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I realize, oh crap, like I'm fit on the outside, but I'm dying on the inside.
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High inflammation, low testosterone, dysregulated thyroid, gut inflammation and gut issues and constipation.
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All these issues that technically somebody with like low body fat and muscles who can like run and lift weights, you wouldn't expect to have.
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But really, true fitness is not about going to a little fake box at the beginning of the day and pushing, you know, fake heavy things around for an hour and then walking out and assuming that you're good to go.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
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Thanks to each and every single one of you who come back every week to listen, learn, and grow.
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I am so deeply grateful for our trusted, committed community that shows up every week.
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And today's guest is someone that I met a few years ago now.
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We've been going back and forth trying to make this happen with both of our schedules, with the pandemic, with COVID, with everything else that's been going on.
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And I have to say that I'm pumped and I'm so excited that we're finally in the same room together.
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I'm talking about none other than human performance consultant, New York Times best-selling author, uh self-experimenter, and one of the most wild, crazy, interesting, curious people that I know, Ben Greenfield.
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Ben, thank you for being here.
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Thank you for showing up.
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And even just the few moments we spent together, I'm already looking forward to It's kind of bittersweet though, cuz the last time we hung out, we were eating wonderful Italian buffet-style five-star resort Sardinian food surrounded by amazing people and music and that that whole was it Mindvalley?
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Was it Mindvalley University?
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It was yeah, it was it was it was Awesomeness Fest. A-Fest.
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I don't think they even call it Awesomeness Fest anymore cuz that word's dated.
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But yeah, the they they had like it was almost like a Disneyland in Sardinia. Some giant resort.
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All I remember was the food was amazing.
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Great parties and then I met you.
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We were sitting at a at a at a table at dinner and you and I had never met before and Vishen Lakhiani was there and he introduced us and then we thought about doing a podcast and that was like 2 years ago.
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Literally three I think now.
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the other side of the world, we finally hook up. But yeah, Sardinia.
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You know what was interesting about that?
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Like Sardinia is well known as being a longevity hotspot, right? Like Listen.
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Nicoya and Loma Linda and Okinawa, you know, one of these so-called blue zones, even though there's some controversy about the whole blue zones and whether or not the the demographic data was accurate or whatever, but either way, like people live a long time there. Like we got that. Yeah.
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But when you look at the populations that they studied in Sardinia, it was a lot of the old people up in the Dolomites, right?
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Who were, you know, hiking up hills with their goat's milk and their wine and eating, you know, small cold-water fish and herbs and spices and teas and living this like outdoor lifestyle combined with social relationships and love and all these things that that we know now feed a good, not just healthspan, but lifespan.
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And then we got to Sardinia.
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So, that was like the picture I had painted in my mind.
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But then when we got to Sardinia, we weren't like up in the craggy hills with like old Italian people drinking table wine over small, you know, fish and tea up in the mountains somewhere.
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This was like a full-on like five-star resort with like golf carts and and like man-made beaches inside giant walls and so it was interesting for me.
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I kept wanting to slip away like up into the Dolomites and be like, "Okay, well, this is interesting, but what's kind of like the non-touristy side like?" Yeah.
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Regardless though, the the food I think was amazing and probably probably something the the longevity enthusiasts up in the mountains would have killed to get their hands on that.
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We were we I think we were I hope we were eating seasonally.
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I think we kind of sort of it was I think it was seasonally slash what the locals there thought would kind of impress us most, yeah.
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But but I mean like you know, I've eaten in Italy before, I guess more like the locals.
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So my wife and I early on in our marriage, we flew into Rome and didn't have a lot of money.
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It was either senior year of college or right after we'd both graduated.
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And so this was back in the day when I had to like fax all my reservations in and my credit card number to the to the different places that we wanted to stay and stuff.
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But our our hair-brained idea was we wanted to rent bikes in Rome and just like zigzag ride them all the way up to Florence. And that's what we did.
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We rented bikes and but I planned ahead and mapped out the whole route.
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And so I would fax my reservations into these agriturismo, you know, which are like farm stays where you stay with these Italian families out on their farm or like little hostels or beds and breakfasts cuz that's basically what we had the money to afford.
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And so we we got into Rome, we start riding and basically because I'd already prepaid for all these reservations by faxing them in.
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It was come hell or high water, we had to get to where we were going that day.
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And most days were like 35 to 50 miles of riding, which isn't a whole lot.
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But these are like heavy touring bikes with with panniers on either side, these bags where you keep all of your belongings, your clothing, your toiletries, whatever.
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And inevitably as the trip goes on and we like buy wine and buy cheese and buy souvenirs, these bikes would get like heavier and heavier as we'd go.
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Every city there is built on top of a hill, you know, like an old medieval village with walls and you got to climb a hill.
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So every day at the end of the day, the very last thing we'd do when our legs were already toast was just climb climb climb to the top of these hills and then hunt down, you know, wherever we'd actually put in a reservation to stay at.
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at. But I remember the most special thing was it was every single day you'd finish, you were sweaty, you were tired, your legs were aching, and you knew that there was a homemade Italian meal with some table wine that rivals, you know, a
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$50 glass of wine you'll buy here in the US, and and wonderful people and and smiles and um and and and a bed to stay in, and I just remember every single day riding up those hills thinking gelato, homemade ravioli, red wine, you got this, Ben. You can do this. And it was You can do this.
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And it was it was a cool trip.
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We got all the way up to Florence.
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We we put our bikes on a train, and then just took the train back down to Rome and flew home.
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So, now I have, you know, years and years later, I have twin 13-year-old sons.
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And when they're 15, so year and a half or two from now, we're going to replicate that trip.
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We're going to take them back.
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So, now I've got them kind of starting to train and learn how to be comfortable on the roads, you know, like the Italian roads have no shoulders, right?
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So, you got to know to handle your bike on roads and how to ride a big fat touring bike instead of a road bike, and so that's going to be really I'm super looking forward to that as like the next trip to Italy is going to be with my boys riding through the through the Italian fields and and hunting down Florence again. That's a beautiful plan.
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I love hearing that, man.
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They're they're lucky boys.
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And I I remember that as a young man, my parents would drive us to Italy.
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That was their favorite place in Europe.
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So, we would drive from London, we'd get the ferry into France, and then from France, we would drive again to Italy.
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So, we drive to Venice, we drive to Naples, we drive to Rome, we we just drive to a different place, and we drive across Italy uh because we didn't have the money to fly there, and my parents preferred doing a road trip.
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And we we didn't get on any bikes or anything like that, but even what you were saying I was going to say we weak family.
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If you guys were were were were real, you would have taken bicycles.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, you would have.
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You would have You would have taken a bike If you had a cool bike bike from London to Italy, yeah.
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no, we were like 8 years old and and our parents.
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But but I have good memories of visiting Italy with my parents as well.
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So, I can only imagine how your boys are going to feel when they go with you.
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I think they'll do My only concern is the girls cuz I got like two 13-year-old that'll be 15 by then, like blond-haired, blue-eyed American boys.
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And just having taken my wife there and seen the reaction to, you know, my wife's blond-haired, blue-eyed, and you know, the men there are very, very forward.
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And they'll catcall when she walks down the street.
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Then, when I took my sons to Thailand a couple of years ago, same thing.
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Like all the Thai people just flock around them, and then the women are practically swooning as these little blond-haired boys walk through the street.
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So, we may have to bring bring some flyswatters to keep the keep the women off of them. I love it, man. I love it.
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I I My first memory of you actually was inside in here.
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I knew you were going to be there.
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We were We were both speaking at the conference.
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And, you know, I was learning about you and learning about your world.
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I was I'm you know, I'm I'm not a biohacker.
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That's not my background in in the same sense as you are.
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And so, I was intrigued, and I I loved your sessions that you did.
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But my first experience of you was we had an evening party.
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And it was like this We were on this bridge, if you remember, at the hotel.
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And you literally jumped in to like the hotel lake/pool.
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It was And the reason why I say lake is because it wasn't like a swimming pool.
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We have to I've got to give Ben credit.
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It was And it was evening, so it was it was cooler.
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And you dived in, and you swam, and you got out, and you you made your And we were just we were all like, "Wow, that is that is the way to enter."
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So, I've always You remember it? Yeah. Yeah.
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And that that was that was early on in the trip.
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Honestly, dude, I love water. I know you do. I'm at home in water.
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I you know, I I competed for years in open-water swimming and Ironman triathlon.
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And the biking and the running was okay, but I did and I still do just love I love the water, love the ocean, love spearfishing.
