflammatory markers, my lipids, like everything looks way better on blood work. So >> yeah, I feel a lot better with the >> I probably average what someone might call exercise about 45 to 60 minutes a day and then everything else is just walking and moving and staying out. >> That's good. That's good. It's still more than most people do, but >> it is. It is more, but it's uh Yeah, I would say I've definitely changed changed my stance on exercise. >> And now you're you're you're heading over 40,

right? >> I'm 43. >> That's amazing. >> Yeah. Well, I'm 43, but I was telling you before we recorded, I I for the past two days, I've been doing a plasma exchange with the the little bag that I had infused after I gave 2 lers of my plasma said 18 to 25 year old uh healthy male plasma. And so that was dripping into my body the past couple of days. So, I don't know. I might be 18 to 25 now. >> So s okay this is a whole another rabbit Hole I want to go down

which is which is sort of what's emerging around rejuvenation practices that are a little bit strange and I want to talk about them cuz I I found them very helpful but there's some really interesting strategies >> that you can get into when you're older that really help you to to save off some of the ravages of aging. >> Yeah. And in your sort of exploration of what's out there, you know, you focus on Diet, you focus on exercise, uh, and some of these other recovery tools, you know, whether it's red light therapy or a PMF

mat or hyperbaric chamber, hot and cold therapy. These are all things that help you heal, recover, and repair. What are the things that are have you found that are that are now kind of catching your interest as as innovations that have science behind them that help people to to deal with the complications of aging? >> Let's see. We could probably chunk it into like kind of like face, body, and internal cellular processes. I would say, and this is something that that I do on a regular basis, you can get a micro needling pen. Most of

the really good face products come out of Korea. They're big on aesthetics and face and beauty there. So, you get a micro needling pen or you can of course go to a clinic that does micro needling. Even though it's a little bit more like uh a Little bit more of a ripping effect, you can use a dermar roller. You consider this to be like airrating your lawn. And then once you've done this, you would apply a product that would allow for renewal of cells or stimulation of collagen or elastin in the face. And >> that

stuff really works. I mean, if you look at before after photos of people who do it, I can't cite like a human clinical study that says that it works because this this is all very Qualitative when we're talking about >> the face. I do that about once a week. Uh my wife does also. And then >> you go to a clinic or have a machine that does. >> She has done both a clinic and then also has a little thing at home that you do it with yourself. a little pen because like isn't like if

you if you go to a clinic like they can do it very quickly with like the fullon >> you know and they have like I think like Bigger version micro needling it's not comfortable like it's a it's less than a bumblebee sting but you can feel it the dermar roller same thing it's the dermar roller feels a little bit more abrasive almost like you're scraping your face the micro needling feels like teeny tiny punctures but it's it's not bad >> some clinics if you go to a clinic to do it will literally numb your face

before they do it so you can barely feel anything at all. It's just weird. If you Had dinner later on, your lips are numb like like they would be if you left the >> I went to a clinic, a stem cell clinic in Costa Rica and they basically you put put you asleep and then they they do the needles and then they put the stem cells in. >> If you're going to do a full stem cell protocol or a um a cold laser protocol on the face, which literally makes your face look like you've been

hit by a truck for about 3 weeks. And pe Typically people who do this, you know, if they're a Hollywood celeb and they disappear for a little while or somebody goes on medical tourism to, you know, Tijana or wherever, they're disappearing for a while cuz they just look like trash for about 3 weeks and then you look fantastic. And I only know this cuz my wife has done it and she just looks scary and couldn't leave the house for a couple of weeks and then about a month later like she was I mean she looked

way Younger and that was a cold laser with the stem cells. But as far as doing something a little less invasive, just self-inflicted dermar rolling or micro needling and then you typically apply a facial product, there are absorbable peptides. Now, you know, companies like Young Goose or Alura who are doing some, you know, peptides like GHK copper peptide using things like NAD in their face products. A lot of times you'll combine it with something like a red Light mask, you know, to to drive it deeper into the tissue or to enhance the the collagen attraction

to the face or the elastin production. But then the the newer thing that I just discovered is salmon sperm. I'm not joking, but I was just at a clinic and they told me that they wanted to do the, you know, they wanted to give me like an exosome micro needling facial. sitting there and then we finish it up >> with salmon sperm and apparently it's some kind of like a DNA isolate from literal salmon. >> Maybe it's from from Clear Water down in orphenal. I don't know. They got some they got some steel head down

there. Yeah, you could probably just like start a milking farm yourself. Uh but yeah, so salmon sperm is the newer thing that they're putting on people's faces apparently with very good results. That is kind of crazy. >> Um, so yeah, for the face typically you are initiating some type of mildly aggressive damage to the face and then following that up with a product that assists with healing almost like exercise, right? You're damaging muscle then allowing it to repair and recover so that it it grows back in a more renewed fashion, stronger fashion, >> laser or

whatever. >> Yeah. For the body, I think a lot of people already know about stem cells and Exoomes. I think there's there's always been a lot of upandcomers in the stem cell industry. I would say the two that seem to be most popular right now in regenerative medicine circles would be something like a V cell which is a very small embryionic like cell I believe is what that stands for V seal they'll typically do some kind of injection and then red light therapy which apparently attracts more signaling molecules to the area that they've injected and

that's Something that's used for like a a joint treatment for example and then another form of cells. Muse cells. Y muse stands for multi-lineage cell. >> Yeah. Stress inducing cells, something like that. But apparently >> they have uh a a really good effect with very good um or or or less chance of like an immune system reaction in the body and less believe it's called tumoro. You would know this word better Than me, tumorogenicity, something like that. So less cancer-causing potential. There's always some kind of new forms of stem cells that >> using those for

orthopedic treatments for injuries or trauma or things you want to repair. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. But then as far as biohacking is concerned, >> those get very expensive like >> Yeah. Those are those are spendy things. Yeah. But I'm a huge fan of the idea of And I do this just about every day at home. Some kind of electricity, right? To restore the electrical potential of the body, especially considering the electrical soup that we all live in nowadays in terms of >> man-made electrical soup. PMF mat, grounding mat, earththing mat. You know, I'm wearing grounding

shoes right now. So, these these shoes allow me to have conductivity when I'm walking outside. You know, I I just built a new house and The house is tricked out as far as like air, light, water, electricity, everything. But for the electrical component, every single floor of the house is grounded with a copper conductive surface that then feeds into the ground. So, if I'm on the third floor of the house, it's still as though I'm barefoot out on the planet. >> And you notice a difference now. You feel from it? >> Oh, absolutely. You feel

fantastic. I Mean, you feel like you're outside as a dirty barefoot hippie, you know, just inside your house during the day. You sleep better, you feel better. PMF mats are kind of like a concentrated version of that. >> And what what is Can you describe that because you mentioned it a few times. What is a PMF mat? What does it stand for? What does it do? How does it work? >> It's electromagnetic field therapy. A PMF stands for these Are usually a mat. Sometimes there's some type of a PEMF unit that is attached to a

