“This Is The Culmination Of Everything I Know” - Dr Andrew Huberman #1150

People of the UK and Ireland, if you've listened to Modern Wisdom for a while but haven't seen me live, it isn't just a podcast on stage where you can finally see my legs. It's a show that I've spent over a year building specifically for a live audience. There are stories I've never told before, ideas I've deliberately saved for the stage, audience confessions, and a Q&A where I try to solve your biggest problems. Dublin has already sold out and all of the other cities aren't far behind. So if you want to see me live, head to chriswonymson.live, that's chriswonymson.live. Lots of people deal with brain fog and low energy throughout the day. What's your advice for combating that? I mean, so I probably end up saying this 20 times in today's conversation, but if I were to really, if I had two minutes with somebody and they said, "What's the thing I can do for my health?" I'd say, "Make the first hour of your day high cortisol in the last hour of your day low cortisol." High cortisol in the morning sets you up for elevated mood, focus, and alertness all day long allows you to buffer stress better and it makes sure that your nighttime cortisol is going to be low. If you don't spike that morning cortisol enough in the first one to three hours of your day, you have a high flat cortisol curve, not good, makes you less resilient to stress, brain fog less amenable to learning and on and on. So you just say, "Well, what can you do?" You make this very simple bright light, especially from sunlight or 10,000 lux artificial light, especially in the first 30 minutes after waking hydration caffeine. If you like caffeine, exercise in the first three hours of your day if you can, some people can't, and then roll into your day. At night in that final hour, you do everything you can to reverse that. You dim the lights, especially overhead lights, dim your screen. You could do the red light thing or the candle light thing. Limit caffeine, obviously, exercise in the final hour before sleep, only if that's the only time you can do it. Some people, that's the only time. And actually, eating in the first three hours of your day, even though I'm a fan of, I personally, fast in the first three hours of the day, but that actually can also spike cortisol, people say, "Why would eating spike cortisol?" Well, I mean, basically anything that you do that's a pro arousal that's about activity is going to spike cortisol. So, bookending your day with things that spike your cortisol at the beginning and lower your cortisol at the end is really, it really is the, if there is a cheat code to life. Now, why don't I say to life? I mean, is it going to make you completely stress resilient? No. Is it going to make you able to learn anything you want with ease? No. But what it does is it sets you up for the best possible sleep, which makes you more alert the next day, of course. It also, it anchors this process that I haven't talked about before on any podcast. And frankly, that I didn't touch on directly in the book, which is so much of life is about balancing what we call bottom-up and top-down influences. Bottom-up influences would be, you know, you want the cookie. You're going to just eat the cookie. You know you shouldn't be scrolling as much as you're scrolling. You just keep scrolling. Those are bottom-up influences. These are impulses that are driven by hypothelamic and other deep brain structures. Then we have, thankfully, we have top-down influences. This is your prefrontal cortex suppressing impulses. Okay. This is the two marshmallow test in kids, which by the way, a lot of people say was debunked. The debunk was debunked, by the way. Yeah. So the ability to suppress action. It's what I taught my bulldog, pit mix stromer, the day I brought him home and it's the basis of everything you put a piece of food in front of him. He, of course, wants to take it, right? His prefrontal cortex isn't even online yet. And you take it away until he learns and he learns the first day and never forgets that he has to wait until I say, okay, what are you doing there? It's actually not about making weight for a treat. It's about making him suppress what feels like anxiety and impulse. And that, that wicks out to every type of weightings. You say, wait, or like, see you later, I'm going to work and then you come back and he's not freaking out. He can just, now he doesn't have to actively suppress the whole time, but the ability to suppress impulse. So much of life, the ability to learn and lean into just enough stress that you trigger learning. The ability to listen when you want to react. The ability to force yourself to get up and work on the book or the thing that you don't want to do. So much of that is top-down influences. Basically, being an effective human is about building up those circuits of top-down. Now, do you have to do them in everything? This is a matter of debate. I think that people like Andy Stump, who I have tremendous respect for, it's just awesome. I've learned so much from him. Actually, it made some late, late stage additions to the book based on a conversation I had with him. So he actually made, you know, very late in the game. I was like, I need to, my editors were like, you can't do this anymore. Enough is enough. I want it back, or else I'm not signing off on the final draft to put in this. Andy has a number of tools that are really useful, but he has this philosophy that he shares, which is throughout your day, when given the option between the easier thing and the harder thing, do the harder thing, that there's tremendous value in that. It's the make-your-bed thing. It's the replacement toilet paper rolls example he gives in his book, Drownproof, which is an awesome book. I highly recommend it. It doesn't pay me to say this. It's just an awesome book. I recommend it to everybody. But these little things, like there's that piece of trash on the floor that's this big. Do I pick it up? Why would, you know, is it about the trash? Does it really make that much of a difference in your life? No, but the action of going against that bottom-up influence of just ignoring the harder thing and going toward ease, more pleasure less pain, even just avoiding subtle pain. There are two ways to build up these circuits. One is by forcing yourself to go, like, as we say, with writers always say, like, ask to chair, like, you know, which is, you're just going to, like, sweat blood until you get those 800 words a day out. They're advantages to that. We're doing the hard workout that you do not want to do. There's also a building up of the same circuit, so it's top-down suppression of impulse through the little things all day long. You probably need to do both, but I think that many of us nowadays who are exercising and doing health protocols, we absorb a lot of energy in order to get ourselves to those. Some people, more, some people less. And I've started doing these, you know, stump type smaller things throughout the day. He does the big things, too, obviously. But those little things, what you find, what I find, is that they make it much easier to overcome the friction that comes from anything. So there's a really just like getting the reps in, like, it doesn't, what it proves is that it's the circuit. It's not what you're doing. You're getting the reps into the circuit. It's kind of like Pablo Sotsul and the strength guys, like, the grease, the groove thing. Okay, you do two pull-ups every time you pass through the door. And does that mean that you can do 200 pull-ups in a single set? No. But it actually turns out to be more effective than doing, like, three sets of 10 twice a week. Okay, then people say, well, let's know true. If you add, wait, perhaps not. But it's, maybe it's just two different roads to the same place. But the top-down bottom-up tension, this dynamic tension between those two is so much about what being non-reactive is about. It's about what not procrastinating is about. It's what morality is about. It's about being calm under pressure. It's about being making appropriate decisions in the face of stress because it's not all about not feeling stress. It's about making adaptive decisions. Is there anything else that you would advise people to do for training willpower? I mean, I think what Andy talks about in his book, and obviously he's not the first person to talk about this, but, you know, that philosophy, like, how you do one thing is how you do anything. That's a little bit vague for me. I like the way he describes it, which is these little microsex all day long, like, like, happening to me the other day. Trust Andy to call it microsex. Yeah. He's a man with a helicopter that's jumped out of a plane like 50,000. He holds two world records at wing seating. Yeah. I think he flew 36,000 feet or something of that. I mean, yeah, and I mean, there are a lot of bad asses in the world, and then the tier one operator sphere, and I know a number of those guys that there are a lot of bad asses, obviously. What's impressive to me is somebody who has the intelligence and the communication skills to be able to share the things that are relevant to everybody in a way that's relevant to everybody. He's also from Santa Cruz, which is a cool talents right over the hill from where I grew up. And like, the fact that somebody like that came from Santa Cruz, this kind of a hometown joke, which is pretty. There's only two reasons to go to Santa Cruz. If you're a guy in your teens or 20s or 30s, you go to the go to the boardwalk to meet girls, or you go to fight. People in Santa Cruz, it was like, you'd always see fights in there. So I always thought of Santa Cruz as people think is this hippie town. I always thought of it as kind of a kind of a there's a rougher side of Santa Cruz. And then I hear about Andy's from Santa Cruz. I'm like, that makes no sense whatsoever. But you know, he took all of that kind of local environment. Sounds like he had a good upbringing. He talked fondly about his parents, which is cool. And put it to some really impressive feats and can communicate what the exports from those experiences are. So, you know, I mean, how many of us in our daily life need to like shoot, move, and communicate, you know, like the macro nutrients of, you know, operators. I mean, some people yes, but most of us know. So to me, that's one way. The other way is obviously to do your workouts and, you know, I'm a big believer in asking yourself, what am I genuinely curious about learning? And where's the fear point for me? What is kind of why am I shying away from learning about something because for fear of like poor performance? And then that's the thing you should lean into. You have to be curious about something unless you're in school where you have to learn a subject. So that's another way, like pushing yourself to learn cognitively. And then to me, I think a big other part of this top down Training is just the way that we approach life. Like, you know, I think there's two reasons to do hard things. Rogan and I were talking about this yesterday. One reason is because it makes you better at doing hard things. The other reason is it allows you to access more awareness of the beautiful things in life. I mean, there's so much dog shit floating around on the internet and anger. And you and I talk about this. There's so many barbed wire drama things. I mean, if I went around posting every opinion that I reflexively have about some of the like, nonsense antics that I see online or the crazy documentaries that are coming out and like, and you know, you get to a certain point in life and you tend to be one to six degrees of separation from pretty much anything you see online. As much as you would like to not think, oh, I know someone who knows someone who knows that person. I met that person once in a party, got a eerie feeling. I won't say who that's about, but that was a real experience. You know, you can go down that rabbit hole. So much of being effective is going nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. And I always just take myself back to high school. There are only really three or four reasons to actually be it in high school. There's like, to learn, right, from teachers and from your peers and in class, that's a legitimate reason to go to school. You know, there were social reasons. There were all sorts of observations that I had. Like one that was still salient for me, I'll share in a moment that you can learn a lot about people in life. I have a friend who's a professor at Stanford who says, he unfortunately calls me Andy. It's really annoying. And he's you don't like Andy? No, no, no, no. I think this guy's just persistent. Yeah. So what happened was what happened with how a move? I lost a coin flip to another Andrew like in the third grade. He gets to be on. He got to be angry. He still pisses me off, you know. So anyway, I eventually took back Andrew. And you know, and the other reasons that a lot, there's certain observations that I had in high school that taught me a lot about human nature that are still true across men, women of all ages, all demographics is really, really helpful. Actually, I'll just share it right now. So as some people may know in around 14, I got really into the skateboarding thing. Prior to that, it was like school, swimming, soccer, every kid in my town did those really excited about skateboarding. Skateboarding was small then. It wasn't this big thing. No X games, nothing. I wasn't very good skateboarder. I was decent enough to get picked up probably just out of sheer sympathy by one sponsor. And if people want to check me on this because people are always trying to always name my team manager was Steve Ruggie. I rode for Spitfire. It was out of sympathy. Steve, I love you. Thank you for putting me on. I appreciate you also telling me I never be one of the big guys. Boom, done. But I remember there was this phase of skateboarding in the early 90s. And it wasn't a good phase. But where like the clothes got baggy, the shorts got baggy. There were some sag. And at that time, no one did that. No one, not in hip-hop, nowhere. Now, it wasn't really like really extreme sag. It was just like the shorts went from like mid-thigh to like right above the knee, maybe a little longer. All right. So that's what we did. We were skateboarding, care what anyone else did came to school and just ridiculed, ridiculed by the jocks, by everybody, didn't matter. The kids were like black, white, male or female, like Mexican. You were untold. They we were like teased relentless. Everyone knew that Andy was uncool. Teased relentlessly. But we knew we liked it. It was a little extreme like you know, time we liked it. The point back then was to be different, not the same. Okay, summer happens. That summer, something happened in the world of hip-hop where somebody starts sagging their pants next year. Everybody. And I just realized in that moment, I was like, okay, this I was like, they actually don't know. They actually don't know what they like. They really don't. They're just falling. It wasn't following a trend. They actually haven't formed taste. And I was like, what I love about skateboarding, what I loved about certain forms of music, what I love about certain podcasters. And what I love about certain scientists, I can name certain scientists who just have the best taste. In particular, this guy Jonathan Horton, Neuroopthomologist, his papers are beautiful. They're articulate. The images are beautiful. The discoveries are clear. And he's just a he's a phenom. But for a lot of years, his papers kind of existed in good journals, but didn't really pop to the biggest ones. Then they popped. And what I realized was like, whether it's in high school or as adults, people actually most people don't develop a sense of taste. Correct. They confuse what they like and don't like with what feels socially acceptable. And what feels so different that it's uncomfortable to them. Now, I don't believe in doing things just to be different. That's not taste. That's doing things just to be different. I started realizing I was like, there are certain people in life that have an exquisite sense of taste. Rick Rubin's one of them. My friend David Cho is one of them. I believe you have taste. You think about how you know that people don't let the velvet British accent fool you. Sometimes the British accent can fuse people into thinking, especially Americans into thinking that somebody's smarter than they are. I'm not trying to where the kids say I'm not trying to like puff you up here where they've all sorts of names for this now. But really, like, I'm not just trying to flatter you. But if it flatters, you find like you're my friend. But also you think right at the boundaries between conflicting opinions. And then you form a third new opinion, usually, that highlights something both beneficial and deficient about both. That is a skill. It's a super skill that most people don't possess. Most academics don't possess it, frankly, because careers are sort of built on like planting your flag and protecting it until you absolutely get battered and then you have to like, like, relent, you know, and then pivot to something new. I have a beautiful story about that, actually. But I realize that taste is something that many people never develop. And the worst thing is when people who have taste think that their taste isn't taste, that it's a misdirection internally or something. And they don't cultivate that. And I think that, you know, so high school taught me a heck of a lot. It's true. The baggies got too baggy. The sag went way too far. And we just sort of laughed as it took off. We were like, this is hilarious. Actually, but it happened in skateboarding too. There were years later where this kid that I grew up with, I'm friendly with now, but Danny Wei, jumped the Great Wall of China. Amazing. Jumped out of a helicopter. He's all these world records. He was an aggro kid. He built the first mega ramps. I mean, he's gnarly. He was always just like, so aggressive skateboarder, incredible, incredible athlete. I remember, you know, years later, when he broke his neck surfing at Newport, he started working out with Paul Czech. He started and he built like a strong physique. And I remember skateboarders being like, that's for jocks. Skateboards are working out. Now, if you look, not all of them, but a lot of skateboarders are into like lifting weights, taking care of their body. Chris Jocelyn, Tray Flip, the, you know, El Toro Stairs this year's this was like a heroic feat. It was like breaking the four minute mile, more or less, ish for skateboarding. I mean, that dude clearly works out. He takes care of himself. So the things within a subculture and community that make that such a special community, what eventually happens is the community defies its own principles. That, you know, the punks turn against they go, that's not punk. Well, you know, they did that to people like Joe Strummer who brought hip-hop acts as openers. They've done that to friends of mine who are in the, like high level band, punk rock. They go, they sold out. Actually, no, actually, they're doing great. And you're caught up in the eighth grade is what happened, but it's not regressive. It's that taste is the hardest thing for people to understand because it forces them to really put a mirror in front of themselves and go, what do I actually like and dislike? It's a countervailing force against both what's popular and the fickleness of blowing in the wind. People confuse something that's popular for something that's tasteful. And you can also confuse something which is very tasteful, not popular as something that's bad. Like you said before, the difference between liking something and not liking something, you can like something which is untasteful. And I think the difference between taste and popularity and liking is taste is the ability to discern between good and not good. Like, is this thing good in and of itself? And this is one of the problems. If you run it up because everyone's looking for performance, if you run enough split tests, you will end up with a porn website. That's what happens. You run out of split tests. Can you explain this because I, you know, I've talked about this, it all regresses to porn eventually. Everything is like if you, basically if you want to get the most eyes and clicks on something, you keep going more, more extreme, more salacious. Correct. And you end up in the dumpster heap of online content. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Going back to the brain, what's your best advice for improving memory and focus? People understand brain fogs are thing. I'm struggling with that. I have loads with energy throughout the day. And now you want me to actually answer the question. Yeah. That'd be great. Whenever you want. So okay. So brain fog is not a specific thing. It's an inability to focus. Let's get a couple of core principles down. People with severe clinical grade ADHD can focus if they're doing something they really like. It tells you something. It means the dopamine, nor epinephrine, epinephrine, we call these the catecholamine systems of the brain and body that are involved in many things, but focus among them are there. They're functional, but the threshold to access them is too high. Okay. What does that mean? What it means is that people can learn to focus and they can get assistance in doing that by pushing on one of two ends or both. One is to ramp up the level of those chemicals. That's what things like add-or-all-vi-vance, riddle-in, and so on do. Okay. A study this last year out of Washington University in St. Louis, sort of the Harvard of the Midwest, if you will. Although So I think that's unfair to the Midwest, and maybe we could call Harvard the the "wash you" of the East showed that when you compare the attention-improving effects of riddle in to a great night's sleep, they're effectively equal. Some of these stimulants, we know blunt stunt growth, excuse me, they stunt growth. We know this. Okay, they limit, they limit ultimate height, they reduce sleep, so they're circumventing a problem. There's a new idea, which is that maybe lower dosages of these medicines combined with better sleep would be as effective a treatment. A lot of parents are airing that way, a lot of adults are airing that way, too. That said, some of these medications can be useful in extreme cases. If somebody wants to learn, let's just say if you want to learn, you want to focus and get rid of brain fog, you want to learn, it's here, here are the key steps, and I review some more of this in the book, but I'm, during today's conversation, and always, I'm going to try and reference the book only in if people want more information. I'm just going to try and give people the information. If people want the book thing, they can get it, but I don't want to like, cloak the information. Everyone needs to go and buy the book. Thanks for your support of the book. I did. There is a lot of fun. You've learned a blood for this thing, dude. I watched you basically eight years. You glanced off the bottom of insanity in order to be able to put this. Then the original word count was 120,000, and then you were forced to chop it down. It's basically seven short books with a long intro, which is some story and context. I promise you can just navigate to a particular point in the book and understand what's going on. Get the tool and go. You can learn the science or not. Get the science. You can take the story and read it or not read it, but I fear leave it all on the mat. Look, I'm 51 this later this month. I don't know if I'll make it to 52. I feel great. My biomarker's saying I'm great, but who knows. I'm not living this life to try and soft pedal anything. I'm just going all in. Here are the steps to learning. You need to focus, obviously, to learn. To focus, you need to be alert. To get alert, there are many things you can do. I talk about all of them in the book. There are foundational things like sleep. That's going to help you get alert and focused, but there are also things like exercise. We all hear the exercise makes our brain better, it makes us better at learning, exercise makes you better at learning for two reasons. One, it increases the cataclysmines, dopamine, epinephrine, and neuropinephrine. So in the four to six hours after exercise, you are more alert and you can focus better unless you exercise to exhaustion. If you have leg day for 10 sets of 10 on the squats, followed by a bunch of hamstring work, et cetera, your brain's not going to be so good at focusing. You know, 45 to 75 minutes of hard training, not taken to extreme, but like what we did this morning, that was a little bit on the lighter side, not just because we didn't have a whole lot of time. But you're going to come out of that more alert because you have more adrenaline in your body, more neuropinephrine being released in your brain, and more dopamine being released in your brain. And dopamine is a critical component for learning, okay? Focus, then it becomes easier to access. And in your focus, what are you focusing on? You need to focus on making errors through genuine attempts to do something, something physical, maybe a tennis serve or you're learning billiards, something cognitive, you're trying to learn a language. The error between what you currently do and what you're trying to do, the error is the signal that the neurons, the nerve cells need to change. It runs through a circuit of involving the cerebellum and a bunch of other things, but that gap is what the brain tries to close. If you can do something, there's no reason for your brain to change. And the agitation you feel from those errors reflects elevated levels of epinephrine and neuropinephrine in the body and brain respectively. And those tag, literally chemically tag the synapses. I mean, there's some additional steps, but they tag those synapses so that then at night, when you sleep, the synapses rearrange and you close the gap between your current ability and the ability you're striving to achieve. That's how it works. A curiosity and willingness to learn gets you to the gate of learning. The making of errors through genuine attempts puts the key in and turns the key. The agitation is walking through that gate and then getting some sleep or maybe even a day or two later, even if you don't sleep quite as well as you would like, just some time for the synapses to rearrange. That's the last piece. There's an additional piece that can reinforce it all, which is self-testing. If you want to get good at something and stay good at it and continue to get better at it, you need to self-test. Mental self-testing is the best way to consolidate learning and learn faster. What do I mean by that? I don't mean visualization. I mean, asking yourself, like for me, if I want to make my memory better, generally speaking, I might think, okay, so that was September 11th, 2001. Where was I exactly? What were some of the details now? That might be something I might not want to think about. But if I were to say, okay, I'm going to go back to my, you know, year one neuroscience graduate school training. Of course, I know what a synapses, I know what neurons are, I know what astros are. I know all this stuff. It's embedded so deeply in me. I can almost do it in my sleep. But then I think, yeah, that's right. Like, what is the role of astrocytes and then I say, okay, because that's stuff that's relevant to me. When you hit the point where you can't remember something, you go and look it up. Boom. You've now closed that gap again and it reinforces those synapses that we're weakening. So if you're trying to learn something new or you want to get, maintain information from way back when you need to retest, this is why we used to make people retake their drivers tests. Or, you know, physicians need to. Really? Yeah, I mean, used to be. We had to retake your drivers test. Not always behind the wheel, but used to, you didn't use to just give people a license and turn them loose. Right. Because they knew the Ebbing House for getting Cove was going to come in and smash somebody in the face. That's right. The supplement industry is full of products making claims that I come back, which is why I'm such a massive fan of mementas. The co-founder Jeff Bae has played in the NFL and saw firsthand just how wildly the quality of supplements can vary. So he built mementas around a higher standard. Every product from mementas uses evidence, backed ingredients, transparent doses, and independent third-party testing. Everything is NSF certified for sports, so what's on the label is actually what's in the tub. So why mementas is trusted inside all 32 NFL locker rooms? It's why I've trusted them with my own supplements for years. First of all, mementas offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can buy it and try it for 29 days. If you don't love it, they will give you your money back, plus they ship internationally. Right now, you get up to 35% off your first subscription and that 30-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below, or heading to livemomentas.com/modernwisdom and using the code "modernwisdom" at [email protected]/modernwisdom and modernwisdom at checkout. I suppose one of the advantages at least with regards to driving practically is that people are re-triggering that on a multiple times per day basis. Yeah. Or you get a ticket or you get into an accident, it's like I'm quoting my dad a lot lately. That's a good sign. As my dad always says, the thing about speeding tickets is they're expensive and money hurts. Speeding tickets were $20. For most people, that's-- Formative expensive. It's not trivial, but it's not enough money to really dent your heavy foot on the pedal. If you give someone $300 ticket plus your insurance goes up, people speed less. You're going to remember that. People speed less. I'm not saying it. I mean, we could argue about speeding laws, but money hurts. That's how you learn. You have to bring yourself to those points of agitation. I wish I had learned that in the third grade. I wish they had told me that. Many people find that they are very disciplined about certain things. They're getting their sets in reps and their push past failure. They love their video games. They love perhaps mathematics, but not literature. The things that we are not facile in that don't come easy to us. There are two reasons to do some of that learning. At every stage of life, one is it enriches us. We often find that the things that are hardest to learn that we then learn are the most satisfying. This is the effort that precedes dopamine is far more reinforcing than when just dopamine comes in. You could say, well, scrolling, there's no effort involved, and that seems very reinforcing. That's more of a compulsive behavior after a certain point gets passed into reflex, but talk to anybody, anyone, and their life experience, if they've had a life, will say something like, yeah, everything was going great until this big thing. Then I overcame that big thing, and that was really the thing that taught me that I'm capable of even bigger things. We don't really like success stories. We like underdog often to success story, pitfall, come out of that. The hero's journey is something that we resonate with, in part because it's so true, but in part because for so many people, it's not true. We know it's there, but most people don't embark on those things, and I think it's because we set too lofty an idea of what the hero's journey is. For a lot of people, it's about learning to do less. I know a lot of hard driving people, it's about learning how to achieve more peace. It's about exploring ideas around spirituality or fiction, if they only read non-fiction. We all have to ask ourselves, how much should we push ourselves to do things that we're not just naturally inclined to do? I think a mixture of what we love to do and some of the things that we've just avoided because they just seem too hard. I think there's real value in doing those things, and all the data on cognitive or maintaining cognitive abilities say, will exercise make you smarter? No, it's necessary, but not sufficient to make you smarter. You still have to go learn, and without. Completely joking. I mean, this is evidenced by many guys that spend hours upon hours in the gym, and they're not brilliant people. So they're exercising plenty. Their brain is clearly not getting bigger. They're not necessarily getting stupider, but they're not doing anything to make themselves smarter. You need to learn information. So there's that, but then there's also, people say, is it crossword puzzles? If you love doing crossword puzzles, guess what, my friend? They're not going to help keep your brain young. You have to do the hard puzzles. If they're easy for you, then it's not going to help. You like chess? Play go. You like checkers? Learn chess. So this is where I think people really lose out on the understanding that people who are striving, maintain brain and bodily function for a long period of time, their internal state is not necessarily one of like, oh yeah, I just love learning. And so I just keep learning. I bet you Andy Stumpf as calm and cool and collected as he is. Even though so many of his tier one operator peers tell me, it's really frustrating because Andy's really good at everything. I bet you if we looked at his internal state, his narrative is probably by now says, you know, you can do this, but is I doubt it's one of complete calm all the time. I'm sure there's, he's just managing the external rep, like he's not showing it. Yeah, talking about that, it seems like one of the things that gets in the way of a lot of people's lives is stress. What are your best protocols for managing stress? And I realized some people may have heard this from me, like 35,000 times a morning sunlight, yes, but that physio, just do a long exhale. When you're stressed, do a long deliberate exhale. It slows your heart rate down through a phenomenon called respiratory sinus arrhythmia, which sounds bad. People hear arrhythmia. It sounds bad. But we've all heard of the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve collects sensory information from our visceral, which is nerd speak for your internal organs, so your stomach, your spleen, your liver, sending that information up to your brain. Unconsciously, your brain is responding to that all the time. The vagus nerve also has a portion of it that goes from the brain to the heart and other organs. And there's one particular pathway that contacts and communicates with the spinal atrial note of your heart. And it slows your heart rate down when you exhale. And the reason is, as you inhale and exhale, the space available for your heart changes. So when you, at some point, your heart is a little bit smaller during your breathing and the volume of blood that's in there moves more quickly. So your brain sends a signal through this vagus nerve pathway to slow your heart rate down. So when you exhale, deliberately, this is the key deliberately. I don't think I've ever described it this way. You slow your heart rate down significantly. You offload carbon dioxide and your level of autonomic arousal, meaning sympathetic alert versus parasympathetic calm, balances it tips more towards parasympathetic calm immediately. It's the fastest and most effective way to calm down fast. Better if you can do two big inhales first. And then exhale all the way to lungs empty. That's the so-called physiological sigh discovered in the 1930s. Not by shamans, not by breath workers, but by physiologists. You have a dedicated set of neurons in the perifacial nucleus of your brainstem that capture the activity of this vagal pathway and slow your heart rate down. But the beauty of this mechanism is it also increases what's called HRV. Most people know I want higher HRV. How do I do that? Well, I train VO2 max. I do some high-intensity interval training. Great. I do some long distance endurance training. Lower intensity. Great. You have higher VO2 max. What is higher HRV? Heart rate variability reflects the number of times throughout the day and night that this pathway, this pathway in the Vegas signals your Sinowatrial node to slow your heart rate down. In fact, you can increase your HRV pretty significantly if you just do 10 deliberate exhales throughout your day. And then at night, look at your HRV. It will be significantly elevated. I just spoke about this last time. This is where I need to get you one of those om.health lamp things for resonance breathing. We talked about this previously. It's an algorithm. It's a stone on the top of this lamp. I think they're about to launch this month. There's om.health. You stone on the top of the lamp. You it vibrates. You breathe in time with the stone. It's got 100 hertz sensor in it. So it's detecting your HRV all the time. And as it vibrates up and down, you breathe in time with it and it modulates to maximize that arrhythmia. And if you were to see it, you would be swinging from 61 to 72 to 62 to 72 to 72. And it is so fucking cool. And the sensation of doing that, I've no one's ever done resonance breathing before. It is like after about three minutes, it almost feels like you've had a drink. It almost feels like you're a little bit drunk. It's very, very, when you get it and the guy J. Wiles, who's the main science dude behind it, he talks about precision with this because you can get a resonance breathing that's not doing by your feedback. The problem with that is everyone's resonance pattern is a little bit different. Everyone's resonance pattern. You're you might be 4.9 out at 4.9 in and like eight out. And I might be 4.1 in and seven out. And that difference to him, he says makes a big difference. One final thing on that, he said to go from state change to trade change, with regards to resonance breathing, you need to do over 12 minutes. He says over 20, it doesn't start to like like meditation sounds like very similar, very, very similar. And what's cool about this, what I love about this particular thing is you can grab it and you can hold it while watching a movie. So like if you're just doing something else, it's silent. Even if you're with someone, you've got the lamp next to the couch or you've got the lamp next to the bed, you can't sleep at night. You grab it. It vibrates. It's pretty much silent. And you can just breathe in time. But you can be doing watching something else. I haven't been able to read while doing it. That's a bit too cognitively reminding. Yeah. Yeah. But you can breathe while swatching the TV. And that I've racked up hundreds of hours in the last year doing resonance breathing because I've grabbed that. And I'm going to go buy one of these. Don't give me one. I don't I don't want and I don't want home to gift me one. Actually, it's fine. I love still love finding new technologies, trying new things. New interventions are the best. They're just harder and harder to find new ones that people don't know about, which is why when I find one, I get I like Chup on about it for ages. Because I think I think that it's cool. I do the same. I mean, I it's funny throughout the book several times. I mentioned because I talk about behavioral tools. I would say 80% of behavioral tools. And then there's a lot of discussion about pharmacology and supplements about the pros and cons of everything from nicotine to amphetamines and on and on. But multiple times I mentioned some of the devices that sauna space accompany. I'm not affiliated with at all. sauna space makes these indoor red light saunas that are incandescent. Yep, you can go. They heat up right away. But I also I travel with a with one of their red lights. It fills the whole room. I love those things. A Rob Dix has these incredible non flicker shortwave length eliminated. Well, they actually same bulbs go from daylight to you can get candlelight at night with with no flicker and it's led because incandescence are very energy efficient. And I have no relationship to raw optics or to sauna space. Like I know the people there now because I've mentioned them enough times. They've reached out. But I just enjoy sharing things that I find useful to physiological size or these particular lights. I just like sharing what I think might be useful to people. And some people have more disposable income than others. I think that you know that nowadays it seems like the are we over optimizing becomes a big question like are we over optimizing a huge essay about it. Yeah, I listened and I think it's an important question. I mean to me optimizations is just taking the