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I I'm I'm not a big water man in terms of like surfing and kiteboarding and things like that cuz I don't really have that up in Washington state so I can't practice it and I tend not to really be passionate about the things I I suck at cuz I can't practice them.
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But but yeah, I think water is almost like woven into my DNA somehow cuz my dad you know his all of his side comes from Australia and I'm a big believer in the fact that that we do carry a lot of things epigenetically in our DNA not only trauma but also the things that our ancestors were good at or love to do.
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You know, my my son River dreams a lot about snow and ice and Finland and trekking up snowy mountains in the cold and it's interesting because my wife Jess's whole side is like northern European you know, up in the area around
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Finland and Estonia and and and Switzerland you know, and and some of these more like snowy white places and it's funny that that's like a repeating dream that he has and I suspect that it's just it's woven into his DNA in the
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same way that a love for water is is woven into my DNA and I'm I'm actually super excited because right before I left to come down here to LA I received a package in the mail this company called a Finis sent me these headphones that you
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can attach to your goggles and they're bone conducting headphones meaning that you can listen to stuff while you're swimming or while you're under the water while you're spearfishing or whatever. So they conduct the sound through the
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So they conduct the sound through the bones on either side of your head rather than your ears right?
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So you don't have to worry about like the wires and everything and then they sent me these goggles that have like an in-screen display as you're swimming that show you how many strokes you've taken and how far you've gone.
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So you know, perhaps it'll just suck all the enjoyment of swimming out of me because sometimes excess technology can do that but you know, it's just water toys like that they absolutely love.
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And we live we don't live near water where we live on about 10 acres of isolated forest land up in Washington state, which is great.
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You know, we have we have goats and these cute little Nigerian dwarf goats and Icelandic chickens and and a bunch of garden beds and all sorts of like old growth forest where there's all sorts of wild plant edibles like, you know, mint and plantain and nettle and white-tailed deer and turkey and coyote.
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And it it's it's a great place, but there's no there's no water right there.
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So now I'm building this this natural pond.
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And then just to to scratch my swimming itch, I got one of those those swim pools that's like it's like 20 ft long, but it has a super hard jets and you attach like a it's like an elastic band to your waist and you can swim against the current.
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My mine was called an aqua fitness you know, it's the ones you see Michael Phelps advertising in the back of airplane magazines.
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Yeah, that that kind of thing.
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But then I keep mine cuz I'm a huge fan of like the power of cold thermogenesis and cryotherapy for just for fat loss and and your nervous system health and your cellular resilience.
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I I think most people live in the comfort of temperature too much.
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And when we look at longevity data, when we look at health data, when we look at nervous system and cellular resilience, constant exposure or can regular exposure to stresses of heat and stresses of cold is so good for the human body.
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So I have a I have a sauna and then I have this pool, but I keep it cold.
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What I mean by that is I don't heat it. Right?
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So in the summer, yeah, I'll I'll swim at like 60° or whatever it gets up to.
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Then in the winter I'll go out there and swim and it'll be like almost break through the ice temperatures.
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But I get in that thing almost every day and swim and that's and it just puts a big smile on my face.
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Yeah, I've been going to this place called Pause in West Hollywood. Yeah, I know Pause.
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Yeah, so I've been going there every week with my wife.
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have float tanks there, too.
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Yeah, so we go there every Saturday and we do the sensory deprivation tanks for about an hour and then we'll both go and do three cycles of the sauna and cold plunge together Yeah, you feel like a million bucks afterwards.
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We do every Saturday morning.
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It's our become our morning routine ritual on Saturday.
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We wake up, once we've done our meditation 10:00 a. m.
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we head over and then 10:00 a. m. to noon we're there.
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And it's just been so I I and you know, I've I've heard that for a long time and as monks we took cold showers.
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as monks we took cold showers. We you know, we were in India so it was it was hot plenty of the time so you always experienced uncomfortable amounts of heat, but doing that since I've been back where my body has acclimatized acclimatized to wanting a more comfortable temperature
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and the temperature at home's always perfect, but also I've started sleeping at like 66 67 Fahrenheit and that even though it was cooler in the beginning, that kind of sleep temperature has really helped and you wake up sometimes feeling cold, but I can notice that that's doing some good for my body, too. Sle- sleeping in the cold, the the
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Sle- sleeping in the cold, the the effects of that on on the positive effects on sleep architecture have always been surprising to me because um is is such simple low-hanging fruit when you look at sleep hygiene. Right?
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We have light as being one component of sleep hygiene.
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So, what I mean by that is your sleep cycle begins in the morning meaning that the more sunlight, the more of these like, you know, if you're looking at this more of a biohacking standpoint like the infrared light panels that you can use to simulate sunrise in your
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office that you can shine on your whole body or an infrared sauna or these these blue light boxes that they sell for desktops that are used for seasonal affective disorders, you know, or of course sunlight being, you know, the top of the totem pole for any of this stuff. Like blasting yourself with light in the
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Like blasting yourself with light in the morning combined with turning your room into a just a light cave at night.
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Like I've replaced all the cans in our bedroom with red incandescent bulbs instead of LED or modern fluorescent lighting.
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So that's for the late evening before you turn off the light.
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my master bedroom, my son's bedroom, and our mas- and and our master bathroom are all red incandescent bulbs. No no regular bulbs.
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whenever you turn on the Yeah, all red.
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No dimmers because dimmers and we're kind of getting into the weeds a little bit here, but dimmer switches on lights, they cause a lot more what is called uh dirty EMF or or a high amount of non-native electricity that doesn't jive well with with human cellular function.
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And so we don't use dimmers, but we just replaced all the cans with red incandescent.
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The reason for incandescent being that even though they're they're slightly bigger power hogs on the electrical supply, you know, it's it's not that big of a deal.
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Might be an extra 10 15 bucks on your electrical bill every month, so it's it's it's nothing too big to worry about.
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But they also um they they simulate the natural red spectrum of sunlight.
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And the same as our ancestors might have experienced during torchlight or firelight at night.
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So all of the all of the bedrooms, anywhere where there would be a sleeping place or a place where you might get up to pee at night, it's all red incandescent.
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And then all the computers, like my son's computer, my wife's computer, my computer, we have a program installed on that called Iris.
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And Iris just kind of sucks all the all the high temperature light out of the computer screen at a specific time of day.
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So it's very eye friendly as the night goes on.
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can have that on your phone as well?
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Uh no, but for the for the phone, so I do Iris on the computer.
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And then for the television, even though we don't watch much television, I have a box installed on that called a drift box that decreases all the blue light from the television.
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And then for the phone, obviously a lot of phones have built-in native night mode.
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But for the iPhone in particular, which is what I use, you can Google um iPhone red light trick.
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And you can actually set your iPhone so it literally just like sucks all of the blue light out of the phone and turns it dark red, kind of like how a lot of people who will do a dopamine fast will switch their phone to black and white for a week, which I think is a great idea.
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Um that this will will switch it to red.
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And so you combine all those factors along with preferably, and I'll do this a lot of time when I travel cuz I just don't have as much say over the light bulbs in the hotel room or whatever, wear the blue light blocking glasses, right, at night especially.
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And so basically you're just blasting yourself with natural and blue light in the morning and then complete absence of that same light at night.
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You want to get as close to just what would looking at fire look like at night.
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So so light is one, and it's interesting because light can also be used to shift your circadian rhythm backwards or forwards.
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So let's say we weren't sitting here in LA.
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Let's say we were in New York, right?
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And so um my wake time in New York being, you know, let's say 6:00 a. m.
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would dictate that if I were back home on Pacific time, that's like 3:00 a. m.
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And if I'm in New York for a week, when I get back home to Pacific time, my body's all of a sudden waking up at 3:00 a. m.
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, which is annoying and problematic, and I don't want to get up at 3:00 a. m.
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cuz there's not a lot a whole lot going on then.
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I'm I'm a total fan, like I'm an early morning guy, like I usually get up 4:30 or 5:00, but 3:00 is pushing the envelope.
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3:00 is like you're dead by 11:00 a. m.
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You don't want to talk to people and you need a nap, and so anyways, the trick there is when you're waking up at 3:00 a. m.
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, if you do wake up and you have to get out of bed and you just you you you're just you're going to get up, you're going to maybe whatever, go do some yoga or read a book or whatever, you trick your body into thinking it's still night time by keeping your phone in night mode, by not turning on any lights in the house, by putting those blue light blocking glasses that most people wear at night on in the morning instead.
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And when the time rolls around when you actually want to send a message to your body that this is the new time to wake up.
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Like let's say that's 6:00 a. m.
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Then you flip on all the lights and you blast the body with light.