coil or a bed. There's companies that produce like full-on like lounger chairs and massage tables. And usually there is a hertz setting that you can set it on like anywhere from zero up to in some cases thousands of hertz and an amplitude or power setting. And when you wrap it around a joint or you lay on one of these, it causes the cell to have an influx of negative ions. So you're essentially depolarizing the cell, you know, and and so you're supposed to have a slightly negative charge on the inside of the cell, a slightly

positive charge on the outside, and this allows for better blood flow and also allows your cell membranes to have a better electrical charge across the membrane. So you would heal faster, you would have less inflammation, you'd recover better. My favorite way to use it is if I have like a cramp or a tight Spot in my back or like my left knee gives me issues sometimes, I will wrap a PMF coil around that or lay down on the PMF mat on my back and the higher intensity PMF mats just seem to relax everything once you've

laid them for a little while. >> Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I had back surgery recently and I got a PMF machine. >> Yeah. >> And you lay in this kind of sandwiches Of coils on top and coils on the bottom. >> I did it for myself and I would notice it would go right to the area where I had the surgery. So it would go right to where the pain was. >> Right. That's very like the area that's the tightest is the area that feels like it initially reacts in almost like a nearly like a

painful >> Yeah. And I and I didn't know that it was I thought it just goes to everybody like that like in my hips and my back. And then I had somebody else use it and they're like, "Oh, it went to my stomach or it went to my shoulder or >> it went to exactly the area where I'm having >> challenges." And I was like, that's amazing that it actually seems to go right to where the issues are and you feel the intensity of it and it and >> you feel I mean the one I

have particularly is super highowered one and it it >> called the Hugo that >> really you can jack up the current in it and it feels so intense. >> The Hugo and then the other one I know of that's super powerful, the PT centers. Those would be like the two that are really good for actual injuries. Dr. William Pollock, he has one on his website. I forget the name of it. It's it's it's also like a like a high intensity one that's good for like back cramps, muscle spasms, injuries, Etc. And then there's lower intensity

ones that seem to induce more of like a full body effect that you'd use for just relaxation or stimulation or wakefulness. Like the one I have underneath the top sheet in my bed is called a pure wave. And that one you can barely feel at all unlike the Hugo or the Pulse Centers. But it's kind of more like a full body sweep that's alternating between thousands of different frequencies. Whereas like um The Hugo or one of these others, you just put it on a certain hertz frequency like 7.8 for example, and you just like target

a muscle at that frequency for a short period. >> Lay there for >> Yeah. >> 12 to Yeah. >> 30 minutes. >> Exactly. Yeah. It feels great. >> I threw somebody on the other day who had back pain and they were like, "Ah, This is amazing." >> Incredible for the back. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I've injured my back a few times in different cities and one of the first things I'll do is like Google PMF plus the name of this and try and hunt down a mat that I can actually use cuz it's

that effective. >> Wow. >> At acute injuries in addition to electricity, light, I use light a lot, not only for Circadian rhythmicity, but also for the recovery effects and the blood flow effects. >> Red light therapy. >> Red light therapy. And also from a circadian standpoint, blue light therapy. I mean, you know, the sun has has this whole bluish green spectrum. It's kind of cool. They even sell meters now where you can hold the meter up and and see the the light spectrum frequency in a different room or where you might Be outside. Uh, as

a matter of fact, if you have like a pair of blue light blocking glasses or something like that, you can put the lens over the cover of this light meter and actually see what it's actually blocking or what it's concentrating, which is kind of cool to see if your your blue light blockers actually work. >> Yeah. For example, in my house, what we did was we put throughout the house uh bulbs into each can that when you flip On the light bulb once, it will go to daytime mode. You flip it on again, it goes

to twilight mode. You flip it on again, it goes into evening mode. So you don't have to have like different lamps and different lamp stands in each area of the house. You've just got one bulb. It's called a full spectrum bulb. Bond Charge makes one. Block Blue Light makes one. Those are two companies that do like a flicker free, right? So there's no backend flicker. If you were to take A video of it with your, you know, iPhone camera in slow motion, you wouldn't catch a flicker, >> which is something that kind of causes a

little bit of retinal irritation during the day and eventually can lead to kind of a brain foggy feeling. If you've been under bright lights, if you and I were like under these lights all day, we'd definitely feel it >> because we're getting a little bit of flicker. And then they're low EMF, Right? Which is something you also want to take into consideration with your lighting system. >> So basically every light bulbs that go in any light socket. >> Yeah, exactly. And then the main areas of the house because you're missing out on some of the

full spectrum of sunlight even though they're a little bit more of a power hog and they're harder to find, we have incandescent lighting, right? So we've combined incandescent with OLED Lighting for the circadian rhythm component. And then if I'm, for example, I'm in Texas, >> it is it's super fun. Um, if I'm in Texas right now and I fly back to um to Idaho at I get home on Sunday. So, at 700 a.m. on Sunday morning or let's let's put it this way at I've been waking up about 6:00 a.m. here. So, at 4:00 a.m.

on Sunday morning Idaho time, it will be 6:00 a.m. Texas time. and my eyes will Probably, you know, flip wide open and I'll be ready to rumble because my body still thinks it's 6:00 a.m. So, the way you can kind of play with circadian rhythmicity is rather than flipping on lights rather than taking your phone out of night mode, rather than, you know, looking at a computer, you would actually put on blue light blockers, and this is something I'll do. put on blue light blockers, keep the phone in night mode, keep the lights in the

house as Dim as possible, and then when the time arrives when you actually do want to start waking up, that's when you just blast yourself with blue light using either like, you know, >> sunlight, which you can go out >> sunlight. There's devices, let's say, I like Las Vegas, you don't have access to sunlight or you can't get outdoors. You can wear glasses like there's a pair called the IOS AO. There's another pair called the rettimers and these produce Really bright bluish green light that shifts your body into your new time zone more rapidly. And

now they even make lenses. So you know there's I just mentioned blue light blockers. Now they have blue light concentrator glasses that will concentrate just the blue light spectrum from the room or from outdoors. So that in the morning if you really want to blast yourself with blue light, you just wear glasses that instead of blocking blue light, Concentrate blue light like the first 30 minutes of the day. >> Yeah. >> And this can jump start your circadian rhythm. And and not a lot of this has to do with healing the body. >> Sleep I

had surgery as I mentioned and I was slept for like four hours a night for a couple of months. And in my recovery, the sleep doctor I was working with to try to get my sleep reset >> had me wear these special things in the Morning which I can show to you later. It basically is a it's like a you put it on it and gives you like bright light in your eyes. It's like glasses that just shoots light in >> and it was like kind of bluish greenish bright. Yeah. It's like those seasonal effective

disorder lens. >> Exactly. Right. >> You wear but you wear them. Right. Exactly. Right. >> Right. There was a company I don't think They're in business anymore. They're called uh the human >> charger and they were designed to stimulate the photo receptors in your ears with bright light. I don't know if they still make them, but yeah, there was a time when you could literally have the light in your ears and the light in your eyes if you wanted to shift your circadian rhythm forward or backward. And of course, the opposite applies also. You know,

we'll we'll dim the Lights at night. You know, this is different than like red light panels or red light beds or red light wraparound devices. All I'm a fan of all of those for enhancing recovery and and use them almost every day, but I'm more kind of intrigued and find more useful the idea of using light for circadian rhythmicity. And then oxygen is kind that's kind of like a new thing for me. Like you were showing me how you have an IHT device, intermittent hypoxic and Hyperoxic training. >> And in English that means you mount