like what do you got today? What's on your plate today? And how do you feel best and do best in that context? And this brings me back to something that I failed to say earlier, which is that top down versus bottom up dynamic tension. Pretty much everything that's in the book morning quarters all high nighttime quarters all low, physiological size, etc. All of those things put you in the best position, put these circuits in the best possible position for you to have a more adaptive, less reactive, it's not meant to rhyme, more adaptive, less reactive life, right? To be more aware of the goodness in life and less reactive to the BS that you have no control over, this kind of thing. To be less prone to impulse and more prone to focusing on what really motivates you, the people that you love and doing the right things in accordance with that. You know, we all know that a bad night's sleep cripples this circuit such that the bottom up influences take over. We know this, right? People sleep less, they're more prone to they've less impulse control across the board and they become slightly psychotic also, especially if they don't sleep well for three or four nights in a row. But when you have these top down mechanisms really reinforced by high morning quarters all low nighttime quarters all great sleep, you're buffering stress well, you do a learning boucher too and I do refer to them as bouts because it should feel like a bouch. That's when your life is actually headed in the direction you want, but it doesn't matter where you're starting from. That's when your life starts really heading in the direction that you want consistently. And these things don't take a lot of time. In fact, they save time because they position you to be at your best, show up is your best. That's not a marketing point, it's just true. And some people now I'm skipping around a bit, but I want to make sure I close a few hatches. Some people might say how alert and focus do you need to be to learn? We rarely talk about this. One thing I really emphasize in the book is like people talk about be present. I give a tool that explains exactly how to be present. Okay, so we'll talk about that. But how alert do you need to be in order to focus and learn? What's the state of mind? Alert and calm. What is that? Because that might might mean something different to you than it means to me. How do you stay there? Okay. Have you ever played that game hot hands where, you know, I put my hands on top of yours? Wouldn't that be nice? I put my hands on top of yours. That's what we did all morning. That's literally that we didn't go to the gym We just held on top of yours and we play a game where you're gonna flip your hands over and you try and smack my hand Okay, and I'm gonna try and pull them out of your way and you're younger than I am So you think you have faster reflexes, but you don't know. I'm just kidding. You probably do You're the person whose hands are on on top. So let's say my hands are on top and you're ready to flip your hands over and tag me You're the person with hands on top and you're in that Ready anticipation of what's gonna happen next. That's the state of mind for optimal learning That's the state of mind you want to be in so when you sit down to read something and you're like I read that whole page And I didn't learn anything of course you didn't because your brain was you're running four or five different circuits at once in order to Really turn on focus you need to turn off a bunch of other circuits that are or you need to lower the activity in those other circuits You can't be thinking about at the same time. Okay, what's the how do my feet feel? How's what's my heartbeat? What's going on online? What's my girlfriend thinking? What does you know? No, you need to be focused. What is focus? Focus is obviously in a tunnel But then how much alertness I don't think anyone's ever described it before But when you look at levels of arousal in a game like hot hands and believe it or not there's some Equivalent data on this or data on the equivalent sort of thing When you're waiting for a time trial and you're waiting for something to happen you have to react quickly That's the state of mind you want to be in to learn something that's hard for you but beneficial for you Period end of story. So hopefully that'll help people kind of find that mental groove And then as you learn if you find you're getting too stressed that doesn't allow that brings down reaction time It actually you you start making false positive you start moving your hands away before the person even does anything. Okay so Hopefully that will help people understand the level of attention and why it's so tiring after about 90 minutes And you're like, okay, I need to take a break Somewhere along the way low energy just gets accepted as a part of getting older turns out there's a reason for that As we age our mitochondria the parts of our cells that power us become weaker and make less energy Which is why I'm such a huge fan of timeline they've developed This that helps to clear out your damaged mitochondria so your cells can actually renew themselves timeline is backed by over a decade of research And has more than 50 patents and is the number one Recommended mitochondrial supplement on the planet. This isn't just theory in clinical trials people saw mitochondrial renewal increased by more than 40% in just 16 weeks Along with improvements in their overall energy. I've been using it for over two years Since my doctor recommended it to me way before I partnered with timeline and eat your heart out Martin Shkreli because they just dropped the price and it now starts at 99 dollars Best of all there is a 30-day money-back guarantee plus free shipping in the US plus they ship internationally And right now you can get that 99 dollar price within additional 20% off by going to the link in the description below Are heading to timeline.com/modernwisdom using the code modern wisdom a checkout that's timeline.com/modernwisdom and modern wisdom A checkout What about presents how can people be more present? Okay, so this one really surprised me So the final chapter of the book is about personal development. Okay, um, I was gonna do a chapter about relationships But for various reasons I felt like that wasn't appropriate. Then I thought about relationship to self I thought well, that's kind of weird because what is relationship to self? It's too squishy a theme that like personal development step back and start asking questions about First acknowledge Step back and acknowledge there's a lot out there about how to get through trauma But what are the unifying themes and can I put a structure on those themes that helps people navigate all of that What's the business of having a great life? So we talk about that We here be present There's this massive study out of Harvard a few years ago that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind I'm sure you're familiar with the data you ping people throughout the day you ask them what they're doing and how present they are to it turns out Happiness is really about being present Having your attention what's called present tethered awareness your focus on what's happening now even if it's unpleasant People report that as being much happier on average then if their mind is someplace else day dreaming has its place But day dreaming is usually mind wandering to bad things things of past things of future. We're just not present Distraction is literally unhappiness. Yes. Yes And the converse is also true that focusing on what you're doing is a great way to build up your mental health So then I started asking because I'm a biologist not a psychologist What the hell is presence? Does it mean anchoring my visual attention was how do I be present? Because otherwise it's just a bumper sticker And otherwise I look I love psychologists say these beautiful studies that discover phenomena, but then It's like if you're going to say like fall asleep. What is falling asleep? And we can talk about that. What is being present? Okay, so be here now. I think Ram Das said that great be here now. How Turns out that if we step back and we just say okay, what does the brain do? Don't worry this won't turn into a whole lecture. What's the brain do? The brain takes physical phenomenon in our environment photons of light Sound waves mechanical pressure chemicals through the nose and mouth Translates those from sensation to perception Cool, then we also can remember things predict things basically what the brain does and it can change itself So that's neuroscience in a nutshell How do we move our brain from thinking about the future and the past to what's happening now? Okay, so that means perceptions about what's only in our immediate physical environment It means not thinking not doing not planning But asking questions about the immediate physical environment so we can do this just net right now And you can do this anytime you want to be more present and I want to just preface this by saying What I'm about to describe is not the end point. It's the way to get into the present But what you do next is critically important too So first you ask trivial questions about your immediate environment that can only be answered accurately By focusing on the present so for instance What does it smell like in here right now like Like I'm not getting much for me, but Okay, um What is uh like how many cans are on this table on two three there's a couple other vessels four cans fine, okay, all right answering two or three trivial questions seemingly trivial questions about your present environment How many people are in line in front of me how louder the kids screaming in the back seat? Is it louder or softer than last time things like that Bring our mind toward obviously Perception of the present duh. There's nothing, you know profound about that But it's what they take our mind away from that's critically important The brain there's a whole section on thinking what is thinking the brain works in what are called dynamic attractor states Which is nerd speak for if I take a ball bearing and I put it on a on a plate It essentially can move in any direction There's some details related to the smoothness of the bearing and the plate etc But if I put a little groove on that plate And I tilt the plate slightly it obviously will go toward the groove They'll get into the groove and then if I turn that groove into a and make it more concave and eventually a trench the ball bearing stays there That's how your brain works the more that you see the thought The more that you see the perception the more that brain circuits are devoted to things related to that thought or perception So when you want to be present Something that we know from excellent data Of this large study at Harvard, but subsequent studies as well as so critical for happiness The way to practice that is to learn from taking your mind from thinking and doing and remembering about things of past and future To just anchoring your perception to the present it doesn't require meditating Meditation is one form of that what are we doing when we meditate we close our eyes we focus on our breathing that's here now And we focus on the quote unquote third eye center or whatever But that's actually interreception it's focusing on our internal bodily state Which is not that great frankly if you look at the data for being present in a happy way most people who are overly focused on their internal state in the present Are like my heart rate is increasing my heart rates too low. I'm sweating. I'm uncomfortable You start thinking about the fact that like you're you know your boxers are like pulled up on one one leg You know they that's not the way to get present and calm and aware The way to get present calm and aware and be able to move forward from that in the best way is to ask questions about your immediate physical environment Once you do that remember that's just the first step the second step is to Use that heightened level of awareness to ask yourself What do I want to what do I actually want to do next? What do I want to say next? What do I want to think about next? This is the way that you take control of your thoughts and I won't go into all the detail now but Thoughts have this way they see each other. So I think we've done this thing about the cat right? I think we did that previously we say like you know, I think of a cat Okay, you know Tell me about it people say well it has soft. It's this color. It's the set You're starting to recruit more and more neural machinery Toward the thought about this trivial thing that we call us a seed idea, which is the cat But if you just let your brain run Or like through the tributaries of its like own choices you end up in a pretty unhappy place So the key to being a high-age and see happy person it turns out is being able to control your thinking and bring it back to the present But then you don't just stay there thinking about your breathing That's like kind of sociopathic right it's weird. It's like it's just weird You ask questions about your immediate environment and then you pivot into The person that you want to be in terms of action and thinking and speaking or maybe silence is called for. And so none of this is psychology. This is all 100% neuroscience. I get into the underlying mechanisms and it fully supports everything that I just described. I should say is fully supported by the work that shows that people who have heightened levels of activity in the so-called default mode network. This is the network of activity that just takes place when you're doing essentially nothing or more depressed. Too much activity in the default mode network. Yes, some is associated with creativity, but usually elevated levels of activity in the default mode network are what you find in depressed people because their brain is just kind of all over the place and they feel discombobulated. Unless we're in sleep, we need to organize our internal landscape. The problem is most people here, you need to organize your internal landscape and they think, oh, you have to get up in the morning, do 10 rest of meditation, get your light and they think about it as rigidity. I'm talking about now and throughout the book, it's all about the things that set you up to lean into life so that you're more reflexively more effective. You're reflexively happy. You're reflexively more adaptive. You're reflexively more present. I think this is where the over-optimization conversation is relevant. None of these practices are an end in and of themselves. I think nowadays because people go to the gym and they get the aesthetic effect they want, they think, oh, you go to the gym to do that. I go to the gym so that I can sprint for the plane, open the pickle jar, move all the boxes on moving day up and down the stairs and feel great tired, but great at the end of the day. I like being strong for life. I like having endurance so I can go hiking in the assembly. If we go, let's go tomorrow. We're going and carrying 80-pound packs. We do it tomorrow and yeah, it hurts a little bit, but like in a good way. You can sprint for the plane and not cough up along. There's a section on mobility, which is four trivial mobility exercises. Get your knee behind your glutes once a day, squat down, do bend and look up at the ceiling. To the right angle, be able to look up on both sides, identify any kind of mismatches on either side and work through those. That's so I can lean down and grab things and move. That's so I can reach and grab things. You threw me the protein drink out there. I just for the record. I caught it. You did catch it. I'm not so proud of that. I'm just pissed at your camera guy. We'll probably wait until I drop it and then film that one. They're running a diabolical scheme here at a modern wisdom where they wait for you to f up and then they film it, but when you get it right, no. No, once I catch it. I'm just kidding. Actually, I don't care about. I'm not obviously my hand-eye coordination. It's not something I'm really concerned about, but nor do I boast about, but the point being that it's all about being able to move through life with confidence and agency and awareness and sensitivity to what you need to be sensitive to and being and saying to the things that you need to say to you. That's a really good life. It's not about the tools. It's about what the tools open up for you. Yeah, I think a lot of people have an issue with the over-optimization thing because it feels like more homework. They're already overwhelmed. They're already working hard. The sort of people that read your book and listen to your podcasts and the fans of modern wisdom, they're already contorting themselves into a pretzel trying to get more out of their day. They've already got standards that they're so impossibly high that they can't meet them. Now, when they sometimes hear people saying you need to do this and do this, they feel like they're overwhelmed. The difference being, you can make yourself fragile if your entire performance and your whole life is predicated on this kind of rain-dance ritual that you're only able to do the stuff if you have had this weird two hours of full play beforehand. I understand why that's the case. That's what I knew that that would be. I mean, so nothing. Some people might argue it's not enough. Yeah, that's true. That is true. I guess it depends on how much time you got. That's true. You could have a, it could be a Sunday. But I think at least from my experience, periodizing your life is one of the best ways to think about this. And a lot of people, especially toward the end of their 20s, especially a lot of guys go through this manopause. They go through this period where they realize that all of the strategies, tools, habits, routines, modes of getting recognition and success from the people around them, they've stopped working. And they want to become something better. It's kind of like a second adolescence. It's actually a more important adolescence, I think, than the one from 13 to kind of like 17. And what sort of person, what sort of man do I want to become in this world? I don't know, maybe women go through it too, but I know that I see it in a lot of guys, especially dudes that are a little bit more deep thinkers. And maybe they played the game in their 20s. They were successful, perhaps. Maybe at playing the game. Which game are you referring to? Like the social norms game. I'm going to like, you know, contort myself or like, chameleon a little bit. I'm not going to bring up quite what I think or what I mean on my, my, my, well, that can be adaptive too. I mean, especially in the age of camera phones, I mean, when I grew up, you say something outrageous at a party. Just like, you know, not offensive, but just outrageous. And it may land at my not land, but you don't worry that it's going to land everywhere. I'm concretized. Yeah, I mean, I, and this is not just for public facing people. I mean, I feel like you're probably a great dancer, but you know, I think like a lot of people are not, right? A lot of men in particular are not. And, you know, you'd like to be able to like go to a wedding and dance and have fun and not think about how that's going to show up. Yeah, it's someone going to talk me for this video. So anyway, you guys get, get to this period. And I think what sort of a person am I going to be? And that, to me, and for me, and for a lot of my friends as well, I needed to basically bundle together quite a lot of lock in. I needed to lock the fucking. I needed to lock in for an extended period of time. And for me outside, that might look like an overreliance on protocols and self experimentation and optimizing and doing things like that. But what they don't see when they look at somebody that's going through that period is I was basically paying a debt that I had slowly accumulated over a decade and a half of running nightclubs that I will go tow to tow with pretty much anyone for degenerate behavior in my twenties, right? I ran more parties, did more of the things that you're not supposed to do in my twenties than almost anyone else. I'm a million people on the front door of nightclubs. I attended a thousand parties, a thousand parties. That's how many we ran. We had a million, we had a million, we had a million lifetime entries. I had a great