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And after 2 to 3 days of doing that, it's remarkable at how quickly you can shift your circadian rhythm backwards or forwards using light.
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And again, kind of like back to the whole biohacking realm, there are even in addition to those light producing boxes that you can put on top of your desk.
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They make uh ones that you can put in your ears.
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They look like headphones.
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They're called the Human Charger and they blast your your your head with this blue light in either ear. What?
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And then there's also a pair of glasses that you can use called the Re-Timer.
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Your entire body is a light receptor machine and that's interesting because you could wear a sleep mask at night, but if your room's really light, like if you don't have blackout curtains or just or there's lots of blinking things in the room or you walk into a hotel and you turn off the lights and all of a sudden it looks like a spaceship cuz the TV and the Wi-Fi and everything.
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Like even if your eyes are covered, all that stuff hits your skin.
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So when I say dark in the room, like I make sure it's really super dark.
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But you were talking about temperature, too.
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Obviously temperature is that's like the second component of sleep hygiene.
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So with temperature, I I think you said you're doing what, like 65, 66? around that too.
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I find cuz cuz I had you know I I I coach some people still for for their health and for their sleep and everything.
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So I I get to look at a lot of data from from an Oura Ring or from a Whoop or whatever wearable somebody is using.
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And I've identified that about 63 to 65 Fahrenheit is even better.
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Like if if you get Got it.
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So even a bit lower than you.
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Yeah, my metric is if you're one of those people who and I think this is a good idea for staying cold, who likes to take off all their clothes before they get into bed at night or sleep in your underwear. Mhm.
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If you have mild cognitive resistance to taking off your clothes at night before you get into bed cuz it's a little chilly, that's a pretty good sleep temp. Mhm. Right?
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So for me it's like if it's a little chilly when I take my clothes off, Yeah. that's perfect.
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And then um in addition to that, I actually have this this um pad underneath the top sheet of my bed.
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It's called a chili pad, and it circulates like 55° cold water under my body while I'm sleeping.
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My wife doesn't do most of the stuff that I do.
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you just have a new half?
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Yeah, the shoemaker's wife wears no shoes, dude.
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So, I just don't bug her about it. I let her do her thing.
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She likes to garden and hang out with the goats and chickens and go on walks, and so she just does her thing, and I don't force anything on her because I I know what what'll happen down the line.
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If I if I want to give my wife health advice, I'll tell one of my friends who's a doctor.
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I'll be like, "Text this to Jessa."
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And then they text it to her cuz cuz I just I just know not to to know now when she watches this.
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No, cuz that's the thing is she also doesn't She She wouldn't even know how to download a podcast.
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So, that's that's just who she is. Right.
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So, anyways though, so I have the chili pad on my side, and I can and and my sons both have one, too, and they love it.
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We all like So, we have these big glorious family dinners at night, and like right before dinner, all of us boys run upstairs and turn on our chili pads so we can sleep better.
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So, the bed's already cold when we get into it.
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Um another thing that you can do, and it's a little bit paradoxical, but it actually works, is you can pull on wool socks before you go to bed at night, and when your feet are warm, there's these little uh vessels are called anastomoses or something like that, but but it actually allows the rest of your body to stay cool when you warm some of those tiny vessels in the hands and the leg.
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So, you'd think wearing wool socks to bed would keep you warm, but just like wear wool socks and little else, and you can actually cool the body with that method, too.
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Um and then finally regarding cold, you don't mind me just geeking out at all this is beautiful. I love this.
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No, no, we we dive into sleep.
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Sleep's Everybody needs to sleep, so Everyone's going to try this out, yeah, because I mean, you know, sleep's something that everyone's struggling with.
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it's it's it's so it's so it's so critical. Please geek out.
22:56
So, the um the thing with the um the the cold is that if you do kind of like break the rules cuz there's all these rules now that all the scientists in their institutions have come up with that are annoying us like you're not supposed to work out hard within 3 hours of bedtime and you're not supposed to eat a heavy meal within 3 hours prior to bedtime.
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Which for me can be socially problematic cuz I love to have big glorious family dinners with people and go out on the town and visit new restaurants and I mean how often let's say you're going to bed at 10:00.
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How often are you really going to be done with all that like 7:00?
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Unless you're just like a total I don't know just a boring social outcast.
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Sorry to all the people who aren't eating dinner.
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But basically it's not that hard.
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You just get the body's core temp back down.
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Like so if it's the winter and I finish a dinner I'll go for a brisk walk outside in the cold weather and if it is uh the summer or warmer season just like a lukewarm or a cold shower before you go to bed.
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Like my sons and I just went down and watched the fights down in Vegas when it was like 115° on the strip and we walk every night.
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We walk home from the fights and the shows and everywhere we went and every night before I get into bed you know there's a little bit of resistance to this but that's okay.
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You can you can you you can um overcome the resistance but just take a cold shower before you get into bed and that helps to lower the core temp if you have had to exercise or you've had a heavy meal in those 3 hours prior to bedtime.
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So you've got the light and you've got the cold both the ambient temperature and then your sleep surface and then your body itself that you keep cold.
24:32
The the other two that you want to think about for sleep in addition to light and cold uh the first is noise and in the city this is a bigger issue but I mean even I have got roosters that like to get up kind of early cuz they're
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naturally programmed to wake you up and I've got um I I live out in the forest but there's a road nearby that sometimes semis go down and I can hear off in the distance the like the braking like the you know, when semi's go downhill. So, I
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So, I wear ear plugs, like just soft wax ear plugs to bed, but then they've actually done studies on the different forms of ambient noise that help you to sleep at night.
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You know, how they make like sleep machines that will make white noise and brown noise and and one of the forms of noise that they make is pink noise.
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And pink noise, it appears, is the best background noise to have playing in the background noise?
25:22
I've never even heard of it.
25:22
It's just like a I don't know why they give colors to certain noises, but it's it's the frequency and the pitch of that noise.
25:28
So, I've got an app on my phone called Sleep Stream.
25:31
I think it was free or the cost was was incidental, but it's got all these different like sleep tracks on it and I don't I don't use anything on it except the pink noise function.
25:41
So, my phone goes in airplane mode next to my bed and then I push pink noise on and I put the ear plugs in and then I'm covering up all those ambient sounds.
25:50
That technique works a lot better when I'm traveling, when I'm staying in a hotel near busy roads.
25:55
when I'm when I have a roommate or something like that, if I'm at a conference and I'm sharing a room with somebody and they're getting up early or they're going to bed late.
26:01
So, the sound is another component, especially if you're a light sleeper.
26:08
And then the final component is safety.
26:11
And a lot of people don't think about the safety component.
26:12
So, your bed should be a place where from from a nervous system standpoint, you're not wired up in work mode.
26:19
Your sympathetic nervous system is not activated.
26:21
If anything, the bed is almost like an anchor that activates the parasympathetic nervous system.
26:29
Well, if you are one of those people who has business books on your nightstand or maybe you open your laptop up at night or really at any other time during the day, that would give your body the impression that the bedroom or the bed particularly is an appropriate place to work.
26:43
I would say even that television, just because psychologically, you know, we as humans are still hardwired to see that television and it's as though a whole bunch of other people and other experiences are in your bedroom.
26:55
Not to mention the fact that there's some really interesting data that television can replace dreaming, right?
27:01
So, essentially, we live now in an era for the past several decades where all of the colors and imagery and imagination and visualization and creativity that your brain should be churning out during sleep at night to process memories and to process trauma and to process creativity, a lot of that can be replaced by staring at a television before you go to bed at night.
27:23
So, I I don't have a TV in the bedroom for those reasons and also for the light reasons and also for the reason that I want my body to associate the bed with pretty much nothing but sleep and sex and then I'll keep a boring book or a work of fiction next to the bedside.
27:38
Now, I used to when I'd get to a hotel room, I would just like, you know, plop on some especially a small hotel room.
27:46
Like a suite, usually you've got more than enough room, but you know, the small hotel rooms, a little crappy workstation in the corner or whatever, if that.
27:51
I'd just like plop on my stomach on the bed and open up my laptop, you know, I think a lot of people know what I'm talking about.
27:59
You know, just lay there on your belly and work on the laptop cuz it's a comfortable spot to do that.
28:02
And the problem is that sends your body this this this cognitive signal that the bed is the place where you work.
28:07
So, now I always make sure my laptop, even in the single room hotel room, is not in the bed and that sends the body a message that the bed is a safe place, not a workplace, not a stressful place, not a emails jumping out from your computer place.
28:24
And if you really want to take that safety thing one step further, this has become quite popular now, this idea of gravity blankets, meaning folks will sell like these 10, 15, 20, or 25-lb gravity blankets.