Ever without getting off the couch, right? So, so you're essentially training your cellular physiology and flooding your cells with oxygen after starving them of oxygen while you're just sitting there, which is fantastic, especially if you're just, I don't know, watching something or meditating. I think a lot of people find that they almost shift into more of like a theta wave state >> when they're using something like that. I feel like that in the hyperbaric, actually. So, it's good for a nap, good for meditation. Um, another way to starve the cells of oxygen and then flood

them with oxygen is called ewatt exercise with oxygen training. And this would be a similar idea except in this case you would use I have a device called the the Livo2. next to my my exercise apparatus, my my cardio machine. I can breathe hypoxic air and Then at the flip of a switch, for example, if I'm going to sprint, flip it to hyperoxia and flood my cells with oxygen, which normally you'd only be able to do if you were under pressure like in a hyperbaric chamber. So, there's two different ways to do this. You either

get into a hyperbaric chamber or you exercise or sit while giving yourselves hypoxia plus hyperoxia and then >> oxygen and high >> oxygen and and honestly like if you I don't know if you're hung over, if you're tired, if you're just getting started warming up in the gym and you feel a little stale, if you just put on an oxygen mask, if you happen to have one of these devices and just bre just put it on full oxygen, you know, so you're breathing like 93% oxygen for the first few minutes of your workout, you feel

incredible. >> You feel unstoppable. I mean, even Without a fancy pre-workout. And so what is a low oxygen state doing? The hypoxia, >> the hypoxy is starving the cells of oxygen. So it's a brief almost like hormetic effect to where you're going to upregulate oxygen intake once you turn the oxygen back up. So you're basically going to get more oxygen into the tissues than you would otherwise. >> But a lot of these machines, they work on on helping your mitochondria Rejuvenate. So it helps you with mphagy and getting rid of old mito mitochondria and then

helps you create new mitochondria and help them work better. probably the the mphagy would be induced by the hypoxic state, right? You're essentially creating a stressor or that kills off old mitochondria and then flooding the cells with oxygen afterwards. >> So mitochondria basically run on oxygen in food. That's what makes energy. >> Yeah. >> That's when you So you're taking away the oxygen. I don't know if it would work any better if you were in a fasted state, you know, like in a low glucose state also. But electricity, light, oxygen, I would say those are

three big ones for me in the whole like recovery performance department that I use almost every day at home. >> And hyperaric oxygen chambers also, >> yeah, >> will do something different, but they they're very effective for recovery. >> Yeah, you're brea breathing oxygen uh typically you're breathing oxygen even though you don't have to. You're still going to get a little bit of oxygen delivery just in a pressurized environment, but in most cases you'd have a canula, you know, or a mask and you're breathing oxygen. breathing up to 100% oxygen or oxygen under pressure. >>

Yeah. >> And what does that do to your body? >> Yeah. The pressure drives more oxygen into tissue. >> So, it's a way of of oxygen yourself. But the we're finding is that it actually has a lot of benefits in activating stem cells and increasing stem cell production, killing all the zombie cells, which are the scinsesscent aging cells that cause inflammation throughout your body. They increase telomere length. They have a lot of Interesting kind of rejuvenation properties. Brian Johnson just published something. >> Yeah. The hyperbarics >> and he was talking about how all the things

he done over the years >> when he did a series of these hyperbaric sessions. It led to him improving a lot of his biomarkers that he had were stuck and Israel published a study where they used this technology for brain health and rejuvenation longevity and they had Pretty compelling data about Yeah, it is pretty impressive. And I'm glad you you said the word series because I think a lot of people will hear hyperbaric and they'll do one session and expect the results. But, you know, in most of these studies, they're doing several weeks of hyperbaric.

Like you're doing 20, 30, 40 sessions last like an hour, an hour and a half, >> couple hours. Yeah. Like you get the PMF back if your back hurts and it'll be Better right away. But this is like a a commitment. >> I mean, don't get me wrong, like if you're jet-lagged or hung over and you do a hyperbaric session, you're going to feel a little bit better. But if you're in it for the longevity effects, >> these are kind of cool tools and and they're some of them are expensive like a hyperaric chamber, but

some of them, you know, are not that that price prohibitive and they can be things you Add to your daily life. >> You walk outside barefoot in the sunshine and do breath work for for free. >> That's right. which is, you know, like I mentioned community and I think that's that's the thing is that you see like whatever the, you know, 110-year-old grandma in Sardinia, Italy, who's, you know, smoking the occasional cigarette and perhaps drinking more alcohol than would be considered the hormetic effect And yet still living a long and happy life because of the

>> community piece. That's right. and and you know I I think it was uh the surgeon general in 2023 you identified loneliness as the equivalent of smoking like 15 cigarettes a day you know and so you're you're seeing increased blood pressure increased cortisol uh >> what else increased inflammation you see even increased expression of genes related to inflammatory cytoines and a Decreased regulation of genes responsible for antiviral activity it's almost like nature wants to kill you off. >> Yeah. I mean, when you're lonely. >> There's a interesting field called social genomics. I don't if you've

ever heard of it. >> No. >> But I actually came up with this term independently. Uh because I I realized, you know, after working in Haiti and Learning about the work of Paul Farmer, who used community health workers and basically neighbors, helping neighbors to help people treat AIDS and TB and >> wow, >> some of the most challenging public health conditions in the world, which most of the public health community had given up on because they had to take their medications on a regular schedule for multi-drugresistant TV and for AIDS. And they it was too

hard. They didn't Have clean water. They didn't have watches. like it was just super poor and and difficult. But he he really used the power of community to help heal >> and I realized that, you know, when I started looking to the literature that that it can work for good or for bad. Like if you're in a in a dynamic with somebody and then you're in a conflict situation or fight, >> right? >> You're going to express all these genes That are inflammatory. As your emotions get inflamed, your biology gets inflamed. But if you're in

a loving, deep heart-c centered connection with somebody, the opposite happens. You activate all these anti-inflammatory genes and healing genes and repair genes, which is fascinating to me. And and so you can use community as a tool. I know you you just launched a new community platform, which is to help people connect around. >> Oh, yeah. I mean, and I think that's that's useful if you >> It's called the Go Life Network, right? >> Yeah. Go. I mean, there's there's a lot of community platforms. I mean, there's I mean, yeah, I think a lot of the

