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The Tim Ferriss Show
#660: Dr. Andrew Huberman The Foundations of Physical and Mental Performance, Core Supplements, Sexual Health and Fertility, Sleep Optimization, Psychedelics, and More
#660: Dr. Andrew Huberman  The Foundations of Physical and Mental Performance, Core Supplements, Sexual Health and Fertility, Sleep Optimization, Psychedelics, and More

#660: Dr. Andrew Huberman The Foundations of Physical and Mental Performance, Core Supplements, Sexual Health and Fertility, Sleep Optimization, Psychedelics, and More

The Tim Ferriss ShowGo to Podcast Page

Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferriss
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74 Clips
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Mar 9, 2023
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Episode Transcript
0:00
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1:56
This episode is brought to you by eight
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sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep and heat is my personal Nemesis have suffered for decades tossing and turning throwing blankets off. Pulling the back on, putting one leg on top and repeating all of that ad nauseam. But now, I am falling asleep in record time. Why? Because I'm using a device is recommended to me by friends called the Pod, cover by eight sleep. The Pod cover fits on any mattress and allows you to adjust the temperature of your sleeping environment providing the optimal
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3:26
This altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking the miles. You a personal question. I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
3:49
Hello boys and girls ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss for a rare in person podcast. I know that's become the norm on YouTube and elsewhere, but this is a rare occasion and I am thrilled to have Andrew huberman here with me. So, great to have you here in person and Rousseau and Ruben. Who is this, Andrew human Doctor? Who been PhD on Twitter at human lab is a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the department of neurobiology
4:15
G at Stanford University's School of Medicine. He has made numerous important contributions to the fields of brain development, brain function and neural plasticity work from the human laboratory. At Stanford medicine, has been consistently published in top journals, including nature science and sell for those who don't know, that's like having a sweep at the Oscars, but back to the Bayou Andrews, the host of the podcast human lab, which is often ranked as one of the top five podcast in the world by both apple and Spotify. The show aims to help viewers and listeners improve their health.
4:45
Science and science based tools. New episodes are every Monday on YouTube and all podcast platforms, you can find all things Andrew at human lab.com on YouTube. That is huberman. Lab, Instagram! Your been lab and also on Twitter as mentioned at huberman lab. Andrew, nice to see you. Great to see
5:04
you. So, happy to be here. I want to say I grew up listening to your podcast, although I think I was in my 30s when I started listening. So for me I'm really tickled to be here because so much of how I
5:15
Ran my laboratory. When I first became a professor was based on principles from the 4-Hour workweek. Now mind you my work weeks were like hundred hour work weeks actually lived in my laboratory with my dog, my students and postdocs can attest to that, but I Incorporated a ton of the principles. I was following for our body, slow carb diet, I was training. I had my cheat days and on, and on and on. So for me this is kind of being transported forward. And back in time I can't say enough positive things about
5:45
You and your podcast and what you've done. And as you know, this is not just because I'm sitting here in front of you because I text you all the time. In fact, I will say this, I have a notebook, the dates back over a decade. We're at the time. I was pretty lonely. It's just me and my dog eventually, the great girlfriend at the time came along, but I was running my lab and there's a lot of social buffers between professors and students understandably and necessarily. And so I was pretty lonely and I thought like, who are my friends going to be? I was in a new town.
6:15
Didn't know many people, and I have this list and I read the list the other day, I'll send you a photo and the list was of about five or six people that I really admired and whose principles and work. I was trying to incorporate it in every asked of it. Backed up my life at the top of the list is a guy named Tim Armstrong. Lead singer for rancid who I've recently become friends with that's another Amazing Story.
6:38
Joe Strummer, unfortunately never met the great Joe Strummer which explains my attire. He always wear a button-down black shirt in his adulthood. So they decide to do that at some point and much more religio, your name because the 4-Hour workweek in your podcast, which eventually came along Rick Rubin who I've had the, you know, the great blessing of having on my podcast and learning from and then Oliver Sacks who unfortunately passed away before ever had the chance to meet him. But anyway, I had to tell you that that you were already my
7:08
Run before you knew who I was. And I did that because I would look at that list and think. Okay, who do I want to try and embody in terms of ways about going through life and trying to do things right in my professional and personal life. So that was my short list and very proud of that shortlist. I still have it, I sent Tim that the list the other day and he was like no way man this is free while it's
7:28
I'm like you think it's wild for you. This guy just how Wild this is
7:30
for me anyway, to set
7:32
the context? Yeah, well I appreciate that man. And I've been incredibly impressed.
7:38
Not just with your research and academic Bonafide, some what you've accomplished there, which is a lot in and of itself. And, of course we've spoken before but the incredible focus and force with which you have just blown the barn doors off with the podcast, which is really a service to people. So I'm happy to have you here thrilled to be spending time. In person after covid, and recording remotely. So, we have a ton to dive into and hopefully,
8:08
really, I will not be the hero with Clay feet. It's six. It's all downhill from here as far as what I can do and no conversation, but I thought we could begin with perhaps revisiting in some respects, our last conversation not to rehash it but to Simply ask the question since we last spoke which was a while ago, I guess it was about two years ago.
8:31
What have you changed your mind on and what have you doubled down on? If you have answers to both of those,
8:38
I'll start with what I've doubled down on. I've doubled down on the idea which perhaps I stated last time we spoke and perhaps not. But I certainly believe that our state of mind and body at any point in time is strongly dictated by our state of mind and body in the hours and days prior to that,
9:01
And on the one hand, people are going to hear that and say, well, duh, if you're sleep-deprived you're going to feel like garbage. And if you're well, rested, you'll feel great. That's kind of the top Contour of it. But when one looks at the Neuroscience, for instance, of sleep, you start to realize that, you know, the amount of rapid eye movement, sleep, that you're going to get in any 90-minute bout of sleep, because your sleep is broken up into these 90 minute segments, more or less is strongly, dictated by
9:27
The ratio of slow-wave sleep, take a deep sleep and rapid eye movement, sleep that you had in the previous 90-minute bout. And then when you start to look at the research in terms of waking States, you start to find that your ability to be focused say for about of work in the morning or the afternoon. We're creative brain storm session or know to maybe drill into some personal issue that you're dealing with during therapy or just on a walk or while journaling.
9:54
Is not a square wave function. You know, none of us should sit down and expect ourselves to just drop into that state. Much of our ability to move into that state, effectively, whatever effective means, right, whatever the Target or goal of that bout, as I'm calling it is, is going to be dictated by what happened in the previous moments in ours. And so when I zoom out from that, what I've doubled down on, is this idea that they're just a core set of foundational things that we have to
10:23
To re-up every 24 hours you know I think thanks to the incredibly hard work of dr. Matt Walker at Berkeley, the Sleep Diplomat on Twitter, right? Is such a great name because it's so appropriate. I mean a decade ago or so, you know, it was like I'll sleep when I'm dead. That was the dominant mentality out there and yes, leaps great. But you know getting stuff done is more important. I mean, Matt has really impressed on everybody that our mental health, our physical health, and our ability to perform is so strongly dependent on our ability.
10:53
Ready to get quality sleep, maybe not every night of our life. I mean, we have to be realistic but that sleep is vital. So you know, hat tip is insufficient, but so sleep is critical. But sleep is just one of about I would say five things that really set the buoyancy or the foundation upon, which our nervous system is able to accomplish these transitions that I'm talking about at all. And those five things are sleep in the absence of quality sleep, over two or three days,
11:23
Days. You're just going to fall to pieces in the presence of quality sufficient, sleep over two or three days, you're going to function in an amazing level. There's a gain of function and a loss of function there. It's not just if you sleep poorly, you function last well, you sleep better. You function much better. So sleep, I would say, is at the top of the list.
11:44
Nutrients, you know in there, you can think macronutrients. And so you carnivores are only eating meat and your vegans are only eating plants and your omnivores, which is I think probably 90% of the world is eating a combination of those. But you know quality nutrients I think when I look at all of the nutrition literature and arguments out there it seems that everyone can agree on one thing which is that probably 80% or more of our nutrition should come from unprocessed or minimally. Processed sources minimally processed food, requires some cooking.
12:14
It survived on the Shelf as opposed to packaged foods are highly palatable food. So you got sleep nutrients but then we should also put in micronutrients and this is where maybe we'll get into a discussion about supplementation. I think that there's supplementation or supplements is a bit of a misnomer because it implies vitamin supplements. People say well can't you get all that from food or that whey protein, isn't that just food? Wouldn't you be better off with a chicken breast, okay? Well then when you talk about convenience and the, you know, absorption okay but then there's this huge category of things.
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You know, ranging from the kind of esoterically named things like ashwagandha, and Sheila G and Tonga Leonardo, Geographic man, right? I mean,
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so I'll exactly all the
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herbal stuff, right? The you're not going to get that from food. There's so should we call them supplements at all? So let's just say, the second thing is nutrients and that includes macronutrients and that includes micronutrients as well. So those two things, then the third would be movement and this is also been an enormous transition in the last. I think just five years, which is not just for people interested in bodybuilding.
13:13
A power lifting or for competitive athletes. But now it seems everybody including the elderly understand that you need a combination of cardiovascular exercise and you need resistance training whether or not to with body weight or weights or machines, Etc, that you need both. I mean, not a week goes by without seeing an article in one of the major Publications out there standard media. Let's call traditional media will be nice to them, traditional media that highlights some studies showing that, you know, resistance training in elderly people can offset
13:43
Or as our friend, Peter T has pointed out so many times. That many of the end of life, creating at injuries are due to people older people stepping down The Eccentric movements. Okay. So so you need movement, that's the third category forth, I will argue and I like to think that maybe I've helped this movement, if you want to call it. That is light in particular sunlight, in the early part, in throughout the middle of the day and trying to minimize the amount of artificial light that you're exposed to in the evening. And late night hours, most of
14:13
Of the time because you have to live life. Just fundamental I think the last category that's important is social connection AKA relationships. Let's just call it relationships because that can include relationship to self. So those things set up the core foundation and I think one way to think about them as just as a list another is to think about them in terms of a schedule basis. And that's how I've really double down his. I realize that every 24 hours I need to invest something into
14:43
One of those things. So I think that 10 years ago or five years ago or even two years ago, I used to think. Okay, what's the workout split, or how am I going to eat Bergen next, couple of months? You know, what am I trying to optimize for? Is it muscle? Is it fat loss? Is it just maintaining? Is it energy? Is it focused? That's all fine, and good, but sleep nutrients, exercise light relationships, those really establish the foundation of what I consider to be all of the elements that create
15:13
create our ability to move as seamlessly as possible between the states that we happen to be in. And the states, we desire to be in and when I zoom out and I think about what are the major struggles that I and it seems most everyone deals with. It's like how to get more focused. Okay so we can talk about what do you take? What's the supplement? You know, but you have to say well how are you sleeping? Have you done any exercise, you really always find yourself or I find myself taking 10 steps back and then moving through the sequence of five things before you can even begin to talk about
15:43
Whether or not taking three or 600 milligrams of alpha GPC and how often to do that and does it work? And yes, it works etcetera but those things really set the foundation. And so I like to think of those five things. Every single day you have to re-up on sleep every 24 hours or try to get to re-up on movement every 24 hours. You can go a day or so in Mobile, but you better move the next day, right? And ideally you're moving 7 days a week. Doesn't necessarily mean training to failure and running marathon. Seven days a week. You can Goggins your life where you cannot
16:13
Goggins your life, for those who don't know. I'm referring to David Goggins there. By the way, food seems to never stop moving. Although I just learned meditates two hours every night, every night, and I'm inclined to believe when he says that, he indeed does that, you need nutrients. Even if they come from stored sources, even if you're going too fast, you're going too fast for a day or two. Okay, fine, I've done that. I know you've done that. I would put hydration under nutrients to so you can drive nutrients from stored fat. Protein, Etc, glycogen light is you're going to need that every
16:43
Four hours, you're going to need sunlight. Even if through cloud cover, and you're going to want to avoid, right? Artificial lights at night, not every night, but most nights of your life. And then that relationships one is the one that they, we can go into a little bit more depth at some point. But it requires focus, it requires attention, every 24 hours. Now that doesn't necessarily mean, you have to see friends, talk to friends, text friends every 24 hours. Some people are far more introverted than others, but then you're working on your relationship to yourself.
17:12
In that solo time. And hopefully when you're spending time with others as well, that has some internal repercussions. So if I've doubled down on anything, it's the understanding that there is no so-called optimization. There is no real interest at least from me and trying to layer in other things. Unless I'm paying attention to each and every one of those things, every 24 hours, you have to re-up on each and every one of those five things, every 24 hours, and if you don't, you can get by for a day or two, but pretty soon.
17:42
You're going to hit that wall where you won't be able to do any of the things that most people are actually seeking to do. And the last thing I'll say about that is, you know, I think people here a list of those five things they had. Gosh, okay, well that must be nice for you. Andrew and Tim, you know, you wake up. You look at sunlight, you guys don't have kids, you don't have to worry about kids, running around. You don't have to, you know, you can exercise their ways of layering in that protocols that re-up as I'm referring to it. These five things, every 24 hours that also includes
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Are people in your life kids pets. Etc exercise. Certainly can include that as well.
18:19
But I would argue that there is no showing up properly for yourself, and for the other people in your life. Unless these things are being handled and it's not about becoming soft and cushy, it's about becoming quite resilient and effective. It seems so simple. But as our friend, Paul Conte said to me recently, he said, you know, after all the analysis and pouring through things in the complicated Notions of the subconscious, he's a psychiatrist after all, you know, in the end really great. Mental health is about simple practices like first.
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Examples of self-care to which I raised my hand and said well what is a first principle of self-care? I'm a biologist after all and he's ah it's basically the things that we were just talking about is those five things and so I I'm doubling down. I'm tripling down on those as essential.
19:06
To the point where nothing else really happens for very long. Unless those five things are tended
19:11
to question of those five. Let's just say, if you had to pick one that you are neglecting, maybe a strong word, but under waiting that, you are now waiting differently. What would it be? And what have you done? What have you added or changed, or subtracted? I'll have to pick two. Let's do, let's do both ends. Yeah, the to our movement.
19:36
Really change the way that I train and exercise to some extent. And actually my whole philosophy on what's possible in terms of training and how to incorporate it into a week in a way that really works to build strength and endurance and feel really good in one's body all the time and then the other one is relationships which probably reflects my place in life, you know where I'm 47. Now I've chosen to delay having a family.
20:06
But that's a primary focus but also having done a lot of personal work toward my mid-40s. And I thought I was quote-unquote there and then realizing that it's a trap door to trap door. And then realizing that there, I guess here again, I'll use language of that Paul uses, which is that there were some unresolved core conflicts. This idea of core conflicts is really, I think the most appropriate way to put the
20:37
Psychological stuff that people need to work through, everyone has them. Many people have trauma, not everyone has trauma, but as defined as an event that fundamentally changes, the way that your nervous system works such that you function less well in summer, many domains of life. Again, I robbed that definition from Paul Conte and I'm far less eloquent than he is in, delivering it. But realizing that there's still some core conflicts that I needed to resolve, and I've been,
21:06
I'm going Whole Hog on that and it's been interesting to say the least.
21:10
So let's start with, perhaps the easier one movement. What have you implemented? What have you embraced or cut back on in the movement category? And I'm very interested in this personally because I have really taken this as one of a few of those five to focus on myself. In the last, I would say year, I've done a lot of training, let's just say the last 10 years.
21:36
But I've not done a lot of competition and I miss developing
21:40
athleticism
21:42
and if I take as an assumption that we have largely evolved to move through space to actually move and navigate ski touring as just one example. So, putting on skins, these are actually. They used to be actual animal skins. Now they're synthetic but you put on skins on the bottom of skis and you effectively NordicTrack your way up.
22:06
The mountain with switchbacks and then you take them off. You do Transition, you ski down, and you rinse and repeat, but the experience of being, if you choose your environments in a location where you get lots of sunlight in the morning and early afternoon symmetrical exercise movement, where you're not too heavily waiting one side or the other, there are benefits to asymmetrical types of exercise, but I have found this just be absolutely, I don't think.
22:36
An overstatement to say revolutionary for my physical and mental well-being. And you also get in this particular case for me a degree of hip extension, that I really just do not get in my day-to-day existence otherwise. So I'm putting that out there. Just as an example and an explanation for why I want to dig a little bit deeper on the movement side. So what have you ended up implementing? Well, first
23:02
of all, let me just say that your statement about movement being so fundamental to Who We Are.
23:06
Are as a species the Nobel prize-winning physiologist. Is really what he was. Sherrington said that the final common path of the entire nervous system is movement. Which I sometimes think about because we often think that our emotions somehow impact the world but they really don't except insofar as we say things or do things the other way to put this is that evolutionary biologists will say you know there is no fossil record for the brain. It's only what people actually.
23:36
Did with the internal architecture of the rain, it all boils down to movement or Vision, I would say because of vision scientist. But when you look mm3 by mm3 through the brain, if you take the circuits devoted to movement and the circuits devoted to Vision, you've got about 75 percent of the human brain. So, that's, that's a lot. The rest is important to, of course, movement wise. Okay? So, we did a guest Series. This was a success pisode guess series with dr. Andy Galpin is a professor of Kinesiology Cal, State Fullerton. And his laboratory does everything from muscle
24:06
See all the way up to working with competitive athletes, you know. So they'll do deadlifts or boxing or whatever it is or students running on treadmills, huge range of subjects and then they'll stab out some muscle in the low cork. A muscle and Dubai. You've had this done, right? This is in the
24:20
for out of. Yeah, I did, I did muscle biopsy and videotaped the entire process in the Sports Science Institute of South Africa. Yeah, Tim tartare, has what I called it when I came out. So good. Turns out my muscle enzymes are if it's possible to be below,
24:36
Type of graph representing Homer Simpson, like, citrate synthase, and these various elements would be very helpful for endurance, which I seem to
24:46
lack, but you're built for explosiveness.
24:49
I'm built for a very short duration explosiveness, which is ironic, when you consider that I'm embracing ski touring because I am, I'm not like Killians Renee or any of these folks, who would be very well built for such a thing. We make it nonetheless
25:02
because I've never we make a good team because I've never had a muscle biopsy, but I
25:06
Assure you that when I start running distance, I can progress very fast. I'm not particularly strong. I'm not particularly weak, but I'm just not particularly strong in a very little explosiveness, very little hops, which is why skateboarding wasn't the right sport for me. Despite my deep desire, it just didn't happen. But in terms of what I learned from Andy a couple of key principles fell out of the in keeping my knees are peer-reviewed studies from his laboratory and many other Laboratories of which he's an expert and I went deep into this literature with him for that series.
25:37
Concurrent training. Meaning getting better at distance and getting stronger is absolutely possible. I did not think that was possible, you know, I'm a big fan of the late Charles Paul Cohen and others who said that, you know, you want to build muscle build muscle, you want to, you want to be a runner, be a runner and I think at the extremes that's true, but the data really point to the fact that you can train from many things. Concurrently I took a step back from everything. I learned from Andy over the last few years in that series and
26:06
Sculpted my training program. So that on any one given day, I'm training for something very specific with the understanding that one can make progress in a lot of different domains of Fitness. In fact, the way the Andy puts it, I think is better than Fitness. He says, techniques and methods are many but they're only a few set of core adaptations that your body can make. So you really just trying to create adaptations when I do with a kettlebell or a bar or a dumbbell or a Hammer Strength machine doesn't really matter. You're trying to create certain adaptations by using certain loads.