28:35
And it sounds like it would be totally paradoxical to what I was saying about staying cool cuz it sounds heavy, but a lot of a lot of folks are doing a good job making like a gravity blanket that will stay cool.
28:46
That one company I was talking about, ChiliPad, they even sell a gravity blanket that will like circulate cold water through the blanket.
28:50
But there's something about, very similar to like how when you were swaddled as a baby, you felt protected and you felt like you were in this this quiet cave.
28:59
It's that feeling when you pull on the gravity blanket.
29:04
blanket. And so when you combine all that stuff, the light, the cold, management of sound, and then presence of safety in the bedroom, you create a a real a real real nice nest for getting those hours that are arguably the only hours
29:20
during your life, you know, arguably that third of your life that your nervous system should be repairing, that your body should not be wired up to have everything activated, that you shouldn't be exposed to like lots of electrical signals. And I'm not one of those guys
29:32
And I'm not one of those guys who's like, I don't know, like go full-on, move up to the mountains, don't use internet, cut yourself off from everything.
29:41
It but it appears that the issue with constant exposure to all these electrical signals that our bodies, from an ancestral standpoint, haven't been exposed to for thousands of years, is the fact that the cells don't get a break. Right?
29:55
So when we're looking at Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and the constant opening of what are called calcium channels in the cell that allow a whole bunch of ions to spill into the cell that disrupt metabolism or they give you brain fog later on in the day, that's actually all pretty repairable.
30:11
The body's actually pretty impressive and magical in terms of how quickly it can bounce back from certain things, just in the same way they could recover from a hard exercise session and remove all those muscle fibers or repair all those muscle fibers.
30:21
If you give it rest, if you give it recovery.
30:25
The the the thing is, it's the same thing with electrical exposure.
30:27
Like if you can turn your bedroom into a safe, quiet, cool place that also doesn't have a whole bunch of plugged in, like Wi-Fi routers and phones, etc.
30:34
, you're all of a sudden giving your chan- your cells a chance to just go It's it's when people camp, you know, and they're just cut off from all that stuff.
30:43
They feel great when they come back.
30:44
So, it's not as though you have to live like a Luddite.
30:46
It's that sometimes you have to press the pause button, give your body a chance to step away from all that electricity for just, you know, that those seven or eight hours or however long you're in there, and then emerge back out repaired and ready to to tackle the day again. Yeah, that's it.
31:03
You just taught everyone how to make their bedroom into a sanctuary. That was A sanctuary.
31:08
Yeah, that's what it sounded like.
31:08
The way you were describing it.
31:10
I was just like, and that's what it has to be. A sanctuary is safe.
31:13
A sanctuary is a It has It has to be.
31:15
And I I think a lot of people beat themselves up, too, cuz, you know, there's a lot of really great sleep researchers out there now.
31:22
You know, you've got guys like Matthew Walker and Nick Littlehales and um gosh, who who all There's another another person who's been doing a lot of work on sleep.
31:32
Michael Bruce is another guy.
31:35
But, over and over again, what you see is you're supposed to sleep 7 to 9 hours a night.
31:39
And a lot of people feel bad because they don't.
31:41
And I felt bad for the longest time because I didn't.
31:43
And I'm like, what am I going to like die of cancer early?
31:47
Or am I am I going to Is my body going to fall apart?
31:49
Am I am I going to like accelerate aging because I just I've got too much going on?
31:54
Or my body just like my eyes open wide at like 4:30, and I just want to go crush the day. Right?
32:02
Which which I think many people who are dialed into perhaps some of the things that you talk about, like your ikigai, your life's purpose, your your plan de vida, you know, speaking of Sardinia, you know, this idea of your purpose for life.
32:13
Well, if you have a really strong purpose for life, sometimes you wake up in the morning and you're just like, baby, let's go. Bring it on.
32:20
And for me, you know, with our big glorious family dinners and and I read my son stories at night and I play the music on the guitar and I'll make love to my wife and read some fiction.
32:31
So, you know, even with all that, I can usually do a pretty good job being close to asleep by 10.
32:35
But, getting up at 4:00 6 to 6 and 1/2 hours.
32:38
So, the thing is that if you do that, but also you take a nap, like a post-lunch siesta, for example, uh the the siesta, even if it's like 20 to 45 minutes long, can simulate what you get out of a full 90-minute-ish sleep cycle.
32:58
So, the way that I live my life is I sleep 6 to 6 and 1/2 hours a night, and then, like clockwork, after lunch every day, or if I have a meeting after lunch, sometimes it's slightly later in the afternoon.
33:09
I try not to push it too close to bedtime, cuz you want some sleep drive going into the night. I take a nap. I take a siesta.
33:17
For me, it's 20 to 45 minutes. Wow.
33:18
I I do kind of This is where some of the biohacking comes in.
33:21
I'm like, "Okay, I got 20 to 45 minutes.
33:22
I want to make this effective." Yeah.
33:27
So, what I do is A, I have something similar to like that sensory deprivation float tank that you used. Don't it? Pause.
33:34
I actually had a float tank for a while, but it was too much upkeep for me. I can imagine. Yeah. Magnesium and all that.
33:41
like my whole basement looked like a freaking pool house.
33:42
So, I have what's called a hyperbaric chamber, which is like this chamber that they use in hospitals for repairing wounds and um and and they'll use it for like cardiovascular problems and increasing red blood cells, and it pressurizes you at about what's called 1. 4 atmosphere.
34:00
So, it's like you're 23, 25 ft under the ocean you with the pressure, but then you're breathing pure oxygen, and so the combination of the pure oxygen plus the pressure drives that oxygen into the tissue, accelerates repair, you know, clears the brain.
34:14
I mean, even if you weren't napping in it, you feel amazing when you get out.
34:18
And so, I climb in that, and I like it, too, cuz I have to zip myself up, and it's kind of like nobody can get to me.
34:24
It even takes like 3 minutes to decompress me, so if the house caught on fire, I'd be kind of screwed, but I I climb into that, so I'm just like I'm locked off from the world, right?
34:35
And then I I have a couple of technologies that I use.
34:39
One is called a a Hapbee. Oh, yeah.
34:41
Have you seen Have you seen this? super cool.
34:44
I've been messing around with it for like 5 months now.
34:46
It It uses a magnetic signal that simulates the same molecular signal of a few choice compounds.
34:55
Like for simulating wakefulness, you could choose like the caffeine setting, the nicotine setting.
35:01
Uh for for It's got like an alcohol setting. What's it doing?
35:03
So, basically, all it does is it causes your cells to respond as though that particular molecule were attached to the cell receptor without you actually ingesting a compound or taking a supplement or consuming something that's going to stay in your system for a long period of time.
35:20
So, let's say I want a wakey-wakey prior to going out to a to a dinner party.
35:24
I could put it in coffee mode, right?
35:26
Put that around my neck or or on my head.
35:28
Get that that hit wakefulness-producing hit of caffeine, but then when I take it off, it's not like the caffeine's still floating around in my system. Same thing with a nap.
35:36
So, what I like in your system only for as long as you have it.
35:40
just It It It's as though I were blasting with the electrical signal of coffee without you actually having to drink the coffee, which has a half-life of, you know, whatever, 6 or 8 or 10 hours depending on on how your your your your genetically wired up.
35:51
So, it's really cool, and I didn't really believe You know, I'll interview a lot of people on my podcast.
35:56
I'm like, "Yeah, that's a little woo."
35:58
But, then I tried it, and it actually works surprisingly well.
36:01
So, I put it in My My preferred mode for nap is the one that's uh It's called relax, but it mimics CBD. Right.
36:11
Which is which is nice for me, um because it just kind of, you know, settles down some racing thoughts, gets me down at the end of day. So, I put that on.
36:19
And then I also have this other device that works kind of similarly, but instead of using a magnetic signal, it vibrates, and it's a it's a tiny vibration that elicits a brainwave signal that could be like an alpha brainwave signal or a kind of more like a hyped-up beta brainwave signal or a deep relaxation like theta or delta brainwave signal, and that's called an Apollo.
36:41
And that also, similar to the hat B, has like a wakefulness mode, a social mode.
36:46
I even put that that hat B one, which also has an alcohol mode on it.
36:51
I I gave it to my son who wanted to try it out at dinner one night.
36:53
And it was in like social alcohol mode.
36:55
He got like super funny and he was joking, he was really relaxed.
36:59
Then as soon as I took it off of him, he was just normal again.
37:03
I mean, I wasn't giving my son actual alcohol.
37:06
This is just like simulating the effects.