time by the five hundred. So I'm like, I've served my time. And then I needed to, I wanted to become somebody that was a little bit more well-rounded to understood himself that had a great connection about all of those things. And I was like, okay, so if you look at me from 28 to 32, 33 in isolation, it actually looks like probably quite a fragile, highly strong life where I've got this elaborate morning routine that's going on for a couple of hours. And I'm like, getting up and getting sunlight my eyes before it's cool and doing the lateral flow eye movement as you're ambulating through the thing. Like do you put in salt, red men salt in water that to import from America? Because I once read in some random blog post that it might work. Like all of this shit before it was kind of popularized. And then journaling and breath work and meditation and reading a book and doing space repetition with anky flashcards and all of this shit. Why? Well, because I wanted to like discover what worked for me and I wanted to like rip myself out of this hole that I dug myself into. And my thing around the optimization, like guilt that a lot of people feel or fear that they have or this kind of push back against the fragility that definitely comes along with it. Like there is such a thing as like the fear of the worry that you have of trying to be optimal killing you more quickly than your suboptimal behaviors. Like you're so stressed about this. But there is also a period I think that you can really use it to like get the momentum moving. Okay, I've got a training practice. I understand how to meditate. I've stopped going to bed late. I've started getting up on time. I've started to, you know, those are things that then carry you forward. And you can either try and slowly ingrain them over a long period of time or you can maybe seal hell week it and bundle it together. And that's what I did. I've learned from over a thousand podcast episodes, the easier that you make your health routine, the more consistent you'll be. It's like golf, right? You want to keep it simple and not makes a bunch of pills. You want the eye of the tiger, not the DUI of the tiger. That's why I'm such a huge fan of AG1. One scoop contains 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics and whole food sourcing ingredients in a single daily drink. And that's why I've been taking it every single morning for nearly five years now. And they've taken it a step further with AG1 next gen back by four clinical trials. And those trials that was shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels in just three months and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times, even in people who already eat well. Plus, if you're still unsure, they've got a 90-day money back guarantee. So you can buy it and try it every single day for three months. If you don't like it, they will give you all of your money back. Right now, you can get 20% off a welcome kit and that 90-day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below, are heading to drinkag1.com/modern wisdom. That's drinkag1.com/modern wisdom. I came on this podcast because I was excited to talk to you and yes, I'm out on the book thing, but I like learning from you. So can I just like take in what you said for a second? Yeah. Because I'm happy to share what I know. But I want to think about this because I always learn with you. So one thing that you're so excellent at, and then I'm trying to do more of, by way of example from you, is you are very good at spotting contradictions. And as I said earlier, trying to like clashes in contradictions and trying to export something of value, like a new direction from that. So, you know, I will say, and I acknowledge you in the book for many reasons, by the way. Which is, you know, we get these conflicting messages inside of any space. Okay. So you have so much within you, if you do the right things, you can access these things. Okay. If you do all these things, you're actually a weaker version of yourself because if you don't do those, not doing the hard thing now becomes the hard thing. Okay. I mean, hell week is a week for a reason. It's not hell year, although talking to people who are instructors and seal training in this guy. I mean, I do think they are identifying people that have something different in them as opposed to building that up. I think they build it up in those people, but I think that filter is really unique. I think for the rest of us, I don't know, you'd probably make it through, but for the rest of us, the real question, I think, is how do we resolve all these tools and contradictions that are out there and put a structure on them? Forgive me for going slow here, but for once, I'm speaking slow enough. Okay, so years ago, when I was a graduate student, a guy who is really a luminary in the field of neuroendocrinology said to me, he said, you know, it's rarely the people who make like the key discoveries that go on to be associated with the great findings of a field. I go, how can that possibly be? And he said, it's almost always people that are in that field or educate themselves on that field that put a structure on it. And he said, this is why it's important to publish research papers, but also regularly publish reviews. And I always made a point for about every three research papers I publish to publish one high quality review, not some like, you know, like yellow ribbon journal, you know, review, because you can publish a review anywhere, but like real compendiums of where the knowledge is now. I took those very, very seriously, like annual reviews and so forth, very seriously. And why? Because they help you organize your mind around what's happening and they help other people do that too, because most people aren't going to take the time to do it. In the health and optimization space now, there's so many tools, right? So what we need and what I try and highlight in the book are principles. High morning cortisol means low nighttime cortisol means high nighttime melatonin means great sleep means better days and so on and so forth. You're essentially got the gears of the system linking together with that. Understand that. And then yes, it's true. Bright light is the best way to sport spike your morning cortisol, but exercise is pretty effective too. Sometimes you don't have access to either. Sometimes you have access to both. Sometimes you're on a plane, you can't, okay, but you can start doing other things to nudge the system or keep the system online. When you have 30 seconds, you also understand that if you miss a day or two, you're okay. Yep. Because you've set up the system through good behaviors going into it. So you don't have to dissolve into a puddle of your own tears because you're on a plane and they don't have any caffeinated coffee and you can't do your air squats and like, I'm calm on. Yep. No one wants to be that. Exactly. Exactly. So you're, you, once you understand a bit of the principles that organize the mechanisms, you're in a great position to be truly strong of mind and body because you can organize information. And the same thing is true in like in chapter seven, the book on personal development. I took a step back and I said, what are the unifying features of all the trauma therapies? What are the unifying features of how to have a great life? Let's just start with how to have a great life. James Hollis came on my podcast, 84 years old, surprised the shit out of me when he said, here's how you have a great life. It involves four things. The first three are shut up. That's the first one. I go shut up and he goes, yeah, someone's always got it worse than you. Nobody wants to hear you whine, have gratitude for what you do have. If you're alive, you got something to be grateful for. I didn't really expect that from him. He's like, is 85 you're a Jungian analyst? He talks about the unconscious mind. He goes, shut up. Your day should start with Huberman, shut up. Whatever's got you bothered, shut up. You got it better than somebody. It's interesting. I wish someone had said that to you, but that's okay. Thank you. Second, you can keep this in next. Next he said, Chris Williamson, they'll fuck yourself. First is shut up. Second is suit up. What is suit up? Suit up is you have a role to fulfill each day for other people and for yourself and for the world. Suit up is get prepared. Shower, organize your room. We've heard this stuff from Jordan and from other people, but get your act together so that you can then do the third thing effectively, which is show up. Go find a role in life and fulfill it. It might not be the role you fulfill your entire life, but if it's a summer camp counselor, if it's a babysitter, if it's a nanny, if it's a firefighter, if it's whatever you are doing at some point in order to have confidence and be a healthy, happy person, you need to fulfill roles for society, meaning for people in your life, not just for you. You have to be in service. Now, some people might think, well, I want to make as much money in the world as possible. That's not me, but a lot of people feel that way. Great. To do what? Go fulfill that role. So get dressed properly. Do those things. It sounds so basic, right? So shut up is about gratitude. Suit up is about prepare and practice. Don't show up. You know, for me, I delayed the publication of the book three times. Why? Because I want the book to be something I'm truly proud of and that people will feel that they were honored as smart people who deserve quality information. Period, end of story. Now I was willing to tell the publisher and everyone else, look, I'm so, so sorry, but I'm going back in again, and again, and again, eat the shame because ultimately I had a higher value, which was that the book be of good to extreme value to anyone that, that, that read it. Or even just look at a chapter, for instance. And then that last one of show up is actually go do the work, like chop wood carry water, like no one gives a shit that you don't want to do it today. Just do it. Great confidence comes from those. But then he said the fourth thing, the pitfall is that when we get too much into role playing these roles and doing these things, we don't often enough, excuse me, many people end up down a road that they don't really want to be on. And everyone fears that. So he said that solution to this is very simple. Once a day, go into your mind and get out of stimulus response. You either meditate or just breathe, you draw, you listen to music, you don't look at your phone, you don't think about your role in the world. And all you do is you try and listen to and it sounds real squishy. But when it's next to shut up, suit up, show up, I feel comfortable saying it, which is you ask yourself, like, what is my deeper wish, my heart's desire? What do I need to be focusing on now? Maybe I have enough career, enough money, enough, enough, uh, whatever, you know, colleague, respect it's there. Maybe now it's time to, uh, focus more on relationships. Maybe it's time to focus less on one's role as a mother or father, not completely, but focus more on an artistic creative side that if you don't satisfy, you're not going to feel like you had a good life. So personal development, if you look at those bins, it's not about shut up, suit up, show up, and do this internal practice of getting out of stimulus response. It's, that's just one example. You look out across the landscape of personal development and almost everything slots into one or two, but usually just one of those entire books are about the first one or just the last one or two of the two of the four. And I go, that's very satisfying to me because as my colleague said, putting a structure on things is, is very helpful because it helps us navigate without feeling like there's all this information. Wait, I'm supposed to journal and I'm supposed to do therapy and maybe psychedelics may be not. And I'm supposed to have social connection. And I'm like, pretty soon you're like, when am I supposed to do the morning sunlight thing? So the idea is that you, you understand the framework. And then when it comes to the trauma piece for unlearning, right? Like there's a tremendous amount of information in the book on how to focus and learn better. But then also, what about unlearning? All of getting over bad stuff is four steps. The process is four steps. The first thing, you need to acknowledge the bad thing. You can't just deny it anymore. You can't suppress it. What are you suppressing? You need to acknowledge this happened, this sucks. Two, the second step is you need to feel the feelings completely. There is no working around this. Their entire books and workshops written around breathing into psychedelicking into talking into hugging into shaking into feeling the full suck of the horrible thing that happened. Or things. But that's not where it stops. People often just end there. The next piece is feeling calmer, even slightly and more peaceful around the accurate detailed memory of the thing. You're now uncoupling the emotion from the thing. You can't just live in the feel your feelings. We have an entire generation of people and collection of people online who are only there. And they wonder why they're still there. At the mercy of their feelings. But also, they're not effective in the world. They're not affecting change. They think they are, but they're not affecting change. This is actually why I think they hate one of the many reasons why successful people are often hated because they're moving along. They're like, I feel like sometimes online. I look and I'm like, you remind me of those kids when I go home because I left. I went to college then came back and that scared the shit out of me because I was like, oh my god. You guys can write a textbook on how to become like a world class loser. And some of them weren't like drugging out or anything. I was just like, you guys are still talking about stuff that, well, today I talked about stuff that happened in high school that was helpful for me. But you guys are like stuck. It's like these people that hang out in the parking lot of bars for years and years talking about this thing. I mean, it's the saddest thing in the world and men do it one way, women do it another way. It's this fixation on the things that happen that we feel wronged about and we all have them, right? And granted, some people are genuinely wrong. That's not the point here. It's not whether they were wronged or I said, they're stuck there. And the third piece is about the uncoupling. And then the fourth piece is what we kind of think of as the magic of life where people take the hard thing and the experience and their journey of moving through it and they transmute it into is something of beauty and goodness for the world. These are the people that go in, talk at bereavement workshops. Talk to people who've lost a child. Talk to people who have experienced horrible things. Talk to, maybe they even just plant a flower and put it in the window sill and every morning they appreciate not the pain they went through, but the pain they went through that they no longer experience and the beauty that's there representing it. Small detail, a small detail in their life, they've transmuted the pain. But you can't just go, oh, you know what, you had this horrible thing happen, you know, plant a flower, put it in the window sill and think about how beautiful it is. You can't take somebody who's struggling in number one or two or three and put them there. So for me, go back through those folds for me. What's that? Go back through those folds. I acknowledge the thing straight on. Exactly what happened or how many, you know, what is the thing that sucks that hurts so much? Two, you have to, in a safe environment. This is why there's an interest in clinical trials on MDMA because it's this empathogen makes people feel, you know, love and safe, but you need, that's not the only way. I mean, there's therapy, there's journaling. I talk about this and talk about all the different approaches to each of these steps. That's the second step. You have to feel the feelings completely of the horrible thing that happened. The third thing is, once you've done that enough, and we talk about what enough is, you need to be able to recall the details and specifics of the horrible thing that happened with less emotional load. The emotional load starts to peel back. And it's a hard step to get to, but once you get there, it's a process. It's not like you go in and you go, "Okay, today I'm going to remember everything, but it's not going to bother me at all." Little by little, you start to uncouple. It's like the memory exposure therapy. Some people do EMDR. That's one way, some people do hypnosis. Some people do talk therapy. Hennabaker has people journal four times for 15 minutes each about the horrible thing that happened. This takes them through steps two and three. 15 minutes, one day, 15 minutes, the next day, 15 minutes, the next day, 15 minutes, the next day. No more, no less. And by the fourth day, tens of thousands of data points now, not just individuals, but many, many papers, even if, you know, manuscript, scientific manuscripts, but even if you tear up the writing afterward, even if you delete the file, you find that people move through steps two and three to a significant degree. And then the fourth step is not just letting it hover there as this thing that you got through, but finding some way or ways, it can be many of transmuting that entire experience. The thing that happened and the way you move through it into some point of beauty or contribution to your own well-being and to others well-being could be, yeah, dog. And the dog represents every bit of your ability to love unconditionally and their ability to love unconditionally that represents the unconditional love you didn't get. Maybe it's someone who has suffered a horrible trauma is helping people who suffered similar traumas, or maybe it's some just symbol, right? I mean, you know, in a very Jungian way, it can just be a symbol of like maybe you have this paper weight and that symbol is the weight of your certainty that you made it through. And you just, you know, the human mind can assign symbols to experiences very easily, good or bad. So those are the four steps. And for me in thinking about personal development, it was like, how do I look out on the entire landscape of all these books and all these podcasts and science and think, what's the best way to move through? You acknowledge that process. Neural plasticity is alert, focus, agitation through genuine errors to get things right, reinforce through sleep and self-testing. Those are the steps. There's not a fifth step or a sixth step. There's not jump to step three and avoid steps one and two. So these days, a lot of my role in my public life is to educate about processes. And when, and this all comes from my training in neuroscience, you don't teach people neurons fire action potentials. That's the first thing you teach them. Then you tell them how that happens. And once they understand how that happens, and you get the action potential, they have embedded in their mind in understanding of when a neuron fires. They're not thinking about all the steps, but it's all there. That's what we call true understanding. You have a nuanced, multi-level understanding of something. And I think that all too often in the optimization space, we say, hey, this red light's going to give you better skin. It's going to improve your mitochondria. And people, of course, just want those effects. But if people are feeling overwhelmed, they should think, well, what's better? Red light or GHK copper? I would say, well, what's the best source of red light? It's the sun minus UV. When does that happen? When the sun is low in the sky? Boom, you got the best red light therapy that you could ever get minus UV for zero cost. Congratulations. You want a red light too? Cool. Be my guest. I own one. You might want one too. But just, we're talking about long wavelength light minus UV. End of story. So it's not complicated. And I think the same is true in resistance training. Andy Galpon talks about this or exercise. There are only five or six different adaptations. Better speed, better power, better-- I mean, you've added a seventh of like, like, you know, forearms. But for the rest