26:36
He's at different speeds but that is also true of endurance and running. So what I figured out was that there's an optimal training schedule for me that allows me to Target one specific thing each day,
26:48
what are some of the specific things?
26:50
Yeah, endurance strength, hypertrophy vo2max heat and cold. Tolerance, and talk about why that is. And also I should mention each one of those days and I can spell this out or simply for you. Each one of those days is
27:06
Is also designed to indirectly support, one of the other adaptations, I'm trying to accomplish. So let me explain in short form and if you want more detail, I can give you more detail. My training week starts on Sunday because Sunday sits leftmost on the calendar Sunday, I make it a focused effort to move as much as possible. Ideally Outdoors. I'm thinking endurance, I essentially want to be like a mule.
27:36
I'm just thinking be like a mule actually have this shirt because it's gonna be
27:39
that's gonna be in the headline of this episode. Yeah,
27:42
actually sure that, I sometimes like to wear most days. It's not a black button down shirt, but it has a picture of a sloth, and it's Crossing its three, sloth fingers, like, Wolverine and I get, that's what I'm trying to embody. I'm trying to embody the sloth. So what I'll do on that day is because sometimes it's a social day with other people in my life. If I'm on my own, I'll throw on an 8 or 10 pound weight vest, a these thinner ones. Now that aren't these mirror vests that you know,
28:06
Look like you're in law enforcement or you're trying to pretend, you're in the SEAL Teams which I'm not never was, but they have these thinner ones that sit a bit more flush. I forget the brand name now but I don't have any relationship to them. I'll get it for you, but I really like this one, and I'll head out for a by 75 minute. To a 90 minute, slow jog with some hills. And I'll try and nasal read the whole time. I'll often listen to a podcast or a book, sometimes, I'll just let my mind drift, that's if I'm on my own. If I'm with other people, what I will do is, I'll fill up a
28:36
Back with a bunch of heavy stuff, usually some water in there too and drink it as I go and I'll do three or four or five hours of just hiking and just trying to be outside as much as possible. The specific goal of that day is endurance. Just keep going. And what I notice is because of the other things I do in the previous, day's the 10, or 20 minutes which have become at the start really suck. Like, I either want to go faster or like these little aches and things. But what's amazing is somewhere in that 25 30 minute,
29:06
Period. You start to feel really good, you actually start to adapt to it, right? Then you can go, okay? This is about the heart rate, I'll use. This is about the breathing rate so
29:13
this is what is happening at that point. Yeah physiologically. Yeah we're neurologically or both. Yeah
29:19
I'm glad you mentioned neurologically. I think physiologically there the standard things that happened during exercise you're getting warmer. So joints are more fluid. Your cardiovascular system is able to fuel the relevant muscles. But not you're not shuttling too much fuel to specific muscle groups Etc because of course
29:35
Be stressed. When I start that I could be relaxed I could be tired depending on how well slept the night before but neurologically what happens is really important. And we know this from data, what you're trying to do is you're starting to incorporate what are called Central pattern, generators Central pattern generators are, what allow you to engage in repeated movement without voluntary, attention to it. Very different than you know squatting or front squatting or doing curls or something. Where you're trying to focus on each rep.
30:01
It's like the autopilot button appears on your thread steering wheel after
30:05
30 minutes. That's
30:06
right. And at that point, your mind, can really attend to other things. And of course, as your body warms up, you're also able to achieve much more output. So you actually are getting better and more efficient as you progress. Now, that that's weird. Must exercise
30:22
doesn't work. It is weird. But as a Intrepid, pseudo endurance, athlete, who's at least really embraced this ski touring. I did, I've done a lot of it in the last six weeks, the first 30 to
30:35
Five minutes are generally terrible for everybody and then you click into a rhythm and you feel like you've accessed an extra set of batteries.
30:47
Yeah, it's neural and I think Andy would agree, it's neural. You're engaging, the proper amount of what are called upper motor, you have upper motor neurons and what lower motor neurons lower motor neurons. Reside, in the ventral spinal cord. They're the ones that you generate an ILS. They're the ones that fortunately most people don't do generate and cause contractions of the muscles.
31:05
The fibers they are directed by upper motor neurons, which are the ones in your brain that allow you to generate voluntary movement. However, the upper motor neurons in the lower motor neurons are happy to engage in a central pattern generator type circuit if you carry out something repetitively for long enough. So as you are able to take your mind off of the voluntary, parts of the movement, it just becomes easier and what you end up finding? Is that your system?
31:35
He's very, very good at doing, you know, for me it's small steps or, you know, or jogging I'm not going excruciating Lee slow, but for some people, it seemed really slow. But that run, or that long-waited hike accomplishes. The endurance piece. It checks off the box of the zone to cardio. Requirement not all of it for the week, but a lot
31:55
of it, and for the lady folks out there Zone to would be, you could have a conversation but you really don't want to. That's right. That's Peter might describe prior
32:03
to. Yeah, and Peter is big on doing
32:05
With long Sunday rocks he throws on a rucksack because he's tougher than me.
32:10
Well, you're doing the same thing, you're just filling it full of water and other have a feeling, his
32:14
rucksack is heavier than life. Peter is I've trained with beer Peter, Peter likes to push himself these Sunday, long, slow, jogs, or hikes are really for my mind as much as they are for my body. And I'm convinced that they also carry over to my ability to endure boring stuff during the week. But also it just my ability to work longer.
32:35
For longer about, okay. So that's Sunday, I'll see gets me outside a lot and often times on Monday because of the constraints of the work week, I'm not going to be able to be outside as much as I would like. So you get a lot of sun and moving on Sunday you feel pretty terrific on Monday. Let's just kind of your mark. What we are, go back to that earmark earlier, which is that the state that we're in on Monday has a lot to do with what we did on Sunday. So I'm trying to optimize for Monday in some ways to but it's really about endurance. Then Monday is the goal for me is to train my legs.
33:05
Eggs just get a leg workout on Monday. First of all, I just like the way that sounds to myself like you leg workout on Monday but it also sets up the work week really nicely. Here's why I'm going to train my legs. The way that's always worked best for me for training which is a warm-up and then two to three maybe four hard sets out of Mike men, sir dharini it's not with four straps and all of that but what we're talking about is warming up and then Doing Hard sets that are heavier or more repetitions than the last
33:35
On and just so I'm clear. Yeah. Are we talking about multiple sets of the same exercise single sets of four different exercises? What are we talking about?
33:44
We're talking about two to four sets, but usually two to three of two exercises per muscle group. I'll explain it. What that is in a moment, I should mention that. The reason we're training legs is that everyone should train legs. So the large muscle groups, I'm trying to maintain some lower body strength or build lower body strength and explosiveness the data that I see on longevity and
34:05
just simply ability to perform different sports and to just feel strong throughout the body is strongly rooted in the legs. So don't Skip Leg Day
34:14
legs and hips exactly. Feed the
34:16
Wolves kind of funny. How glutes have become the new biceps, you know, like this is like what I heard Like Glue to the new biceps growing up. This was not the case. You know, it was like a 90s. Everyone was like these, like wavy, you know, I grew up with. I want you to school of like, wavy Hacky Sack or dudes with like the flowy hair. I wasn't one of those all the girls. Like, those guys, bunch of skateboarders, you know, the skinny
34:35
Where's and it was that kind of way for your, you know. I don't know what it is, now doesn't matter. But train, your legs folks like having a strong legs is
34:43
great and or learned a hacky sack. Exactly. Right. I'm sure that's a great tip. You'll have the mind for other reasons.
34:49
So the 90s, the 90s are coming back.
34:51
Popular in about huge. Yeah. You see the youngsters with the Nirvana shirts? That's all coming around. Amazing. What was all this? Once knew
34:58
exactly, those are good years. So good years, bad clothes. So Monday is really about getting that leg workout in to make
35:05
my whole
35:06
body strong and what
35:07
exercises you prefer. So it's it's walk-in often times I'll do calf work because unlike you I need work there.
35:14
Oh, I need calf work. I ain't got for that was the weak Link in the chain for all the winter sports I've been doing for the last
35:20
six weeks. Yeah, I definitely do a lot of calves were actually, so I'll just walk through it. I'm really big on Tim raises. I start, I warm up with Tim raises
35:28
training, the team phrases, meaning like a the tibialis anterior. Yeah, you dorsiflexion, raising your toes, towards your
35:34
knee. You be a
35:35
So this is a huge addition, my program. I'm a huge fan of and Patrick knees over toes guy as he calls himself on Instagram,
35:43
I started doing tip work about two years ago, seriously doing tip work. So tibialis raises, you can do this also leaning against a wall at an angle, with your back against the wall and your feet out in front of you, with your heels on the ground, and touching your toes to the ground. And then lifting them up for repetitions of 25 to 30. Or if you can have a tibialis to raise machine as they're called, that's great. I warm up with tip work. Why training? My tips as they're called, has tips in the new biceps wasn't as
36:12
Definitely makes the calf work, more effective never could grow. Calves are get my calves, strong gotten them, you know, substantially bigger and stronger by training tips. But more importantly, perhaps helps posture, got rid of my right side. Sciatica, I always had this right side and a leaning in pain. I'm gonna get t's for saying this for me. Anyway, I can run like a beast now, no knee pain. No back pain, no shoulder pain. I can just run and run and run. And so the training, your tips turns out to be key and it turns out it has everything to
36:42
You with it will avoid jargon here. Bring your toe closer to the knee cap, as you generate your stride, not having the floppy, right? If you lay down on your toes, are just kind of flopping towards the end of the bed. Your tips are weak. A lot of people with knee issues have weak tips. Well, hold on,
36:56
hold on. So if you're in the bed, you got your sheets and blankets on top and your feet are flopping. Forward, are you sleeping like a GI Joe figure with your toes pulled up to your knees. And let's no,
37:06
I just mean that if your toes are in a state of kind of like flaccid relaxation, if your, if your feet are flaccid, flaccid tono,
37:12
Good red light, a lot of people who run our smacking their feet against the ground, you know, been cured people to this tip work, okay? Tip work is great for the calves. It's great for the knee, it's great for the hip, that's all very clear. And I think just a lot of people have overtrained their calves and not balance it out with tip work, it would be like doing a lot of bicep working on a lot tricep or a lot of quad working on, not a lot of hamstring work. You have to work, both sides of the the limit. I think our friend Kelly Starrett would agree. Tip work has changed everything for me. Posture lie, I've no pain
37:42
any life.
37:42
Want to Lodge a formal complaint against Kelly Starrett. People should look him up because he is a large man, very his Quadzilla. He's 230 maybe former high-level competitive kayaker, think he celebrated his 40th birthday by doing a standing back, flip running, an ultra and something else, and he's really good skier. I just want to say it really upsets me that he has no discernible physical weaknesses. It's very irritating and a nice guy. Yeah and a nice kind of nice guy.
38:13
Yeah. He's very very strong. A 600 pound deadlift.
38:15
Yeah, he's a strong unit to be, so so tip works. I start with
38:20
tip raises. So it's gonna be a couple of warmups, maybe a 12 rep warm-up and a trap warm up and then I'll do you know three sets per tip of anywhere from six to ten reps, okay? Andy Galpin told me in the literature supports people like Brad, schoenfield and others have shown that for hypertrophy for muscle growth 6 to 30 reps anywhere in
38:42
I can get you hypertrophy, if you go to failure, and if you go hard, I personally like to eat my workouts resistance workouts, an hour or less. So I make sure that I like to train in the more or less the 5210 repetition range for strength and for hypertrophy and I'm kind of going for a mix of both. So I trained tips. Then I do sled or standing calf raises, same thing, two to four sets five to eight, maybe ten. Repetitions
39:08
are these sets to
39:09
failure. These are sets to failure. And long ago, I had
39:12
add gift of learning from the great, Mike mentor. And these are sets to failure, like I can't budge another micro inch, but I'm not quaking and I'm not breaking form. I'm trying to keep everything nice and taut and rigid because I just I can't afford an injury, this point, not
39:27
because I know that in a flaccid feet, no plastic a,
39:30
yeah, I'm telling you the tip work is a game changer and knees over toes guy Ben. Patrick is the one who's been teaching, people that, yes, everyone can dunk, most everyone can dunk. He does like, dunks into back bends and all this stuff and
39:43
Largely hinges on tip work and quality posterior chain work like things, like Nordic curls. So, I'm training. Calves that takes about 10-15 minutes total. I try and move relatively quickly through that Senate, two to three minutes, rest, maybe four. If I'm going for have reset, then I'm weaker in the hamstrings than I am in my quads. So, I do to warm-ups and then 224 working sets of lying, like curls, pretty standard
40:06
stuff, lying, leg curls. Meaning on a machine. The anima not like reverse, yeah, like a like a nautilus.
40:12
Machine got something
40:13
not seated, doesn't work for me, just lying like girls and not the Hoist machines that move with you to make it easier though. I shouldn't know and maybe the occasional for strap. If somebody's there to help me, then I go do two to four sets but typically three of glute-ham raises which is an incredible exercise. The equipment is in tune every gym but I'm doing three or four sets of glute-ham raises going slow. And you know this is basically like if you were going to do a deadlift everyone knows what a deadlift is. But now take the ground and
40:43
It 90 degrees and make it the wall, that's what a glute Hammer he's really, is it allows you to do a deadlift, but then at the top, do a leg curl. So if you think about it that way, like, you just tilted, the the ground, you just rotate it.
40:53
Counterclockwise look here, you'll get will get a link to a YouTube video. Folks,
40:56
exactly glute-ham raises our great, lower back. So entire posterior chain, so then I'm done with calves and hamstrings and then I'll do two or three sets of leg extensions. So, maybe a warm-up and then, two or three sets of working leg extensions, which, for whatever reasons are incredibly painful. I hate them but they worked isolate the quads and then to or
41:13
Three sets of working, hack squats, after a warm-up hack squats, heavy, heavy, heavy heavy. And then I'm done, I'm out. Monday's done. Now, this is again, going back to the kind of overall theme. The idea, I
41:25
hack squats specifically versus other forms of squats back squats for me, I
41:31
always got like a internal hip pain. I had every Squad coach in the world. Tell me how to do it. Better even tell me I was doing it, right? And then I end up with the same thing and I don't really care. If I can squat x amount of
41:43
I'm doing it for
41:44
strength. You're not doing it for powerlifting
41:46
competition. Doing it for strength in Aesthetics, Aesthetics. Just because at some balance, I'm not trying to get huge legs, but I mean, I'm 61 220. I sit like more or less right there all the time. My body fat goes up and down. I gained five pounds or lose five pounds but like I'm kind of hovering around there. I don't have any interest in being much larger or much. I want to keep my strength, maybe build some as I get older. And so hack squats. Allow me to put a lot of weight on there and keep my nice right angle between the hip and my back.
42:14
Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show.
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43:40
Cutest our folks, just in case they're going to go searching for this. We have. What is the visual of a hack.
43:46
Squat, squat, you're sitting back. Your back is against a sled. You're holding the handles up near your ears and then you're squatting down. Your feet are on a 45 degree or ideally. If you can find it a 30-degree platform below you. So you are, it's not a leg press. It's a hack squat now for people that don't have access to these and unfortunately, a lot of gyms don't have them anymore or just don't keep them around for whatever reason.
44:10
We did sissy squats as they're sometimes called can work where you're holding onto a plate and you're squatting down while holding onto a
44:16
perceptively hard to do. If you do it under control, and with good technique.
44:21
And if you're doing your tip work, you right way to
44:23
stretch your quads in ski boots, too, if you're going, I'm going. Yeah.
44:27
Recently, our podcast team took a little ski trip. I was snowboarding and I it's been long time since I've been on a snowboard but you start to feel how many of these movements translate as you point out and I should say that that sissy squats.
44:40
You know, a lot of people think you can't bring your knee out over your toe and this is what been, Patrick is really been trying to impress. Some people, look at skateboarders land their knees. Go out over their toes, I'll foot be on their toes. Look at the park or gymnast Olympic weightlifters. This whole like me, can't past the toe thing is just silly so you can feel very comfortable very strong at the bottom of one of these sissy squats are hack squats that way you know. And so the whole purpose of that Monday workout is it's like the opposite of what I'm doing on Sunday. It's get stronger maintains some
45:10
Sighs. But really get stronger in the legs
45:12
and just for people listening, her like, for fuck's sake, it's going to take us six hours to get to Saturday. Part of the reason that I want to dig into this day specifically is because it's so
45:21
neglected
45:23
and do not tend to exercise with a focus on their legs, but the direct and collateral benefits. You're so numerous that I want to just drill into
45:33
this. When you look at the literature on cognitive improvements from resistance training, it's not from bicep.
45:40
Good girls. It's not from bench presses. I suppose, it could be from things like dips, which are sort of like a upper body squat of sorts, especially, if they're weighted, or with rings or something, but training, the legs is key. And so, as I said before, there are two goals, one is to get the legs stronger. The other is that I'm trying to create a systemic and a bollock effect on the
46:00
bottom. I was just about to say, if you want to lose body fat, also the systemic sort of endocrine / anabolic effect from doing this lower body exercise. It's real work is
46:10
Nothing.
46:10
It's real work. And resting long between the sets, especially the hamstring and quad work for five minutes. So you start to feel lazy but you're going all out. You're breathing really hard during after the set, you know, sometimes you feel like you're gonna pass out, I haven't puked from a leg workout yet which people tell me means I haven't really trained hard. I just say that I just don't have a weak stomach, like the rest of them
46:30
as Kelly Star. I would say it's like 20 reps, squats work, just great and you'll puke a new bucket, but you're not gonna be able to do much else for the next week if you do them really.
46:40
Intensely. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's going to hurt your ass every time you sit on a toilet seat. So you're not going to be doing a whole lot of basketball very well.
46:46
Yeah, you know, I want strong legs. I want a strong body. I want to buy that can accomplish endurance, and I want the cognitive effects. So you get that systemic anabolic effect, there's another sort of practical reason for doing this on Monday, which is sometimes I might not trained again until Thursday, and if you train your legs properly, you can know that you you initiated a number of good process.
47:10
Is in your brain and body from a down payment for the week. You made it down payment. Also, if you think about the neural circuits involved in generating the kinds of movements, I just described for the Monday workout, they're fundamentally different than the kinds of movements required for a neural circuits. Required for generating movements of the Sunday long workout. They're both legs running on your legs or walk your legs of course, but very very different different muscle fiber types, different motor neurons and different range of motion to different range of motion, and different mindset required. And keep in mind, the entire leg workout takes, 10 minutes of warm up in about 15,
47:40
T 50 minutes of training. Tuesday is very different. Oh and by the way, Monday is a very heavy work day for me. Typically we launched podcast. I do all my own social media. So I'm I post the assets. I really like doing that respond to comments dealing with grants dealing with papers dealing with. So money is heavy work day. So, getting the leg workout done, early on Monday is really key for me. These days, I don't ever really do resistance training past, 11:00 a.m. and ideally earlier, in the day and we won't go into whether or not it's fasted or federal that because
48:10
A cover that have a toolkit where I list out some of that and how different processes layer together and I can link to that.
48:17
I would also say if people are like, but wait, I can't start until I know if it's faster non fasted, or if I should be, swinging a dead cat over my head on Tuesday or Wednesday nights like just get started. Yeah, you got plenty to get started.