people in the industry now, you know, uh you mentioned Dave Asprey, I think he has one. Gary Brea has one. Brian Johnson, who we were just talking about, he has one. Do you have a community? >> Yeah, it's called the Heman Hive. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a great like HYV >> and No, it's HIV. >> Oh, it's still HIV. >> That's a good idea. So anyways though, I I think the importance if you're in a community is even if it's a digital community is to try and connect with people in that digital community who

might actually be in the same region as you or be traveling to the same area or conference as you because There's actually a book by Sher Turkl called Reclaiming Conversation where she gets into the idea that a digital interaction misses a prefix and it misses an actual um you know IRL relationship you know an in real life relationship >> and I think one of the you know if you look at the underlying biological mechanisms behind that you know if if like I were to shake your hand we're triggering skin receptors you know your Pinian core

pusles so you're getting uh you're getting a stimulation of the vagus nerve which is going to lower blood pressure and lower heart rate and lower cortisol and all those things that we look for when we're trying to increase heart rate vari variability. We'd see like an oxytocin release, which you know is your your trusting, loving, snuggling hormone. Um, which a lot of animals who are monogous and mate for life have oxytocin receptors. And a lot Of animals who who do not don't. But you can genetically modify like a mouse to express oxytocin receptors and it

will become more socially active when you do that. You know, whereas like a a human or a prairie bowl, like we've already got them built in. >> I know. We got a dog. He must have a lot of those receptors because he's constantly >> dogs, kittens. Yeah. A lot. We We have baby goats. I think they have a few. You Get the oxytocin release. Um and then of course that can result in a subsequent serotonin release. You've got another feel-good neurotransmitter hanging around. You've got the, you know, you look at like the research by the

HeartMath Institute on the electromagnetic signal produced by the brain or produced by the heart that can actually affect the energy of those around you. And we miss a lot of those if we're in a purely digital Environment. And so, you know, even me, like I tend to be an introvert. I tend to be a loner. I'm one of those guys who can be super happy by myself for long periods of time. And yet when I look at all the research, you know, I think if I'm spending time doing, you know, light and water and electricity

and air optimization and all these biohacks that >> getting a hug could be I need I need to be going out of my way to also build community, you know, beyond just, >> you know, Dunar's number is 150, right? The the the approximate network of people that we're able to to interact with and stay in touch with. But what Dumbar was getting at when he came up with that number was also the idea that the deeper those layers, the more satisfied and happy a person was, right? So you have like your five intimate family members

or very close friends, then 15 kind of sort of friends, then 50 people who you get Around with on a regular basis, and maybe a few dozen others in your community. >> Yeah. >> And once you fall out of those layers, you know, it's like this built-in ancestral mechanism where you just freak out, right? It's it's like the body goes into this state of nervous system stress. I mean if you don't have those relationship >> if you if you aren't connected to people You know it's the equivalent of banishment which would mean you know in

a time >> that was a punishment >> that would have been punishment or death right it would have been ostracism >> you know it's uh that literally comes from a Greek uh term for the pottery shard called the ostraca that they used to actually write the name of the person who they wish to banish for 10 years from >> you know in in the church and organized religion you know excommunicar excommunication putting you out of communion the exact opposite of >> companionship. Pan is like breaking bread with someone. Companionship, you know, excommunication is getting >>

thrust out of that banishment, right? It's a it's, you know, I think that's a a French word, you know, beneer to send Away, to expel, to push out. So, if that happens to a human, we go into this sympathetic nervous system back to the, you know, running from a lion mode because we become hypervigilant. We no longer have anyone around us to protect us and that would have served us very well in an ancestral environment in which we had no one around us. So we had to have our guard up in order to not get

eaten by a bear, you know, alone out in the forest. Now there's even a term Called the paradox of loneliness. And the paradox of loneliness is similar to the paradox of obesity, for example, right? We have built-in calorie conservation mechanisms that would have have served us really well thousands of years ago. If we didn't have access to ample amounts of food and we came across, let's say, a kill, I don't know, woolly mammoth or whatever, we would want to eat as much as possible to store away as much fat as possible for when The times

of need arose again. >> Yeah. And now with 247 access to hyper palletable food and like a Ben & Jerry's like two blocks away, those same calorie conservation mechanisms cause overweight or obesity, right? Which is paradoxical. >> With loneliness, it's it's also paradoxical, right? Because when we're away from people or we even perceive that we're away from people because there is this idea of not just subjective loneliness, right? Being Lonely, but also subjective loneliness. seeing whatever friends and followers and fans and likes somebody else has, comparing that to yours, and suddenly feeling like you're not

keeping up and you're subjectively lonely. >> Whether it's objective or subjective loneliness, those same biological mechanisms that we were talking about, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, increased cortisol. Well, what's that Make you? Like nervous, anxious, depressed, irritable. >> And here's the paradox part. being the type of person who's exactly the type of person that nobody wants to hang around with. So you almost create like this vicious cycle of loneliness. >> So you know that's why I think it's it's so important to check yourself and you know ask, hey, have I been by myself all

week? You know, am I in loner mode? Am I keeping in touch with old friends or Making new friends? You know, am I >> taking my earbuds out maybe, you know, foregoing a podcast and just going on a hike with somebody and having a chat? You know, the these are things underrated. It's underrated. >> People need to think about Yeah. just as much as whatever red light bed or or PMF or whatever. >> It's one of the key things around longevity and I remember traveling out to the blue zones when I was writing my Book

Young Forever and I you know just striking to me how there wasn't loneliness how everybody even if they're you know they didn't have kids they'd be taken in by a niece or a nephew when they got older or they'd be yeah >> somebody's wife died they'd be all their kids would move in with them. It was just a whole network in the community where everybody was part of it and there was community celebrations and community connection and >> it was pretty remarkable and >> I think there was um >> you know Dan Beers talked a

lot about this but it's definitely underrated like you can do all these fancy things and take all the supplements and eat all the great food and exercise and do all these biohacking things but if you don't have community >> huddled up and lonely inside a hyperaric chamber sucking on a bropous lollipop with your binaural beats and and yeah I Mean you're still by yourself. I mean, you know, back to Moscow, Idaho, my my mom, who doesn't exercise and eat as healthy as she knows her son would like her to. >> Welcome to the club. >>