of us, there are only six. And you can get that through CrossFit. You can get that through Sets to Fail. Or you can get more volume with Near Fail. Like, once you understand something, you're in a position to make much better choices around it. And so I'm actually wondering when to retire right now. I'm kind of thinking, what's next? And I have some ideas about where that's going. But I think we, in 2026, right, heading into 2027, I think we pretty well understand the principles of great mental health, physical health, and performance. There'll be more peptides. There'll be more devices. I think devices and pharmacology are really going to change the game. AI is going to change the game. But I think we're there. The fundamental, the physics of the system. Pranayama breathing or Wim Hof breathing. How do you want to feel? More alert, inhale, emphasize breathing, passive exhales. You want to feel calm? How should you do that? Exhale, emphasize breathing, passive inhales. Longer, exhale, relative to inhale. More calm, why we know all the mechanisms. So the naming, and this probably scares some of my health colleagues, hopefully not. Because no longer can people name things after themselves or give something a name that cloaks what you're trying to achieve. The reason I went, Yoganidra non-sleep deep rest. And I great respect for the Yogan culture that developed thousands of years ago is non-sleep deep rest is the goal. What is involved? Exhale, emphasize breathing, slow the heart rate down, shifting the mind from thinking, doing, and planning to pure sensation. Great, how do you do that? Present, tethered awareness, long exhales, eyes closed. That gets you into a pseudo-sleep that recovers some of your lost sleep. It makes you better at sleeping at night. Lower as cortisol puts the brain into microstates of sleep, enhances learning. That's non-sleep deep rest, in a nutshell. Now why the book has to be so long given I can just kind of cut it down to a nutshell? That's a different story. But principles are what allow a field to say, you know what, we got it, yep. Doesn't mean the stuff isn't important. It means we got it, we're moving on. We understand the action potential. We understand plasticity. We understand getting over trauma. The tools still need work. But we understand how to get to sleep. We understand how to be focused. And so people I think I'm hoping will appreciate that we are here now. I didn't podcast and do all this for the last six, seven years so that I could be in the exact same place and regurgitate the same things. I'm like, here you go, this is my thesis. This is my thesis, this is my graduate thesis. My graduate thesis, like, you know, some people say there's a little bit of like pigeon-chesting, but I didn't publish like two papers in some red ribbon journal. We publish close to eight first author papers in awesome journals, some in Apex journals. I could have graduated way earlier. I did it because I wanted to close a story in a field. We didn't get everything, but I wanted to get to the point where that field didn't make sense to work on anymore. It was like, we're done. We did it. Like, what are we doing? Like, I don't want to stay in high school. I want to graduate. So it's now time, this is my thesis. I'm done. I think it's, I believe it's of real value. I'm on to the next thing. And if people want to quibble about the details, I'm all ears. I'm happy to talk about it or even the big things, but it's not like I'm done. It's not important. It's like we got it. Let's move to the next level. And I want you to do this too. I talked to Lex the other day on the phone. You know, everyone's like, where's Lex? Haven't her Lexus building up the next big move? I can't talk about it, but it's awesome. And I'm like, he's so brave. And I'm like, yes, you're always on the next thing. You know, Rick's always on the next thing. You know, and it's so cool. Like it's like, we got to keep going. We can't stay back there. Can't stay back there. That's what happened in the 1960s and 70s. These people got, went down the rabbit holes. They took too many psychedelics, thinking psychedelics were the answer. And a lot of them lost their minds. Or they did too much somatic therapy. And they forgot that the mind, that actually, you don't store emotions in the body. I'm sorry, folks, you store them in your brain and the body represents them. Turns out we've now moved on. Body and brain are important. So I think it's time we move to the next step. 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Get the exact same blood panels that I use and save $25 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com/monum wisdom. That's functionhealth.com/monum wisdom. Is there a good test for microplastics and what is the best detox protocol that you're aware of at the moment for microplastics? - Detox as opposed to limiting the ones coming in, 'cause we know where they are, right? They're pretty much everywhere, but glass better than plastic and so on. The data on sweating are decent, right? They're not gonna purge them completely, but they're pretty decent. - So sauna. - So sauna, living in Texas, running outside. I mean, heat is heat, right? So I was kind of joking this morning on a press call. If you're standing outside in Texas in the middle of the day, you're getting some deliberate heat exposure or a non-deliberate exposure. It's the same heat as heat. So that definitely helps. There's this idea that sulfurophane, which is in cruciferous vegetables, might be able to bind some of it and you can purge some of it. - A tirasol, is that what it's called? - I think it's sulfurophane. You can take concentrated sulfurophane. - That's unblocked. - Rhonda's very bullish on this. I don't take sulfurophane, I do try and sauna, 'cause it has other benefits a few times a week. And I just think more and more companies that can their beverages are gonna start looking. A lot of can beverages do and a lot of can beverages don't run to put me in touch with a company from Utonic who have a different rapper on the inside 'cause all of these cans, it's not 10. - It's the plastic one. - Yeah, but there's an organic, biodegradable liner that you can get. So we're looking into that. It's gonna take forever. - Yeah. I mean, the stuff is everywhere. There's the particulate from tires. There's the clothing thing. In Europe, actually. - You can drive, whether your drive is venting inside. - You can buy a better trap for some of the microfibers. - I'll be honest, I don't do those things. I'm conscious of trying to not put heated food in plastic whenever I order. - Well, this is limiting input, though, right? Which is-- - That's limiting input. To the extent it's getting things out, we don't know. I mean, I think also like anything, some people are gonna be more susceptible to this. I mean, if people are doing a bunch of other things to just wrap their endocrine environment, right, they're not sleeping well. They're not doing all the right things. Or they're doing some things badly wrong, especially if you're getting a lot of environmental exposure to toxins because a lot of people work jobs where they work with paints and solvents. Laboratories, it's kind of wild. Laboratories, you find all sorts of things that can, what we call, intercalate into DNA. That's how you run gels and things of DNA. And I mean, without getting into the details of looking at proteins and different types of blots or RNA or DNA, in order to break up proteins or break up DNA, in order to basically run them out on these gels, you have to put chemicals in them that break the bonds. That's not good. Right, you don't want that happening to you. It's good for the experiment. People are not good for you. People are dumbly disrupting their own DNA. People who work in laboratories are exposed to, you know, paraphernaldehyde constantly. And if you have a neuroscience lab where you're perfusing brains, you're fixing brains to cut them up. You're working with paraphernaldehyde and other fixatives all the time. You're working with things that are mutagens, sometimes radioactivity, I mean, viruses. I mean, my lab for years, I'm not running a lab anymore. I think the last paper came out in 2023, 24, now just teaching. But the lab had, I don't know, viruses, synbist viruses, modified rabies viruses. I mean, we, some stuff we don't want. We worked with, we had, yeah, we did, we had sedatives that are, you know, federally controlled. You had to keep them in a locker account for every microliter. I mean, laboratories are full of dangerous things. Unless it's a computational laboratory, in which case we call those carpet labs, where they have carpet and computer labs. Yeah, that's, yeah. No. That's real science, it's just different science. When it comes to the microplastics thing, I learned some interesting insights around the fact that the micron size of microplastics and the size of your sweat glands can get some out, but not all, because microplastics range in size. This is a conversation that Ben Greenfield was bringing up. Another interesting one, we're talking on 9/11. A friend told me a story about this particular firefighter who had gone into the towers and had been out of the towers and then was exposed to all of the, you know, the most particulars probably in history apart from volcanic eruptions. And he developed like a Parkinsonian tremor and he did niacin flush with charcoal and had a towel wrapped around him when you do that. So you get your heart rate up doing exercise, you get into the sauna, you take the niacin, then you take the charcoal, niacin to flush everything out and then charcoal to bind it so it doesn't get reabsorbed again. And apparently the towel that this guy had wrapped around him was like vertigree. It was all colors of blue and pink and green. Those firefighters, I mean, they absorbed so much mental and physical damage in those days. I mean, one thing we should say before, I want to talk about 9/11 and that particular thing I do. But before we do that, I just want to mention one thing that I think is important because the message got out based on one publication that we have a credit card's worth of plastic in us. - It's already been there. - Okay, so it turns out there's a second publication that went to the same data and basically found that the tool they used in that first study to measure the number of particles was not a very good tool. And it turns out we have far less than that in us. - You saw this stuff about the gloves, right? - Not about the gloves, but what's interesting about this study is I think that some people say we have a marble sized amount of plastic in your brain at this moment, maybe distributed, maybe. But I looked at both the data analyzed two different ways in those papers and unfortunately the more catchy thing, if you have a credit card and it was worth of plastic in your brain, that sort of did the telephone game of the internet. The second paper didn't get as much air time. - The retraction versus the accusation. - Right, it was a separate group, it wasn't a total retraction, but having spent a lot of years in my lab where you try and count cells and you're trying to decide on a computer screen, what's a cell? It seems trivial to you, that's a cell, that's a cell. Sometimes it's very easy, sometimes you see two clumps like this, is that one cell or two cells? So where you set your threshold for what you define as a cell is very important. And in this study. - So this was, sorry for interrupting. - No, this was what I saw. So basically when people were using nitrile and latex gloves to do the microplastic thing, the way that nitrile gloves actually bend is because tiny fragments of plastic peel off. Basically, people measuring microplastics, war gloves that got plastic on the plastic detector. That's what happens. So this is like one of the biggest. - Look, I mean, if you talk to-- - That is, a wild microplastics goose chase based on the glove. - So we might be overestimating the amount of these things, which would be great, to be more worried and actually be safer is better than to be less worried and actually in danger. - Think about this though, if it's the case that microplastics are less prevalent by a factor of a lot, some of the studies I've seen around this, it's like a hundred times less or maybe even a thousand times less than we've got. If that's the case, what that suggests is the X factor, which is disrupting endocrine, impacting testosterone, stuff like that is even greater because people have been able to lay at the feet of microplastics, it's kind of the microplastics of the gaps of what's going on with endocrines, why is sperm count going down, et cetera, et cetera. If we say, oh, actually we've been overmeasuring that, the X factor begins to need to fill more of the hole. - Yeah, we don't know how to match number of particles to biological relevance. I mean, one parallel example would be, for many years, there were new antibodies becoming available for the study of the brain and you could label up, where is the richest concentration of serotonergic neurons in the brain and a group identified this massive serotonin input to the brain circadian clock. Massive, I mean, it counts for basically half of the input to the clock. You know what happens if you disrupt that input to the clock, nothing. Functionally, it means nothing. Does that mean it's doing nothing? Excuse me. Functionally, it means far less than the anatomy would suggest. In the brain, big strong synapses mean a lot more than number of synapses. Number matters, but big and strong matters way more. And so we don't really know how to correlate X number of particles with this much dysfunction. Also, it's not a study that I think about very often, but my colleague, Mike Eisenberg, hope, you've had on the podcast, right? I mean, it does seem that sperm counts are going down, generation to generation. But they have data that you know about this that penis size is going up, right? And no pun intended. But then you start asking, how is this measured? And it's either self-report. And then you get into these details that I really don't wanna discuss it's too early in the day. You know, like where are they measuring from like the top or the bottom, like are they, is it flaccid or is it erect? Like all these different things. And you'll talk to Mike and say, you know, they try and standardize these studies. But it's one of these things where the headline is so catchy, right? One or the other headline. But then you get to, no pun intended. But then you get to, you get to the nuance of how these studies are done. And the answer almost always is, Well, let's just stick to microplastics. We need more data. I think that the other-- - We need more paint. - Some people on the plant would argue we need fewer. - Yep. - But that's a different podcast. But 9/11, I'd been on the East Coast, so I'm 51 years old. So I remember this very clearly. I'd been on the East Coast at an amazing place on the North Shore Long Island called Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. This is sort of summer camp for scientists where they go to learn molecular biology, you take courses, and it actually operates all year long. Is it one of the premier laboratories in the world? Are you telling me there's something on my face? - No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm just-- - I'm just grinding about this fucking summer camp so that's it's all right. - Oh, it's a great time. So I was a student there at Cold Spring Harbor. I was a TA, I was an educator, and I was a course director for many years, and then I passed the course off onto people who are better equipped to do that at that time. But we had gone to this course and then flown back. A number of us had flown back, and some people were still in the process of going back. So I remember that day very well. I also remember two years later, 'cause the course was every other year, going back to this course on Long Island, and there's this day off where half of the students would just recover from their hangovers. There was a lot of drinking back then, not so much of these courses anymore. But and took the Long Island railroad into the city and went to the 9/11 site. So it was a memorial slash site because it was still, they were still excavating the site. - What day was this? - What day? - Date. Oh, this would have been a summer of, okay, so two years after 9/11, so it'd be 2003. - And they still hadn't finished? - Oh no, no, I mean, this was a giant, I mean, I think it's hard for people to conceive. Like you see the towers in the photos, and they were so huge, but the footprint of these towers was just enormous. You know, multiple city blocks long in it, you know, and there was just all there was was it like a, you know, a wooden gate, you could walk around the site. There were pictures everywhere, obviously, and a lot of inscribings and some photos and things of that sort. And there were people working the site. You know, construction workers weren't in. Many of them know masks, you know, and then you got all these tourists, you know, we were essentially tourists. Reading the stuff on the wall, walking around, no doubt everyone was inhaling tons of whatever was in their jet fuel, particulate, et cetera. But the people that got there first, I mean, I can't even imagine what the firefighters and others were exposed to. I did hear an interesting story that one of the companies that was housed in those buildings was led by somebody who had some former military training. Do you know about this? Who had been there for the first bomb, bombing of the World Trade Center, and had run drills for his entire company, insisted on drills going into it. In all, but I think 11 of the people for that company got out. So they would run these drills about how to, you know, single or double file out of the stairways. I don't know the particular, the particular, so this. But it turns out there were people who were very concerned about this going in for a number of years. - He was so prepared to do that. - And that increased survival. Now you don't, I don't know where they were, you know, which level, et cetera. But I mean, that was a huge game changer. And yes, there were videos online at that time. So different 'cause there wasn't social media of people, some places in the world, you know, couldn't quite celebrating. But I would say the vast majority of media that you saw, the vast majority of what was online was just people either in shock or in anger. - Yeah. - And just surprise, a lot of people in the United States at that time didn't know where Afghanistan was. They didn't know what Afghanistan was. They didn't know where Pakistan was. They didn't understand, I mean, they knew these places in the world exist. They probably heard the names before. But there wasn't a lot of awareness of that side of the world. It was like, oh yeah, like a bombing in Yemen, people would hear these things. But that was the, that in the challenger explosion where in my lifetime were the two where you just went, oh shit, like this is a line in the sand. Like things are very, very different now. You mentioned nicotine, early run. I'm seeing pouches everywhere. What's your opinion on nicotine and pouches? - Same, look, I consume caffeine every day. I love caffeine. Nicotine is sort of similar, although caffeine is safe for obviously, can even improve health. Nicotine will definitely make you feel alert and calm unlike other stimulants, which is a very unique state that's great for learning, right? Sets you up for learning, doesn't let you learn, but it, so excuse me, doesn't make you learn, but it lets you learn. Raises blood pressure, highly addictive. And, and here's the thing people don't realize, if you take three to six milligram pouches multiple times per day, it's not gonna have a cognitive enhancing effect. It's just rescuing the deficit from nicotine withdrawal. Like if you don't drink caffeine for two days, you're not gonna feel good. You drink caffeine, you'll feel good. It's bringing you back to baseline. Okay, so if you want nicotine to be a performance aid, you use it occasionally, meaning three to six milligrams, once or twice, total, twice per week maximum. But how many people do you know that it's okay? - To develop a dependency. - Or just not do it very often. And then it does