48:29
Yeah, I do it faster. But I drink caffeine first and water, and listen. I usually eat a bit more on the weekend. This is great Sunday night, you're putting in your fuel sources for your Monday. Work out there all sorts of ways.
48:40
As this layers.
48:40
Okay, is not a cookie
48:44
pizza is though. I do love pizza. No, cheat days anymore for me, but however, I haven't done one in a while. I'm actually thinking we're going back on for our body. Just try it and do it.
48:53
I am the right said, cookies, I'll make a very embarrassing admission which is, I am going to be going back on to strict, slow carb. Okay. And so, I had these incredible cookies last night. We're not gonna spend a lot of time. In this case, we do need to get to today.
49:10
But it's sort of my last hurrah for locking down the fort. So yes, I'm getting back. Let me know. I'll start, I'll
49:16
start lots of stories about cheat days. Mike's girlfriend, at least do the cheat days together and it at one point because I blame myself, we were in couples therapy. They were asking, like, so describe a week for yourself and she's like, well then on Sunday, we're eating like, eight croissants and then we're doing this therapist was looking at. Excuse me, I'm like sitting here laughing zart. Try not to laugh, like what in the world is?
49:40
This, you know, but we had a good time with it. She was one of these mutants sector just eat anything or drink anything and feel fine the next day and, you know,
49:48
yeah, whatever. I know. I know the times. Yeah.
49:50
So, the Tuesday is, is very different Tuesday. I don't want to call it a recovery day, but Tuesday, I'm doing something really different first of all, my legs need recovery. So, what I'll do is
50:02
Substantial amounts of deliberate, heat, exposure and deliberate cold exposure. Yes, I do. Cold showers in the morning. First thing nowadays, yes, it is a bad idea to do Coldwater immersion after hypertrophy training. So, just for the record, you don't want to get into an ice bath. After hypertrophy training and the six hours after I purchased be training because it can blunt hypertrophy, it blocks the inflammation, which is exactly what you want to trigger the adaptation of hypertrophy. But Tuesday is really about getting
50:32
The maximum effect of heat exposure and cold exposure. And when I've done multiple episodes on each one of those, I learned about deliberate cold exposure from you. So, thank you, Tim. I do a protocol which is pretty intense designed to amplify growth hormone, stimulate a bunch of mood positive mood promoting hormones that last not just days, but weeks, a the literature and just get better at it. So I'll do 20 minutes of sauna hot. Sauna what does hot man? I'm up to like 260 now to succeed, but I
51:02
I worked up to that, you know, you can check out the Banya. I'll give a plug to these folks, their spy 88 on Wall Street. And in New York, they're amazing. They are incredible. They have a hot day action saw.
51:13
Mary Ann Archimedes Banya in San Francisco.
51:15
Fantast is great. A couple of notes about that one. It's clothing optional, I wear my swim trunks but
51:21
I go. But why are you going to show off those glutes? You're working so hard, but
51:26
it, but it is so just know what you're getting into. It's co-ed and clothing optional and it is in Hunters Point Bayview which is a
51:32
Neighborhood throughout wouldn't go for a jog. Yeah, don't leave anything in your car but don't do that anywhere in San Francisco now. So, 20 minutes in the sauna, very hot three to five minutes in the cold plunge up to the neck back into the sauna for 20 minutes back into the cold plunge, for 3 to 5 minutes back into the sauna for 20 minutes back into the cold plunge for 3 to 5 minutes. It's work. But it's amazing in the sense that you recover very well from the leg day, you generate all the hormones neurotransmitters.
52:02
Winter type of adaptations that one wants and you get very very good at tolerating heat and cold. And I should mention during these times, if there isn't someone else there, I'm listening to books. I'm thinking, is it? I putting this work and time to use. So there's multiple things going on there, then Wednesday, I do one of two things. I'm either going to do a shorter duration than Sunday, cardiovascular training workout. So I might do, I'm thinking about five minutes of warm up and then about 25 to 30 minutes of usually running for me.
52:32
I'm just trying to get out and cover as much distance as I can at a fast clip but steady so I'm not Sprint stops, print stop. That's typically what I'll do on Wednesday although if my legs are still a little bit sore that's when I'll train and here the bodybuilders are just going, go go, they're going to scoff. I train what I call torso, what do I do? I trying to get pushing through the chest and shoulders? I'm trying to pull for the back. I already got my lower back with a glute, ham arises. So what I tend to do is overhead shoulder presses
53:02
Has after warm up 2 to 3 sets working sets or maybe for I like ring, dips and dips these days. Those are hard for me but I two or three work sets of those so chest shoulders and I'm going to upset some people here but I don't tend to train back every week. I do it every other week because just I have some genetic abnormality where those grow really easily and I can throw proportions off really quickly. But I might do three or four sets of chins. So our Max rope Chin's, slow with slow eccentric movements, the lowering as
53:31
well now. See
53:32
Eccentric, 4 seconds, 10 seconds. When we talk,
53:35
yeah, for usually about 45 seconds and then slowly pulling up, Contracting, whatever, muscle group. So all of the movements are done trying to move as much weight as possible as quickly as possible on the concentric phase and then lowering it anywhere from two to four seconds, got loading it like a spring and then trying to explode. I want strength, I want explosiveness and some hypertrophy sneaks in, because I'm working in that 5 to 8 rep range. So that's what I call torso because it's chest shoulders back.
54:02
Back every other week, I'll throw in those chins. I think everyone has a muscle group like this where if they trained age is grows like a weed but I want to keep proportions right strength proportions as well and I do train my neck that day as well. I know you wrestled, I can tell very easily looking at somebody whether or not they need neck, work or not. If your neck comes down right where your jaw is, you don't need to do a lot of network, you don't look like a head placed on top of a little neck. Your neck is actually you know, Laird Hamilton's neck is out.
54:32
His the lobes of his ears genuinely. Yeah. Anyway, great skateboarder to he trains, his not quite like broke his neck surfing and years ago so having a strong neck. Why is that so important? Well, it's important because you want a strong spine and it's the upper portion of your spine. The other thing that I know is that does is it completely changes my psychology to train my neck. I just naturally stand more upright, I find it easier to look people in the eye. It's not hard for me to look people directly in the eye when I speak to them, but I find I just have like my posture and presence is just better.
55:02
In a chair or standing when I turn my neck. And I think it's because my head is in. Let's just use the word against not flaccid falling of the chin. Towards the chest that were just freaks. Everybody out. You know what flaccid feet? You want a flaccid neck? So neck work is very important. Do you work in a? Yeah,
55:17
I actually recently bought. I've been thinking about it for decades. I bought a four-way neck machine and it's actually I got you got the full or when I was gonna get like a hammer or one of these are great giant Contraptions. I actually bought and look do your homework.
55:32
Because you can hurt yourself on these things if you get too aggressive, too quickly. I bought a four-way tag machine on Amazon for 350 bucks. I was like, you know what, let me try this before spending like five grand. We're just great. Yeah, yeah, nothing fancy. But you
55:47
have the works for portions. I mean, why do I say? It's not just about Aesthetics, it's about in general balance proportions are synonymous with balanced strength, which is synonymous with not getting injured. You know, one of the things that looks ridiculous and frankly is ridiculously these
56:02
Guys, with big dealt wide shoulders, you know long clavicles and their head is placed on this Little Neck obstacle on a stick well and they look especially ridiculous, there's no other word for it in street clothes, it looks mutant and not in the good sense. So strong neck is great. Strong, that has helped me also avoid injuries in a number of sports. It's life insurance. If you do anything, any kind of martial art where you drive a car, you know, I've been rear-ended a car and felt fine, you know, a little bit of next soreness but train, the upper spine.
56:31
And lower spine. So I do some Network at the end and the way I do it is take a plate, wrap it in a towel so you don't end up with an imprint of the weight number on your forehead. And I usually lie on my side and I'll do it somewhere in the 10 to 15 repetition range. You should do one light warm-up and then three work. So how do
56:50
you hold it on your head? You just register just as long as your
56:53
hands on your side, also works here, oblique somewhat
56:56
milder on it. You're on a bench or on the bench. Yeah. Want to
56:59
start. You have to be careful, you know, especially getting into analysis.
57:02
Of the
57:02
movement. That's how you often get injured. And then I'll line my stomach. And this is probably the most important one and I'll put the plate behind my head. Again wrapped in a towel and do head raises. You're trying to get your head sitting on top of your shoulders as its supposed to because everyone knows kind of bent over in this kind of C shape and no one's nerdy enough except my good friend Brian. Mackenzie who cares enough about his posture? Shout out to Brian. He was amazing work breathwork and human performs. He when he talks he uses his phone up near his eyes
57:29
I've seen that so good, no one.
57:32
Does that
57:32
right? So the network comes at the end but is absolutely critical and whenever I don't do it for a week or two out of laziness or or just some other reason. I start getting postural things, you start noticing elsewhere in your
57:46
body. I find in this could just be, I don't think it's Placebo because it's not something that I expect or maybe it is now, but not initially fewer headaches just better circulation. Yeah. And better Mobility.
58:02
Woody also, especially if you're spending a lot of time in front of a computer. My rotation, even though I'm not actively training with resistance, the rotational aspect left, right? Turn your head, the mobility of the neck sort of, in all dimensions of the movement of the head, seems to improve as well for me. And for folks, just one option. I want to throw out there, if you train with someone or can train with someone manual resistance with, it's also missing with a towel or just like pressure on the head and doing it really slow.
58:31
Only like super slow style kind of like 10 seconds. 10 seconds is very
58:36
effective. Also, I can't overstate the importance of neck training. Now for women who often don't want the aesthetic of a larger neck, just use I would say lighter weights or hand based resistance you still want that strength and balance? Some women might want a big neck but in general, the two things that can you've done. You
58:56
put some of this in the fourth row wig on Laird Hamilton. That's my type. Just putting it out there ladies.
59:03
One thing that in terms of Aesthetics with the two things that I think can really throw off the most commonly desired, female aesthetic by women, from what they tell me because I trained with a number of women is excessive trap, work upper trap, work has rounded shoulders, and then larger neck, some people might want that, but in general, that tends to be avoided for guys, I think that network is, it's so essential and for women. It's essential for a strength and protection of the joints reason.
59:31
I will also say this and anyone who wants to challenge me on. This will do it accordingly. It actually increases your confidence and the reason is when you're upright, you embody a different stance, I'm a big believer that the physical stances. We embody have everything to do with the psychological stances. We embody and vice versa. It's not just about standing up straight, being able to stand up straight, look people in the eye, is something that is assisted by actually having a head that isn't flopping forward all the time. So this is a real thing from a numbers standpoint.
1:00:01
So, if for whatever reason, I do the cardio workout, that I mentioned that 25 or 30 minutes of running, that's what I do. But some people could buy, do it on the assault bike or something like that or cycling, or rower on the Wednesday. Then I'll do that Weight Workout. I just described torso on Thursday or I'll swap them. So there's some flexibility built into the week travel Etc. By the way, the cardiovascular workouts can be done in the morning or the evening, but I always prefer to do them in the morning and just get it done with
1:00:28
Then Friday is a really important day because Friday is the day that I do a short workout. Usually only about 3 minutes of warm up in about 12 minutes of training and the goal is to get my heart rate as high as I possibly, can, I learned this from Andy Galpin, just increasing VO2 max, getting those really fast to his muscle fibers. My favorite way to do this, is I'll get on the assault bike or the ones with the handles with the fan, which is not designed to keep you cool. It's designed to create resistance folks and
1:00:57
Do 22nd on Sprint 10, second rest, 22nd on 10 seconds of adubato type thing for six to eight rounds. And then what I like to do is take a band and tie it to something like a chin-up bar or something. And I'll squat down and jump and I'll do as high jumping as I possibly can. But I should control The Eccentric. I'm holding the band as I come down and so learn from Peter attea, I've learned from Andy alpen that our ability to jump and land is strongly correlated with
1:01:27
Longevity or you could do broad jump. So, you could do a bunch of broad jumps. You can do some hit workout and then I'm just showered in out the door to go. Do my work or to work. So it's really short workout. And then Saturday is the fun one, because I'm still enjoy this. I'll go into the gym in the morning. Usually, it's mid-morning and I'll do a small muscle groups biceps triceps rear delts. I'll do another tip and calf workout little bit lighter than the one I'm like day because leg
1:01:57
Days coming in two days. And the next day I'm doing that long hike, so that day is really to round out the smaller muscle groups that need work and I have short torso, long arms and so torso muscles grow very easily for me get stronger easily long arms, but, you know, they require a little bit more work. So I like to do a dedicated day for that. Same way, warm up plus 2 to 4, work sets of two to three exercises. I always include dips at some point during the week bench. Dips tricep extensions with cables basic stuff, preacher curls kind of incline curls, so very basic stuff.
1:02:28
But I just want to backtrack One Step because I failed to say that Friday. The idea is to get that vo2max up, but guess what? It's also designed to indirectly, hit the legs, we hit legs on Monday, and they've recovered. We now know that protein synthesis maximizes after these training workouts at about 48 hours and then starts to taper off. Now, you read that you hear that a lot especially on social media and people think you have to hit a muscle group every 48 hours. But no, you hold on to the protein synthesis you generated for another couple of days. So that Friday, Sprint on the bike workout or
1:02:57
It on a field work out and jumping is in directly targeting the quads and calves and hamstrings. And so you're keeping them online for hypertrophy. So when you hear all, this might think is that's a lot of working out. But we're really talking about is a long hike with friends, or family, on Sunday, where by oneself, 90 minutes to 3 hours, you're talking about an hour workout on Monday morning, telling about sitting in the sauna and cold on Tuesday. You're talking about running for 20 or 30 minutes.
1:03:28
Wednesday time about doing some dips and overhead presses. Maybe some Chin's, a little bit of neck work on Thursday. You talking about doing a 12 minute workout on Friday and you're talking about going to the gym for an hour hour and 15 minutes, more casual, kind of, I don't want to call it what it is, but you can call it a vanity workout. I do, I call it that to Joe Rogan, and he was like, that's ridiculous, bicep is key muscle group. And I was like, give me an example. He's like, well, you know, when you're grappling, and you're about to choke somebody out, you know, I was
1:03:57
Like okay well that's you but he's absolutely right. You know if you ever fixed yeah. Actually I chipped my tooth really hard ones by. I was trying to fix something with a wrench and you're pulling with your bicep and your arm toward you and Company broke loose. And, you know, chip my tooth but keep your head out of the way, but the good thing you turn your neck. Yeah, this is mostly fall. See that this one front tooth and so that. Yeah, exactly self out but the, you know, there's a lot of things that, you know, bicep is good for forearm strength is good for SoJO is absolutely right. But I think that when you look at all that, it's not
1:04:27
Much time in the gym. You can do all of that at home, there are ways to do the leg work out, even at home or in natural terrain for the hikes and things, that's the schedule. And if you think about that schedule, each day, you're accomplishing that endurance. Leg strength, cold and heat adaptation and all the neural stuff that goes with that torso. Keep the Torso strong. But here again, we can say the Torso work is indirectly, hitting biceps and triceps. Then being able to run, a couple miles is a good skill. And what you find is that if
1:04:57
You train your legs properly and you give them enough rest and cold and heat really help to you are so strong on that 20 or 30 minute. Run your tips are strong, you know, floppy feet. No back pain. You're running with with Vigor and you know wow like this is great. And so what I've noticed in the last 24 months or so is that I continue to get stronger and better in each of these areas and supposedly? That's not supposed to happen. I'm 47 a t of the other day. Said, you know, you and I were both far more physically robust when we were in our teens sounds.
1:05:27
Speak for yourself. I was getting injured all the time. My body hurt. I was unhappy. Then again, I was skateboarding then. So I was slamming a lot, but I find that this routine has really helped me because I think it takes into account the slower recovery. That is just me my nervous system doesn't recover that quickly and it also Embraces the fact that our nervous system and musculoskeletal system can
1:05:52
Train for different adaptations simultaneously across the week. Now the one cap on everything that's vital and again here at tip to Charles Pol, Quinn is if you start training for longer than 60 minutes with resistance training, cortisol levels, go up, you start feeling lousy you're not sleeping. Well, you can't soar, you find, you can't sleep enough and you don't recover. So keeping the workouts relatively short, as really help. And then the final thing is that I'm a scientist /, I guess, no, podcaster.
1:06:21
And I'm not interested in being a competitive athlete, so I don't want to spend all my time training. I really want to be able to get the most out of my training routine, to feel much better than I would otherwise when I'm doing cognitive work and I'm a big believer that this workout schedule captures. Most if not all of the neural circuits that one would want to activate perhaps the one thing missing from it is there isn't anything in there that's really about Dynamic movement and multiple planes. I'm not doing Jiu-Jitsu. I sometimes play badminton.
1:06:52
You know, it's something bad mans fun. I'll do an hour of play type stuff, non-competitive low-stakes stuff. I big fan of the play it away. I think I learned about that book from your
1:07:01
pain. Yeah, Charlie Charlie on.
1:07:03
Yeah, you know, having an hour a week where you're not trying to get fitter. You're not trying to burn calories or accomplish any adaptation. You're just trying to play and enjoy your ability to engage in low stakes. May be competitive but generally low stakes type movement where you're very focused, which is how I Define play. That's also great.
1:07:21
Eight, but that's not really exercise.
1:07:23
That's like, yeah, yeah, there's a difference between sometimes Recreation and exercise. We're talking about provoking adaptations, so this one underscore a few things. One is you talked about nervous system or central nervous system CNS recovery which is I just want to make note of that because I think a lot of folks
1:07:45
think in terms of muscular recovery but not nervous system recovery. And depending on what you're doing made certainly that's very important question on a few things that I just took notes on. So then Patrick neas over toes. I might need to connect with him at some point. Yeah, he's trying to five questions about tip work but before I get to that, maybe you can answer the question that I have. You mentioned Nordic curls passing what the hell are Nordic
1:08:14
curls?
1:08:15
Nordics are a great semi substitute for the glute ham. Raise glute-ham, raise allows you to fix your feet and then put your head down towards the floor and go up into a back raise. And then into what is effectively a hamstring curl, it's the whole posterior chain and the lower back Nordic curls. Are when you either brace, your heels underneath, a heavy piece of equipment or use a lifting belt and strap yourself to a bench or someone strong enough or heavy enough, hold your ankles down and you're lowering down.
1:08:44
Down and you're touching your hands to the floor and coming back up or you can do the been Patrick. Ben, Bruno Ben. Bruno is another excellent Instagram trainer, and professional trainer. Who trains Justin Timberlake and a bunch of other kind of famous. Not kind of famous people. Justin Timberlake's that kind of famous, he's famous, and he can do the cookie challenge, which is to put a cookie in your mouth and dip it in milk, without putting your hands to the floor. Credibly, he's not, it's interesting, been is a deceptively strong because he's not that large, but he's
1:09:14
Very, very strong Ben Bruno train.
1:09:17
Use, Hue, breakdancers, you want to see some strong people? Oh, yeah, deceptive. Yeah, the yeah. Be boys. Yeah,
1:09:23
girls. So, Nordic curls are great. They're now machines that are an apparatus that you can, by the way, you can fix your heels under something. You know, the girls you even a portable one for when you travel. Oh no, it goes under the door. Then Patrick AKA knees over toes guy. He has a system called atg training. I confess I didn't subscribe to atg because I'm I've got what I need now, but a bunch of those
1:09:44
Portable equipment, type things are available through him and I think he's really changed the way that I think about how the whole body moves and works. He insists that he can get me dunking a basketball, which knows maybe that should be the challenge before an ex-convict, our next conversation.