37:07
So, I put the the Apollo in relax mode, I put the hat B in relax mode, and and I climb into that hyperbaric chamber, and then I've got like lavender essential oil in there, and I I lay back, and then I play this this track.
37:23
And I I I discover a lot of things through podcasting.
37:26
Half the stuff I learn is from talking to people who are like super duper smart who normally never give me the time of day, and I get to pick the brains of these scientists and physicians and physiologists for like for like 90 minutes twice a week.
37:38
So, it's way better than my college education.
37:41
Just talking to all these people and find out what works and what doesn't, but a couple years ago I interviewed this guy who has a company called NuCalm. Yes, yeah, yeah.
37:47
And NuCalm has an app that that plays special signals that And it this sounds like like 8 billion other apps out there that will play like relaxing signals at night.
37:58
They're a dime a dozen on the App Store, but this one in particular, it just seems to work for me most notably in in the way that I can put it on like 20 minutes, and I I'm dead to the world within like 2 minutes of that thing playing.
38:13
I'll wake up at the 20-minute mark and feel like I've slept like an hour. This is something else.
38:17
Yeah, as a matter of fact, I asked the guy when I interviewed him, "Well, you know, could this just replace like the pink noise that I play at night?
38:24
He said, no, no, no, no, don't do that because it pushes you through a sleep cycle so well that if you put it on to sleep at night, you'd you'd go through your sleep cycle from let's say like 10:00 to 11:30, then you'd wake up wide awake at night, right?
38:37
So, this is something that's better in my opinion for naps.
38:38
The other time I'll sometimes use it is if I wake up, let's say at like 3:34 and I want to snag an extra 30-40 minutes of sleep or whatever, I'll put it on that.
38:49
So, I do the nap with the Apollo, the happy, the hyperbaric, the the oil, and then the um the the happy, and even though I'm sleeping 6 to 6 and 1/2 hours a night, I get up from that nap and I'm kind of groggy for like 10-15 minutes.
39:03
What I do is I go and I jump in that cold pool, right?
39:10
And then I'll I'll have some kind of stimulant.
39:11
Like I'll just pop a piece of nicotine gum or, you know, have a little leftover coffee from the night before or whatever, and then boom, like I it's like I have a second day. I feel amazing.
39:20
I'm fully present with my family that night at dinner, whereas if I push through that afternoon slog, it's just kind of like you get to dinner and you're just kind of like, I can't wait until bedtime.
39:28
I don't like that feeling personally.
39:31
just impressed at your charging skills.
39:33
Like you must have the most organizing charging schedule for all these devices.
39:37
Oh, oh, charging station?
39:39
They all need to be like, I'm impressed.
39:41
Like most people can't even charge their phone. You're like, here.
39:42
Yeah, it's kind of um seven devices. Like it's amazing.
39:47
And and I mean that genuinely.
39:49
I'm not Yeah, I've got one charging station in the dining room that I just kind of keep everything plugged into.
39:56
Um so, yeah, I've got like four or five devices that I'm kind of charging during the day.
39:59
Or the reason that I plug them in is not because they have a low battery life and they need to be charged.
40:05
And this is important for people to know.
40:07
Any of these devices or anything I try, I have a hard and fast rule that it must be able to be placed in airplane mode Yeah.
40:14
for the reasons that I stated earlier.
40:15
So, if somebody's like trying to trying to like sell me or have me try like some crazy new sleep system, you know, a mattress, self-quantification device, or whatever, one of the first questions I ask is, "Well, can I disable the Wi-Fi or can I put it in airplane mode so that during the time I'm using it, especially for rest, I'm not getting bombarded by signals?"
40:35
I'm so happy you brought this up. Yeah. Yeah.
40:36
And so, most of them can, but the problem is when you place the device in airplane mode, typically to reconnect it to your phone, cuz most of these are run via some kind of app on your phone, you have to plug it back in to a charger to and that like I'm I'm not an engineer.
40:49
It takes it takes that airplane mode, basically.
40:51
And so, a lot of times I do have to like plug things in, you know, I get up from my nap, plug the happy and the Apollo in so they're ready for the next day.
40:59
But, um But, yeah, it's uh there there are ways, especially in our day and age, that you can definitely get by without just swallowing hook, line, and sinker, you know, that the 8 to 9 hours of sleep a night message.
41:13
Like, there's a lot of ways around it.
41:15
Yeah, tell me about a time, Ben, when like for you this, you know, you've always been athletic.
41:20
You you you are an athlete. You've been an athlete.
41:22
You spoke about it before, but you also mentioned that you know, there there have been times when you you didn't feel this way.
41:29
And I want to hear a bit about that, about how your life was before you really understood the body as deeply as you do today. Yeah.
41:39
Because because I feel like for a lot of people when they see you, like to me as well, and I and I really mean this in a genuine way, I I see you as like, "Wow, this guy's like just you know, really understands the body, really understands the mind, and it and you're an expert, so you sound like an expert."
41:52
But, I know for a fact that you weren't born that way.
41:55
And and that's not how you've always been.
41:57
And I'd love for people to hear about that journey around Tell me about a time when you didn't feel boundless, when you didn't feel as like now it's like you know how to turn this and you play with this and now it's an experiment and it's fun and you enjoy it.
42:12
Tell us about when you kind of were like Did you ever feel broken health-wise?
42:16
Did you ever feel like everything was just a mess?
42:18
Were you ever in the place that most of my audience may be feeling like where they're just like, "Jay, I I'm just struggling to get out of bed in the morning. Like, I don't sleep.
42:24
I'm I've got like bloated. I'm feeling gassy."
42:29
Like, tell me about when you felt like you were at your worst as opposed to what we see now.
42:36
There's three things that I want to tell you right now.
42:39
When I was kid, I was homeschooled K through 12.
42:44
The emphasis of my homeschooling was really more on a classical education centered around Latin and logic and rhetoric and the great books and tons of reading, which I loved.
42:57
I would My happy place was a library, and my parents would have to take me out of the bedroom and almost like threaten me with punishment if I wouldn't come out and socialize with people cuz I just wanted to be in there with my books.
43:10
I I played the violin for 13 years.
43:10
I was I was president of the chess club.
43:12
I loved to take about apart computers, right?
43:16
And and design video games and and, you know, and and figure out how my hard drive worked and and was an early adopter of a lot of these technologies in a very geeky way, you know, prior to the advent of social media, etc.
43:28
You know, and when it was you actually had to kind of have a working knowledge of some of these technologies.
43:34
And I I I was I was pretty much like a geeky little Christian homeschooled kid.
43:39
I remember the stuff I got mad about when I was a kid was like when some kid would like quilted doily at the at at our homeschool talent competition beat out my watercolor painting, right?
43:47
Like, and and so Was it your mother and father that were both Oh.
43:52
Or was the homeschool like there was a group of kids and teachers? Both.
43:57
We had a pretty good homeschool collective, so I didn't completely miss out on social life.
44:02
I was a weird kid in that I was very independently driven to learn, and I am still that way now. Definitely.
44:07
My parents would literally just give me books and walk away.
44:09
They would literally give me the whole year's math curriculum and then just like make sure I took the tests.
44:14
My siblings were not the same and needed a lot more kind of hand-holding, but I've always been curious and driven from from an independent learning standpoint. Yeah.
44:23
And it it really wasn't until I discovered the sport of tennis that I became interested in physical culture at all.
44:31
When I my my parents wanted to create a really cool uh environment for all of us to grow up in.
44:38
So, one day they announced that they were going to bring in some folks and and we're all going to pitch in and and you know, learn a little bit of construction and and lay asphalt and build a tennis court.
44:46
So, we built a tennis court and uh they hired a tennis instructor and her name was Michelle and I had a big crush on her, which helped with my motivation to play more tennis, but I also loved tennis and I got really good at it and it came really naturally to me.
45:00
And I started to run up the hills behind my house and my dad took me down to the local sporting goods store to buy my little 10-lb dumbbells and I started to figure out like, you know, how to drink milk to get strong and the kind of things that made me faster and you know, how to stay hydrated and water and minerals and I had a couple of mentors.
45:17
A guy who was my my younger brother's best friend's dad was a bodybuilder.
45:21
So, all of a sudden I'm learning about nutrition and working out from him. got into it early.
45:25
Another friend is a powerlifter.
45:26
So, by the time I'm like 15, I was done with high school.
45:28
So, I'm like, you know, what?
45:31
I don't want to go program computers or paint watercolor.
45:34
Like, I want to go learn more about this body and and tennis.