something. I mean, there's how I feel about a lot of energy drinks. I love them, but I'll take them when I really want to dial in, really want to, I shall let last night, but not quite as much as I would have liked 'em at timeshifted and so on. So this morning, I drank one of yours and one of Derek's. - Derek's, yep. - And that's a lot. - You'll deal twin turbo, yeah, very good. - Yeah, the twin turbo and that's a lot, but I thought we had a pretty good workout. - Yeah, you performed well. Well, the previous mode of delivery was smoking, and then we moved on to vaping, pretty quickly, and vaping became massive. - I talk about the history of this. Humans have found a way to get their nicotine. Smoking causes cancer, okay. - Not good. - Dipping snuffing, not good cancers. Okay, oral nicotine, oh, vaping. It turns out it's not good for us. Really not good. The chemicals associated with it, probably a bit safer than smoking, but this is really wild. The behavioral data say because you can do it anywhere, pretty much, people are doing far more of it. They're taking in far more nicotine and they're now having issues, long issues, and issues related to nicotine growth. - So smoking was less healthy and maybe more dangerous puff, but because the number of puffs that you're consuming from vaping, because you can do it in more places and it's more tasty and there's less fatigue from it. - Yeah. - Means that maybe the healthier delivery mechanism of vaping versus smoking is more than offset to the point where it's more dangerous. - Right, wow. - In the same way that cannabis, you don't say it's good or bad. Yes, it nukes REM sleep, but that's very, very bad. It can cause psychosis in certain males have a predisposition as psychosis, but you'd say, smoking cannabis, people are able to put themselves into a plane of high that is not freaking them out. They can take one tog, when I was in college, everyone was just like, did bong or epsilon, like, you know, and then, but you knew if you could do half a one or one or you wouldn't go like four and then wait and see what happens. Some people did that, that didn't work out so well, but with an edible, the problem is people can ingest 150 milligrams of THC like that and then they're freaking out. In some cases it can trigger a psychotic episode that lasts a long time or doesn't reverse. And so it's the ease of ingestion. So that's the vaping thing. That the oral nicotines, what they're here to stay, humans have, since the discovery of nicotine have found a way to get their nicotine. Same with caffeine, they've just found a way to, they're not gonna quit, but a lot of young people using nicotine, they should just be aware of how addictive it is and the fact that it raises blood pressure. And I think that, you know, usually you can scare guys out of it a little bit by just saying, oh, it's vasoconstriction and, you know, the act can have some sexual side effects, but nowadays people are using pharmacology to combat pharmacology, you know, and thanks to- - Not if it's serious. - Mike Eisenberg and other people, you know, like I've said, you know, that's a low dose, to dial a fill for prostate health, but then people go, well, if you take a little bit more, then it's like a sex drug and like that kind of thing. It's, you know, anyway, it was developed as a prostate drug, but to vasodilator does that combat the vasoconstriction of nicotine? Yeah, in theory, but now you're doing like, sort of a push pull, bad language. You're now doing a push pull between, you know, one set of effects and another set of effects. And, you know, I would say, this is just biobservation. You know, people in their teens, 20s, 30s, even early 40s, you really want to get away with it, using as little pharmacology as necessary. - This was why, for, you know, during my Manopause monk mode, era, I did a thousand- - You're what? - Manopause monk, I went monk mode. Would you say like Manopause? - Yeah, that's too young for Manopause. - Manopause, no, Manopause is end of 20s. Listen, I go, I told you- - We got to return to that. Manopause is, and- - Manopause, Manopause. - Your Androgens dropped at the end of your 20s? - It's a colloquial broscience term that I use to describe when guys stop behaving the way that they did in their adult influence. - I have so many thoughts about that hat, and none of them good. Please take that off, but you know. - So a lot of the time, like when I was doing my period of personal development, becoming a proper human, I did a thousand days without alcohol and 500 days without caffeine, because I wanted to prove to myself, I don't need to use any of these things. I don't need to buttress my life with this. I wanted to have that in the back of my mind, that if there was ever a period, because I knew for the rest of my life, that was gonna be like around parties, I was gonna be around like caffeine. That's like my thing, right? And now I have a company that does it. Something that's kind of interesting. we've been doing these, which are these patches. And those, I think, by the end of next year, we could do more volume and pouches, more revenue and pouches than in cans, because of how many people want to dial back their nicotine. So many people feel like I'm not in control of my nicotine usage, and the delivery mechanism has been locked in. - And it's easy to take, and we'll talk about the canister. By the way, if you write a 600 page book, what happens is you stare at things up close, your eyeball lengthens and you become myopic. - You worsen your eyesight because you wrote the book. You literally damaged your eye. - But, at the end of this year, right after this book promotion tour is done, I'm going to spend a lot of time staring at horizons and hiking in the mountains, and I might even go hunting this year. So, yeah, that's why I'm wearing these. And we look at it, this is crazy. This prescription. - You tried to make me put them on there. - Yeah, no, you're blind. - You're blind. - I like bottle glasses, whole bottle. - So, yeah, when you stare at things too close, you become nearsighted. So, kids, adults. - Be careful. - Get some long-view vision each day. My vision at distance is great, but up close is loyalty. So, the other thing about this and these canisters is it's interesting, you know that I'm not trying to diverge topics here, but you know, like we'll get to peptides, I'm sure. But, you know, the pens that the GLPs use, the pen with needle, you know, has basically gotten people over their needle phobia. It turns out it was the plunger people were afraid of. I don't like needles. Do I have to inject myself? It turns out if you put the needle at the end of something, it looks like a pen. Everyone's pinning themselves. Men, women, people are just pinning themselves. These canisters are interesting because they have like a tactile field, a little bit like chips at the casino. But when I was a kid, there was a jerky. Do you remember this? There was a beef jerky that came in a canister that looked like tobacco. And kids, oh, this stuff was horrible. You would take a pinch of beef jerky and you'd put it in your lip. We were like nine years old, 10 years old. And then you'd eat the beef jerky eventually. You'd just cause playing as your dad. Kids, my dad didn't chew. He did occasionally smoke a cigar or pipe my grandfather's milk to pipe, but yeah. For the people that did. Yeah, so it was like, you would, so we were like little kids, we were little kids walking around lipping beef jerky, beef not licking, lipping beef jerky. And so, and it was, they clearly figured out that like candy cigarettes and, you know, and so there is something about the pout that came in. There it is. There it is, jerky stuff. No, no, it's called jerky stuff. That looks so gross, oh my God. It looks like the fluff that you find in your pocket. It's called jerky stuff. Look at this. Ready? There you go, jerky stuff. And you would, you would stuff your cheek or you'd stuff your lip. Wow. Yeah. This was a thing. So it was kind of like jerky flavoured soar dust. It was, and also barely any, it was probably like four grams of protein per day. In the intact. And you would pay more for it. And it was because it was, you know, a good way to take in something. So these canisters are also re-enforced. Yeah, it's really tactile, it's nice. And also like, you know, it's your back pocket. Guys love carrying something in their back pocket. Nobody wants to carry the man purse. You know, I might have brought like a small zip thing to the gym today. I did see that. I did see that. Yeah, you didn't ask what was in it, but I'm not going to tell you. What are the spiciest protocols that you weren't able to put in the book? What was the stuff that you wished that you could have clearance on? Right. So the book is everything I'm certain about that we understand the mechanisms for and that I know work. Not just because I experienced that, but because many, many people have and we have great data to support it. Like everything's substantiated. There's only one protocol that's a little bit out there. And I said, this is kind of out there. We have a little bit of data, not a ton, but here's why I'm including it. And I think you might want to try this 'cause it can really help you fall asleep when you talk about this. But we know why it ought to work. I don't talk about psychedelics. Although I do fit them into a framework along plasticity and learning. And so they make sense of when they might, might be the appropriate tool. I don't talk about hormone therapies and I don't talk about peptides. In part because the data are still coming and also because they'll likely be a second book. Although, if you write a book like this long with thousands of references and it can damage relationships in your life, people have been super understanding. This book basically acted as a filter in my own life for like, who really loves me, right? So, but look, it's big, but it also operates as a door stop, a weapon. - Yeah, I was gonna say that. - If you're feeling not quite tall enough at the table, you can sit on it and Thanksgiving. And as I joke, if nothing else, it'll cure insomnia. - Very nice, okay. What are some protocols that you fully believe in, but you can't scientifically prove? - Ooh, that's really good. Okay, yeah, let's just be blunt here. But these would be things that aren't in the book, right? Okay, 'cause everything there is substantiated by mechanism and description. So, I've had some wild experiences with a couple of peptides that most people, some people have heard about. You know, I don't have shoulder pain. I've never had shoulder pain. But about three, four months ago, I made the decision. I was like, "You know, I should start doing some heavy pressing again." I'm doing my dips, I do my overhead press. I just start doing some, like, I don't like flat benching, so I do some low incline pressing. And after about three months, two, three months, I started getting some shoulder pains. I started doing some external rotation work. I'm like, "This thing isn't going away." Like, "What is this?" Maybe I need to back off and say, "You know what?" Like, "It's pretty bad." I'm gonna just put two injections of BPC in there. So two injections of maybe a hundred or 200 microgames, tiny amounts, right? Gone history. Can't find the pain. It's gone. Now, is it placebo? I don't know. Maybe it is. I mean, I knew what I was injecting. A better experiment would have been someone, you know, traded out saline. And I go, "Oh, you know, that didn't happen." That's pretty incredible. The animal data are really impressive. And I know a number of people with pets, dogs in particular, have been injecting their animals with BPC 'cause their dogs are getting older. I don't want name names here 'cause I haven't cleared it with them, but they have dogs that either had spinal strokes or just aged and were limping and not doing well. And they asked, you know, does this stuff work in animals? I'm like, "All the data are in animals." You know. So mouse and rat owners, like you're mice and rats will live. If you rupture the attempt, that's a big, big thing. 'Cause there are a lot of data on that. But I know a lot of people now injecting their dogs, aged dogs and saying, "Oh my goodness, this is crazy." Like they're immobile, et cetera. And it's hard to give the placebo argument there. I mean, you could say that the owners are doing other things, like they're also massaging it. More care, they didn't do the saline control, you know. But kind of hard to explain it away. Okay. So the other one is pinealon. Pinealon is ironically is a peptide that doesn't come from the pineal, comes from brain tissue. Epitalin comes from the pineal. Who names this stuff is like it's insane. But I've experimented with pinealon every third or fourth night taking about a, you know, 10th of an IU. And in those nights, those nights that get anywhere from two and a half to three hours of REM sleep, that's a lot of REM sleep inside of six to seven hours, inside of six hours. You're kind of cheating the system because like, wow, like normally I'd have to get into my last third of sleep, which for me is seven or eight hours in order to total in order to get that REM enriched phase, which always comes at the end of the night. But what's so wild is that on the subsequent nights, I also experience this massive REM increase. So it's, I've cut that back to doing it once a week or once every 10 days and still getting the same effect. The only downside for me is that the next day, I can feel not foggy, but I feel like it's harder to become fully alert. I can still focus, but you're asleep in usha maybe. And I know people who are taking it in the daytime because they like being in this kind of shallow plane of sleep wake from cognitive work. That's not me, but you know, there's talk about, I don't, you know, I mean, rumors, whatever. There's talk about people at tech companies who are like, oh yeah, if you're gonna do something for, you know, 12 hours, that's like really laborious. Maybe this is good. I don't know, so that's been interesting. You know, I think there's a lot of excitement nowadays about growth hormones, secreta dogs, things like Tesla Morellen, hyper Morellen, and CJC. I'm not a fan. They've always nuked my REM sleep. They've always spiked my PSA. I just, for me, they don't, they don't tend to work. I am curious about, but I don't think I'm old enough yet to really embark on a somatotrop growth hormone experiment but the clinical trial exploring low-dose growth hormone for people. - That would be exogenous, right? - That would be exogenous, yeah. That's intriguing to me, but there there are data, right there are data, but I feel like 51, like still in this place where I feel good. So, so there's no real science there. The other, sorry, aside from the growth hormone thing, the other stuff is there's animal data, not human data, but my experience has been pretty impressive. Now of course, maybe I gave myself a tumor by injecting the BC, I have to acknowledge that. But a whole body MRI tells me no. So, you know, the things that, well, I've talked about this openly. So, I'm happy to talk about it. You know, you'll find clinical trials on MDMA assisted psychotherapy. therapy for PTSD. You'll find clinical trial, beautiful clinical trial data, in my opinion, on psilocybin for depression and PTSD. You won't find a lot of data combining them. I've, I've experimented in a clinical setting with combining them, right? This is done in a legal clinical setting. So, you know, that means therapy going in therapy during therapy coming out. You have to be very thoughtful about where you do this and who you do it with. They have to, all the adequate supports have to be there. But for me, that was incredible. I have to say that psilocybin alone was helpful, but didn't really feel like it resolved certain things for me. MDMA was helpful in being feeling feelings, et cetera. That first, that kind of first and second been acknowledging the thing and really feeling the things. But the moving through part was really, for me, was un-coupling the negative feelings from the negative thing, but also replacing the negative feelings with positive feelings. That really came about through that combination therapy and you won't find a lot of data on that. I mean, it's unfortunately, the data on polypharmacology of different psychedelics is in there yet. But then again, the FDA approval for the first single treat, you know, single ingredient approaches aren't there yet. And so that's why people have to go out of country to do this or else it's illegal. So I think that the, you know, the data on I began a really intriguing. We've had conversations with people that are very open about the fact that they did it and it's helped them. I know a number of people are trying to get us to go down to Mexico. And are we going to go on a daily basis? I feel like I'm being peppered by somebody else to go, hey, man, just come down and turn your life upside down for a week in fucking Mexico. I don't know. I have a friend that's there right now. And I told him not to go honestly. I'm sorry. But I just was like, you don't, he doesn't have a substance to abuse issue. So maybe that's PTSD. But I think there's this idea also with peptides that we can just up level ourselves. Like people say, should I use peptides? Like what, what effect are you looking for better? You know, sort of like, you know, it's sort of like should I invest in blank? It's like, well, what effect are you looking for? And they're like more, they want more money. So it's, it's understandable. People want to feel better. It's like you feel seven out of 10. Could you feel 10 out of 10? If you feel 10 out of 10, could you change what 10 means? And be eight out of a new 10 that's way better than your current 10 out of 10? Like that's an intriguing idea. But I'm not so afraid of the I began to be honest, done in the proper clinic with heart rate monitoring. The thing I'm afraid of is the DMT. Yeah, because they have to hit you with that the day after and then pretty much straight after as well. How's the number of people who've done DMT and they're I mean, I know plenty they've done DMT and they're okay. I know a lot who've done DMT and they're genuinely weird now. Not all of them, but some of them are like legit weird. And they were not that weird before. Some are perfectly fine. The other thing is a guy like DJ, he's talked about this, right? I love that podcast that you guys did by the way. Like the DJ is a solid mind. You know, so what also who's starting from a very low baseline, if you're sad watching the sunset with a gun in your mouth, like you're already what what's going to be worse, you know, like you've already considered taking your own life. Okay, wait, you go to smoke the thing, take the drugs, see how you feel. Yeah, I mean, it seems to really helped him and Marcus and some of them enough that he's trying to be a like matrede for me and you, but a matrede that sits down at the table. What if we go to sleep one night, not near each other, of course. And although actually, you know, what we live, it's so funny is, so I, I got a place that turned out to be really close to Chris, spitting disc. It's going to be like the podcaster neighborhood if we're not careful. It's cool. And we ended up being neighbors, good taste, good taste in neighborhoods. But what if you go to sleep in your house, and I go see my house, and then we, we wake up in in Mexico in this clinic, I just DJ's done a lot because someone is. I go fucking my do road by D or T.J. Shipley. Yeah. Exactly. I've had similar things happen in totally different contexts a years ago, where I was supposed to get dropped off after working with this. Some friends have this awesome band. And they were supposed to drop me off back at my lab in my car. And I woke up in Utah. They drove to Utah in the middle of the night. Well, God, I was like, where are we? Like Utah is like, you're one of us now. This is my good friend, Elvis Cortez. He's actually the one that found me Costello and love Elvis. He's great. But yeah, they technically, they kidnapped me, but it was, it was a lot fun. That was, that was many years ago. I don't know. I don't know. Well, we'll see. There are other things that are, perhaps a little less of the Mount Everest of that