1:10:01
So Nordic Rossa unbeknownst to me because there's some other term for this particular exercise but I have a piece of Ceramics equipment that actually is. It's my garage and is for this
1:10:11
exact. Oh sighs, great. If I had to pick just 3x
1:10:15
I will never just pick 3, but if I had to pick three exercises to do, and I could only do those, it would be glute-ham, raise /, Nordic curl something for the posterior chain, it would be ring, dips.
1:10:28
Because then I could throw in some leg raises to or something like that. I could make it multi compound movement and I would Sprint like if that's the only thing I could do. That's what I would do put me in a small prison cell knocking with let's hope that doesn't happen. That's what I asked.
1:10:45
Scientists /, podcaster, / inmate
1:10:49
with an Ayah. We talked last time I've been behind locked doors before, it's not an experience.
1:10:53
I want to recreate, not even tourist, you know, so on the tip work side, this may be a question for
1:10:58
a banner someone more qualified but one of the challenges that I've had for decades shin splints and my dorsiflexion is actually seemingly from a strengths perspective, pretty decent ankle Mobility. Also pretty decent. Although the left ankle has been broken so many times that it's a little crunchy but I have done training with this fella named Jersey, Greg. Rick who's oh yeah, holds multiple World Records in Olympic weightlifting or held. Also deceptively strong, incredibly
1:11:27
strong. I met him.
1:11:28
His wife.
1:11:29
Yeah, on yellow. She also has World Records in Olympic weightlifting and just to give you an idea, folks, he's got to be in his. I want to see he's probably 67 68 now and he can do a full barbell snatch asked to heels while on top of an endo board which are those Balance boards on top of a Slender very dangerous and I don't recommend trying to replicate that but he's quite a physical specimen. So the point of all of that is that my ankle Mobility is pretty good. My dorsiflexion strength
1:11:58
Seems pretty good. But I always feel like the front of my shins are about to explode. Someone could just pop them like a balloon of the pin, and I have not figured out a way to address this.
1:12:10
I vote to work. I used to have terrible shin splints and also pain in my shins, just from skateboarding, taking so many Shin errs, as they're called from doing a little bit of Thai boxing. When I was in high school and college. And and thinking I was being smart by condition, my shins with Coke bottles, like I heard they did over in Thailand, just made a mess of my shins. The Timbre is a
1:12:28
Changed everything. Also given me. I used to think I had flat feet, but I have flat feet. That's a source of my problem and I'd do all this toe strengthening foot straining stuff. All these people in the yoga community in San Francisco were like, oh, I'm going to train your feet turned out. I don't have flat feet. It turns out that the tip, my tip is were weak and so the foot wasn't to resting in the right position. So for me it's been a game changer. Also, you don't need any specialized equipment. There is that movement of resting your shoulders against a wall, you're gonna play
1:12:58
Thank your bank, your body rigid, your heels are on the ground about a foot out in front of you and then you're touching your toes down to the floor, and then back up and you're just doing that while you're on the phone. You know, 25 or 30 repetitions that, your tips will be screaming. So it's as
1:13:11
if you're basically a statue, right? You can articulate any of your joints - your ankles, right? And you're just standing what like a foot and a half, two feet away. And then colors against the shoulders, then place the one getting your shoulders to the wall but you're kind of you're leaning like a book against a bookend, right? And then exactly moving at us. All
1:13:28
Yeah, amen. Yeah, Count Me In. Yeah, dry. I am also in the Apparently I think this is possible the lying to myself about the flat feet part. Yeah
1:13:38
that's gonna be inside flat fee. You want to hear something really wild as nothing to do with Fitness but has everything to do with metabolism and the Obesity crisis
1:13:44
while metabolism and obesity. And trying to tell
1:13:46
me there was a very important paper published from the University of Houston, this last year, where they had people sitting or a couple of hours and every
1:13:58
Two or three seconds, they would keep their toe on the ground and they would do what was effectively a seated calf raise, think about the jumpy kid in class, or when you had to have a coffee. Yeah, they're doing it slowly and they're measuring the contraction of the Soleus, hmm, right? The longer flatter muscle of the calf underneath the
1:14:14
gastroc. Yep.
1:14:15
Turns out that muscle is very unique. It does not use the same fuel sources as other muscles in the same way. It's not so much a glycogen dependent muscle
1:14:26
It is designed, of course, to carry you very long distances over. It's an endurance muscle. They had people do this while seated for a couple hours a day and they looked at glucose uptake and they looked at overall insulin management and there was a significant and meaningful Improvement in insulin sensitivity. Now, this is not about caloric burn. This is about essentially doing exercise while seated now, I put out.
1:14:56
About this on social media and people understand and Malika laughs like, oh, that's ridiculous. First of all, they call this Soleus push up in the study, you're like that, succeeded Caffrey's, but most people don't notice, he did calf raises. So, you know, Gym Rats, you know, you're only laughing to yourselves, throw the myself tonight. I've been you know it's
1:15:12
true most of the Internet it's like yeah, exactly. Exactly.
1:15:15
But what's very interesting is this is something that a lot of people can do who are trying to improve their metabolic status of course, they should also exercise
1:15:26
But as the paper describes, it's no surprise why this works, you know, where we quote unquote designed to walk around more and more during the day, I don't know, I wasn't consulted, the design phase, but we were definitely moving around a lot more than we probably are now. But it's very interesting that this muscle small. It's only 1% of the bodies total musculature can account for well over 15 percent well over, it depends on the person, but at least 15 percent of your total energy expenditure during the deaths insane. So, if you're on
1:15:56
Playing like this thing of bouncing. Your knee or doing this thing. I get is actually a meaningful. It's not a replacement for exercise, but in terms of its metabolic impact is Meaningful. And I find that really interesting and perhaps of all the things that we'll discuss today, if you're unwilling to try that, then, you know, then your Barber and has no business with
1:16:16
a few extra cups of coffee bounce. Those knees. Exactly. And
1:16:19
don't get on kids about bouncing their knees and class teachers. I was one such kid.
1:16:24
Alright we've covered.
1:16:26
A bunch of exercise. And number of things as fundamental pillars, that you've doubled down on anything that you've changed your mind on.
1:16:36
Okay, well, one of them was the fact that I always believed by fee that we couldn't that I had flat feet. I also believed that we couldn't obtain multiple exercise adaptations at once, right? We can't. Yes. Because I track my numbers, I'm not super neurotic but I keep I, you know, handwritten training journal or at the end of the day, I'll generally can remember what I did in the gym and
1:16:56
Do we're on a run and I'm improving over time. So that's great. I thought I would have had hit my Peak ability and I was all downhill from here, but I feel much better.
1:17:07
How do you track if you track like the Tabata, for instance, you're looking at wattage or you looking at anything? Or is it more
1:17:12
subjective? We're all I tend to add another round or to just do a little bit more work or go a little bit harder. I tend to like to do things pretty subjectively when it comes to exercise. Like I buy calendar will say for instance, like four legs,
1:17:26
I'll say, tip calf, ham quad and I'll put level anywhere from Level 1. To level 10. Level 10 would be the workout with like four straps and drop sets just all-out. I rarely if ever do those, but typically I'm trying to make that work out at least a level 7 point 5 to 9, and generally. The shorter workouts, are the harder ones. Occasionally, just because of schedules are I'm not feeling great. I'll do that Wednesday run and it'll end up being a, you know, 15 minute jog or something. And I'll just say level-5 lame or
1:17:56
Like that, like I didn't eat or something like
1:17:57
that, you know, and then push a little bit harder the next day. So I'm kind of my own coach. I'm sorry, observing myself rather than getting really deep into the metrics. But I'm always trying to put more weight on the bar or go slower with the repetition, or add a set, or a rep or two or all three.
1:18:13
So, let's hone in on sleep, my perennial favorite and the band of my well-being, depending on the quality. But last we spoke, I remember you spoke about. I think it was
1:18:26
Magnesium three and eight apigenin and there may have been one or two other inning, Lucky Charms in there, right, Theon. You are those still the Holy Trinity for your sleep? Or do you have other things that you've added things? You subtracted? What is your current cocktail with the understanding that? As much as people want to fix everything with silver bullets. Light exposure in the morning exercise. All these are contributors to good. Yep. Good quality,
1:18:55
sleep.
1:18:56
I still use the same sleep stack so it's magnesium, three and eight. Spelled thre e e0, n 8e, theanine and apigenin and I've added every once in a while. I'll take 900 milligrams of myo-inositol. Myo-inositol has a rich literature
1:19:14
associate named Maya isn't muscle and why? My o&y
1:19:18
question yeah must be it must be so it's amino acid. It can be a neurotransmitter mimetic it extensive literature on it.
1:19:26
An acetal for improving insulin sensitivity. There's also something called D Cairo and acetal which is important for female fertility. We can talk about that. But what I've added in the 900 milligrams of myo-inositol for is I do sometimes, like many people wake up at 3:00 in the morning to use the restroom and although there's a simple solution to that that I just recently learned that really works and I'll share it in a moment. Catheter know, it helps me fall back asleep after that, and I am tracking.
1:19:56
My sleep because I sleep on an eight sleep and that has good sleep tracking ability. What attea is taught me that a lot of the wristbands and rings for tracking sleep while they can be quite good and are quite good. Whoops, and or has being the two most popular ones they can get movement wrong because of movement of Limbs, whereas the eight sleep seems to really capture slow-wave sleep rapid eye movement, sleep ratios really well,
1:20:21
yeah, I use both a sleep and Aura at the moment,
1:20:24
right? Yeah. So the
1:20:26
The the myo-inositol, it has helped quite a bit with that, going back to sleeping. One way to not wake up to urinate. So much a mill. The night I learned from a colleague, is it turns out that it's not just how much fluid you drink? Which dictates whether or not you need to urinate because that's sort of a duh. It's also how quickly you ingest that fluid if you gulp fluid down. It actually because of the way fluid is absorbed it. Actually in the kidney and we filtration occurs in the kidney. Wait signals to the bladder is that you makes you have to go to the bathroom.
1:20:56
Early urgently. So if you have your final beverage of the day sip it don't go but yeah for morning hydration the opposite is true. You actually want to gulp down quite a lot of liquid in the morning. You can absorb quite a lot of liquid in the morning. There's a I'm reading this really nerdy review in nature as these wonderful review series on circadian rhythms in the kidney, your kidney is not the same organ, first thing in the morning as it is at night. So this is what circadian biologists have been shouting for a long time. Every organ is this way but you want to hydrate pretty heavily first thing in the morning and then over
1:21:26
The day you can titrate off that liquid.
1:21:28
So I'm going to ask you to pick some favorite children here. You got the Magnesium three and eight l-theanine apigenin, which my understanding correctly that is effectively chamomile tea on steroids,
1:21:43
High concentration chamomile extract, all right, got
1:21:45
it, and then the myo-inositol
1:21:48
myo-inositol, all right, 900 milligrams, which turns out to be, it's a big pill. But turns out to be pretty low dose for insulin sensitivity, they give and
1:21:56
Or depression. They give people up to 5 grams of myo-inositol a day, but it's a mild sedative. So I don't know how people get away with that. I'll take the four the four of those. I will
1:22:07
occasionally be slow fire trazodone before I work out. Yeah.
1:22:10
Occasionally I'm so tired that I'll wake up with the pills in my hand or on the nightstand. So I don't think I'm dependent on them in any
1:22:16
way. The question is, if you could only choose two of
1:22:18
those so easy mag three and a, and a pagina. Okay. Gotta yeah. CNN is not going to be good for people to have very
1:22:26
Robust dreams or nightmares because it will increase the how Vivid your dreams are so nightwalkers night. Terrors, that kind of thing. For those of you that have
1:22:37
Sleepwalking nightwalkers. Nice skin
1:22:40
walking see, we're sorry
1:22:42
and I didn't mean to interrupt you. This is something I'm working on. Is my colleague at Stanford? Carol, dweck told me that it's a sign of enthusiasm for the conversation.
1:22:49
It's oh, yeah. I know, I think I apologize. Oh, you kidding. This is, I mean, I'm not gonna throw stones in my glass house here. I interrupt constantly but you were talking about the kidneys and you're saying not the same organ in the morning as it is at night, this is what circadian biologists have been scream from the rooftops and
1:23:06
Now, that's coming home to roost in these papers that you're reading, or maybe it's a meta-analysis. I don't know. And you were saying sipping water at night or just slower intake gulping in the morning and I threw your train of thought off the
1:23:22
rails. All good. I mean basically you want to look at the first half of your day very differently than the second half of your day morning, part of your day you want sunlight or bright artificial light.
1:23:33
Why it increases cortisol 50% above Baseline, you want cortisol High early in the day and you want it low, low low later in the day, not because it disrupt sleep, but because it's late shift of cortisol is associated with depression, screws up your immune system, to have it late shifted, beautiful work from Bob sapolsky and David Spiegel at Stanford school of medicine. Has shown that. So,
1:23:55
Hydration caffeine, sunlight movement, bright light. If you can't get sunlight early in the day though, you really want what are called the catecholamines, which are dopamine epinephrine norepinephrine and you want cortisol, which is a glucose corticoid elevated in the early part of the day, that's what's going to give you energy. Focus alertness, all that great stuff throughout the day and then you want to taper that stuff off as the day goes on. Now.
1:24:20
Recent data have shown that if you want to improve your rapid eye movement sleep, why would you want to do that? Well, rapid eye movement. Sleep is when you get the unpacking of emotions from previous day memories. Yeah
1:24:30
this is your e-reader. Listen to our mutual friend, Matt Walker,
1:24:36
right? I mean, how do you get more rapid eye movement, sleep high-intensity interval training early part of the day or cycling appears to greatly improve different stages of sleep as well compared to running although running lines as well. I don't know I think it has to
1:24:50
To do with the central pattern generator thing, high intensity interval training. I mean, you're pedaling on the bike or you're sprinting, so it's repetitive, but it's not repented for long enough that you're engaging certain brain circuits and it's going to deplete different neurotransmitter systems. It's going to engage the endorphin system rather than hell on Earth is
1:25:06
just a maybe a. I wonder if it's also a study bias in the sense that it's so much easier to get your slaves AKA like undergrads or grad students or whoever recruited in a university setting to
1:25:20
It on a bike. So if you have 100 studies with bikes and you have five studies with running that, maybe it's sort of a selection bias in some respect because there's just such a higher volume of studies. I don't know,
1:25:33
I don't know. I love bicycling when I can be upright, you know, I think you're Dutch a bicycle, you know, moving through a city, seeing things, optic flow seeing which we know shuts down the amygdala, to some extent, it, suppresses activity, the megillah, it's beautiful. You see things, you see people how anyone in the world could want to be hunched over in.
1:25:50
A partial C position and pedaling. As one is on a road bike. I have zero minus one interest in doing that sounds horrible. And then I heard it gives you all these like prostate issues and it can go now, erectile dysfunction, I'm like, you know, because from the pain that they, now put grooves in the seats because, you know, I just think, like, why would anyone be a cyclist? This is
1:26:08
terrible right now, is having a pool cue shoved into, like your perineum for hours at a time isn't good for, you
1:26:13
know, hunched over like a sea. And I realized that, you know, I have many friends who are triathletes and cyclists so I realized there's really an Allure. They're moving fast through space feels.
1:26:20
Good but also the danger of cars and like yeah so cyclic riding a bicycle recreationally to meet make sense as you know, walking or running or skateboarding or whatever. But to me cycling hunched over like that just seems like a dreadful form of exercise but that's just me.
1:26:36
So let's go from the Dreadful to the sublime, perhaps we mentioned a couple of supplements and I don't want to fixate on that but I follow my own curiosity here and there's a list here so on the omegas because we discussed
1:26:50
East.
1:26:51
Omega-3 fatty acids, EPA DHA and I am increased my intake. I'm so curious to know because I do observe seemingly a very consistent Improvement in mood and sleep. However, I've tried multiple Brands and I've tried to do the homework and look at the various, like certificates of analysis to make sure that I'm not, you know, eating rancid garbage. I end up getting mild nausea after
1:27:21
Like a week of aspis higher intake. Maybe if I'm taking might be getting the amount off but maybe two grams total something like that, my liquid, or capsule form in capsule form with food or without food. That's a great question. I probably wasn't even paying attention it. Although, I tend to take fat with food. So, probably with food or maybe just before food, I'd be curious to know anyone on the internet. If you're listening to this video, if you've experienced anything similar because I see,
1:27:51
I see the benefits and then let's just call it 5 to 7 days. Then I just get this like low grade.
1:27:58
Nausea. Almost like a motion sickness and then I stopped for a washout period and then I'm fine. And I'm like, God,
1:28:04
this is, you know, it's the fish oil a bummer. Hmm. Yeah, yeah, there's some, I mean obviously some great high quality fish oils out there for liquid the Carlson's Brands, the ones that are lemon flavored to make them less fishy is, give me the most cost effective way to get fish. Oil has to be refrigerated after opening but that's definitely the most cost effective way. And here we do have a, you know, supplement affiliate for the podcast, but that's just that it's not them.
1:28:28
But that's just the truth. What is your dosage
1:28:30
Target for omega-3 is or EPA, specifically,
1:28:34
minimum 1 gram per day of EPA, okay. Minimum,
1:28:37
sometimes more, do you take it in one dose or split
1:28:39
those? I take it, it ends up being three capsules, with my big meal today, which tends to be a midday meal. And then I take I do take a tablespoon of the Carlson's oil and people gasp when I say this, but I actually like it on my oatmeal
1:28:57
with soy.
1:28:57
Salt, taste good. I, you know, I've been, I've spent time for it in, like Iceland and Scandinavia. Like, I had these little shots of, like, cod liver oil and so on, I can do that. But on top of
1:29:08
the oatmeal, I'm telling you. It's really good. And I hate sardines. I despise sardines. I despise anything smoked flavor. I'm really boring. And I absolutely loathe anchovies. Like, fishy, or oil
1:29:21
smell? Yeah, County actually, like eating fish. Still like our nation
1:29:24
like sushi, that's about it,
1:29:25
but even there, I'm boring. Oil Bradley.
1:29:27
Like the uni, I'm a good person to go to sushi with, because you get all the eel, all the uni, you know, I just want the yellowtail and the
1:29:37
least effective. At least defensive fish available,
1:29:40
at least I'm not ordering chicken teriyaki,
1:29:42
and just so people are hearing it from you and not from me, not to say it's even the same thing. What are the primary benefits That You observe or that are supported by literature? Either our with the intake of say, 1 G minimum of
1:29:56
EPA per day. Moo,
1:29:57
Food antidepressant effects, absolutely clear. And there's so many, clinical trials, supporting that people can get away with taking lower doses of antidepressants or even coming off into depressants. Of course, always check with your psychiatrist before you do that by increasing their omega-3 intake above 1 gram per day, even as high as 3 grams per day.
1:30:16
Okay? So question for you, I remember last time we spoke we chatted a bit about the ability for the gut. Let's just say some people refer to it as the second brain to sense.
1:30:27
The intake of sugar fat and a handful of other things. What is the mechanism of action by which the EPA is affecting mood? Is that known? Or
1:30:43
as I think so it's probably two pronged one. The EPA is a fundamental structural lipid or neuronal membranes and for the neurons in particular that release neuromodulators such as serotonin and dopamine.