Is actually in pretty good health because she has a coffee shop in downtown Moscow. It's like the hub of the town and she's like the grandma of the community, you know, hanging out all these college students and pouring beer And, you know, walking all over the coffee shop and visiting with people. And I am so glad that she has that outlook because I know after having seen a lot of these, you know, studies and data and the blue zone stuff on loneliness that, you know, even if she's not exercising and eating as healthy as I'd

like, like she is she's up to some very good activity when it comes to her longevity, her happiness, right? That's a like the what's the article uh five Regrets of the dying you know it's an article in the book by the palative care practitioner where she talks about what people expressed on their deathbeds and it was basically I wish I'd chosen to show my true emotions more. I wish I'd chosen to be happier. Uh I wish I'd work less. I wish I'd been my true authentic self instead of who I thought the world expected me

to be. And the last one was, I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends. >> Yeah. And it wasn't. I wish I answered all my emails, >> right? I wish I wish I got to zero inbox every Thursday. Um, no, cuz cuz I mean, everybody knows like your work will eat you alive if that's the highest order of priorities. You know, it probably took me till I was like 35 years old to figure that out that you know, my order of priorities is >> God and my spiritual health and then my wife. Because if

you and your spouse Don't put your oxygen mask on first, you can't be there for the kids and then the kids and then my health, which isn't hard for me because it's the industry that I work in, and then business comes last, you know, and I used to think you just got to make the money first and then once you've made enough money, you'll be able to take care of the kids and have enough time to, you know, go on adventures and have many vacations. And >> what made you kind of flip in terms of

Your your priorities? almost getting a divorce like like literally I was such a >> uh an unpresent father and husband traveling all over the world at the time not just for speaking in conferences but also racing you know in Iron Man and I was really not putting my family first. my wife for the first five years of my son's existence was basically raising my sons almost by herself, you know, because I'd pop in, pop out, you know, go out and give myself the excuse that I Was just out, you know, slaying dragons and providing for

the family. >> Yeah. >> Um, >> and it took a pretty rocky patch with her for me to buckle down and start to put family first. And I mean I I literally I'm kind of like an all or nothing guy. So I jumped into it pretty hardcore and we started to build like a family constitution and a family mission statement based on a family core set of Values. >> We all went to a cabin in Utah for three days and developed a family logo which then led to a family crest and family flags and a

giant, you know, family logo sign and logos on our pickle ball paddles and our hats and our shirts that we wear out. Um, we started doing a morning and a a family meeting where every morning I gather the whole family at 7:00 a.m. and we sit around the living room >> and we talk about our evening, we talk about the day, we read the Bible together, we pray, we have a big hug and just this >> super happy coming together in the morning and then the same thing. >> And you get your teenage boys to

do this. That's impressive. >> 7 p.m. like clockwork, we all gather in the kitchen. We sing a song together. I bring my sons through a book that we are typically going together with, you know, Each month. I bring them through a book. So, we have our chapter discussion before dinner and we have like a whole game closet full of hundreds of games and we play games for like an hour and a half. And so, every single day I've almost like guarded me from being a workaholic cuz I bookended 7 a.m. No matter what I'm doing,

I have to be >> on the living room floor with the family or somebody's going to wonder, you know, where I am or what's going on. 7:00 p.m. Same thing like clockwork. That's my ending because I have to be there with the family, get to be there with the family because it's like this amazing party that we have >> and we've been doing that for 10 years. >> That's incredible. And so, not only do my sons have a real identity of what it means to be a Greenfield and what we stand for and what we

hold dear and what each little portion of the family crest means, but they feel a real sense of Belonging, you know, and I think there's a far less chance of creating like a, you know, rags to riches to rags mentality or silver spoon mentality in a young man or young woman who really identifies with a sense of pride in the family name and wanting to build generational health and generational wealth and continue to to build upon what you've started as a parent, you know, basically legacy. >> That's incredible, man. That that is an Incredible that

that's true biohacking. That's like that to me. >> And it's so meaningful. I mean, I miss I miss out on work. Like I work less than I used to. I probably make money at a far slower pace than a lot of my friends. But, you know, it's kind of like the a little bit like the old adage of, you know, if mom ain't happy and nobody happy, like if my whole family's happy. >> Well, you've rejiggered your priorities To understand what matters. >> Yeah. >> And it takes a long time for people to figure that

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you'll get monthly live sessions with me, office hours with their resident functional nutritionists, sciencebacked protocols, monthly challenges, behindthe-scenes content, And so much more. All designed to help you create healthier habits that actually stick. Whether you're just getting started or fine-tuning your routine, the Hive meets you where you are and gives you the tools and support to keep going. If you're ready to take control of your health with a community that truly gets it, join us at drrheimman.com/hive. That'sman.comhivve. You know, all the things you probably do In your day. My guess is that's probably the thing

that keeps you the happiest and healthiest. >> It's it's it's the best. I mean it's, you know, not to get too esoteric or or woo, but I mean, you know, if you think about the two most eternal things that we are surrounded with every day of our lives, it's either other souls or God. Everything else is going to pass away. You know, all of our books and homes and money and sex and cars and and Everything. There's this this idea that comes from ancient philosophers like Pences or Augustinine or you know more modern authors like

CS Lewis of this hole in the soul this eternal hole in the soul that will always feel empty unless you fill it with something eternal right so all material wealth our business you know even our our health all of that is material and temporary but if you're able to fill that hole with a relationship with a higher power And relationship with other then all the other stuff becomes even more fulfilling. It's almost like the icing on the cake. >> And I think a lot of people just miss out on the part of starting with the

eternal and then all the other stuff becomes fulfilling and instead chase money, you know, chase cars, chase houses, chase women, chase men, whatever, thinking that that's what's going to make them happy when it's, you Know, it's family, it's community, it's God. >> For me, it it was similar. I mean, I went through many years of just, you know, focusing on my career and work and and I had to kind of rejigger things and realize what was important. And now, you know, I I just went through this pretty serious health crisis with back surgery and almost

died. And it was pretty intense. >> Wow. >> An infection in my back. And you know what was so meaningful and powerful was the amount of people that were there for me. Uh who were in the hospital with me, who came and visited me, who there was like I think a WhatsApp thread of like it was sort of 100 plus people. Wow. >> Um there was there was healing circles and people praying for me and >> you know it made me realize that you know I've invested a lot of time and energy in building connections

and Community and friendships that are deep and >> that are not related to who I am but in terms of in the world but just more who I am as a human being. >> Yeah. >> And in terms of you know my my soul friends I call them. It's a powerful momento moryesque exercise this idea of asking yourself and actually there's there's an author named John Ortberg and I think he puts it like this. He's got He has a book that says his book is called I'd like you more if you were more like me.

