Natural Remedies for ADD, Self-quantification for Athletes, Biomarkers

My name is Ben Greenfield and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, an interesting pattern that I've noticed is a lot of these high performing CEOs that also happen to be, you know, endurance athletes and such. There's actually, for some reason a lot of these guys tend to love triathlon and you know, marathons and such. Anyway, I started to notice a pattern. It's a lot of these guys have elevated sex hormone binding globulin and so their free testosterone is kind of low. And my hypothesis, because I've seen this pattern now time and time again, my hypothesis is that they're under consuming carbohydrate. I think a lot of these guys are suddenly carb phobic. And look, while I really truly believe in maintaining stable blood glucose levels, if you're a high performing executive and on top of that, if you're doing physical activity, your brain and your nervous system and your muscle is soaking up glucose, soaking it up, you need to make sure you get enough, otherwise you're going to tank your hormones.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

Hey.

The podcast you are about to hear was recorded while on a beautiful, sunshiny, admittedly slightly windy walk in Wilmington, North Carolina. Fantastic discussion with a friend of mine, Andres Pressell, about all things exercise, physiology, add, free diving, breathwork, spearfishing, and a whole lot more. I think you're really going to dig this one. We did get into a discussion at the end that I feel like could spark a little bit of controversy. One regarding add, one regarding plant medicine. You know, I tend to be opinionated on things like this, such as the pharmaceutical labeling of disorders, when I think sometimes we need to be a little bit less labely for things like ADD and adhd. And then also I have a little bit of a disillusionment about the frequency of the infatuation with plant medicines for every last trauma on the planet. And so we get into a little bit of that. And this was originally going to be kind of like us interviewing each other. Turned out to be probably me interviewing undress more, which is fine. But I always like to tell you guys that. So if you hear me talking more than what you'd expect an interviewer to talk about, well, the idea is this was supposed to be a discussion, not a one way interview. So hopefully that kind of clarifies your expectations going into this one. And gosh, I'm going to get off my soapbox now and just let you dive right in all, the shownotes are going to be@BenGreenfieldLife.com. no, you, your physio. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com know your physio. All right, enjoy.

Andres, you know what my working title for today's show is?

What's that?

Two exercise physiologists go on a walk. Okay. You gotta make sure that when you talk into this mic that you. That you direct your voice. But either way, this thing will pick up the mic and the audio. And for folks who are wondering, I'm with my friend Undress. Andres. Andres, I have been mispronouncing your name all week, but it's basically a n D R E S e. Say like undress, right?

Undress. Like take off your clothes.

Yeah, undress. Like take off your clothes. There's a visual for you folks. And your last name is Precial. Yeah, you say it like that. Pressial.

Pressell.

Pressell. P R E S C H E L. Undress. Presselle.

That's me.

This one's gonna throw me for a curve ball. It already has been. But anyways, we'll figure it out.

What.

What nationality is that name anyways?

It's kind of a story. I mean, I was born in New York. Dad is doing his residency there. He's an eye surgeon.

Was raised in Venezuela. That's where my parents were born and raised. So that's. You know, undressed is a very common name in South America.

Michelle.

I think that's Romanian or German. So if you go back far enough, you know, my dad's side of the family, they're Romanian, they're French, Polish. My mom's side is Lebanese, Italian. So quite the mix. And that's how you get a Undressed shell your mutt.

South American mutt. South American, Romanian mutt.

Yeah.

So I know you have a background in exercise physiologist. We're here in Wilmington, North Carolina, on a free diving and spear fishing trip. So we've been doing all sorts of breath work, all sorts of nerdy chats about physiology and altitude training and red blood cells and oxygen and carbon dioxide retention, all sorts of stuff that we want to really fill you in if you're listening in, because there's a lot of stuff that's going to be applicable to your own health, your own biology and physiology. And Andres also has a podcast. His is called. It's called Know youw Physio.

Right.

So if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com know your physio. I'll put show notes and. And links and all sorts of resources for you. And you can also go check out Andres podcast if you go over there. But, you know, we've been. One thing I wanted to ask you, just to kind of kick things off here is like, I, and I know a lot of people listening, have done things like Wim HOF breath work, or I've talked about apps in the past, like other Shift or Breath Source, where you do kind of highly invigorating breath work. A lot of inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, and then typically you'll finish and do like a long exhale lock or a long inhale lock. And there are shreds of that in some of the type of breath work that you do for things like free diving or spearfishing. But can you explain to me, like, from your own physiology background and scientific background, what's different about, like, how you do breathing for free diving and for spearfishing or breath work for that versus, like, what's popular right now out there? Because it seems like there's differences to me, at least.