1:30:57
Me.
1:30:59
That's one. The other is that these neuro pod cells in the gut. They're called sense. As you point out, sugar essential fatty acids and amino essential, amino acids, and Signal via the vagus to the dopamine centers of the brain. So your gut is subconsciously signaling to your brain, what kinds of nutrients are coming into your system and when you have a lot of flavorful food and or high, caloric food, but it's not.
1:31:29
In nutrients, it sets that system totally out of whack because there's an increase in dopamine, for sure. From the taste of the food. That's not matched by that. Subconscious parallel signal, by the way. This is not woo. Biology, this is coming from the Laboratories of Jacob orcas at Duke University School of Medicine. Charles Tucker, who's a Howard Hughes medical investigator at Columbia University has done this for sugar sensing and a number of other Laboratories be shown that this pathway from the subconscious signaling from the Vegas.
1:31:59
The dopamine centers of the brain are driving in an appetite for certain kinds of foods. However, when these neurons, these neuro pod cells in the gut are quote, unquote satisfied, they're seeing the nutrients, they want to see. They signal to the brain dopamine release within the brain, but they also are signaling satiety and that's really what you want. So, in many ways we are a essential amino acid, essential fatty acid, foraging machine. It just also so happens that
1:32:29
in the short term sugar will trigger the same pathway. This is also why people who increase their intake of Omega-3s get above that one gram per day of epa's or who take small amounts of L-glutamine.
1:32:44
Reduce the sugar Cravings, you're activating the same neurons giving the alternative
1:32:48
stimulus. So the L-glutamine is vis-à-vis the, the neuro pods likely
1:32:53
like that hasn't been directly established, but it's long been known that increasing intake of certain essential amino acids can reduce craving for sweets. And whenever people say, how do I kill my Sweet Craving? Well, it's not a conventional approach, but you could take, you could get a quality branched-chain amino acid, or essential amino.
1:33:13
And powder which sometimes have some non-caloric sweetener or something and fruity taste and mix it in there. People find. Oh yeah, I don't actually crave chocolate. The same way or I mean, in my opinion, a little bit of dark chocolate is wonderful. Every once in a while, so I don't want to give the impression. You're not never supposed to have sugar, but there are people who very much feel a slave to their sugar Cravings. So, giving these neurons the alternative stimulus, really helps, and you're getting effectively. The same dopamine release. This makes sense, evolutionarily. Why we would crave essential fatty acids and essential amino acids?
1:33:44
This is also why you know I guess the meat eaters won't relate. The non-meat eaters won't relate but a really great steak is very satisfying despite the value that has no glucose essentially, there are people who are feel quite good whether or not they're healthy or not as, if we could talk about, but who feel quite good, just eating steak. Now, I'm not one of those people but if you had to pick a food that would keep you feeling good and would repair the tissues of your body and when give you enough fat to keep going and proteins,
1:34:13
Emphasis etcetera. If you had to feed your children, you would give them a steak, you would not give them a sweet potato. And if you look at the amount of food, that one, eats, when given as much meat as they want, fatty meat in particular, not gross Fatima, high quality fatty meat versus carbohydrates. I mean you just look at your quite satisfied after a certain amount of protein intake. So I'm not pushing people towards a carnivore diet. I don't follow a carnivore diet but I do think that our nervous system from the gut to the brain
1:34:43
Is a is a sensing and foraging system that subconsciously and lets our brain now. Haha, I've got enough of what I need and now I can stop eating if I
1:34:53
want to
1:34:55
So we're going to LeapFrog from delicious fish. I think move for me, might be to go to Just Pure liquid refrigerated try that. I mean, who the hell knows, but just to just to try something, even if the expiration date looks fine. Maybe I just got a couple of bad batches, who knows?
1:35:12
Or maybe it's the capsules themselves. I mean yeah there's so many things going to these capsule formulas and then their shelf life and all of that gut health overall. If it's hard for most people to do what they
1:35:24
Need to for their gut. In addition, all the things to avoid like to frequent use of antibiotics and things that Source, it's pretty clear. That one serving of fermented foods a day is not going to be enough that you need three or four servings of low-sugar, fermented food. So not 04 people that can stomach it. Good luck. You know? Sauerkraut kimchi, you know, a good Bulgarian yogurt. I like these really sour Bulgarian yogurt, they're so good old Gary. Yeah. Oh, there's this amazing Bulgarian yogurt. You have to try this stuff. It is so good.
1:35:54
So they don't have the full fat one in particular. Comes, what what makes the Bulgarian yogurt, so magical? I can remember the name of this brand will put in the show. It's so good. But I don't want people to. I have they run out because then we put two or three of these in every Whole Foods and I'm buying those two or three. So, the of the full fat ones but it's hard for most people to get that much low sugar. Fermented food per day and so most people just don't do it and then high-dose probiotics are very expensive need to be refrigerated
1:36:21
So that's why I think the ag-1 checks off a number of boxes there, but if people can ingest low-sugar fermented foods that's going to serve them really, really well. So so say the data from Justin Sonnenberg slab, and Chris
1:36:32
gardeners lot. Enjoy your kilo a day of not. Oh, tell me how that goes so slimy. It's so wicked. I mean, that is there are two things that IV I've lived in Japan and was there's an exchange students on their to, at least Twila, see three food items that Japanese people find hilarious to watch.
1:36:51
Watch foreigners. Try to eat. Natto is definitely number one, it's just like spider web cobweb stink. It's so gnarly, I can eat it but it's not my favorite even to this day will Mabel she and other types of like pickled, super, super salty, plums and son. That's another one. And then I would say uni also before especially before it was really making the rounds in the u.s. like the first time Foreigner would go over and just get like the seagull pool on top of
1:37:21
Sushi rise. So, hardcore uni is why I'm talking about this consistency Wise, It's very, very smaller.
1:37:27
It just feels like it's, it's like a tongue.
1:37:30
Yes. Not my, it's not my favorite people, but people love it. Some people, some people doing people are
1:37:35
told that it's an aphrodisiac and that's what. And so
1:37:38
they put best way to sell anything through a best friend. That's right. So I wanted to ask you because I have a couple of notes here. There's tongkat. Ali fiducia aggressed, has some press that correctly, but the one I want to ask you about first is actually, if I'm getting
1:37:51
the pronunciation correctly. Rhodiola
1:37:54
rosea. Rhodiola rosea. Says alright. Impressive supplement.
1:37:58
So please tell me more about this because I have heard in my conversations with athletes over the years of people using this for various endurance purposes, altitude acclimation.
1:38:12
So rhodiola rosea is a really interesting compound because it falls into this category of what people call adaptogens. But normally when you hear adaptogens, first of all, that's a very vague term doesn't actually mean anything specific. It means a an ability to adapt generally or specifically no one's really pinpoint what that means, but typically the adaptogens are going to reduce cortisol. So, for instance, ashwagandha is a very potent suppressor of cortisol. There's some evidence that can indirectly increase testosterone, but probably,
1:38:42
Suppression of cortisol. Since those are in the same synthesis pathway ashwagandha is an adaptogen ashwagandha.
1:38:50
Because it lowers cortisol should probably be taken late day, not early day because you want cortisol. Hi. Ashwagandha as a cortisol suppressing, adaptogen probably also should not be taken in high amounts, not low amounts, but in high amounts meaning, you know, four to six, hundred milligrams prior to exercise, because the whole goal of exercise is to trigger the adaptation through a spike in cortisol, one of the goals rhodiola rosea is very interesting compound because it's an adaptogen in that it greatly
1:39:19
Lee reduces perceived effort and allows for greater power output and endurance output as you pointed out a moment ago. But it does not do that by suppressing cortisol. So 200 mg of rhodiola rosea prior to say a resistance training workout or even on one of your these guitars Keys. You will notice you have more Vigor, you can just go longer and you're perceived effort is much lower and it's kind of striking. What is it doing that?
1:39:49
Interesting. It's kind of striking how after the workout, you don't feel as depleted. Perhaps the main reason I started taking as I found, I could train harder, but then I suffered quite a lot from a post exercise dip in energy, especially if I ate a big meal, I no longer experience that. If I take rhodiola rosea, I'm 30 to 60 minutes before, work out the effects of it, lasts about four hours. So, what's happening during that workout, it's clearly having an effect on the central nervous system, by reducing the total amount of adrenaline that's
1:40:19
At least or the efficacy of adrenaline epinephrine during high-intensity effort or long-duration effort. So what this effectively means is you're in principle. One is able to generate the same amount of effort without the same amount of energy depleting neurochemicals. I mean epinephrine norepinephrine. Help you generate energy but there's always a trough afterwards always. And so if you can generate the same amount of physical output in the absence of x amount of adrenaline, or
1:40:49
Epinephrine, then you're essentially better off. It also seems to catalyze recovery better. I would not take it more often than just before training. However, because there are a few studies showing that the effects of it can have taper off if you're taking it all day every
1:41:06
day. Now, would that be true for say ashwagandha? Let's just say someone's taking it before sleep with they want to cycle off of that. How would you think about cycling if
1:41:15
recommended? Yeah, low dose of ashwagandha, 25 50 milligrams a day.
1:41:19
Day taken continuously. No problem. I actually think a G1 has low dose of ashwagandha in it. But when people are taking ashwagandha to offset, high stress of mental or physical stuff, we're both for a period in life. I'd say after about two weeks, you want at least two weeks off, you really don't want to suppress cortisol chronically unless there's some clinical reason for that. Rhodiola rosea is probably the best addition to my physical performance stack that I've added in a long time, and it's really striking.
1:41:49
I think so much so that people could try it and it really does seem to work the first time in every time for me. If it doesn't work for you, the first time, if you know, all other things being equal, you got a decent night's sleep. You're doing everything the same way you normally would, and you take Rodeo Rose and you don't really notice much of an effect. You might try and increase the dose slightly and give it another go. And what was the
1:42:10
dosage range? 200 mg
1:42:12
200 mg has. What i is, what I'll take. And I found that to be really striking. Now I'm not going to take that before like a long Sunday.
1:42:19
A jog or a hike is that? I mean, I might but chances are I'm not going to do it before leg workout. I'm gonna do before I hit workout. I'm going to, I'm mainly doing it to make sure that I can train really hard and then go do other things. Really hard to, you know, I again, as a not a competitive athlete, I loathe the experience of training really hard and then feeling like I gave everything to that, training session, and therefore, I don't have much energy or Focus to give to the other anything else. Yeah.
1:42:49
And I think most people are like
1:42:50
that. Are you still taking the tongkat Ali in the fiduciary aggressiveness? And for those who are not familiar, because I think we may have made mention of this in our last conversation, but just in brief. What are these two things
1:43:01
to ya tongue got Ali is an Indonesian jin-sang. There's a Malaysian version 2 but you want the Indonesian one if you want to pursue these effects which are it's known to decrease sex hormone-binding globulin, which frees testosterone which is important in both men and women. It turns out in women,
1:43:18
There's more testosterone circulating in a healthy woman post puberty woman. Then there is estrogen, Peter Atia, Tommy. That's have you normalize for nanograms per deciliter. Women have more testosterone than Western healthy, women do. So, testosterones associated with libido ability and desire to generate effort mood etcetera in men and women. Probably the best way to describe testosterones effects are, it makes effort feel good.
1:43:44
Tom golly frees up more testosterone, so mild libido, enhancer for some more extreme for others increases energy will increase feelings of well-being and typically the dosages are 400 mg a day in single dose or divided doses with or without food taken early in the day before noon or 2 p.m. because it can increase energy. You don't want to disrupt your sleep. There are a number of good sources of it. We can provide links to a couple of those sources and Fado. He aggresses is a Nigerian
1:44:14
Shrub. It's taken from a Nigerian shrub, and it stimulates the release of luteinizing hormone, which is going to come out of the pituitary and in women will stimulate anything that comes from Downstream of luteinizing hormone in the ovary, the typically estrogen, maybe even testosterone some extent. And in men, it will increase testosterone output from the testes by way of increasing. Luteinizing hormone may be subtle increase in estrogen as well. This is important. Men hear that.
1:44:45
Something increases estrogen, they go, I don't want that will keep in mind that if you Flatline your estrogen. So if men are taking Anastrozole or crushing their estrogen, their libido is going to be zero. Their cognitive ability will be diminished estrogen, is important in both men and women, cardioprotective cardioprotective the endothelial cells. We think of our blood vessels in Our arteries and capillaries as tubes, but they're really tubes, imagine Silly Putty, kind of rolled out Play-Doh made into little flat sheets, and then rolled up to
1:45:14
Prize those two. So it's many, many endothelial cells that make up those tubes and the flexibility of those tubes is very important, obviously don't want them rigid the, you need them to expand and contract as needed. And estrogen is important for some of that signaling leading to that malleability of the endothelial cells. The doji aggressiveness is typically taken in dosage of 300 to 600 milligrams per day with, or without food, doesn't seem to matter if it's early day late day, there's some evidence than rats. It can be toxic to the testicular tissue, but that's in very, very high concentrations.
1:45:44
It's interesting to see the number of studies on humans for both Tunga Ali and Fado have greatly expanded since our last conversation and especially if we're talking golly, there's requite good support, safety margins are good with in the dosage ranges, that we've talked about. I've heard of people taking up to a gram, a day of Tonga Ali that just makes me cringe. I think taking herbal compounds in very high concentrations. It's going to be risky, no matter what, because these things can trigger an immune responses. So 400 mg of Tonga Ali. 600, 300, 600 milligrams of Fado.
1:46:14
Gia taken daily should be fine. I don't cycle them and never have some people cycle the Fado Gia. Why don't the raid? Why don't I cycle them? Yeah, because I'm just keep working.
1:46:24
Well I mean Louisa Miss could have said that about like well likes to. Yeah. So a couple of
1:46:29
reasons I do blood work twice a year. Liver enzymes are included there. We can talk about fertility. Perhaps, if you want today the last year because of my age in the fact that I don't have children yet, but I'm cognizant of the fact that I do want them. At some point, I got really down.
1:46:44
Rabbit Hole, Justin figure of speech of you know, sperm analysis, including everything from DNA fragmentation, to how to increase, sperm numbers, and motility and quality and egg quality. I got really annoyed.
1:46:56
Is there a Gamblin, man. If you're making your swimmers were old classmate, you don't want kids. Yeah. Well, right. It's all about
1:47:05
readiness, I suppose. So the, what is it, that in the SEAL Teams? They say, like, you fall not to the level
1:47:11
of your, you do not rise to the level of your home?
1:47:14
Host, but false level your preparation. That's actually a quote from our key Locust who's a Greek poet and I believe philosopher also. But yes, also widely used in the Special Forces
1:47:25
teams. So I've been monitoring sperm parameters, freezing sperm, as I might wanna do IVF someday with somebody, you know, this kind of thing or conceive naturally but, and because it, we're talking about and I've talked a lot about tools, supplements, etcetera, as it relates to vitality and fertility. I think there is a way to optimize for both of those things.
1:47:44
So I don't cycle them because I haven't felt a need to, or seen any to some people choose to just take a week off from 4 Doge. Every once a while ago, five days on two days off and people should do. What makes them comfortable? You'll notice an effective Fado do males, will notice an effective for dodea. It actually will increase testicular, size, somewhat and density. And that's just because of the increase of that, LH luteinizing hormone. Just going to be a single
1:48:07
avocado pits hanging between the leg, going to depend on where you start,
1:48:11
but it will do a number of things related to
1:48:14
icing luteinizing hormone similar although not to the same extent as something like taking HCG human chorionic. Well, that's what I was gonna
1:48:20
ask if you were to inject yourself with HCG. You would probably cycle at some point or maybe not. I don't know. You tell me. Yeah,
1:48:31
I've done experiments with HCG. I think you have time to. Yeah, I mean it definitely will increase sperm volume and definitely. Yeah. Significantly. I mean HCG is essentially luteinizing hormone. Oh yeah, you know there's actually a movement.
1:48:44
In the testosterone, augmentation world. Now, we don't want to go too far down this path, but so-called trt replacement therapy. A lot of people are interested in what I call T 80 which is augmentation therapy. So I think it's a safe.
1:48:57
That's a Rebrand. You know, we were talking before you know like the Patagonian toothfish goes to Chilean sea bass and taking roids goes to just dust right, augmentation therapy.
1:49:09
Yeah, I mean I think every male should be aware that taking exogenous testosterone like
1:49:14
Testosterone sippy Nader, otherwise is going to suppress your endogenous testosterone. However, there are people that want to do that. I think one of the goals for most people is to neither be out of range. You know. There are a lot of people who don't want to be bodybuilders and take so-called steroids, but obviously even estrogens Estero. Yeah, sure. And cortisol is a corticosteroid. So, but to be high end of normal range, right? High end of normal. So if the range is 300, anagrams, DL, all the way up to 1200 or 900 in some countries. It depends, you know, being somewhere between,
1:49:44
mean, you know, 600 and 900. I think it's going to be preferable for most people and Tonga Ali and Fuji aggressive. I think represent a good place to start if you don't want to pursue these other more aggressive.
1:49:55
Well, not cuddly is particularly interesting to me, because I almost always have very high range total testosterone, but my free testosterone is low and my sex hormone-binding globulin is high
1:50:10
which itself is not necessarily A Bad Thing. The 900
1:50:14
G myo-inositol can also increase free testosterone indirectly through mechanisms that aren't entirely clear there. Also, some other ways if people want to tickle these Pathways Sheila G, right fulvic acid which is Sheila G is a mineral pitch. It's used in
1:50:28
ayurvedic medicine but that was 1980s. Lead vocalist.
1:50:33
It's it it stimulates the release of FSH follicle stimulating hormone follicle-stimulating and FSH coming out of the pituitary and LH will stimulate testosterone production.
1:50:44
Riya, lighting cells of the testes, that FSH is going to stimulate spermatogenesis by increasing, what's called antigen binding protein, which is the protein that testosterone binds to, which then is going to give rise to more sperm at risk of. I never want to do kind of a podcast plug on another podcast about she not yours. I did a four and a half hour episode on male and female fertility, that goes through essentially the ovulatory cycle and the spur banjosa cycle. And then all the do's and do Nots.
1:51:14
For both men and women who wish to conceive either now or in the future, or who do not wish to conceive children, but want to use fertility as a proxy for Vitality, which is something, by the way, I have to say, I have to credit you for years ago, you said, you know, basically if you optimize for fertility you're optimizing for Vitality. So there again, I want to just thank you because that's an extremely efficient but also extremely Sage way to think about optimizing for Vitality. So it's not just about wanting to have kids, it's about maintaining all your
1:51:44
Ecosystems at their right
1:51:45
tuning. Super helpful. Proxy. Super helpful. In this case, what do you mean by
1:51:50
vitality?
1:51:52
Waking up feeling well enough to want to begin your day.