He he has a lot of books, but this is a great book. And he has a part of that book where where he lists kind of like the five regrets of the dying. All of the questions you might be asking yourself when you're at death's door towards the end of your life. And the last question that he lists there is who will cry at my funeral? >> Yeah. >> Who will cry at my funeral? >> Yeah. And even in even in digital community like I know like I probably have like thousands of people who follow

me on Instagram or Facebook or whatever who really are not going to give a crap about my funeral and move on to the next expert or author podcast or whatever >> if I were to pass away. But my local network of community and friends and family members and people who I've built, you know, again, IRL flesh and Blood relationships with, those people will. Yeah. And, >> you know, back to the loneliness piece, it is kind of sad that we do live in a time when it's so easy to build those super >> digital, >> shaky

digital relationships that unless they blossom into something else >> are kind of flat at the end of the day. >> That's amazing. And and you know when you when you have you know that kind of Structure that you put in your day around connection and family and just even having the thought of creating you know family values and what your mission is and how you take care of each other, how you relate to each other, what's important, what you focus on, it it's um it's something I think you know just so few people ever think

of doing. >> Yeah. >> And and you're my guess is your kids are pretty well >> adjusted. They're probably not addicts. They're doing okay in school. They're >> you know probably happy. give him a lot of drugs and hang him from cages and keeps him. Um, kidding. I I think if a child is given time and love and presence, that's one thing. And I think most parents and people are aware of that, but I think it's time and love and presence and this deep sense of belonging, like knowing that they're part of a movement or

part of something Greater. I'm not saying like turn your family into a cult or something like that, but this idea of like having in the same way that you would brand a business and in an ideal scenario in a successful business, all your employees know what the business's values and mission statement and core purpose is, you essentially brand your family the same way as you would brand a business all the way down to the freaking logo and the sign on the wall. And that's What we did for our family. And it's it's incredible. Well, you're

sort of like touching on this concept of like rules to live by. Like what are the simple principles and rules to live by? >> You know, most people probably don't know this piece about you. And I think that's a it's such a gift that you shared it because it's something that I think most people >> probably >> hopefully take away from this and Understand that >> that it makes them reflect on where they have done it or haven't done it in their own life. And hopefully it'll inspire people to actually lean into this. >> Yeah.

And and I I wonder, you know, given all the things, you know, you you you talked everything from your soul to, you know, PMF MS sperm, >> salmon, sperm, plasma freezes, like After years and years of experimenting and and optimizing and and every level, your obviously your body, your mind, your spirit, your soul. I'm wondering like what you kind of are down to and distill down to in terms of like key practices that you want to keep. like what are the let's say if you only keep three practices what would they be or five whatever

whatever you think is that sort of stood the test of time and and and want to carry forward going forward >> key principles move well and have we as we've established not too much at too high in intensity >> but I think movement is underrated and it's very easy to not move I'm shocked at the number of people who get a movement meter or wearable and think they're taking 10,000 steps a day and they're taking 3,000 >> yeah So move more, eat well, which I think most people are aware of and you have many books

about this and you don't Have to follow a special diet. But back to the blue zones, you know, eat in a mindful state, eat a wide variety of plants and herbs and spices, you know, throw a little bit of hormesis in there occasionally from plants and herbs and spices and maybe even alcohol. Avoid ultrarocessed foods and eat well. I would say thermal stress or discomfort is underrated. We live in temperature controlled climate. So subjecting yourself to like the ancestral rigors of Heat and cold on a regular basis. That's why I think we've we've we see

a growing body of research on things like a sauna practice. And I think we'll see more and more coming out on cryotherapy and cold immersion because very similar to exercise, you know, we need to be throwing stress ores at our body. You know, even down to the hypoxia that we were talking about for mphagy just for cellular autophagy in general and cellular resilience. you know, you need To do uncomfortable things within limit, you know, as we were talking about earlier. So, I would tell move well, eat well, uh, >> stress our bodies, >> thermal stress.

Yeah. Or just discomfort in general. And if I could name a couple of others, I would say take care of your personal environment. We touched on air, light, water, and electricity. So, pay attention to quality of your air and the cleanliness of your air. Your water Filtration system and uh what kind of water bottles you're drinking out of when you travel. Um your lighting environment, especially how much LED, high flicker, high EMF light you might be exposed to on a regular basis. Uh and sunlight um on the good side of things. And then the electrical

environment that you live in. You know, even my house, like there is no Wi-Fi. You pull up to the bar at the kitchen and you peek under the bar and there's six little Ethernet ports there where anybody can plug in if they want to, but they're not going to get a Wi-Fi signal. I didn't want a house where it was inconvenient and I'd have a bunch of upset visitors who could never get on the internet. So, I literally have Cat 8 metal shielded Ethernet throughout the entire house so you can just plug in. You don't

have to go to those extremes, but little things like unplug your Wi-Fi router while you're sleeping at night, for example. Personal environment, discomfort, move well, eat well. And I would say the last thing is something that we just got done touching on. It would be the fifth thing I'd name and that would be your your spiritual health, which I think includes your spiritual practice and your relationships slash community. And like those would probably be the five that I would distill it down to. >> Yeah, pretty sage advice. Pretty solid. Yeah. >> And I think, you

know, the one part I think people might not completely understand and it's worth diving more into your work about this, you know, is is this piece around how do you control your environment to support your health? Whether it's, >> you know, how do you build your own blue zone? >> Yeah. A lot of people feel pretty bad most of the time >> and and >> it's often the result of things that we're not aware of like the quality of our air, the quality of our water, the >> exercising and they're eating healthy and they still

feel like crap by 2 p.m. >> And and so you're what I'm hearing you say is that some of these technologies that have helped us in many ways live better, more fun or interesting lives also have a dark side and and that there's ways to mitigate that dark side. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And rejuvenate your body in in many different ways. So lastly, I just kind of want to sort of hear what your thoughts are about the latest longevity trends. What what are the things that are, you know, popping for you that you think are

worth leaning into and what are the things that maybe are like, you know, misconceptions or things that are misunderstood, maybe not. >> We talked about some of the beauty trends. Uh and >> so sperm, I'm going to take that. and sperm. And uh yeah, we didn't touch on this, but but another thing the same clinic does is they do Botox injections into your your sexual organs, which apparently relaxes the muscle tissue and allows for for better better uh vascularity. Um to my wife was very concerned when I told her I was going to Austin to

get a paralytic toxin injected into my my uh my manpiece. Um, but uh, you know, they just had this health Optimization event down here and it was a lot of, you know, the things that you would expect to see, lots of different kinds of, you know, the 18 flavors and variants of beef tallow and beef jerky and energy bars. And I think a lot of the the cool technologies like we discussed, you tend to see those more like uh A4M in Vegas or something like that that that are kind of like the cool things coming

down the pipeline. For me personally That I have been getting super into and I briefly mentioned this to you as I was looking at your at your biohacking setup here. the idea of combining different modalities to relax and kind of downregulate the nervous system, namely haptic sensations, light and sound in some kind of combatorial environment. So, what I mean by that is um when I travel, I have one of these Apollo wristbands or ankle bands that will vibrate and then a neurovvisor, which is A headset that you wear that produces light and sound. And there's

something about light plus sound plus vibration that will knock me out on an airplane or after a busy day at a conference when I have too many central nervous system stimulants in me. Um, and at home I have this vibrating chair called the shift wave which is kind of cool. It just vibrates your whole body. You can wear a fingertip sensor and it'll kind of do it in combination with your actual heart Rate variability >> as you breathe in and breathe out. But then right above the shift wave chair, I've got this lamp called the