stuff. Yeah, lower, lower risk. But you seem to be in a really good place now. That's true. But still there's always the sort of ability to show up versus how much of the four steps have you done in terms of being able to get over. Yeah. Well, how do you respond when people say, they go, oh my goodness, like, here you are looking for this next thing and the thing you can do. And they, and they just say, Chris, what you really need to do is get married and have a couple of kids. I agree. And that will be the cycle. I agree. I say, yes, plus, plus two golden retrievers. I agree. And I say, yes. And they're not, preaching to the side, two girls and retrievers, golden retrievers, golden retrievers. I mean, I, that's a Freudian slip from you. No, it's a Freudian slip from you. I said, fucking golden retrieval. People can rewind the tape. I completely agree. I completely, I completely agree on that. And I've said this before, like, I'm the most ardent guy without kids, supporter and ambassador for guys just starting a fucking family. And it's not for me to say, hey, I want you to stop your ambition and the same for women too, like you would stop your socioeconomic climb and doing all this stuff. Just like so many of the things that I see people doing, you know, young people and people that are getting into more middle age, like sorry, get families. It's like the business that you're building, the further with which you're going after this political party or this new sort of social campaign or this like obsessive hobby that you've got or trying to become wealthy or whatever. A lot of that to me looks and feels like this is the energy that you would be putting into a family, especially the existential energy that you've gotten. I'm like, I think a lot of your, I don't really know what my purpose is. I don't feel like I'm contributing more largely to the world. All of these questions that people have like, why am I here? It's like, well, a lot of this I think has kind of been solved throughout time, which is like you do the golden retriever thing and the family thing, like golden retrievers do confess that is an important caveat for me. Interesting choice of breed. I just want an animal that can't, that there is no danger of it competing with me cognitively. So I want something that's both cuddly and stupid. So I would. Retrievers are not all stupid. I'm going to I'm going to try and find a breed of golden retriever, which is particularly fluffy and stupid. Just find a dog with a really flat head in your single digit IQ golden retriever. I mean, if you think about the massive breeds, they're all very sweet and they have flat heads and they look at you like, you know, so the, the mastiffs, the bulldogs, the, you know, the boxers that they're smart about certain things, but they're kind of like dog with a flat head. Okay. You know, you doing phonology for dogs? I mean, I, I went to this is fucking phonology for dogs. I went to the meat the breeds in New York and met hundreds of breed. Second time I've done this, right? And walk through and met all the different reason. I can tell you a couple things. First of all, people look like their dogs. Okay. So you do look a lot like stroma. You know the, thank you. The otter hounds, like these otter hounds, their owners look like otter hounds. It's crazy. The bulldogs are kind of like the, the demeanor of the people and you're just, and it's wild. You have to go. It's so much fun. It's a job at Center each year. It's awesome. You meet all the breeds. I walked down to there and I was like, you know, I turned to my girlfriend. I go getting a bulldog breed. I'm getting a mutt because I've been around enough dogs. I've experienced them all and the, the mudded bullies, not the pure bullies, but the mudded bullies they're, they're kind, they're vigorous. They're got a little bit of goofiness. They're very emotional in a good way. But then they also like get over there. They're just like a little heatiness sometimes. And, and they'll back you. Like they will, they will fight to the death for you. But if your life's not on the line, like they're not doing shit at all. They're not reactive. I mean, are you kidding me? So, yeah, I, well, listen, I hope you get a dog. Then the dogs can hang out in the neighborhood. And I do think that, no, I mean, family is awesome. I mean, family is amazing. So what's the, what's the delay? You're right. It's very difficult. I tried. Yeah. First, I've needed to get the dog thing. I always felt guilty because my mom and dad had been so good with dogs. Like they would, they walked them all the time. They gave them a great life. And I would feel, I've seen what a good life for a dog looks like. And I would feel incredibly guilty not being able to, and I can pay someone, I'm sure, or I can bring them to the office, bring them on the trip, or whatever. I'm like, I don't want to have a dog that's flying once a week, or you know, that I'm having trouble that much. Do you travel that much? I did what, like a hundred thousand miles, and maybe 80 flights last year. I've done, like a new, yeah, a thousand miles. I don't do that stuff for kids. You want to be present for your kids. Of course. Of course. And that, but that is another thing that I think is, it's kind of beautiful if you frame it this way, and at least maybe this is just cope from me, that if you take the, oh my god, maybe I have just been surrogate family building with this business, or with this hobby, or with this body, or whatever this finance is investing, whatever it is that you've been doing with your time, skill building. But on the flip side of that, I think if you've really closed a lot of the different loops of like, I really feel like I've put it all out there on the table, I do get the sense that there is an additional level of presence that's afforded to you because materially, hopefully you're pretty well set. - I can tell you, I mean, I don't want to get into details in my personal life, but 100%. I'll also tell you there's a hard driving, like in pursuit of knowledge, skills and resources person, which you are, which I am, and which our teams are also. I mean, very, very few things feel as good as being able to resource the people around you that you love. - Of course. - Like, there's like, yes, your presence, obviously, it's not just about earning money and giving them things, but being able to relieve suffering, however minor or major, being able to resource people to be in their full expression or what they want to do, like, I think very few things will feel as satisfying as that, especially if you, and I say that based on knowing you, but also your prior statement. The fact that you don't want a dog yet, because you want the dog to be thoroughly resourced by the love that you're gonna provide, tells you everything you need to know. - David Parello does how I write and write a passage. It was when I first moved to Austin, and he's got a similar age to me, and he said, we're having coffee. He turned to me one day, and he said, "You know what, man? "I realized that most of my 20s and 30s "would just spend becoming the dad "that I want my future kids to have." And I wasn't even bothered about having kids. And all of the accumulation of skills, of habits, of closing the loops of desires that he wanted to pursue, it's an adventure and all of this stuff, he'd got rid of that. And he said, you know, I feel like I'm here, is a way that you could say it. It's like, I actually feel like I'm fucking here, and I think a lot of guys, and you see this, with a lot of dads and mums too. I've got these unrequited dreams and children sort of imposed on them, and there's this, you know, low-key perhaps resentment of, oh, I'm doing this thing, but you don't know what I sacrificed for you, and then there's the shame, oh my God, what sort of a monster am I, to blame my kids that I chose to have, because I didn't fulfill my dreams beforehand. (whistles) - Yeah, because-- - It does really messy. - Yeah, I mean, I want to be thoughtful with my words here, 'cause again, I do like to maintain some sense of privacy in my life, but I will say that it does check off a sort of a deep, what must be a primitive circuit of satisfaction, like having kids is a really good feeling, like it just feels like you fulfilled something of duty, you know, that feels really, really good. And at the same time, it comes with all sorts of challenges and complications, you know, but yeah, I think that, you know, it's become this kind of ongoing debate, you know, between me and Lacks, or like, you know, is like a, like, you know, but I think that, look, it sounds like there are gonna be a lot of kids to wrestle and play. - I can't wait, it is a competition between me, you and him for who have kids last, but we'll see who's the holder. - I think I, well, I'm gonna-- - Yeah, yeah, there we go. - There we go. - I'm gonna keep my mouth shut. But, in, 'cause we all never mind. Wait, I'll take this back. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's signing me crazy. - So, I've been asking you questions. This feels good. I didn't tell you that the last page of the book is where I do therapy on you. No, I'm just kidding. - No, but can I, can I read my acknowledgement to you? - Absolutely. - 'Cause I, I didn't even, I didn't even get to that bit. - Oh, we're over the fuck. - I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this. I acknowledge you, here. I, here we go. So, it's brief, because the acknowledgement's heard. - Five pages long. - I think there's eight pages of song. But, I figure if you're gonna do something, you just do it. So, I just put a bunch of names. I put you, Chris Williamson, for your friendship. And for breathing so much life into the podcast, and what I refer to is that everyone's fear. Because I don't think you're about the manosphere. I think you're about the human sphere. But human sphere sounded weird. So, I said everyone's fear. So, I mean it, you breathe so much life into this thing. Like, I remember first seeing you online, and then you on Rogan and us. You know, and not a skeptic. I always want the best. And I thought, well, who's this guy with this British accent? And like, so, you know, and why are the women in my life asking me if you single? And, and I go, well, this guy is really smart. He's really nuanced. And he seems like a really cool guy. And you totally exceeded expectations on all those things. And it's awesome to just see what you're doing. And also, day or night, you're available for an emergency or an adventure call. You'll get to the gym early on jet lag. You'll, and you've been super honest and vulnerable in your online end in our, in your that career and relationship with your audience, but also just one-on-one. I, you know, there, for anyone that wonders, Chris is who he appears to be on the internet. Which is really a better off of us. No, for better, man, for better. Like, it's an honor to have you as a friend, you're great, too, man. Great friend, and I feel very fortunate. It is, it is really cool, you know, I think, one of the almost inarguable great parts of life is becoming respected and admired by people that you respect and admire. Like, it's one of the coolest things that you can do. My back is also hurting. So I'm trying to self massage at the same time. We did neck training as well. We did a few face pulls. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah. This is sounding terrible. Jeff Cavaliere has an exercise called face pulls. Well, we did some neck training because, as we both know, having the wrong head place, like a, if a neck is too narrow with wide shoulders, it looks, what do you call the coat hanger? Yeah, you look like a coat hanger. Yeah, that's my kid. But you don't look like a coat hanger. Thank you. Yeah, becoming admired and respected by people that you admire and respect is just one of the fucking coolest things. It really is. Like, I like that person. I think they've got good taste. I think they're noble. I don't think that they're spiritually chinless. And they, if ever there was a Chris Williams and his spiritually chinless, I don't know, borrow that, but I'll give you attributes. It's Adam Mastriani, originally, originally, originally. So I'm looking around. What, you didn't make that up? No, spiritually chinless is from Adam Mastriani. Oh. Well, you know that song breaking rocks in the hot sun. I fought the law in the look. That's a cover of a cover of a cover. Okay. But everyone assumes the clash. It's fine. You're in centipede of spiritually chinless now. The guy at the very, very end. I'm going to just give it to you. Adam Mastriani. They give that song to the cast. I'll take it. Spiritual chinless. So, you see these people and you go, wow, they're cool. I respect them in a way that I think is really, really sort of noble and aligned. And then if you manage to do something in that industry or a different industry and they turn to you and they say, hey, like, I like what you do, think, holy fuck, like, that's really cool. And can people take it to an extreme? You have, of course. Basically, construct your entire life trying to reverse engineer being liked by people that you like. And that's the, like, charlatan social climber that doesn't have anything below them. But assuming the people that you respect are discerning and one of the reasons that you respect them is that they are discerning, you shouldn't be able to finesse or fougaisy them for moose them into believing something they don't believe or you being a person that you aren't. So, yeah, man, like, I really hope that everybody that's listening to this gets to experience what it's like to sit opposite someone that they were a fan of and then became a friend of. Like, it's the fucking coolest thing in the world. It's really, really cool. - Well, that statement includes my experience of you, you know, fan of and then became friends of it. You've got an awesome life energy. I mean, we don't want to spiral into a whole other conversation but maybe for a future time. But I think a lot about energy these days, not just mitochondria, but like, some people genuinely have, I'm gonna offend some people. There's some people just have more life energy in them. And I think I like to think that if you're thoughtful, what you are, and I try to be, that you want to allocate their life energy toward career and pursuits and health and resolving the, and then pivots that energy, but doesn't decide, you know, I'm gonna shift all my chips to this and then all my chips to that. You have a lot of energy to go around. You know, Rob on my team, my producer of the podcast is such an engine of productivity and running and he's got a family now. And it's like, you always hear these things. Like, people have kids and then they like slow it. Like, he's picked up speed. We're just like, whoa. And, you know, I think some people just have that extra gear. Some people don't. And they need to take whatever they've been allocated and do maximize with that. And some people just have a tremendous amount of life energy. And I think the goal is to not die at 27 if you have a lot of that energy, right? You think about the 27 club. It's almost like, took all the energy of a life and crammed it into this early existence. Usually it's drugs and alcohol, I think. Yeah, you know. So, but you also don't want a, like a low slow arc in life that you never figure out what your peaks are. Put your fucking foot on the gas. Yeah, I mean, I'm in the third quarter now. So I figure I'm it, you know. So speaking of engine, I texted you about this last week. What is happening with the VO2 max versus zone 2 debate? Because when I was thinking more deeply about, like, I'm getting a little bit older, I should pay attention to my cardio, respiratory fitness and stuff like that. Low and slow was like everything that was sexy. Yeah, you send me that Jeffrey Dalmer video. Yeah, it wasn't a fucking Jeffrey Dalmer. He sent me a video of a guy talking about this. It was very good video. And my first thought was the guy looks like Jeffrey Dalmer. So I mean, a little hard to listen to watch. So I just started listening to it said that would have been good. What's happening with the VO2 max versus zone 2 debate at the moment, in your opinion? Because for a long time, it was focused exclusively on low and slow. And now it seems like to the O2. more high intensity, Norwegian 4x4 is increasing the important. I think the word to delete there is exclusively. I think my read of the data is you need some volume of cardio training to get that quote unquote aerobic base that can be very beneficial. I mean, the sorts of adaptations that come from doing 45 to 60 minutes of long and slow. We're not talking walking, but zone two, three ish. I don't ever think of zone two. I think about upper zone two, zone three, around there where you just barely can continue without, you know, you could try, if you tried to speak, you would have to pause a few times as opposed to just super easy. I mean, you are getting build up a more capillary networks, which has a lot of positive downstream consequences. You're getting all sorts of enrichment of the mitochondrial system and genuine enrichment of the cardiovascular system. But I think doing that once a week, so I make it a point to do a long, slow jog, so 45 to 60 minutes or so once a week, or a rock for, usually if I hike, I'm going for longer than an hour, with some weight or something like that, it's often social with somebody. And then once a week, I'll do the, I feel like I'm going to die, hit workout, which for me is the Airdon bike, 20 on, 10 off of us, eight rounds. And by the seventh round, you're just like cursing everybody in yourself and you get off that thing, you feel so good. You probably cough a few times, because you're just breathing that hard. And I actually just, I do the crude measurement of heart rate, like 220 minus my age, and then figure out like what my heart rate is, a percentage of that max heart rate, right? Let's see, we get max, so hit like 85, 90% of. Are you wearing a chest strap for some? I don't. So I talk about this in a book. You're not fucking fingering your heart rate. Are you? Your choice of language now. You with your, your, your, your criticisms. Look, I get it. You want two wives and a golden retriever. You said that and you're fingering your heart rate. I just put my fingers on my neck and record my pulse, or I just, and I'm looking at a stopwatch. So absurdly low. And I do that for 30 seconds. And then I double it. And I'm probably off by, you know, plus or minus, you know, five beats, but I'm, you know, in the ballpark. And you'll like fucking shroding as podcaster. You're someone who is both very forward thinking, like technologically prepared. I excited about AI and also using like a fucking sundial and your fingers to work out. So funny. I, my girlfriend, I birthday recently and she, we, we are this like compass sundial, which is so cool. I love primitive and very advanced tools. And I look at you. I do think yeah, primitive. And thank you. I book and thank you. And not a lot in the middle. You're the ball bell. You are the ball bell of a human. Thank you. Actually, I'll take that. There's a great song called street wise professor that I love. It was referring to somebody else. But, yeah, sort of like a barbarian intellectual. It's not the other way. It's something like that. Defined. So the once a week, get your heart rate up in your maximum for six to ten minutes. Maybe do a mile, mile trial, you know, for most people, there'll be somewhere between six and ten unless you're really, really fast. In which case it'll be less or slow. In which case, it'll be longer. So jog two laps. I talk about this in the book and then do a mile time once every two or three week, two or three months. You do no region four by four. You do the air. The nice thing about the airdine bike, like 20 on 10 off. You can stop it majorly. It's like, yeah. And after six to eight rounds of that, you're smoked, you hop in the shower and you go, but you, it takes so little time. It takes so little time. We're also using the reason the airdine is so great or an assault bike, you know, echo bike, you're like handles and it's the whole body handles and feet bike of choice. The reason that that for me is a superior form for what we're trying to do, which is