1:51:58
With enough energy to complete your day and to move back and forth along the Continuum of driven and relaxed. Super, I mean, if you think about that kind of eliminating relationships to others as a component for the moment, of course, it is a component setting an ass. I'd rather what I just described to me is the definition of mental health, the ability to lean into effort, but also to relax and restore your system and to feel good about what you're doing and
1:52:28
And being able to move from driven to reflective when these kinds of things. So many people, we know don't want to give a geographical they all left the bay area. Anyway there I just said it was a bear, you know, successful but miserable we knew a lot of those or people that can't seem to get enough energy to focus and get down a path of pursuit. So you want both. That's Vitality to me and this is getting kind of Eastern philosophy, which is more your domain than mine and I'm always eager to learn here. But you know, when you think about Chi or kind of dopamine,
1:52:58
Or Life Energy, the desire to create things in the world, including Offspring. But just to birth ideas, birth businesses, birth relationships, Earth, podcast, whatever is is essentially from the same place of having some idea in mind and try to construct, that overcoming fear, your Notions of fear setting become really relevant here Etc. And so, Vitality has a lot to do with the ability to generate effort with feeling like at least
1:53:28
East, if not a fast upward spiral at least a slow upward spiral and certainly not a slow downward
1:53:33
spiral. I'll tell you what, I'll take any of the others pyrite.
1:53:36
I mean, I think, you know, I'm around a lot of graduate students and postdocs and you see how an early success by publishing a paper early on in one's career creates an upward spiral around the whole concept of effort there. After you see this in dating and relationships, you see how an early failure can set, people along a downward spiral. And so, I think that having Drive comes from the catecholamines.
1:53:58
It's dopamine, epinephrine norepinephrine and sure you need the serotonergic systems in the opioid system. Endogenous opioid systems that smooth things out. But in the absence of that, get up and go, I mean we wouldn't be here. There's no again, I wasn't consulted, a design phase, but you can be pretty sure that this is what allows any animal or human to move toward a
1:54:17
milestone. So I'm going to ask you yet again, a lazy but perhaps productive question. That is will satisfy my own curiosity.
1:54:28
Omega's tongkat, Ali, fiduciary restless and rhodiola rosea. You get to pick two, which would you pick?
1:54:36
Tonga, Ali and rhodiola rosea. Okay. Yeah, especially so you drop that. PSY was
1:54:42
surprising. I thought the EPA would be a shoo-in.
1:54:44
Oh, I'm sorry EPA was included, their? Yes
1:54:46
R Omega is Tom Connolly if I
1:54:49
apologize. So then it would be omegas and Tonga Ali. Okay. Yeah, if I think about fundamental kind of Baseline supplementation.
1:54:57
Ation things that are hard to get from food but that represent key micronutrients that really move multiple needles in the right direction, it's going to be getting above that. One gram per day threshold of epa's. So a MAG has, it's also going to be anything that moves the hormone system toward the green zone, which is going to be tan. Golly now of course doing all the other things, right? Trying to get sleep exercise, sleep, movement, nutrients, sunlight, all all that. In fact, there's a really wonderful study out of Israel that showed that if people
1:55:27
Got 20 minutes three times a week of sun exposure to their skin, their face and they remove their shirts or if it was women that were tank tops and shorts for both men and women three times a week significant increases in free testosterone and this was afternoon sun, it wasn't Morning, Sun increases in free testosterone, and estrogen and significant increases in libido. Also, if you charge out the amount of free testosterone across the months, even in places that aren't really far north.
1:55:57
You're going to see significant variations and free testosterone in men and women toward the summer spring and summer months. So we are somewhat seasonal and in some people robustly seasonal depending on your ancestry. So that sunlight thing is real and the mechanism just so that people aren't like, oh, get sunlight, he's just saying sunlight again. Is that the carotenuto sites which are component of the skin signal through this for you, nerds that like me that p53 pathway and impinge on pituitary to Signal loot.
1:56:27
As a hormone follicle-stimulating hormone release is so interesting because what we think of the as the skin, which is protecting our organs and, you know, place to put tattoos and earrings and jewelry and stuff is actually an endocrine organ. The skin is a hormone producing organ. Hence the vitamin D thing, and everything
1:56:45
else. So a lot of fat cells to which, a lot of people don't think about.
1:56:48
Yeah, so definitely the omegas and Tonga. Ali wrote rhodiola rosea is great to enhance workouts for doji has definitely up. It's a boost on the
1:56:57
Hormone system. For sure. I have a friend who is single now. He's in a great relationship. We can't say it was because the the dojo but he was taking for dojo and he's like, I got to stop taking this stuff because obviously he was flying solo enough. He was like, this is just really, it's really intrusive. And not wait, interesting
1:57:13
because he was just humping the walls or what? I don't know, it just wasn't. I
1:57:16
think, I don't know if we want to go here. You know, there's this whole
1:57:19
online. Many shiny object, so much libido. Well, there's this whole online
1:57:22
community now about semen retention and things like that. He's not part of that Community, but there's this idea,
1:57:27
That would just be weird, adults here. I mean there's this idea that if you look in the journals of sexual health, I'm really interested in sexual health and Urological Health. There's a ton of interesting stuff on pelvic floor. This stuff just isn't often discuss what you find is that masturbation for women, turns out to their self-reported, Notions of well-being, of mood of immune system, function of quote-unquote, knowing their bodies and what gives them, pleasure, Etc, all increase. If you look at the data in Men, In terms,
1:57:57
Masturbation. And here, we talked about masturbation to the point of ejaculation and men, they report lower, mood less willingness to pursue relationships
1:58:05
shorter, their home watching
1:58:07
porn. Right? So we have to be very careful with statements. Like masturbation is bad or something like that. Cause that's not your it's going to be genders. Well, we should say, stay out of that discussion. Biological sex dependent because that's as clear, ground, we'll just leave it at that. And then there is this whole notion that a lot, a whole generation of young. Males are becoming porn addicted to masturbation addicted, but can't look someone in the eyes.
1:58:27
Out on a date or learn how to navigate healthy consensual sex, right? And they're not doing Network so they can't look anyone in the eye. I'm just
1:58:37
they've got flaccid feet and they don't do not work.
1:58:40
Yeah, I mean, and here I'm not trying to create a Notions of like hyper males. We really just talking about a radical shift in the way that Sexual Health has evolved over the last 10 years because of the accessibility of hardcore, pornography its relation to the dopamine system, you know. So here, I'm not trying to be evangelic Allure.
1:58:57
Anything like that. I'm just saying these are serious, neurotransmitter / hormone systems and a whole generation of males is making themselves. Sated enough to not actually pursue a number of what used to be considered Milestones toward the transition between young adulthood and to adulthood. And you know it's birth rates are low. Dating is low having less sex you know a few people having a lot more sex. So this is great for the people out there who are comfortable in social interactions.
1:59:27
Anyway, we don't want to go down that path too far. But these are deeply
1:59:31
wired systems. Yeah. To, they have to they who have much much will be given.
1:59:36
So for those of you willing to date and find relationship what hopefully leads to healthy relationship for dosia,
1:59:42
we should thank you for Georgia. So, before we move on, I do want to ask you about mr. Chatting a little bit before we started recording psychedelics and your current, and developing thoughts.
1:59:55
On that or any commentary like to add before we get to that since you were talking about fertility, understanding people can go to the, the Dances with Wolves episode where you cover all things comprehensively. But we're talking about a number of tools in the form of these supplements, for lack of a better way to phrase, it goosing the system, right? These are ways to augment certain endocrine functions or the composition is say of free.
2:00:25
this is bounded testosterone etcetera, where did you end up after doing a research on environmental endocrine disruptors or things that we should be subtracting rather than adding because it's hard for me as someone who is say certainly an on specialist in reproductive Health to find the time or even, maybe just the dedication to sort the signal from the noise with all that because there's a lot of
2:00:55
Sterics to, there's a lot of nonsense out there. Where did you land with what are important? If anything to be mindful of or subtract?
2:01:06
So, for cutting through that four and a half out of the Dances with Wolves reference. This is a long movie, people
2:01:12
should watch, hey I love Dances with Wolves. So I'm not knocking it for the length. It's I I think people should listen to, to this podcast but specifically just to hone in on this. No,
2:01:22
it was designed for individuals or couples who are thinking about
2:01:25
About these issues. And also for, in particular, for women who are interested in banking eggs. Yep. I'm you know, like most women don't know that cut off after which you can't freeze eggs, you can only freeze embryos. So in the California if you're 42 years old or younger you can freeze eggs might meet someone later and decide you want to conceive children or use a donor after 42. I think it's at 42 and a half, you can only create embryos
2:01:55
And freeze those. They're just knock the eggs are on, average are just too aged out males, if you want to be a sperm donor, you know, ideally you're going to do that before 45. Now, there is a significant increase in sperm donor, or you might want to do IVF someday. Now, there is a significant increase in the incidence of autism with each half decade for the father, you know? So as you go from 30 or 35, to 40 the sperm age matters, but
2:02:25
The increases still incredibly small overall. So it's not something you really point to and say, oh it's the sperm, you know, or it's the egg for that matter. Okay. Now, do's and don'ts we can now easily look back to the beginning of our discussion. It's very clear that quality sleep on a regular basis sunlight. Keeping stress in check healthy relationships over what all of that is going to support sperm health. And I health, no question about that. It's all so clear.
2:02:54
R that getting sufficient, omega-3 fatty acids is going to support sperm health and I Health, I'll just point out that if there were One supplement that really seems to move the needle in terms of egg quality, which is a morphological but also a meaningful physiological metric or sperm quality, which is going to be shape motility. You don't want me to call, you don't want dead sperm. They're always going to be some in a sample because of the age of the sperm etcetera, in the way the spermatogenesis cycle. Go, but you want forwardly motile sperm, the other ones are called twitchers. So, you know, they just
2:03:24
In place. They can actually take twitchers and force them into the egg during IVF something called XE. But in general, the greater number of forward motile sperm, I'm swimming them toward. Yeah, yeah, I've actually swimming them in angle away from Tim from but they go forward on our first exact person I've got State. Exactly can be greatly increased by supplementation with L-Carnitine. So egg health and sperm Health greatly enhanced by L-Carnitine pretty remarkable results there. Injectable L-Carnitine
2:03:54
Of about 1 Meg per day. Now that has to be prescribed by a
2:03:57
doctor or that's, I am, that's intramuscular.
2:04:00
Yeah. Or oral capsules are available over the counter, then you have to get up to four or five grams per
2:04:06
day. I was gonna ask Ya, that's and that can
2:04:09
increase tmao. And some other markers that aren't great for cardiovascular health because of the way, it's processed by the gut. But you can offset that by taking 600 milligrams of garlic because of the Allison and garlic. Okay? Smoking cigarettes, vaping cigarettes.
2:04:24
Really good for sperm, terrible for sperm, terrible for eggs
2:04:28
smoking, cannabis vaping cannabis, also terrible, eggs, and sperm. People don't like to hear that. 15% of women, I can't believe the statistic, but I've seen it over and over to check my eyes. But 15% ingest cannabis at some point during pregnancy. Probably not a good idea. Now, a lot of people say, oh, I smoke weed every day and got my wife pregnant, you never know how healthy your children would have been you never? You just never know. I'm not saying your
2:04:54
Turn around healthy. But you
2:04:55
never. Also gonna be there will always be edge cases for like, I smoke crack every week and never slept for 14 days. Straight, my kids are great and you're like, okay? Just because you happen to be the one mutant right? Right, right. Yeah. Optimized for hookah thread. That needle. Exactly. Doesn't mean you're a good model.
2:05:13
Exactly. So L-Carnitine can really help avoid smoking anything, the issue of tinctures and Edibles is a different subject altogether. I think the big wow.
2:05:25
For me was something again. I'm just going to tip my hat to you which is that in 2015 I taught a class it. I was then a professor at UC San Diego on, neural circuits in health and disease and I decided to do a lecture on whether or not cell phones, inhibit sperm health, and or testosterone level the data. We're very mixed frankly, there were essentially two good studies in rats, each of them, taking a standard smartphone, putting it under a rat's cage. And then looking at some
2:05:54
Eric's related to testicular, Health, sperm Health, Etc, one showed increases in testosterone, the other show decreases. So it was kind of a disappointing situation, so I would present both. Now, there is an extensive meta-analysis. I can send you this for the for the show notes. If you like an extensive meta-analysis of dozens of
2:06:11
studies to the next reprint of the 4-Hour
2:06:14
Body. It's a and it's a very convincingly shows that keeping the cell phone in one's pocket. So this isn't putting it to your head. This isn't putting on the desk in front of you, but
2:06:24
Keeping one it on, and in one's pocket. And it does not matter if it's on Wi-Fi, or you're using seller. Decreases sperm quality, which means forward. Motility number of healthy sperm per and Jacqueline etcetera. Even ejaculate volume to some extent and lowers testosterone overall, which is perhaps not surprising giving the known heat effects of the phone. So even though it doesn't feel hot to the touch, their heat, affects sperm don't like heat. In fact, the
2:06:54
most promising male contraceptive that's out there, that's not a condom, it's like a cough that goes around the vas deferens, which is the portal from the testes to the urethra that allows the ejaculate to leave the body. That heats that, I mean, take a sauna, will it's not a great form of contraception because it's not sure proof, but it will reduce your total number of motile sperm by 75 percent or so. When I go in the sauna because I had to do hope to my present, I
2:07:19
do hope to can see children somewhere. So, I wear
2:07:21
shorts into the sauna, and I actually put a cold pack at my
2:07:24
Mean, while I'm in there it's actually cut when the sun is really hot. It's also it makes it a little less unpleasant, it's a little painful, but you definitely don't want to do that on bare skin, but I'm chuckling to but heat is part of the problem with the cell phone, but it turns out. Yes. And here people are going to think I'm going like crazy person, but they might think that already, the EMS that business is real now, is it so real that it's giving us gliomas unclear. I'm not going to go there, the data aren't in but it is very clear that the radiation from phone.
2:07:54
Owns the EMS and the heat are combining to reduce sperm quality motility and overall testosterone. So it's a simple thing. Turn off your phone completely or even better. Just don't put it in your front pocket if you have to put in a pocket, but in your back pocket, if you even better, would be to put in a shoulder pocket or a backpack, and I'm a weirdo perhaps, but I don't like keeping the phone to the my head too long, but that's also because I don't like holding that gun to my head, too long. We don't know very much.
2:08:24
About the effects of EMS and heat effects on the different tissues of the body. But we now know a lot about the effects of heat and EMS on sperm quality, and it's not a good picture for the sperm. Where does airplane
2:08:36
mode fit into this equation? If at all, in terms of between on and off? I mean, does it?
2:08:45
Prevent or mitigate some of the effects, it seems to. Yeah, it seems to, here's
2:08:50
what's really scary about this meta-analysis. Their conclusion, is that the total amount of time, spent with the phone in the pocket, is not a strong determinant that it's, it's not all or none but that the threshold Beyond which you start seeing these damaging effects is pretty low. So again, here, we're talking about a don't not a do and so it's pretty straightforward, you know? Don't keep the phone in your front pocket. If you're concerned with sperm health,
2:09:15
And and testosterone production. Now, why is sperm health and testosterone production? So correlated. And you say well Duds because, you know, testosterone and sperm. But if you're not interested in conceiving children, you might not think this is an issue. But remember that the two types of cells, those lied excels in the sertoli cells of the testes, combined testosterone in the antigen binding protein to give rise to sperm. So anytime you're seeing a reduction in sperm, you are definitely seeing that as a reflection of reduction, in antigen binding protein, which means whatever testosterone you have around.
2:09:45
Is also not having the effect on that local organ on that it should. In other words, the testes are end, the ovaries are very interesting organs because they secrete hormones into the body to go have effects but they also have effects on themselves and itself amplify. And so this just seems like such a straightforward one to me and you said this back in when was the 4-Hour Body publishing? A
2:10:06
man 2010. Yeah, yeah. And I remember
2:10:09
you and poliquin a few other people saying, like don't keep the phone in your pocket and I remember lecturing to about 400 students about
2:10:15
This and I would say about half just by my read about half of the guys in the class, took the phone out of your pocket. When they heard this, I think young people who aren't thinking about having children at all right now are absolutely the ones that should be most concerned. Yeah, now it is true. You can, as they told us in high school, it just takes one sperm, but you know, just takes one sperm. But in order to get that one, sperm to the egg in Vivo, you know, not IVF but it's hard called natural conception. There's a lot of territory that needs to be covered. There's a lot of chemical environments and need to be dealt with you want.
2:10:45
Healthiest sperm.
2:10:46
So I would say also having gone through this process with an X to create embryos, even though you can say it only takes one sperm in IVF as well. You want to Stack the odds in your favor. Which means you need good morphology, good motility and you need a good count of non crippled sperm.
2:11:08
Yeah, it's I mean sperm analysis is it can be a humbling thing because, you know, no matter what, no one's getting.
2:11:15
100% motile forwardly motile, everyone males and females learn a lot about their biology, what they're doing, well, what they're doing less? Well, when going down that pathway of IVF, I think, I think for women, one of the big surprises is that it doesn't take much ingestion of alcohol to diminish, egg quality, you know, Beyond two or three drinks per week per week.
2:11:40
You really start to see reductions in high quality that are probably indirect through effects on diminished sleep and changes in stress hormones. And so you know again some people will be more resilient to this than others. People always like to make jokes about how alcohol facilitates the conception process, you know, Etc. You know I think that in general you know if women are having very regular Cycles whether or not they're 28 days long or 35 days long as less important perhaps and they be fairly
2:12:10
Women in general, tend to know more about their bodies and because they cycle than men, but if I could go back in time to my 30s, sure would have Bank sperm then, and I'm fine. You know, I feel good about where I've gotten my parameters, but it's really interesting. As you learn this, you just realize that freezing sperm, freezing eggs is a great idea and freezing embryos and make sense. If you have the appropriate pairing or situation, right? And that life gets so much easier for those wishing to conceive when
2:12:40
You have healthy embryos Frozen in the bank. Anyway, for those challenge in that area. It also becomes this incredibly expensive emotionally and financially expensive battle.
2:12:49
Yeah, I will say much to my surprise that this is a bit within the last year, I suppose prior to the breakup of course, but going through the IVF or at least embryo creation process. My sperm quality because I have banked starting unfortunately,
2:13:10
Not as reliably as I would have liked but probably starting around 2010 or 2012. Okay? Banking sperm. Sadly there was actually a technical issue at this particular location in San Francisco because they're bought by some larger conglomerate and I think a lot of the samples were lost but the point I was going to make is that after trying to do a deep dive taking, copious amounts of L-Carnitine
2:13:40
Adding in a few other things like Maca. And a handful of other Basics. My sperm quality is actually better seemingly better now than it was 10 years ago which is
2:13:50
shocking. Yeah, I mean it's again, if one is doing the right things, I do think that we can perform physically probably in the domain of sexual health to. I think that's it. That's a misconception that you know like, you know, men peak in their 80s such 1880s. Thank God at 18, you know, that's what I've looked.
2:14:10
It testosterone levels as a function of age and that there's a wonderful book on this on behavioral endocrinology. And, you know, there are some and in their 70s who maintain testosterone levels of similar to men in their 20s and 30s. Highly individual, depends a ton on how much people are moving, how much sunlight they're getting how little alcohol and nicotine, smoking, nicotine, nicotine the substance. But they bring into their system exposure to environmental toxins these kinds of things. And we always think of bpa's and receipts. They are a problem.