Roxiva. And that also does light sound therapy. So I've got a travel setup, the neurovvisor plus the Apollo. And at home, kind of like the big guns, the the shift wave plus the Roxiva. And >> you don't So you don't wear an eye mask when you do the shift wave. >> The shift wave you can wear an eye mask If you're just doing the shift wave. But the way I do it is I've got eyes open and there's like a AV cable that comes out of the Roxa because they've got about 20 different sessions that

are built for haptic sensations. >> And haptic is like vibration. >> Yeah, like vibration. The Roxa comes with this teeny tiny little like bass speaker that you put under a table or to vibrate your body. So I thought, why not hook it up to the freaking shift wave? So I plugged the AV cable into the input of the shift wave. So now when the lights come on, they're just blasting you off to outer space, which is incredible if you just need to like check out at 3 p.m. and turn your brain off. You're getting blasted

with light. You have the headphones in, so the sound is doing the thing in conjunction to the light and then that's feeding into full body vibration. >> Yeah. And it's pretty cool to Essentially just knock stress flat out of your body. Like I feel incredible when I do that. Or the >> for 10 minutes. >> The Apollo. Oh, I'll I'll run it. My My scheduling team knows that you don't schedule anything for Ben between about 2 and 3:30 p.m. >> because I finish lunch and I go into my little lounge and I'll spend just anywhere

from 30 to 60 minutes. You know, it's kind of part of my job, if You want to call it that, to try out all these new devices. So, the other day I was trying out the new MU Muse has some new Athena headband that detects blood flow and brain waves or I'll be messing around with the shift wave or what happens if I plug this into that or >> if I take my neurovvisor into the hyperbaric chamber. So, that's my relaxation experimentation time. Yeah. And uh it I'm not in there for an hour and a

half, but usually you know little Little bit of padding time on the other end to come out and you know and get back into the emails and stuff. >> What I found is that stress is is an incredibly exhausting thing in your body and if you have ways of discharging the stress now Tony Robbins talked about changing your state whether it's just jumping up and down or breathing or whatever. And this was a stage >> prey animal would relax after being chased by a predator by shaking >> by shaking. Right. And so there's there's these

devices or tools you can use to help reset your nervous system. You can do it with breath work, you can do with meditation, you can do it with, >> you know, stretching. There's a lot of ways to do it. Yoga, >> but this technologies are pretty cool because they they kind of we all are living this heightened state of cortisol. >> Yeah. >> And so how do you kind of drop out of that? And so these technologies are pretty >> and it's a routine thing, too. Like I'm typically up between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. cuz

I like to have that time when the world doesn't expect me to be up and I don't have to be guilty about having my phone off so I can do my morning routine and get ready for the day and have my time with God and have my coffee and just have my morning to myself because I Also have a family and we have these wonderful, glorious family dinner parties. I'm usually not in bed till 10:00, right? I'm getting maybe 6 hours of sleep a night, but I find that if I can program in 30 to

60 minutes of relaxation in the afternoon, it's almost like time hacking because if you add it up, you know, that's still only like 7 hours. I'm supposed to be getting, you know, depending on the research you look at, 7 to N hours. But I can be super Present for my family at dinner as long as I have that afternoon checkout time. So, I'm I'd much rather get up super early and nap than sleep in, not have my morning, and just bang out the rest of the day. So I would say that's what I'm excited about

is just the use of haptic sensation, light and sound. And then what did you ask me? What is overrated? >> Yeah. What what are the things that you like are like that's kind of like >> misconceptions. I would hate to cause People to think that they shouldn't prioritize something like uh you know like the whole seco calorie in calorie out equation because I do think that trumps a lot. But I think there's a lot of people, maybe this is similar to to my reply to you about exercise who are overdoing the whole intermittent fasting, keto

thing. There's, >> you know, I talked to a lot of, for example, especially like premenopausal women who are doing like 16-hour fasts And they're seeing, you know, these intense hormonal imbalances and downregulation of fertility. and you know they're essentially treating themselves as men when women especially premenopausal women do better on like a 10 to 12 hour intermittent fast and you know strength training and adequate protein and all the you know so you know I see a lot of cardio bunnies you know not to stereotype who are doing excess intermittent fasting so that's one one Thing

that I think is overrated and then look I am all about controlling glycemic variability you know a lot of times I wear a blood glucose monitor. I am aware and cognizant of my carbohydrate, starch, and sugar intake. But I think a lot of people now, especially with the surge in CGMs, they're just scared of carbs, scared of sugar, and >> often equate what would be considered traditionally a therapeutic ketogenic diet, right? Like 30 to 40 grams of Carbs or whatever a day that you'd used to, you know, in a situation of TBI, concussion, Alzheimer's, etc.

and they're saying, "Oh, well, this is like my new cognitive enhancing superpower." And you tend to see, you know, back to what I was saying earlier for me back when I did that when exercising a lot, you know, impact on the thyroid, impact on testosterone, impact on joint health. The way that I do things now after experimenting with with a lot of Different approaches is I kind of think you can have your cake and eat it too. I don't eat a lot of carbs and sugars most of the day, right? I save my carbs until

the evening, which is typically the the meal that tends to be the most social, the most difficult sometimes to control what you're eating because you're out at restaurants, you're with friends, you're at a party, whatever. >> So, I eat like low carb, relatively keto most of the day, and then I'll have like 250 to 350 grams of carbs at night, which is great because you sock away a little bit of liver glycogen and muscle glycogen for a great workout the next morning. So would you go with that serotonin melatonin response? >> It's not going to

be like white flour. You're not >> no sweet potato, purple potato, uh yam, beet, parsnip, dark chocolate, yogurt. So you know, good carbohydrate sources. Um you know, we do a lot of like carrot Fries, sweet potato fries. So >> not a lot of grains or beans. >> Not a lot of grains or beans besides my wife does really really good fermented sourdough bread. So she makes those crunchy cannonballs which are pretty good with a little bit of honey and sea salt on them. I'm basically in a pretty uh glycemically stable state the entire day. Quick

feeding at night that because I'm usually doing something active before dinner, playing tennis or pickle Ball with the family, doing a a sauna cold plunge, um going on a quick walk or even using bitters, for example, before the meal, I'm inducing almost like a temporary state of heightened insulin sensitivity prior to the evening carbohydrate feeding. So, I'm not getting a huge blood sugar spike that lasts till midnight and then a hypoglycemic drop that wakes me up at 1:00 a.m. or whatever. So, I'm active around dinner time. I have some bitters With dinner, which kind of

act as glucose disposal agents. And then I sleep like a baby and then get up the next morning and rinse, wash, and repeat. And I see a lot of people who just like go for way too long restricting carbohydrates, whereas I think more of like a carb refeeding approach works way better. And that's the way I've eaten for like uh probably more than a decade now. >> And and and you're not you're talking About carbs like sweet potatoes and >> things that are much are much lower glycemic and have lots of >> I avoid Yeah.