45:35
So, I walked on to the local college tennis team when I was 15 and um started playing tennis, started studying exercise science, got a master's degree in in physiology and biomechanics, and you know, wound up opening a whole bunch of personal training studios and gyms in Washington and Idaho and just have been hardcore in the health and fitness and nutrition scene ever since then.
45:56
So, initially I I wasn't interested in much of this stuff at all.
46:03
But at that point, I spent like 20 years competing in all these crazy hardcore, you know, obstacle course races and Ironman triathlons and open water swims and adventure races. That was my life.
46:14
For like 20 years was using my body as a guinea pig, using all these races and events as like a battlefield to test stuff out.
46:21
I was coaching, I was competing, I was traveling.
46:24
And um I thought I was the bee's knees when it came to fitness.
46:29
I would say that if you were to look at me and judge me through what our world considers to be fitness, which I think is a bastardized version of fitness, I was one of the fittest humans on the planet.
46:39
Like like I really did look good in spandex and could ride my bike really fast, you know, run up hills.
46:45
And to reply to the meat of part of your question, it was about 9 years ago or so when I really got into self-quantification, testing of blood work, testing of biomarkers, uh sleep, nervous system, uh you know, all these things that we can easily test now that you normally would have had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for it, you know, the Princeton Longevity Institute or some executive facility, you know, only available to to wealthy CEOs.
47:08
We can now get all these tests in our own home.
47:13
And I got super interested in this stuff and I started to get all these tests and I realized, "Oh, crap.
47:16
Like I'm fit on the outside, but I'm dying on the inside.
47:21
High inflammation, low testosterone, dysregulated thyroid, gut inflammation and gut issues and constipation and brain fog and all these issues that technically somebody with like low body fat and muscles who can like run and lift weights, you wouldn't expect to have."
47:38
Yeah, that's really Yeah, it's But really true fitness is not about going to a little fake box at the beginning of the day and pushing, you know, fake heavy things around for an hour and then walking out and assuming that you're good to go.
47:49
And maybe kind of sort of eating healthy like a protein bar Trader Joe's or whatever. Yeah. Um there's so much more.
47:56
There's there's so much more when it comes to the body and that's what I began to discover.
47:59
My my first big book that I wrote called Beyond Training was just that.
48:02
It was like, "Okay, so as an athlete, there's all these other things like digestion and hormones and endocrine system and inflammation and blood sugar regulation and immune system integrity and all these things that we don't think about when it comes to what it truly takes to have long health span and life span."
48:23
And so, what I discovered along the way was all of these things like not I mean Men's Health magazine or Women's Health magazine or whatever will tell you how to exercise and how to eat healthy.
48:34
Okay, maybe sometimes they miss the mark a little bit, but for the most part, it's not rocket science for somebody to go out there and figure out, "Okay, eat real whole food that's recognizable, that preferably is as close to Earth as possible, and then like move your body, lift heavy stuff, and occasionally breathe hard, playing tennis or soccer or high-intensity interval training or whatever."
48:53
Like, we've kind of cracked the code on eating healthy and moving and most people can find that information for free pretty readily.
49:00
But, what most people don't pay attention to are all the things that the body really truly needs to be optimized to produce ATP, to produce energy.
49:07
And and and this is a big part of what my my last book Boundless was about.
49:11
last book Boundless was about. Like, uh light and how the photons of light interact with the human body to charge up the mitochondria to allow it to be able to produce ATP, the negative ions and the electricity produced by the
49:25
planet Earth that dictate when you're outside barefoot or you're touching trees and rocks, you're soaking up all those negative ions and just restoring the the the the the natural state of electricity the body the body which is like a battery is supposed to be in. When you get exposed to stressors of
49:39
When you get exposed to stressors of heat or stressors of cold, there there's enormous variance that that spring up in the human body like uh like uh like like uh heat shock proteins and cold shock proteins and blood flow and nitric oxide.
49:52
When you drink pure clean water that's chock-full of minerals, right?
49:57
Trace liquid minerals or sea salts or things like that that carries that electrical charge through your body.
50:00
And I began to realize, "Holy cow, I thought you're just supposed to like go to the gym and eat a protein bar to be healthy.
50:09
But oh my gosh, it's like sunlight, it's magnetism, it's water, it's earth, it's heat, it's cold, it's it's positive relationships and love and gratitude and and and all these things that we just we forget about when it comes to being a full complete human being.
50:24
And so, that was when the lightbulb happened for me when I realized, "I'm healthy on the outside, but I'm dying on the inside."
50:33
And there's all sorts of avenues that this entire fitness world has yet to explore when it comes to what it truly means to have, you know, what I talk about in the book, you know, what I what I call boundless energy. Yeah.
50:41
So, number number one is No, I didn't always like this stuff, but I gradually developed a love for it, and I think my curiosity, my independent drive to learn, and the fact that I was a real geek just tended to fuel my drive to learn a lot of these things about how people can really feel good.
50:57
And then number two, I after 20 years realized my own mistake of just like beating up the body and expecting it to bounce back and thinking that was true fitness. And then finally, C.
51:09
And And this is really This is where I'm where I'm really driving a lot of my platform, my teachings, what I what I really want to focus probably for the rest of my life on.
51:20
Is the fact that we can achieve all these things we've been talking about, Jay. Mhm.
51:23
You can sleep like a champ, and you can have, you know, if it's important to you, whatever, six-pack abs or veins in your abs or, you know, be able to do a triathlon or an obstacle race or just like rule the CrossFit box or, you know, anything else that might be important to you.
51:39
Have a full head of hair, defy aging, low wrinkles.
51:40
Like Like how many close to billion-dollar industries have sprung up around us trying to optimize ourselves as human beings.
51:48
And yet at the end of the day, cuz I see this over and over again, not only in having experienced this myself, but having seen this in many of like the wealthy and successful executives I coach and pro athletes I've worked with and and people who appear on the outside to be crushing it in life, at the end of the day, none of this is fulfilling.
52:07
None of this is ultimately fulfilling. Okay?
52:12
Like I I can literally be like pose on the cover of a magazine, whatever, you know, with with with girls draped off of each arm, you know, eating $100 steaks for dinner every night and experiencing, you know, what many people would would would covet as an amazing life, but I got news for you.
52:30
I'm not happy in that state and and I've I've I've seen a lot of people also not be happy in that state because there is a yearning in our soul.
52:40
There is a hole in our soul. Right?
52:43
There is There is this deep longing for some kind of fulfillment that in my world we throw fitness and a healthy diet and the way you look and the way you perform into.
52:57
Other people will throw cars, throw money, throw sex, throw throw homes, throw experiences, throw anything else that seems like it might be that one thing that you finally discovered that's going to be the ultimate key to fulfillment. Right?
53:11
I'm finally about to cross the finish line of that Ironman triathlon.
53:15
Oh boy, life's going to be different after this.
53:19
It's going to be different.
53:19
I've done it and now I can just be on cruise control the rest of my life cuz I've checked that fulfillment box.
53:25
But at the end of the day, none of that stuff is fulfilling because and and, you know, I'm I'm people came before me who have identified this.
53:35
This isn't new information that I came up with myself.
53:39
But there is this is is, you know, a great writer and theologian named Blaise Pascal would describe it as a god-shaped hole in our hearts, eternity in our hearts.
53:48
And the only thing that's going to fill an infinite abyss, an eternal abyss, a god-shaped hole in your heart is God.
53:57
Is some type of fulfillment that's everlasting, that's eternal.
54:04
And once I realized that and realized, "Oh my gosh, like I could train my body all day long, but even though physical training is a little bit beneficial, it's nothing compared to training for forever.
54:15
It's nothing compared to gratitude, to relationships, to sharing with others, to loving others, to volunteer, to service, to community, to to to worship, to having something greater outside of you and believing that a story is written for your life.
54:36
And and you know, now that I understand that all of these things that I've learned, all these fun little biohacks that we talk about at the end of the day are interesting, but not going to make you ultimately happy, well, now if you have been doing those things, if you are taking care of your body, right?
54:51
And you do have a really good body and brain, you're biohacking, you're fit, and you're healthy, and you're eating well, man, when when when you put not what I would call the icing on the cake or the cherry on the cupcake, but really lay that on the core, on the foundation of a deeply meaningful spiritual life, then you're firing on all cylinders.
55:11
And so, I think that's what's really important for people to understand is, you know, the wool socks and the chili pad and and the the hyperbaric chamber at the end of the day, you know, what you should view those as is you should view those as a way to equip yourself to be more impactful with the purpose that you've been given in life, not as your source of happiness.
55:33
Man, that was so powerful.
55:34
And I you know, the way you just shared that and the way you even talk about biohacking and mastering the body from the beginning of this interview, you can tell that it's to have these beautiful exchanges with your family, to have a meaningful dinner.