2:14:40
Handling receipts, not good printed receipts
2:14:42
but wait a second, hold on. But that's the major
2:14:44
source of bpa's. No shit. Yeah, I haven't, you know, I did so BPA
2:14:49
is always thank our I, like cans bottles. This that and the other
2:14:52
thing, receipts receipts,
2:14:54
why the hell are? There's so many pieces and
2:14:56
receipts. Yeah, Shana Swan. Who's I'm done? A lot of the critical work on phthalates and their guy is fluence on, your general distance, which is a marker of prenatal, Androgen and gets smaller. The generals and the anus are closer together and females than in males of
2:15:10
Of all species including humans with a lead exposure bpa's. In particular is progressively, decreasing urogenital distance in a male's penis size in a somewhat contradictory way. There's a study that just came out of Stanford for Michael eisenberg's lab, who's in, he's a urologist and endocrinologist. Showed that actually a flaccid, here it is again flaccid. Oh no erect, penis lengths. I've gone up 26% in the last 30 years but testosterone and sperm counts are
2:15:35
going down. So I you know, but I don't
2:15:37
know really interesting study of tens of thousands.
2:15:40
Of of men. Yeah, I don't I haven't read the method section. I how do
2:15:44
they explain that? Because it makes though kind of superficial sense to me because like if your swimmers and your testosterone are just taking a nosedive, you need to get closer to the goal.
2:15:57
Yeah. Closer to the cervix Uncle opening. Yeah. Those data are a little hard to explain but they're they're very robust data that study was just published. Yeah, he be an interesting. I don't know anything, that's it.
2:16:06
So the balls are getting closer to the ass but the schlongs are getting
2:16:10
Longer. This is my Hap's me not to get too
2:16:12
technical. You know, that's what I think. People understand that. Like, you're a general distance is not, it is not a great term for most people to digest or think about, but we think about BPA. So receipts probably more than Plastics and things that sort. But also, if you look at the most, the people who get the greatest exposure to these phthalates and that are impairing their endocrine system, the most in males and females it's going to be in rural areas because of pesticides and pesticide
2:16:40
So we think, oh, people living in cities bus exhaust drinking, you know, at Red Bull, sugar-free Red Bull up from the bodegas in New York City, you know? No, you're talking about rural areas of the country and Airborne pesticides and the Airborne, yeah, Airborne
2:16:52
passed out. So I thought I was, I immediately went to ground water but after
2:16:56
popping and they see this kind of thing. Yeah, I was over in Copenhagen to give a talk last year. I
2:17:01
want to totally with that, I would not have gone. I would have gone on Urban. I would have thought meet a man.
2:17:05
It's me to and Shana Swan. Who's I think can't remember if she's at Mount Sinai.
2:17:10
Or one of the other she's definitely one of the the big medical schools in New York city so forgive me China but she's been the one you know really focusing on this when no one else really thought much of it and was thinking oh that's crazy conspiracy stuff and know there's a real data funded by the NIH. So I think that you know avoiding Plastics and things like that. Sure. But I think handling of receipts especially because they serious endocrine disruptors and avoiding pesticides and then alcohol again, not trying to you know, rain on anybody's party here but past two drinks a week. You know, is when you
2:17:40
Seeing some negative health effects in males. And females, I did a long episode on this, by the way, I drink the occasional, drink everyone. So, I like white tequila things of that
2:17:48
numbers to most shared podcast in the world in 2022.
2:17:52
I did not expect that
2:17:53
alcohol does to your body brain and
2:17:55
health. I did not expect it to have that kind of traction, Irish, No Agenda there. I think a lot of people think that I'm an AA or something. I've deep respect for that Community, but no, I've never had a problem with alcohol or drugs. It's never been my thing. There was no agenda whatsoever. I think that, uh,
2:18:10
Calls it a toxin, you know, essentially making a toxin for yourselves. That's part of it. The way it creates its effects look, it can be enjoyed. I also think that, if people are going to drink more than two drinks per week, they want to pay more attention to the other things that we talked about at the beginning, nutrient, sunlight exercise sleep etcetera. I'm not trying to say what people should or shouldn't do. They should
2:18:30
just know what they're doing. Yeah. And talking about how the preceding 24 hours leads to the current 24 hours or at least the next 24 hours.
2:18:40
Friend of mine. I won't give him credit cause he probably doesn't want it, but he said he was calling someone else, so it doesn't really matter. But he said alcohol is borrowing happiness from tomorrow. Oh, yeah. And I was like, yeah. It's like that's good way
2:18:50
to put it. Yeah. And I've never tried cocaine but from what I hear cocaine is borrowing happiness from 10 minutes. From now I spoke to a guy recently who's a is a former cocaine addict and I said, what does it feel like me said. Let me just explain it this way by the way. This is not a direct quote. I'm, I'm quoting somebody else. He said that the first time he did cocaine is experience was one of
2:19:10
Wow, that was terrible. And when can I get more? No God. I so that the Gestalt of the experience was a peak. And then at Raw know, existed, open a system drops below, Baseline. I'm too afraid to try cocaine, and especially nowadays with the fentanyl that's laced in. Oh, so many street drugs. I
2:19:26
know two people they were at a bachelor party in Mexico. Otherwise very responsible folks, but they decide to do it. A lot of people do it. Such parties.
2:19:40
I do cocaine. They each did one line, not a copious amount. These were not cocaine users, both of them immediately collapse on the floor. One died, and one ended up in a coma felt period of time. Fentanyl, my best friend growing up also was given unbeknownst to him. Fentanyl dyed, white fell asleep, then wake up. So be very careful out there folks. Fentanyl is no joke and there are other things as well. But many, many, many many
2:20:10
Many drugs are cut with fentanyl including those that at face value would think make no sense like Ambien. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So
2:20:19
or cocaine. I mean, why why they would cut fentanyl? Which is essentially a sedative into a stimulant like, okay, makes no sense to me
2:20:26
but and yet. Yeah, that's what's happening. So be careful out there folks, the, so, to move from cocaine to maybe a lesser villain, I want to revisit cannabis for just a second. So cannabis in
2:20:40
I'm curious to know because I have experienced incredible. There may be trade-offs, but benefits with respect to Onset insomnia from low dose edible. I could say cannabis, but in this case, you know, we're talking about in legal settings, where state governments allow this, it's a two point, five milligrams of THC with CBD, it just takes too high. I mean, I would have to consume just kind of a mountain of it for it to subjectively. Help with that. What are the trade-offs if
2:21:10
Penny with dosages in that range if you're aware.
2:21:13
Yeah, it depends on who you are. So I did an episode on cannabis, I also had our mutual friend Nolan Williams. Who's a one of these freaks of nature. He's a triple board, certified psychiatrist and neurologist neurologist, at Stanford
2:21:26
doing under underachiever. They real
2:21:28
underachiever, doing a lot on combination of psychedelics with transcranial magnetic stimulation. Talked about cannabis, and ideas solo episode on cannabis, which means, basically, all I did was think about read about and talk to people about cannabis for months on end.
2:21:40
Here's a story with cannabis. It's, as you point out, it's going to be the ratio of THC to CBD that's important. And for the real afficionados out there and boy, are they out there? Because they let me know they are. There's also the terpenes going to be the lemon like terpenes and the other kinds of terpenes and chemicals in these. He said are also going to matter and then also it's going to be smoking vaping edible or tincture. So here's the deal smoking or vaping. Anything is bad nicotine or cannabis or worse for you than edible or tincture. Let's just move that
2:22:09
It off to the side high THC concentration, cannabis of which now there is almost pure THC. Cannabis available is dangerous for the following reason and there I just pissed off some people. But first of all, it does have therapeutic applications for glaucoma pain management, maybe even some mental health effects, ability to help people certain people focus at low dose. But for, in particular, young males and their teens early, teens and 20s, who
2:22:40
High THC. Containing cannabis there is a much greater like Forex increase in probability of psychotic episodes later that don't ever reverse. In fact, when I spoke to the leading research on this up in Canada, she told me that the probability that a lot of what we see, as kind of Street homelessness now, what people appear to be, schizophrenic was likely triggered by high-dose cannabis use. Now, I'm not trying to return.
2:23:09
Us to the 1960s and talk about Devil's weed in this kind of thing. It is clear that cannabis has therapeutic benefits but very high potency THC. Cannabis can be a problem at the dosage you describe two point five milligrams, very unlikely to be a problem now, psychologically
2:23:24
psychologically. And I mean I could be on 2.5, I'm not. But I could be on 2.5 right now and it would be it would not be
2:23:30
just a perceptible do so it's kind of like micro do. I
2:23:33
would feel it but it would not be it would not be externally
2:23:36
obvious. Now the pure CBD cannabis
2:23:40
Interesting to so called Charlotte's Web, I think is what's called mainly available in Colorado. I'm told is a powerful anti epileptic. In fact, parents of epileptic, kids move to Colorado just so they can get Charlotte's Web CBD cannabis in my mind, that should be available legally everywhere given that has essentially no psychoactive effects. There are a few perhaps but so it's really the the percentage of THC relative to CBD. That's important the age of the user whether or not there's a predisposition of
2:24:09
Psychosis. You know, we might as well be talking about psychedelics,
2:24:13
right, as well using my psychedelics and I want to just pause for a second to say a few things. Number one, I don't categorize MDMA as a psychedelic, we may get to that but just for a number of semantics and phenomenological like I fancy reasons. I don't classify that as a psychedelic end. I would actually categorize high THC content cannabis as a
2:24:39
strong potential psychedelic, and it has become
2:24:44
I would just say the standard, the Baseline of strength has become such a multiple of what anyone might have been used to, in say, the 90s. It is almost beyond belief and I do know of one direct example. This is the brother of an acquaintance who had exactly the experience you're describing, which is chronic short-term, but chronic use of very high.
2:25:14
Hi TC concentration cannabis and I should say In fairness that classical psychedelics can also expedite the onset of schizophrenic symptoms and those who would genetically be predisposed so it's not limited to th see but it is I think under respected and overused with the assumption that it's just cannabis and that's I think that's a mistake.
2:25:44
It's a very they can be so powerful
2:25:46
psychoactive, it's interesting how the proponents of cannabis, which there are a lot of smart people in cannabis medicine, including a lot of MDS always say, it's not as bad as alcohol, which to me is just a ridiculous argument. I mean, just say that something is not as bad as alcohol implies that you have to choose one or the other. I think that cannabis has been very beneficial for a number of adults who are through the so-called critical period of brain, plasticity. So older than 25, they need
2:26:14
Some way to Quantico, take the edge off in the evening, they'll do an edible on the weekend. This kind of thing, that is not what we're talking about in terms of psychosis we're talking about kids, 12, 13, 14, taking a you know like a bong rip or smoking a joint or vaping a super high potency THC, containing cannabis and just being high out of their gourd and feeling like it was a really good time doing that two or three times. And then when I seen this over and over again, their parents reach out to me often. In fact for
2:26:44
Reason. And then you hear about this person being 17 18, there's a failure to launch component. They're motivated, they're claiming ADHD their busiest owner, who relies on cannabis, to relieve anxiety and hasn't done much else in the last five years is or certainly has not managed to keep up with the mean. And here, I'm sympathetic by the way, this is listening to somebody. You barely finished high school. We covered that in the last podcast, so you know, for other reasons. But I do worry a lot about
2:27:14
These super high potency compounds. I worry about super high potency anything. I mean, I worry about in the realm of hormone augmentation. We're talking Fado Gia, Tonga Dolly, not Dianabol, you know, in the realm of augmenting mood and focus were comparing very high potency THC. Containing cannabis taken in a youth to 300 milligrams of alpha GPC. This is night and day, right? It's chemical augmentation of a completely different Beast. So I think that it's clear that no cannabis is going to be better for most people than
2:27:44
Any cannabis is occasionally used for an adult going to be a problem. Probably not. Yeah I
2:27:49
know I will also say cooked add to that a few things. Number one, I am deeply interested in the therapeutic applications of cannabis and all of its constituent Parts. I think it is
2:28:07
Very undervalued plant from that perspective and I think it is is severely underestimated. In terms of potency, just the standard available particularly in places where you can kind of get Baker's Dozen. And he number of strains Colorado, Etc. It's to believe that you are using something of almost no risk as compared.
2:28:36
To psychedelics, if it contains a lot of THC is a mistake. So I would just say consider it on par with some of these very strong psychedelics just be informed and be cautious about your use. I do think that there are probably some really significant applications to sleep disorders and I will add just for people listening. I have also tried CBN specifically, which has been recommended to me.
2:29:06
Or sleep and have not found it as effective. It probably depends on specific variety of sleep disorder. But for onset insomnia, that is a product predominantly not of Spike glucose, I guess cortisol and or than glucose levels. But rather rumination THC seems to be one of the magic keys in very low doses. But let's segue from that to psychedelics, how has your thinking
2:29:35
Any observations commentary beliefs around psychedelics changed over the last few years
2:29:44
my beliefs and stance. And also what I'm willing to say has completely changed in the last 24 months?
2:29:52
This last week Stanford magazine, which is a magazine of the Stanford Alumni Association. Goes out to many more people than just to attended Stanford. Put out an issue of this to very nice bound magazine of the kind that you would, you know, at the dentist's office or, you know, on the cover. And inside, there's a feature article about psychedelics, I could not believe it at first, but it is essentially a guide to psychedelics. It's not telling you how to do them, but it explains. What is ketamine?
2:30:22
Now here, there broadly defining psychedelics. Okay. So the classic psychedelics, reall psilocybin mescaline Elysee are included their chemical structures how they're used the history clinical trials, happening now, known benefits, considerations and risks for all of those drugs, plus ketamine plus MDMA. I was just shocked, a positively shocked because three years ago, five years ago, certainly 10 years ago, a conversation like this would have been the conversation that would have ended my career at least as a university.
2:30:52
Passer.
2:30:54
My understanding is that thanks to the incredible work of the group with maps, and a number of specific, Laboratories Matthew Johnson's laboratory. Robin Card Harris, is laboratory Roland, Griffiths laboratory, and thanks to the philanthropy organized by you and others truly. And also, thanks to the public education efforts of people, like, Michael Pollan. We are moving very quickly towards legalization of MDMA as administered by either psychiatrist and or licensed clinical psychologist.
2:31:23
It's in the u.s. psilocybin. Probably a longer road, but I'm told it will get their quote unquote. Why am I framing at this way? Well I'll just be very direct in high school. I took LSD recreationally several times had not good experiences. The experiences were far too long 11:15 hours I might have spent my senior prom in an elevator
2:31:46
or may not you know, can I can imagine I my
2:31:48
junior prom my senior prom was a different story. I definitely and I'm not recommending people do this. I actually
2:31:53
Only regret doing that. At a time when my brain was plastic, I did not know what I was doing. I didn't know the sourcing. It was too. It was a terrible idea.
2:32:00
Terrible idea, even riskier now. Yeah,
2:32:02
and keep in mind, folks, I was not a star student far from it, it took a lot of years to get my act together, talked about this before, in Tim's podcast, rituals podcast, and other. So, you know, that certainly did not help and don't recommend it. I tried psilocybin recreationally a few times.
2:32:18
Didn't get much out of it as an adult, not shy about the fact that I did two. And now three of the maps appropriate physician guided sessions for trauma using MDMA. I've found it immensely beneficial. I'm happy to talk about how each one of those sections was different. Again, this is with a physician as part of a study. So
2:32:41
what I know now is completely different than what I knew two years ago which is not just based on the legality. But in discussions with Nolan Williams, this incredibly impressive, colleague of mine and friend of yours and colleague of yours really that the safety profiles on things, like MDMA or actually quite High. I was taught that MDMA was a neurotoxic. Why was I taught that? Well there's paper published in Science magazine looking at toxicity of MDMA
2:33:08
Observing neurotoxic effects. Turns out what were they looking at methamphetamine? Oops, retraction retraction, except that never made the batter head over makes it okay. So then you look at the data on psilocybin here. I'm just going to hit the high points because it's really the nut, it is not my work. It's the work of Matthew Johnson and of Robin Card Harris at UCSF.
2:33:28
Intractable depression people who are suicidally, depressed, nothing else Works talk to Herbie, doesn't work and it presents don't work, TMS doesn't work due to high dose. So it's 25 milligrams of psilocybin. It has to be translated four grams of mushrooms but
2:33:44
it's roughly like the 25 to 30 mg of psilocybin. Synthetic psilocybin be equivalent to. Let's just say a Terence McKenna heroic dose of 5 grams. I mean you're getting enough for escape velocity.
2:33:55
Hmm. Okay. In upwards of 60%.
2:33:57
Percent maybe seventy percent of these patients that take that are getting substantial and ongoing relief. That's an amazing result so much. So that the big Pharma has moved in and is trying to create non psychedelic psychedelics to extract. The benefits of these drugs, that don't induce hallucinations instead of raising interesting questions about whether or not the experience under psychedelics is really the trigger for the antidepressant effect whether or not the inside or not, that's a whole ball of wax. And really I'm not qualified to parse that that's really the
2:34:27
Domain of Robin and the Psychonauts. And that's an interesting set of issues. So my stance nowadays is there is a compound out there that seems to have very high safety profiles. Very, very high. So certainly for psilocybin that under the appropriate guidance and supervision during and after in this so-called integration, phase one or two doses, use of this stuff. Yes, takes people through a phase of anxiety than a phase of deep introspection. This is also I learned essential there, two components that I learned.
2:34:57
They're essential that were surprising to me one, you have to be in the eye mask, observing things in your external environment the whole time seems to bypass some of the introspective /, antidepressant effects later. That's interesting to me, it's not just about what you see what you hear out there. It's really about going inward, this kind of trust let go.
2:35:16
Yeah, it's also important to standardize for trials, right? You can have people looking at all sorts of different stuff. Another one is watching Finding Nemo and another one's watching, Jaws or right.
2:35:24
Exactly. And then the other thing was I learned from Robin.
2:35:27
Lee is that music seems to be a key component. Now they've never teased out music, no music, but having music that starts as he described it in the distance, you know, drums and pacing or something approaching music then instrumentals which raise people's emotional state while they're in the eye mask and then some transition period out seems to be a critical component of all this and guiding some of the kind of funneling towards deep, emotional introspection. I find this incredibly interesting. And again, I would have not felt safe
2:35:57
Talking about this a year ago, two years ago, keep in mind that in the late 60s, early 70s, there were professors at Harvard and Stanford. Mainly that were fired or at least asked to leave for having discussions like this. And now, Stanford magazine itself is printing this and this is also a I'll use this as an opportunity to say this because I it's really about the listeners. You know, our podcast. Your real a podcast is free on all the channels but we do have a premium channel. I'm not trying to solicit it here but the premium channel is designed to We Do.
2:36:27
Is some things that sort transcripts are available to those folks to raise revenue for research, dollars for exciting work, and we have a donor that's very been very generous to do a match for that money and we're giving money. Only two studies working on humans not animals studies and two of the major errors that we're supporting, are the sorts of work that Nolan's lab is doing and Nolan in particular to combine transcranial, magnetic stimulation with psychedelics and
2:36:50
these. That's great, I did but I didn't know that about the premium
2:36:54
option. Yeah, that's really what the premium channel is designed for ya.
2:36:57
And this is again, I'm going to say this again. People are going to think that I'm just here, you know, kissing up to Tim but I'm at doing that over text all the time anyway because this is yet. Another example where you got into science philanthropy early, you reach out here, connects you were very vocal about what you felt was powerful and it worked for you and what you've been observing. And I am absolutely clear. I've said this on Twitter, I'll say it again. When we look back in 5 years, 10 years, 100 years. There's going to be a small subset of individuals For Whom the
2:37:27
one of psychedelics from these like Niche communities, hippie communities, carpet, Flyers, you know, Devils, everything from Devil's. We, you know, craziness to truly effective compounds for treating psychiatric illness.