get heart rate as high as possible, is that you're getting to use your arms as well. If you try and do that on a bike egg, which is a fucking awesome piece of equipment. If you could give me any piece of cardio equipment, I'd choose a bike egg. It's super comfy. You can speed up. Then your calves won't fit in the room. That's true. Your calves, but not mine. You're only using your legs, which means that your legs are going to be burning like hell. Okay. If I can get a little bit more, I mean, if I was a better rower or a ski, I imagine you can probably get to a even higher, higher, higher heart. Yes and no. I mean, the rower, I mean, it's not a super skill. It's not brain surgery, but getting the row form proper is not as easy. As long as you set the seat height, right? You can't really screw it up. Go as hard as you can to get your heart rate elevated for six to eight rounds, but do it in a way that you're not going to hurt yourself. The skier thing, it's not like you're going to hurt yourself, but like you said, it's hard to get the heart rate way, way out. That once a week, the longer thing once a week. Then in the middle of the week, I just do a 30 minute run that somewhere in between or a 30 minute swim that somewhere in between. So five minutes of warm up, perhaps, you know, just like jogging. Then you do a 25 to 30 minute run where you're in your zone four, right? You're breathing hard and you know you could go faster, but you don't. Because then you got that hit workout later and two days later or a day later, and I talk and then I'm just interspersing three days of working out with weights in one day legs somewhere in the week, one day torso. Today we did a push. So it's chest shoulders neck. And then another day of the week, you're doing, you know, biceps, triceps, calves, maybe neck again. Definitely. I'm big on abdominal work these days, core work, not just abdominal. Well, do you have favorite exercise? Pikes. Pikes. Pikes. What the fuck is that? You hang from the bar. Okay. So you're working your grip like you do knee ups to 90 degrees slow without swinging back and forth. You do five of those drop down. Then you see if you can do knee up legs out. So L sit. Can you go back? Do five of those. If you can do five of, and you just build this up, if you can't do the L sit, you just do what I'll do five sets of five of the of the knee ups next time I come back and try and do at least one or two L sits. So then you're doing five, if you can do five L sits. So you're just bring your knees up then straighten straightening your legs. You're still holding, right? You're also getting the grip strength work. Then you lower slowly. If you do five of those, then you start, you can do the one knee at a time. Kick out, kick out, kick out, drop one, bring down one leg at a time. And then over time, what you're trying to do is bring your your feet up to your hands on the bar without just swinging back and forth, not using your lower abs. Five sets of five or even three sets of five on the pikes. And especially if you're hanging from a thick bar, you're really working your your grip. That's a great ab work. And I do back hyper extensions. And so keeps your core really, really strong. Why are you bothered about Tulsa work so much? You want strong abs, you want strong midsection, and you want strong lower back muscles. I mean, I, I noticed that basically all injuries for me, little nagging injuries completely disappear. Even if I'm sitting a lot, I don't have any pain, if I'm doing, I make sure I get a hundred reps of hyper extensions per week. Just so I don't care when I put them in. Sometimes I'll put always at the end of a workout, but I'll put them at the end of arm day or leg day or back day. I'll just mix them up. I just, I have a commitment to a hundred reps. And I started getting strong enough that I can do them with one leg. So on the 45 degree, you just, you sort of like kick up one leg like you're a horse getting your shoe in your zone. The GHD, that would have been insane. No, not on the GHD. I don't do those on the GHD. And then I just go slow and controlled. You don't want to be tilting from one side to the neck. So you really discover any imbalances that are there. You're bracing yourself and you just, I'll do five, five reps, switch to the other leg back and forth, back and forth. And now I'm at the place where I can hold some weight or use a band. And I'll tell you that having those strong spinal erector muscles, like my default posture is suffered in writing this book, even with a standing desk, because you're just looking down. Exactly. Exactly. But yeah, there's some recovery that needs happening. But I did buy an inversion table. Those are fun. I love hanging. I've tried, I've tried. Yeah, you have to be careful. If you have I pressure issues like glaucoma, you can blow a gasket. You can make glaucoma worse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I pressure upside down, not good. And I'm glaucoma. So I knock on wood. But having a strong lower back, I notice leg days are so much stronger, pressing, pulling everything just to get stronger. And you don't want any weak links in the chain. And I think Jeff Cavaliere really nails it when he says you want to do the small things, like face pulls, back hyper extensions, the glute medius work to stabilize the pelvis. Those little things allow you to do the big things for much longer. People will say, "Oh, that stuff is like namby-pamby stuff. You need to do just your squats and deadlifts and split squats." And yeah, the way you do those things into your fifties, like me, with yeah, this little shoulder thing, but no biggie, is and continue to get stronger is by doing the little things. And if you do the little things, you stay strong and healthy. If you don't, you are the person who's complaining about your back, who can't deadlift, or you're using a deadlift bar with elevated handles from plates, you know, it's not good. It's just you're becoming weaker through negligence, which is, it's excusable, but it takes three minutes to do some hyper extensions. For most educated people as well, that into that training, they know that what they're doing is trading short-term gain for long-term fragility, because they've got five minutes left at the end of their session, and they're going to go and do another set of bicep curls, instead of going to go and do some hyper extensions or whatever, right? Like it's always a trade-off, and there's a level of ignorance where you're allowed to not do the thing that you didn't know you were supposed to do. Totally. But for most people that listen to you and listen to me, like, My brother, you know that you should be doing lower back work. You know that you should be doing some ability work. You know that you should be getting your heart rate above 170. You know that you should be going low and slow. You know you need to be walking after meals, the ten minute walk, post-prondial thing. Like, you know these things. It's the ignorance is no longer an excuse for you. Oh, it's all out there. I mean, especially since, and I talked about mobility in the book, it's basically get your knee behind your, each knee behind your glutes at least once per day. Like a couch stretch? Well, yeah, like a couch stretch. Like Kelly Starat talks about, or just a lunge, where you're stretching your hip flexors out, because sitting, walking, almost everything is, like, knee in front of the glutes. Right? You could skip like Stu McMillan, but then you have to have the confidence to be a skipper. Are you sitting and holding? Is this more like a yin-yo type? Yeah, you could do it. I talk about just getting your knee behind your glutes or your foot up on a chair or stool and stretching that out if you're at the airport or something. I'll do, you know, 10 seconds per side, three times per side. You want to try and squat down once per day, as I talked about, like, sumo squat, put elbow on inside one knee, and then looking up, being able to look up from the squat and position point directly overhead, most people can't do this right away. They have to, you know, start here and gradually, you know, over a week or so, get to the point where they can look straight up at their finger, and then you want to be able to do it to the other side too, right? What are you doing here? You're getting stretching through neck, thoracic spine, shoulder. It's not, look, they're great mobility programs, so most people don't make the time or have the time. These are the minimum, right? You do the squatting things. You do a couple of those. Then I talk about doing reverse, what gymnasts would call, like, kids would call like the crab pose, where you're in a reverse tabletop, where you put, you know, you can push up for shoulder extension. I don't have like, excessively good shoulder extension, but I can get my shoulders behind me, no problem. You know, you have horrible shoulder extension. Okay, so working on that a little bit gradually, and then there's something in there that I didn't develop, which is called, which I, which is really cool, called the founders pose. And I describe it there. It's from, it looks a little bit like a chair sit in yoga, but it's actually for the posterior chain. And I talk about that, and that's described there. Someone else's creation, I want to be clear, and I credit him, was really, really cool. And those four things take, you know, five minutes to do maximum. You can do them anywhere. You can do them watching Netflix. You can do them at your desk. You can do them spread throughout the day to maintain some level of mobility. The other thing is, use a full range of motion in your resistance training sets. Strength is gained through the range it's trained. No, that's good. I like that. Full range of motion and holding tension on the stretched position. Not, you know, indefinitely, right? Don't turn it into an isometric. But, you know, really like on your hamstring curls, making sure that you're setting the machine such that on your seated or lying leg curls, you're really holding tension in the stretch, not passively stretching. And I find like my range of motion is pretty darn good. It's not amazing. You know, I was real stiff for a bit in my mid-back and I did some work to get over that. You just move better, you feel better, you'll be more comfortable. So, yes, I think that what you're pointing out that there's really no excuse for people once they have the knowledge gets to a deeper psychology. I don't want to parse this, you know, infinitum, but there are two things that I think are worth stating out loud. One is that if you're somebody who's in pursuit of taking care of yourself and doing well, there are going to be people that say like, you're doing all this stuff all the time, you're doing all this stuff all the time, like what is this? These are the people that when I would go to scientific meetings would give me shit for not drinking on the first night. I had a rule, I don't go out the first night. But you find me on night three of a five-day meeting and all day I'm rocking and like I'm engaged, I'm learning, I'm not at a meeting, it's socialized, but I do some of it. But I'm learning, I'm getting techniques. I'm there to work, okay? And they're talking about their hangover, they look like garbage. And over the years that accumulates for them and it accumulates for me in a positive way. So people will give you a hard time for exercising. They'll give you a hard time for taking good care of yourself. And I do think that the other thing is there is a certain loneliness that comes with being the person who's really diligent. It's a different community of people that I can call at 7 a.m. and go, you want to work out and it's like you might say, "Hey, listen, I was up way too." Later, you might say, "Yeah, let's go." It's your friend group changes. I mean, as a friend who used to work with people from like really troubled backgrounds and you would say like somebody would occasionally make it out of that world and just leave completely. But many times they would get themselves into all sorts of financial and social messes because they would continue to, like kind of revert to this world they grew up in. You've heard me talk about the lonely chapter thing, right? Like this is the whole idea behind that that there is a period where you are so developed that you don't resonate with your old set of friends but not yet sufficiently developed that you built your new one and you keep looking back and you're tempted. I think Martha Beck calls this the empty elevator. Oh, interesting. You're just, you know, between floors. Between floors. That's beautiful. Yeah, the empty elevator. And then you get there and you realize, while there are other people who also felt lonely who are now in this place who are doing cool things and it takes a strength of character to say, no, I'm not going to do that and yes, I'm going to do this and to also not be defiant and also still be able to go to Thanksgiving and still, yeah, you don't get it than you. Exactly. It's not about better or worse. It's just different. And that I think that people fear being lonely. And I understand like I get it. You know, you're drinking buddies or you're eating a lousy food buddies. At first night we land in a city. My team always likes to go out to dinner. I'm always in the hotel taking care of myself because I want to have the full week of vigor. And they do great, but they're younger than I am. We'll see, we'll see. That because we're going to be in New York together next week. Uh, last time that we spoke, you were telling me that you were teaching an octopus to use an iPad. Yeah, she died. But she died because she electrocuted? No, she, she died because she laid eggs and they die after they lay eggs. So they live about two years. Yeah, no, no. Well, they lay eggs and then the eggs get fertilized by a male and then they die. This is the life cycle of the octopus. So I didn't know how old she was when I got her. They don't tell you. It's hard to, to, to know. And you have some sense, but yeah, she was in her second year. So she, she was really cool. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was a male, but that was pure projection, right? And then I named him Van Gogh because he was a starry night octopus. Okay. Yeah. Do you replace with a new one? That one died too. Maybe you shouldn't have kids. No, fucking strumming is like looking around all the time. Like just waiting. Yeah, um, that both of these octopuses were old. They were old. Okay. Yeah, they were, they were, they were, you're giving up on the octopus thing for now. No, heck no. I have a new tropical tank. I got the dog. I got the other fresh water tank. Hell no. But I need to get a younger octopus. Okay. Like a pure bread newborn on a puppy octopus. I just need, I need either a male octopus or I need a younger octopus. I can't believe that you weren't able to discern whether or not you bought a male or a female. Who the fuck were you getting this from? Some bloke on Venice Beach, as I swear. No, I get them legally, but let's just put it this way. Their fate would have been far worse if they hadn't come to me. Right, right, right. Yeah, the salvaging octopus. So I have not done that yet, but I will say that Vango was spectacularly smart and would sit down in front of the coral and mimic the coral. It was awesome. It was, it was so cool. They're a little bit sadistic, which is a little bit troubling. I think we should probably talk about this so I can get over it. We're in that second phase of the trauma thing. In all seriousness, the weird thing about octopus is they're a little bit of drama queens because they play with you. So I would hand feed Vango and she would take the fish and sometimes she would just eat the fish and give it to her on a four steps. And other times she would take it and she'd stuff it against the glass of the aquarium and slowly eat the fish then take a nap halfway through and I was like, oh my god, these octopuses are pretty brutal. Kind of ruthless. Yeah, and then sometimes she would just play with it. And that's rough. You know, a dog is a benevolent creature. They need their food. That's it. A cat will play with its prey. Seflopods and motherfuckers. I like seflopods. I like cuddle fish. I had those for years. I kept those alive for a long time, by the way. Congratulations. Thank you. So it was a little disturbing to see the octopus statistically play with and partially eat its food. Yeah, we don't like to think about the animal kingdom that way, but if you look at nature as metal, that account. Yeah, that'll teach you some stuff pretty quick. You go to get on a plane. My brother, I love you to bits. Do you have on a plane? Yeah, you go to get on a plane. You know, I'm seeing you on Monday. Sorry, and Tuesday I'm going to be in New York. You'll be there. We'll do, we'll try and get raking a couple of other people. So we could do a wrap up. So, well, I should just properly say, I should say thank you for hosting me. Grateful for your friendship. Thanks for supporting me through this book. We're taking my calls at about hours of my sanity. Thanks for supporting my, restoring my sanity. And I'm so glad we're neighbors. Me too. And fun to work out with you this morning. Yeah, you're the best. Why should people go to get the book? Protocolsbook.com will put links to all the places you can buy books and different books in different languages. The audio book is read by me in my voice. It's 19 hours long. But you can hop to a particular section, learn what you want to learn, and then put it way. Come back to it anytime. Question. I learned to ask authors. What is an insight from the book, either an intervention or an area or something that you think most people are going to skip over, but you wish that they didn't? The wacky eye movement thing to fall back asleep. Oh, we talked about that last time that we were together. Yeah, yeah. I think people would think it's too crazy, but it's, but it costs nothing and it works and it will get you back to sleep because it confuses your body awareness system. You need to forget where your limbs are. It is really fucking like dizzying when you do it. You need to forget about your body position in order to fall asleep. That's a prerequisite to falling asleep. So that will help. I think the one that people will skip over, frankly, is the personal development thing around how to finally let go of the difficult things that are you're still carrying forward. You know, I can say 15 minutes of journaling on the hard thing one day and then subsequently on three more days, the data from Pena Baker and other show conclusively. It's a super powerful thing, but people just don't do it. And we should ask ourselves, why don't they do it? I think because the thing is hard and also nowadays getting people to write for 15 minutes is tough. I learned a lot about focus overcoming procrastination and scruffing oneself into doing hard things and writing this book. And I thought I was pretty good at doing it. When I have to write someone a card, if it's someone's birthday or whatever, I realize I haven't done this in sort of physically writing. I haven't done this in so long. I've basically forgotten how to do it. But Peterson before he did 12 rules and then 12 more, there's 24 there. The original answer, the original place that that was born out of was a list of 44 rules on Quora. Do you remember that place? It was a website where people get answer questions and somebody asked Jordan, what are your rules for a good life or something like that? And he just listed 40 that include like pet a cat when you see it on the street. Don't bother children when they're skateboarding. Don't let your children do anything that means that you don't like them, etc, etc. And one of his that I remember from that was if memory still upset you, false comma, write them down, false stop. And it's like so much of this stuff is pointing in the same direction. Dude, your awesome books, fantastic. I'm glad that you're not insane, but you are a little bit short-sighted now. I'll see you in New York next week. Thanks so much Chris. You're a gentleman, a scholar, and a beast. Big love. Goodbye my beauties. Dude, I'm ready. Still feels like your skin. Try new, groupy setting mist from Mavily, New York. Maybe it's Mavilane. Thank you.