Yeah, absolutely. And before I get there, as a preface, you want to tell folks tuning in where we're at and why we're even talking about spearfishing.

Yeah, eventually. But I want to hear about the breath work first.

All right. So a lot of folks understand and appreciate Wim hof. There are tremendous benefits to Wim Hof breathing. There's tremendous benefits to using guided meditation breath work to develop either a parasympathetic state and fall asleep or, you know, manage stress, etc. Thing is, when it comes to freediving and spearfishing, breath really counts. Because if you're not, it counts in a sense that if you don't breathe correctly, you may not get the stimulus that you need to return to the surface in time and prevent a blackout. You know, when we're diving, the there's real danger on the line if you're not breathing properly. You need the right stimulus, and that stimulus is CO2. So when you do something like Wim HOF breathing, you're offloading a tremendous amount of CO2, and you don't get that urge to breathe.

You're getting rid of CO2 as you're doing, like, the fully in.

Exactly.

Every time you go, you're offloading so.

Much CO2 that you don't get the right stimulus at the right time when you're free diving or spearfishing. So when we.

You don't get the right stimulus. To breathe.

Yeah, to breathe. So a Lot of, you know, most people tuning in might think that you get that stimulus with low oxygen. Well, really it's just high CO2 that gives you that stimulus as you consume oxygen and use it and convert it. That's where you get that stimulus. So if you're doing a ton of Wim Hof breathing before you get in the water, yeah, maybe you'll have the perception that your dive time is higher than it really is. Maybe you actually extend your dive time, but when it really counts to get that oxygen, let's say you're, I don't know, chasing a fish down at 70ft and all of a sudden you don't have the right stimulus. You may start swimming up and consuming the little bit of oxygen you have left and therefore you can easily black out. So essentially you don't get the stimulus that you need if you're offloading as much CO2.

And this is why people like, who in the past, sadly, have experienced something like shallow water blackout and even death after doing something like Wim Hof style breathing or some of these more invigorating forms of breathwork in which you're blowing off CO2. The reason is they've blown off CO2. They don't get that natural urge to breathe when it should normally occur. And then of course, they run out of breath before they get to the surface. And so is there something different about what you do for like free diving or spear fishing that gets rid of that danger? Cuz you're obviously in the water.

Yeah. So what you want to do when you're freediving, spear fishing is you want to do very, very slow breaths. They're not invigorating. You want to slow your heart rate, you want to lower your cortisol levels, your adrenaline. You want to be as calm as possible. And that's not just so that you can dive deep and, you know, get the appropriate level of stimulus that you need so you know when to come up. But it's also so that once you're down there, you're in a calm enough state where the life underneath the surface approaches you and gets curious about you so that you can really enjoy what's below the surface. So if you're going down there and you're wim hofed up and you're invigorated, I guarantee you, you're not gonna get the same experience that you'd otherwise get if you're really super, super calm.

Yeah. I mean, you avoid caffeine, you avoid dairy, because it thickens the mucus that's for different reasons. Or you also, as we've been doing, you take something like Mucinex, which helps to thin the mucus. So not consuming foods that thicken the mucus is important because that'll kind of keep the eustachian tubes from being able to equalize. But then that, you know, anything like caffeine or, you know, most smart drugs or nootropics or a central nervous system stimulant or anything like that would be contraindicated for these long breath holds. I think the best, if you want to call it a nootropic for something like free diving or spearfishing, is just liquid ketones, you know, so called ketone esters, because those can, at least in my experience. So ketones can not only, based on some of the work that folks like Dr. Dominique Agostino has done, help to protect the brain in a low oxygen environment or even increase the breath hold time, but they also seem to give you a little bit of a mental acuity effect because they're kind of a stable fuel source for the brain, even more so than say, glucose. But then, in addition to avoiding these stimulants, based on what you're describing, undress, you essentially don't want to do the invigorating breath work that might indeed give you a long exhale, but also increase the heart rate. So instead, like yesterday, you know, you and me and my sons who are out here taking their first free diving course, we were diving in the lake yesterday, up and down a line, like practicing on a line that was marked at 5 meters, 10 meters, 15 meters, 20 meters, so on and so forth. And there, in our case, there were four people taking turns diving. And all the people that weren't diving were doing a long big two count in and then a ten count exhale, hold at the bottom, and then another breath in, hold, 10 out hold. And by the time you actually got up to your dive, I felt like my heart rate was super slow. And then you just do like five purging breaths, like in. In to breathe off a little bit of CO2.

Yeah.