2:37:41
You're going to be on that list Roland's can be on that list Matthews going to be on that list. Paul Allen's going to be on that list Robin's going to be on that list. And Nolan I think is going to be on that list is gonna be a small subset of people that were going to go. Listen, research takes money, it takes Focus to takes a bravery and it also takes the willingness to, like, take something that has been looked at as just like drugs, you know, and turn it into something that's therapeutically meaningful. So yeah, we're just all, I'm trying to do is, you know, raise some dollars through the premium channel. That's what we've been doing.
2:38:10
To pump into research studies. I mean you can tell I'm super excited by all this. What I see happening now is that soon. MDMA for trauma is going to be available to the countless numbers of people out there that have trauma. And I don't mean, just take MDMA and have a great time. I mean, people developing empathy for themselves. I mean, people really working through the barbed wire stuff of their past.
2:38:37
Much of which they had no control over that sets. This trans generational thing that's been going on for so long. I mean, really, you know, you've used the language, you know, Bend The Arc of History. Like, these compounds are going to bend the Arc of history in the right direction. And if people out there listening is a okay, well, this is like recreational stuff and very precarious, I do not know a single major, let's just call them what they are CEO or company founder. We're talking about people that kind of billionaire level,
2:39:07
Hyper creative, hyper creative and Hyper functional in their life. We're not talking about Mystic creatives. We're talking about people who don't want to name names but every single one of them already knows. This is true because they've all done this stuff already and I was kind of late to the train because I had such a terrible experience in my high school years and saw so many friends. Dead suicide drug addicts in jail like wreck their lives. I had so many challenges taking myself from essentially a loser with no where to go.
2:39:37
To a trajectory within Academia and taking good care of my body. That I was like, no drugs, no drugs. I don't even put psychedelics in the category of drugs and here I'm lumping MDMA in there provided it's done with a licensed physician or clinician. Who can guide this stuff? It's been immensely, beneficial for me. What were your
2:39:55
different sessions? Like to the extent that you're willing to share
2:39:58
the first one? I can just summarize by saying was extremely somatic, waves of a lot of shaking at the beginning of the session. I
2:40:07
Walked in feeling like I could think and feel things from the neck up. I could think and feel things not think. But I could feel things from the waist down but that my body was an integrated as a system, I left that session feeling completely comfortable in my body, as a whole system and Far More in tune with my emotions far, more comfortable, having emotions far, less afraid of what emotions might do to me, whether or not they were evoked from inside, or from outside. As a consequence, I felt much
2:40:37
Ever in the world and I felt a kind of a healthy adaptive, level of fearlessness, because I felt like nothing can hijack. My internal emotions and even if they do, I'll be okay. And that was a significant thing. The second session, very different. I expected everything as I did in the first never works. That way, was one of deep deep deep acceptance around resents that I had four people that I felt had neglected me, or did not do what they needed to do.
2:41:07
Or that I felt a lot of you might be able to sense a little bit of emotion. Your, it's, it's hard because I can still sense the ways in which thoughts about that are painful, but mostly because it seems so senseless to me now. And yet I have truly zero resent. I look for it often to just check myself to it. No resent. Like complete forgiveness, which is given me, tremendous relief. And then, the third session was interesting, the recession was a higher dose. I'd never taken the the booster, the maps booster took the booster
2:41:37
And I lay completely still for about eight hours, and it was very introspective, and I think I left that session. Everything I've described by the way, I feel I've maintained years later. Now, the third session, which was more recent, I felt I finally understood and kind of sealed up. What I can only describe as a like boundaries that other people can have emotions and experiences that are truly separate. From me, I tend to be pretty affiliative. I think that came out of an early spring.
2:42:07
With friends, you know, and in relationships that came out of an early need to feel some sense of family where I didn't feel that as much as I would have liked for my biological family. And there been times when I've been unable to really keep in touch with kind of how my life is distinct from. And my emotions are distinct from other people's little bit of too much of empathic blurring sometimes and it felt like that was just sealed right up it. Mind you, each time, I went into these sessions. I was afraid of all the standard things, losing my mind, having a heart attack now.
2:42:37
What'd you have heart issues? Tell your physician, you don't want to do. MDMA is an amphetamine in there. But I was afraid of all the standard stuff. Each time, I felt like the window on introspection and plasticity, lasted much longer weeks longer. And each time, I just felt like I got better and better at self care, which in my mind was always a very selfish thing. I always thought self-care is selfish. You know, even working out. I used to hide working out when I go to conferences, because I thought, like no academic, like goes to the gym and lift weights. And I really like
2:43:07
But I realized how much stronger I was mentally when I was taking care of my physical body by thinking that things have changed now. So, the third session was very meaningful for me because I felt like it kind of sealed something up, where I go. Okay, like I'm, I'm good like things can happen around me and I'm not going to get pulled into it in a way that compromises my well-being. Of course, I still have a lot in there and work to do and it Robin Card. Harris said to me recently, he said, well, you know, psilocybin is really the honest psychedelic because
2:43:37
There, you don't have the in pathogen that's woven into the MDMA. So you're really going to see, whatever Darkness still exists within you and I thought, oh goodness. But you know, I
2:43:46
don't get a smoking is a true psilocybin research,
2:43:48
you know. So so they hear, you know, you hear about people like is it calling to you? I'm afraid to do psilocybin for that reason. I definitely worked hard to kind of suppress some of the dark clouds in my head. And yeah, but the fact that I'm still a bit afraid for them is probably the reason why I should do
2:44:03
it. It also, I think means you're coming to it.
2:44:07
I'm an intellectually honest place. If someone has absolutely no concerns or misgivings about extremely powerful psychedelics, maybe you are playing with psychological nuclear power.
2:44:20
Mmm, Yeah, revealing the unconscious. I mean I didn't even know what psychedelic men, but it, I mean, Robin taught me. It means revealing the unconscious mind and I still do, you know, extensive amounts of psychotherapy and psycho analysis. I look at that as just like going to the gym. I'm fortunate that
2:44:37
at my insurance can help pay for that and I'm able to pay for it. So, I understand, not everybody can, but I still feel that if we don't actually take the time to figure out what's going on in our head. So how can we really trust that we're on the best path?
2:44:47
Yeah. Or just representing reality to our benefit in a sense, right? Because we're perceiving but also constructing reality and sometimes if you think your glasses are scratched or smeared or foggy or whatever you need to take them off,
2:45:07
Often look at them, they're very few ways. Do that with your own psyche. There are very few tools that allow you to do that and I would recommend for folks if they are interested in and thank you for being. So forthcoming with describing your experiences, getting a good overview of how MDMA specifically can help with say complex, PTSD, and why it has become such a focal point for many, many researchers and practitioners. I do recommend the
2:45:37
The Netflix, how to change your mind miniseries that pollen was involved with based on the book of the same name and specifically the MDMA episode. I thought was spectacularly well done
2:45:50
and it is see that still it's
2:45:51
very well done and includes a lot of case studies in interviews with research subjects and there's also documentary that I helped bring to well outside of Israel called trip of compassion. This was probably four or five years ago,
2:46:05
which
2:46:07
Contains session footage as well. Production value is going to be a bit lower than Netflix. So you might want to try that first, but their number of forthcoming books coming, that will be focused on these topics. A lot of good stuff happening. In terms of side of Investigation, there are risks. There are very non-trivial risks and
2:46:28
That is part of the reason why the fundamental research is important, which is why people like, I have to mention roll into, because he was my Gateway into so much of this Roland Griffiths and Robin, and Nolan, and others are doing very, very important work because there's the commercialization. There are the development of derivatives and perhaps non psychedelic options. And I think that they hold promise,
2:46:57
Thomas in certain conditions like cluster headaches. For instance, however, I do firmly fall into the camp that believes. There are these mechanistic receptor level effects and many other physiological. Measurable effects that exert or impart some of the benefits that we document in Trials, but I am firmly in the camp that the content matters deeply
2:47:27
Rob and I and Nolan. And I also discussed things like iboga ibogaine, 22 hour-long, psychedelic Journey. No hallucinations with eyes open, close the eyes. See drop into very vivid, imagery of previous experiences that doesn't interest me so much, seems a little bit much. It's going to be hard also to do clinical studies on that as Robin point out. One of the reasons why most of the trials are being done with psilocybin, and MDMA is because the sessions are four to six hours with some Aftercare LSD double or triple that. And, of course,
2:47:57
We should point out that street MDMA could very well be and is often laced with fentanyl. So the sourcing here must be through maps that, I think they're the only ones that actually have the clean sourcing of MDMA. I know people out there me like, I know a clean Source, but nowadays, I think people need to be exceedingly. Cautious about fentanyl is deadly.
2:48:15
There is an organization called dance safe, which I encourage people to check out which provides kits, because I know that you can tell kids up staying, no sex, no sex, just no sex until you're married. They're gonna
2:48:27
Sex anyway so I recognize people who are listening or probably going to use drugs from unclear sourcing or it will be a game of telephone it'll be from five different 10 different, 12 different 100 different hands to there's dance. Safe has kids. I'm not recommending that you use drugs in that fashion but people are going to do it anyway. There are kits you can purchase which will help you to detect some of these contaminants. So at the very least do that type of due
2:48:55
diligence. Yeah.
2:48:57
So you asked out you know how do I feel about these compounds done in the clinical setting and how is my stance? Change? Complete 180 complete 180? I'm super curious, I'm super excited. And least of all for me, I'm excited about what my experience. It was very positive all around, but I'm most excited for the millions and millions, maybe even billions of people out, billions of people certainly have trauma, but the millions of people who are impaired in terms of daily mood and basic functioning because of depression, anxiety, I mean
2:49:27
There are cells have been trials for fibromyalgia for anorexia nervosa. The most deadly psychiatric illnesses. Has anorexia of course, people with bipolar and schizophrenia. These are not good candidates because of the propensity for exacerbating psychosis or manic episodes. But, you know, I think we are headed into really interesting times and a year or two ago I would have thought this isn't going to make it through the Chute something's going to happen and the whole thing is going to fall apart. I think it was the event that we were both at the veterans Solutions event on Coronado Island City.
2:49:57
Credible group that you're associated with, and we have common friends in from the Special Operations Community, who are doing these iboga DMT combined sessions out of country and then working with Nolan Williams to look at how the brain changes. And we saw Governor Rick Perry there. Yeah, I look pretty right wing
2:50:14
guy. Well yeah, interview and Rick and Rick. Yeah. And this Farm rigged, all that Italy, as you can
2:50:19
see, who had the who stood up there and said in front of a room full of special operators, that he'd been a conscientious objector during the Vietnam.
2:50:27
Warren. I thought. Wow! He doesn't get killed in this room. He's gonna survive forever. In other words, polar extremes politically standing there, talking about psychedelics and their value for treatment of intractable depression trauma.
2:50:42
Offsetting the certain amount of suicide risk in many individuals talking about. I think I heard Rick Perry say the words heart medicine I almost fell out of my chair. I mean this is super exciting and it's super exciting because the only way to describe it is the way that Paul Conti sometimes describes things. Like there are certain things for which there's a lot of work, a lot of potential Hazard but that done properly and he wasn't referring to psychedelics when you say this but this particular bit like there's so much goodness.
2:51:11
That could come out of this, the amount of goodness that could come out of it. Everyone having access to Great, Medical Care therapy and potentially, psychedelic therapies mean. Just imagine like the magnitude of the world change, like that's the kind of stuff that gets chills running up my spine and you just think well, gosh with the scale of that problem is just too big legally financially but enough has happened now that at least some of that in terms of psychedelics could very well happen. And again to clarify what Paul Conti wasn't talking about psychedelics, he's
2:51:41
As this occasionally, he'll say something. We're doing a series with him and on Mental Health in case you he'll say something like about a certain things are just goodness, you know, and I love the sound of that because it sounds either something so wholesome about it. But but so real, I mean, waking up and feeling good enough to pursue the basic events of the day. With some hardship, of course, from time to time good enough to set a goal in fail and then try again. You know good enough to like have a rough run through a relationship or you're a hard.
2:52:11
Early life or lose, all your money, and go bankrupt and come back like this, the stuff of real life. And I think that there's so many so-called deaths of Despair and then they're ten times more sort of lives of Despair out there and I think there's the opportunity for real healing. Yak of a better word
2:52:31
high leverage, very high leverage. I'm excited to see where it goes and I would tell people also,
2:52:38
Don't be shy about following the money in the sense that there will be every possible attempt to contort and change psychedelic therapies to fit into existing Healthcare and I do think there's upside to that, right? Not everyone is going to be able to afford whatever the costs may be to receive bespoke Medical Care with the session, the last 18 hours.
2:53:08
Or whatever it is 12 hours. Let's just say, in the case of the sort of upper range for some people with LSD. However, if you see a company, that's saying, five Amino DMT is the ticket because it's the businessmen's Psychedelic therapy, because it lasts 15 minutes, take a sniff test, or to First and also just because it's 15 minutes Earth time doesn't mean your experience 15 minutes, so just be cautious with that, the removal of psychedelic effects. Also makes it much more adaptable.
2:53:38
All and plug and play with current health care practitioners and things can be turned into maintenance doses. So if we looking for kids, Yahoo kids Ran. So you say, if you take like generic ketamine, I'm not going to name too many names, but some of the slight molecular changes that have been made to creates a maintenance dose has with nasal sprays. I do think that at least for me and I may be old-fashioned, but I do think that these compounds and relatively
2:54:08
Few sessions have the potential to induce plasticity provide experiences that have. I'm not going to say, well, in some cases, Curative capability potential, but extremely high durability, and we're talking on the order of years. So, I think people should be skeptical of companies that aim to create maintenance drugs from these. Although, that could be applicable to certain populations that say may fit into exclusionary criteria because they
2:54:38
not take higher doses for risk of say psychosis, but they might be able to take very, very low doses, along the lines of say a microdose, which wouldn't impart the perhaps content experiences, but could have some effects on type to a certain type to a receptors but intracellularly, which I was just reading about I would recommend if people want to keep up to speed with these things. The daily dose from UC Berkeley is fantastic, that's sort of a News Bulletin summary on a weekly basis.
2:55:08
If you want a good overview, I think how to change your mind as a great place to start. If you want to know how something psychotherapists have worked with these things, I think an oldie but a goodie healing journey by Claudia. I'm not Uncle, I think is excellent even if you just buy it for the introduction, like Maps cells that. So a lot of good resources out there. Andrew, we've covered a lot of ground and it's so nice to spend time together. We're going to grab some dinner. Is there anything that you would like to add Point people to any closing comments? You'd like to make before?
2:55:38
We wrap up
2:55:39
know at one point we had thought we might cover how to optimize a podcast. And there, I'm just going to point people to the great series that you did. I think was one or two
2:55:49
episodes, it did an episode with Chris Hutchins because he wanted to ask me a million questions about podcasting and I said, you know what, I get asked this all the time, let's just record a podcast and then I can point people to talk perfect my whole team listened
2:56:04
to it and talked about it and use it as kind of a checklist for
2:56:08
Not we were doing things, right? That was about a year ago and things are going well. So I'll just point people to that episode. Hopefully you can link to that episode because it's really great. We thought yes, yes and Hoops. We better be doing that. I really just want to extend my gratitude for the work you've done in the past. I know I mentioned it over and over night. I'm sure some listeners are probably like here he goes again then contemn but I would not be podcasting. We're not for you and Lex Friedman who gave me that like final nudge and also I've just cleaned so much valuable Knowledge from your books and your podcasts and learn
2:56:38
So much from you. So again for me, it's like pure delight to be sitting here having this conversation. I'm feel very honored and I'm really grateful to you and your team and I hope you'll come on the huberman Lab podcast. Oh, I'm for
2:56:50
long. Absolutely, I need to, I need to make a trip to SoCal. Thanks for saying, all that really means a lot, and it has been a fucking blast to watch. You just storm the front, man. It's really been fun to see the podcast, do, as well as it.
2:57:08
Done to see that, then also lead into other types of snowball effects like providing funding. As I just learned for studies vis-à-vis, the the premium option and give it up, man. I am certainly learning a lot and taking notes myself, you can see the notes in front of me. May not be visible on video, but I've been taking notes to Old conversation as I always do. When I listen to you talk, whether it's on your podcast or in person.
2:57:38
So people can find you huberman. Lab.com, we will link to YouTube Instagram, Twitter but it is human lab on all these platforms and I encourage people to subscribe. Check it out. Thank you Andrew. And everybody listening, we will have links to all sorts of things, including that light, vest it will figure out in the show notes, Tim do blog, / podcast. You can just search Andrew or huberman hu B. ER m-- a-- n-- and all things will pop up. So until next time just be a
2:58:08
Bit Kinder than is necessary to other people and yourself and pay attention to those fundamentals. Those pillars, all good things. Come from paying attention to those checklists. And as always, thanks for tuning in.
2:58:24
Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off and that is five bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday? That provides a little fun before the weekend, between one and a half and two million people. Subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called five, bold Friday, easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things. I found or discovered or have started exploring over that week, kind of like my
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A diary of cool things it often includes articles and reading books, I'm reading albums, perhaps gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks, and so on that gets sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange, esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So, if that sounds fun, again, it's very short. A little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. Something think about if you'd like to try it out just
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Go to Tim dot blog, /, Friday, type that into your browser. Tim dot blog, / Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.
2:59:34
This episode is
2:59:34
brought to you by eight sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleeve and heat is my personal Nemesis have suffered for decades tossing and turning throwing blankets off. Pulling the back on, putting one leg on top and repeating all that ad nauseam. But now, I am falling asleep in record time. Why? Because I'm using a device is recommended to me by friends called the Pod, cover by eight sleep, pod cover fits on any mattress and allows you to adjust the temperature of your sleeping environment.
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Finding the optimal temperature that gets you the best night's sleep with the Pod covers Dual Zone, temperature control you and your partner can set your sides of the bed to his coolest 55 degrees or as hot as 110 degrees. I think generally in my experience, my partner's prefer the high side and I like to sleep very, very cool. So stop fighting this helps based on your Biometrics environment and sleep stages. The Pod cover makes temperature adjustments throughout the night that limit wake-ups and increase your percentage of deep sleep.
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This episode is brought to you by protects rest supplement. A new take on getting deeper and more restorative sleep. I was introduced to this by former Navy SEAL, Nick Norris, who has been on this podcast. And as a mutual friend of ours, put it to me, it's very annoying that Nick has no physical weaknesses. This is somebody who can climb like a spider, he has incredible abilities as a rock climber, he is incredibly strong and can also run ultramarathons, it's quite something to behold and this is one of the tools.
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That he uses so protects rest supplement, helps provide, consistent restful sleep without any habit forming ingredients or groggy side effects. Simply add it to your last bus of water before bed, and it goes to work. So, I tried this, after I mentioned to Nick, that I was avoiding melatonin due to next, a sluggishness, and it's possible effects on testicular function. So, it's trying to wean myself, off things like that, this rest cocktail has worked wonders, and I've made it part of my sleep toolkit, it's literally on a counter of
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Twenty feet from where I'm recording this right now. Pro tip number one, if you have trouble opening the packets, just use scissors. Don't make it hard. Pro tip number two mix, the packets with water to not skip that step and chug it alone. I've learned from experience, rest has no added sugars or artificial sweeteners or artificial ingredients protect his veteran owned and they make all of their products right here in the USA. And right now, protect is offering you 30% off both flavors of the rest formula. Does it protect.com?
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