I I avoid non-nutritionally dense carbohydrates. I generally avoid period. >> Ice cream. >> Yeah. Well, it depends on the ice cream. There's some good brands out now and you know, we have goats. My sons make some pretty good goat milk ice cream. Amazing. >> But yeah, it it depends. Um, but yeah, most ultrarocessed starches and sugars you should avoid in general, but especially in like the health world, I just see people being carb phobic. >> Well, you see fat phobic, now it's carb phobic. >> Exactly. >> And then hopefully it doesn't become protein phobic soon.

That'd be wonderful. Well, that's interesting because pro protein is something we've Talked about on the podcast and other guests uh like Gabrielle Lion, but >> you know, we seem to be in a protein craze right now >> and you know, all the natural food expo, all the, you know, meat bars and >> protein bars and protein snacks. Yesterday, I tried a new bar that was, >> you know, made with, you know, whey protein and beef collagen and >> Yeah. >> beef tallow and it was actually pretty Good. >> There's a lot of them. They're super

tasty. Yeah. Uh, and I was like, "Wow, this is like really lots of good fat, lots of high quality protein." >> What's your take? Are we are we kind of going overboard on the too much protein side or are we >> I mean, depending on the on the studies that you look at. I mean, there's some that go up like three grams per pound and some, you know, studies on Bodybuilders on protein intake. I'm I'm kind of a fan of the oneish gram per pound sweet spot, >> which is twice as much or more than

than the RDA, which is the government sort of minimum amount. >> Exactly. And I think if you're if you're not physically active, you might be able to get away with a little bit less than that. I would rather people be prioritizing protein than running from it. But I think with protein, it's the Quality that matters. You know, because if you well, you know, let's say you're plant-based and you're, you know, rotating legumes and grains and um you know, eating a variety of I don't like quinoa and peas and maybe some seeds and nuts. etc. The

issue on that side is unless you're taking the time to properly prepare, you know, soak, sprout, ferment, slow prepare those foods is going to do a number on your gut and you're not going To unlock a lot of amino acids from those protein sources anyways. So, you're probably going to wind up a little bit protein deficient unless you really go out of your way to do a plant-based diet correctly. And then on the omnivorous or carnivorous side, you see people who a lot of times have more of the IFYM approach and they're just like, "Hey,

if I'm getting enough protein, I don't care if it's from a, you know, McDonald's Big Mac with a Maybe the bun removed or something like that or or a Costco steak or a Rosar steak or, you know, or, you know, hopefully, you know, grass-fed, grass-finish, good pastured sources." So I think the cleanliness of the animal from which you're getting the protein is really important. Not necessarily because the protein is going to be that different but because of all the other things you're getting along with it you know whatever what might be concentrated In the fats

or something like that. >> Although there may but there may be good things. I mean, you know, there's Stephen Vanz does some interesting studies looking at bison and >> bison just that are purely fed on regenerative methods using kind of multiple wild plants that they eat versus a bison that's that's, you know, mostly grass-fed but then is, you know, feed lot fed at the end with corn and grains. And they did very in, you know, Detailed uh metabolomic studies where they looked at not just, you know, things that were bad because, you know, they they

probably weren't given these bison hormones and antibiotics and things like that, but they were still eating like a grain diet that the um metabolites in the in the meat of the fully regenerative bison were really quite different and had all sorts of phyitochemicals that weren't in the other meat that all sorts of >> uh you know, fatty acids that weren't in there and other benefits. that that you wouldn't expect. >> I'm not convinced the amino acid composition would be different, you know, if we're talking about purely the proteins, but yeah, I think, you know, as

much as you can go out of your way to ensure that the quality of the protein source is superior, yeah, >> you know, the better. Um if if you look at some of the people who Are, you know, waving the red flag on protein, typically it's around potential for something like gluconneogenesis, you know, where you get excess protein causing some type of an insulin reaction or a glucose spike. >> Yeah. I met a guy who's carnivore recently and he's like he's insulin levels were pretty high and I'm like that's interesting because he's >> Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. which you can do. You also tend to see uh folks in the Longevity camp who raise concerns about excess stimulation of mTor, which could theoretically result in impaired longevity >> um from uh excessive methionine intake, right? The amino acid that you find in a lot of meat, especially if you're not eating nosetotail source and balancing out methionine with glycine. So, I think the variety of your protein intake matters. You know, getting sources that are rich in glycine and collagen and Gelatin, not just eating meat, right, >> is important. I think Yeah, I think include

I think I don't like the term lean protein for the most part. You know, I think that a fatty cut of salmon and the egg with the yolk and, you know, getting as long as the animals been fed well, a little bit of the, you know, the CLAs and the saturated fats from, you know, well-fed pork or cow. I think that's a good idea. Um, but yeah, I I think that you could make a case that if You get too much methionine and too high a protein intake to the point of like acidity or excess

mtor activation or gluconneioenesis or something like that, like it could be bad, but I don't think many people are reaching that high level of protein intake. >> Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think, you know, it is the only macronutrient we need in gram amounts. >> Yeah. >> You know, essential fatty acids. We need Milligram amounts of carbohydrates. We don't need them. Although they they help us in different ways, but there's no essential carbohydrate. >> Yeah. >> Um so it's it's an interesting moment like we've got this low fat, low carb, high protein. Now I

think the world just kind of keeps spinning around the nutrition confusion. I think uh >> people need to like focus on >> very dogmatic. You know, nutrition is Very dogmatic and it's also an easy industry to make money in because people want a perfect solution. That's right. >> Right. Right? So, if you can come up with a perfect bar or the perfect book or, you know, the perfect diet or whatever, like you're going to rake in some cash for a little bit and then people will move on to the next big thing once they realize

that one isn't working for them. >> That's right. I mean, it's I always say Don't let your ideology run over your biology. Yeah. Like pay attention to how you feel and what's going on in your body. >> Don't let your ideology run over your biology, >> you know, because they got listen to your body is basically the bottom line. And it's generally the smartest doctor in the room. >> And Ben, you know, your work's been so great. you've you've really helped bring So many of these ideas into public consciousness and I think I really encourage

people to check out more of your work and you've got a new book uh coming out that's sort of an update of your older book right the boundless which is coming out April so what where can people find you on online >> uh my my hub is ben greenfieldlife.com >> ben greenfield life and you can connect to everything you're doing there >> pretty much yeah >> that's great and uh thank you so much for being such a sort of pioneer here and thinking about tools and practices and things from a scientific perspective and kind of

separating the week from chaff and helping us sort of navigate what are often very strange and controversial topics with with, you know, humor, intelligence, and and great. Thank you, Ben, for being on the podcast. Thanks, man. >> If you love that last video, you're Going to love the next one. Check it out here.