55:53
And you know, when I hear you talk about these things like it resonates so deeply with me because what you just set up is exactly why we do need to do these things.
56:04
Who wants to be at dinner with their family and be like have brain fog and have confusion and be stressed out and just be looking forward to bedtime or to be spending time with their partner but not having the energy to go on a beautiful walk or a hike or whatever it may be.
56:19
Like and that's the challenge we're having that our health is negatively impacting on our relationships.
56:24
Like for those of us who are experiencing fatigue, for those of us who are experiencing bloating, for those of us who are experiencing inflammation, that's leading to stress and agitation in your relationships.
56:33
You think that you're just not getting along. It is.
56:38
You You cannot disentangle the body and the spirit.
56:41
And there are some people that have taken this to to extremes.
56:45
Like if you look at at at at the the the Gnostics, right?
56:48
A very very popular religion about the same time that that Christianity was rising, you know, in in 50, 60, 70 AD, they believe that all things fleshly and physical were evil and bad and that the only thing important was the spirit and that marriage was bad and that good food was bad and anything that even remotely reeked of epicureanism was bad and one should be stoic but stoic to the nth degree.
57:12
And the fact is that the body is sacred. Food is sacred.
57:17
It's not just this physical biological interaction with your taste buds. Sex is sacred.
57:22
It's not just two bodies rubbing together in mutual masturbation.
57:25
Uh uh um you know, fitness and even the movement of electrons through the body, you know, in traditional Chinese medicine and you know, they they call that that the chi, the life force, the prana, the energy.
57:37
In Western medicine, we call it the mitochondria, but it's the same thing.
57:40
There's a deep spiritual aspect to that.
57:42
And so, we we are bodies with spirits.
57:46
And the body must be treated as a temple that is to house the spirit.
57:52
And the spirit must be treated as the one part of us that we care for the most because that's what's going to go on for eternity.
57:59
And that's what what we we really use as our deep fuel and our fire every day.
58:04
And so, yeah, in an ideal scenario, when you wake up in the morning, in addition to impacting this world fully with whatever purpose you've been given with your life in a spirit of loving others, you should also be asking yourself, how can I equip both my body and my spirit today to be as impactful as possible.
58:24
And it's and it's both and you can have both.
58:26
You don't have to be like a yeah, you know, no no offense, Jay, but like what whatever like a a skinny yogi monk who's, you know, who who can't hold up a heavy weight without their bones breaking.
58:40
You also don't want to be an Adonis at the gym who just basically doesn't even know what a gratitude practice is or how to pray to God or anything like that.
58:48
But human beings, we are we are some of the most complex, if not the most complex creature on the face of the planet.
58:54
Maybe maybe a platypus or something might be up there. Kind of interesting.
58:58
But we we we have the ability to live our lives with this amazing body and an amazing spirit.
59:05
And in my opinion, there's no reason that you can't have both.
59:10
And man, when you when you get into the into that state of of literally having your cake and eating it, too, on the highest level, life is amazing.
59:15
And everybody everybody every single person listening in right now has the capability to get to that level as long as they realize that most people around them have settled for status quo.
59:28
And if you realize that you actually can rise above and you can train your spirit and you can train your body and all of this is is learnable, all of this is teachable, all of this is practicable and habit formationable and I'm going to stop making up words now, but anybody has this within their power to be able to accomplish. Yeah, well said.
59:49
No, and I feel the same way.
59:51
You know, for years I focused extensively on the mind.
59:54
I focused extensively on intention.
59:56
I focused deeply on gratitude, service and and that's where I spent most of my life because that's what I naturally gravitated towards.
1:00:08
It's what my monk training was based on.
1:00:10
It's what my heart was drawn to and everything you just shared and and I find myself now coming over to the other side Right.
1:00:20
and wanting to learn more about the body. Right.
1:00:22
And so what you just said is it it sits very closely with my heart because I grew up as someone who dived deep into the spirit and the mind and the heart and the soul, which has been the foundation of anything that I do today, but I have come backwards almost Yeah.
1:00:36
and I'm not saying it's backwards or forwards.
1:00:39
I just think I've I've come to that realization that my spirit can only do as much as my body and it's crazy because as monks the order of our priorities were meant to be health, sadhana, service.
1:00:49
And so health is health as you're saying it, your physical, your body, your temple health.
1:00:57
Sadhana is your daily practices of gratitude, intention, prayer and then seva or service is you then sharing that with the world. Right.
1:01:05
So the pyramid was meant to be that. Yeah.
1:01:06
But some of us, including me, decided to skip that first one and do two and three. Yeah.
1:01:15
And I'm almost, you know, the reason why speaking to you is so powerful and some of the things that I've started experimenting with and playing with, probably in the last couple of years, uh have have been totally that direction of I now want to understand my body so that I can serve better. Yep.
1:01:31
So that I can serve for longer.
1:01:31
So that I can have more deep loving exchanges. that's the goal, right?
1:01:35
When you come at it with love others, right?
1:01:37
Not how do I look in the mirror was That's why I never focused can I run a mile.
1:01:43
It's it's loving others and in in the very same way that the best businesses are not necessarily built on a monetary goal, but are built upon a goal of how many people can we serve, how many people can we touch, how many lives can we affect.
1:01:59
And the money will follow.
1:01:59
I mean, for me as as a business person, right?
1:02:03
Like I have to make a living and I'm a content producer.
1:02:07
Kind of like you, like a lot of my business is driven by me educating people.
1:02:12
educating people. And when I write an article or when I record a podcast or when I'm, you know, doing an Instagram post or whatever it is, I tell myself, okay, my goal, even if there is a a product, a solution that's offered here as part of this post or
1:02:28
this podcast or this story that someone can go buy, my goal is that someone finishes digesting this content, listening to this audio, reading this essay, looking at this post, and walks away a better person, regardless of whether or not they actually purchase anything, right? They
1:02:42
They walk away, whatever, knowing more about the gut, knowing more about the hormones, knowing more about the brain, knowing more about gratitude, knowing more about whatever it is that that I'm producing content about.
1:02:55
And I'll tell you what, when when I write in that way and I teach in that way and I produce content in that way, I don't have to worry about money.
1:03:03
That just kind of follows, right?
1:03:05
Like like and honestly, it follows in a better way because you create a more hardcore audience that trust what you have to say cuz you actually care about them and that's why you're getting out of bed in the morning.
1:03:17
And so, it should be the same way for yourself.
1:03:19
same way for yourself. When you go to the gym, and try this if you're listening in right now, if you go hit the gym tomorrow or you go out you whatever your basement and you know, you're breathing hard and beating yourself up and doing your burpees or
1:03:31
whatever the case may be, think about how you're equipping yourself to be impactful at work, to be present for your family, to have a lifespan and health span that enables you to be passing wisdom on to your great grandkids or your great great grandkids. That that level of motivation
1:03:46
That that level of motivation that you experience when you're doing things to love others, or arguably also doing things to equip yourself to to just be able to more fully savor this amazing planet that we are on, all of a sudden, man, compared to like what's the scale going to say today, it's just a much much more empowering way to train for health. Yeah.
1:04:09
Yeah, I couldn't agree more, man. I couldn't agree more.
1:04:11
Tell me, before we get to the we're final five questions of the interview, we're nearly at the end.
1:04:15
I want to ask you if someone you you very emphatically stated that anyone who's listening to this, anyone who's watching can do this, can have both.
1:04:24
I'm with you, I agree with you, I'm aligned with you.
1:04:29
Tell me about you said earlier you were saying Jay, you know, I still work with a few people on coaching and you were sharing to me I should sleep between 63 and 65.
1:04:37
That's going to be better for me than even 65 to 67.
1:04:41
So much of this is habit change.
1:04:41
You've created so many new habits in your life, experimented.
1:04:46
For those of you who have not read Boundless, when you pick it up, what I love about the book is you break it down into tiny sections or on explaining each part of the science, but then giving a practical thing that someone can do today.
1:04:57
You have technology that if people want to adopt it, habit change is a huge part of what you do.
1:05:03
Where are people going wrong in their habit change?
1:05:06
What have you seen through your extreme experimenting where habit changes actually worked for people.
1:05:15
I would say what comes to mind for me first when I ask that question is um a big big part of it is is relevance and understanding why you are doing something.
1:05:26
When I was in high school, I really hated math and science.
1:05:29
And when I got to college, I just became a standout in math and science cuz I had a teacher first year of college who made math relevant by tying in a lot of wealth preservation and savings and investing components that made math super relevant to me.
1:05:43
And so at that point, I just developed this wonderful love for math and a habit of studying math because it was relevant and I knew why I was doing it.
1:05:50
So understand why you're doing something.
1:05:53
I think that the importance of education when it comes to habit formation is is very important. Yeah.
1:06:00
Um the another one that that I I rely upon on a daily basis for either stopping habits or making habits is making something as accessible and convenient as possible.
1:06:12
Meaning that I am probably like from a fitness standpoint and a consistency of fitness standpoint probably just about as fit as I've ever been in terms of true health and some of those parameters we were talking about earlier because partially I really haven't had to leave my house to go to the gym and was kind of forced into that because of COVID.
1:06:33
So everything I need is I got to step over a kettlebell to walk into my gym.
1:06:38
I got to like walk underneath a pull-up bar to go down the stairs in my house.
1:06:42
I have to um basically like walk past a cold tub every day and you know and and you know there there's just healthy food strewn all about the house.
1:06:55
This idea of surrounding yourself and making everything convenient down to the point where if you're going to go for a run in the morning, having your running shoes and your shorts right there beside the bed so there's very little cognitive resistance to starting.
1:07:08
That would be the a second thing that I found to be really useful is is making things convenient.
1:07:14
I think the last one is for me personally, and I don't know if this is the way for everybody, but I like, especially when it comes to health habits, to be able to stack things.
1:07:23
So, anytime that I'm getting healthy, I'm also making myself a better person.
1:07:29
For example, I really rarely listen to music when I'm working out.
1:07:34
I I view my workout as also a chance to for me to go to university, right?
1:07:39
So, it's always podcasts, audiobooks.
1:07:40
When the going gets really hard, there's actually there's some studies that have shown this to be a cool tactic.
1:07:45
That's when the music goes on, like when you need it at the last minute, so you're kind of like saving your brain to get to the point where it really really needs the music, and it's not just kind of um used to the music at that point and can actually push past.
1:07:59
Um you know, I I do like the red light therapy and the grounding and the earthing mats and the essential oils and the special like water repair device called a NanoVi at my desk when but I don't go in there and just do all that stuff and have it be unproductive time.
1:08:13
Like that's the time when I bang out my first 45 minutes of emails for the day.
1:08:17
So, I always figure out a way to make something more palatable in terms of tying that habit into something.
1:08:24
I mean, I even like I got out of the habit, you know, cuz I'm a big fan of reading scripture and reading the Bible every morning, and I I even found myself in in this happened a few months ago.
1:08:34
I was sitting there reading my Bible, I'm like, "Why am I just sitting here reading the Bible?
1:08:39
Aren't there other things that I could be doing?"
1:08:40
And you'd think they'd be distracting, but now I read my Bible while I'm sitting in a pulsed electromagnetic field chair with a biocharger on, and it's like I'm still reading, but my body's kind of like getting better at the same time.
1:08:50
So, I love to stack healthy habits, and it's it's very rewarding when you stack them all and also figure out how to still be productive during the day, so it's not like you're having to rob Peter to pay Paul, it's like you're you're paying Paul and Peter at the same time.
1:09:03
So those are the top three things that come to mind.
1:09:06
Be educate yourself about why you're doing what you're doing, surround yourself with what you need to maintain positive habits while hiding the things that would cause you to form negative habits, and then um basically stack habits and make the habit fun or meaningful or productive so you don't feel like you're wasting time engaged in that habit. I love that. Ben Greenfield everyone. Ben, that was amazing.
1:09:27
I'm like you need to come on for a part two, but we can't wait this long as we waited to do a part one.
1:09:33
Well, You need to come Yeah, maybe we can go to some other longevity hotspot. I don't know.
1:09:36
What Okinawa would be interesting. be amazing. Have you been there? and purple potatoes.
1:09:41
I haven't been I've spent a lot of time in Japan.
1:09:43
I used to race over there a lot and I've spoken over there a couple of times, but I absolutely I I love the I love the food.
1:09:51
Um I depend where I'm at. I like the culture.
1:09:55
I would say probably one of my favorite places over there would be Kyoto. Right.
1:09:59
Just great great touring, great walks, and yeah, I'm I'm a fan of I'm a fan of sushi.
1:10:04
Although now I I um Now I know we're trying to wrap up, but I'll finish here.
1:10:10
I I've been making my own sushi.
1:10:11
I found this fish service called Sitopia and they deliver sashimi grade fish to my house every week. Wow.
1:10:17
And so it's kind of spoiled me.
1:10:19
I literally take out my sushi knife, cut it in strips, put it in a nori wrap with some sushi rice, some mustard, and whatever I want to sprinkle on there.
1:10:26
And so my sons and I make poke bowls and sushi all the time now.
1:10:31
Uh but I I do I do enjoy a good good actual legitimate Yeah.
1:10:34
Japanese sushi restaurant occasionally. So Of course. Yeah. Amazing man.
1:10:39
Well, Ben, we end every episode with our final five, which are our fast five.
1:10:43
So answers have to be one word One word.
1:10:47
one word to 10 words maximum for each answer. All right. So have dashes.
1:10:52
That's the most important part. Yeah. Yeah.
1:10:54
So the question number one is what is the worst health advice you've ever received?
1:10:59
It would probably be and I I won't have a whole lot of time to explain this too much, but it would be eat a post-workout meal.
1:11:06
Okay, we'll save that for part two. Save that for part two. in boundless?
1:11:10
Do you talk about that in boundless?
1:11:12
a little bit about that in boundless, yeah. All right, great.
1:11:14
Question number two, what's the best health advice you've ever received or given or heard?
1:11:17
Get out in the sunlight more. Mhm. Charge your battery. do that a lot more.
1:11:23
I was talking to someone in my health life recently and they were like because of the color of my skin, I have to really be out there. So worshiper. I'm a sun eater.
1:11:32
being out there, but I'm not out there enough even though because of my skin, so We have a giant battery in the sky and all of you and all of us use it. Yeah, love that.
1:11:39
All right, uh third question, what would you describe as your current purpose?
1:11:44
To read and write, learn and teach, sing and speak, compete and create in full presence and selfless love to the glory of God. Beautiful, I love that.
1:11:54
All right, question number four, uh what is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do before you go to bed?
1:12:01
I walk over to the sink and I scrape my tongue from the back to the front using a copper tongue scraping tool. Yeah, I use that a lot. Ayurvedic.
1:12:09
At the very end of the day? Yeah. Very end? Very very last thing?
1:12:13
Very last thing, yeah, very last thing.
1:12:15
I put my arm around my wife and I say a prayer with her.
1:12:18
That's beautiful, I love that, man.
1:12:21
Thank you for sharing that, that's amazing. That's great.
1:12:23
Oh yeah, we use my wife say Ayurvedic. Uh that's a whole world.
1:12:29
oil pulling, yeah, yeah, I love it.
1:12:31
Yeah, yeah, my wife that's a world.
1:12:34
All right, fifth and final question, if you could create a law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
1:12:40
Every day write down the name of one person who you are going to help and then go help them on that day. Beautiful.
1:12:51
I actually I actually do that every morning. I love that. Super meaningful. Thank you, Ben.
1:12:54
Everyone who's been listening or watching, thank you so much for listening.
1:12:58
I really appreciate all of you.
1:12:59
Make sure you go and grab a copy of the book, Boundless, and Boundless Cookbook that's out as well.
1:13:05
We'll put the links in all of our captions.
1:13:07
Ben, thank you so much for doing this.
1:13:09
I think you share, I mean, there are countless parts of this episode that I'm going to use in my own life.
1:13:14
I'm going to go home and tell my wife straight away to switch us from 63 to 65. That's going to change.
1:13:20
We're going to be getting a few more changes in our bedroom, I think, based on this episode.
1:13:24
going to look like a nightclub now with all the red lights. Yeah. I love it. So, thank you.
1:13:29
And everyone who's been listening or watching, make sure you tag me and Ben on Instagram to let us know what resonated with you, what stuck out to you, and what you're going to experiment with. That's my hope.
1:13:37
My hope is that this episode gives you a whole new list of tools to experiment with and try out to see what works for you.
1:13:43
And of course, Ben's books are a great guide.
1:13:47
They truly are a guidebook and a map into some of the depths of all of this.
1:13:51
We've just scratched the surface.
1:13:53
If you want a foolproof plan of how to practice this, the Boundless book is going to help you do that.
1:13:57
So, Ben, thank you for being here. Thank you, Mr. Jay Shetty. Thank you, man.
1:14:01
If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here.
1:14:07
I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book, Think Like a Monk, from thinklikeamonkbook. com.
1:14:16
Check below in the description to make sure you order today.