But in a low heart rate fashion. And then you dive.

Yeah, exactly. That's. That's exactly right. And to your point about the ketones, not only are they going to help, you know, help you conserve some of that oxygen, not only are they gonna help you, let's say, boost your endurance, you can dive all day long, but they're also gonna help you preserve some of that glycogen. Right. So if you're in a Ketogenic state when you need the glycogen, which you absolutely will. When you're freediving and spearfishing, you know, you're jumping on and off the boat, you're fighting fish.

Highest calorie burning sport that exists.

Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. So when you're in a hypoxic environment and you start burning and burning and burning calciums, your body fights to return to homeostasis. Interestingly, though, we also spoke about the shift in the respiratory potion. So when you're in a state of ketosis, well, essentially it's conducive. It's more conducive to a parasympathetic state. So if you combine all these elements, you get a very calm, very relaxed dive and you get to enjoy life underneath the surface for as much as possible, as long as possible, in the best way possible, while keeping yourself safe. And that's what we're all about.

Yeah. We watched the Octopus Teacher last night after we finished our freediving class. And for those of you who haven't seen it, I'd never seen it before, but it was a perfect example of, oh, this is what the underwater forest looks like. Whether or not you're spearfishing and holding a gun. I mean, just to go look at a cool part of nature. I think freediving is not only an amazing tool for. For learning how to relax the body, lower the heart rate, deal with. Deal with the cold in a relaxed environment, etc. But it's also a very cool way to be able to equip yourself to see a part of the world very few humans can see without a whole bunch of scuba gear on. And correct me if I'm wrong, when you're wearing all that scuba gear, doesn't it kind of like, scare some of the fish away? Or at least totally.

It's so unnatural.

Keep you from being able to, like, have the full experience of being under the water.

Oh, yeah. I mean, honestly, I think the biggest appeal for me with freediving is literally, you feel like you're flying. You know, you're. You have this.

Yeah.

This sensation of freedom, and you can move your body in any way that you'd like and explore. And when you're weighed down by scuba gear and you're blowing bubbles, I mean, it's just you totally feel like a human under the surface. You don't feel like you're. Like you belong there. And of course I'm biased, and I'm sure a lot of people who scuba dive will give me crap for this, but you know, I'm a purist. I love the freedom that freediving gives you, and I love that when I'm doing it right, life gets so curious about me and approaches me whether I'm holding a gun or not. And that, to me, is the beauty of being a freediver.

Yeah, it's like when I'm bow hunting, I often have these times when I'm in the forest where, like, I could not care less if I had a bow and I was hunting an animal. This is just beautiful, being able to observe nature with no distractions, no phone calls, you know, tuning in to the senses and the smells and the sounds and the complete texture of the forest. It's like that, but underwater. And, you know, the other thing that happened yesterday as we were preparing to go up and down the lines, was a friend of ours who we met down here, Christopher. Shout out to Christopher, who's working with Evolve Freediving. We're down here with Evolve Freediving, a fantastic organization, and they've kind of put together this whole freediving course for us. Anyways, Christopher brought us through these stretches, a whole bunch of diaphragmatic stretches, where you'd, like, exhale all the air and go to what many people might be familiar with is almost like a cat, cow type of movement that you get from yoga and some different overhead stretches. Do you do those type of stretches for your diaphragm?

Yeah, absolutely. Because what happens is that depth, it gets harder and harder to equalize. You need to have a very pliable, very.

Flexible diaphragm, or else the contractions that you get as your body gets the urge to breathe are going to be really intense to the point where they're going to take away from the freediving itself, because then you have to force your body to relax again. You have to overcome these contractions. So if you're nice and stretched out, your body is going to be, you know, ready to go, and you can kind of just like swallow up these contractions, if you will, and, you know, keep enjoying the dive. And in fact, the more advanced freedivers, what we do is we actually use the number of contractions as a timer. So I know, for example, that around nine or ten contractions, if I'm at, let's say, 15 to 20 meters, I know that's my signal to go up. So I can actually use these contractions once they're stretched out, once my diaphragm is stretched out to time my dives. You know, I'm not constantly looking at my watch. I'm Just feeling my body. And I think, by the way, that's, as a freediver, the best thing you can do is always go by interoception rather than data to know when to come up. You really have to be able to feel your body.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, this stuff works because my sons, you know, two little inland Washingtoniers who had never been lower than 12ft, they had one day of classroom time, headed out into the water, and Yesterday dove to 45ft.

Oh, yeah.

And did fine. And so it's crazy. Once you learn these tactics, the breath ups, how to equalize as you descend, the actual biomechanics of the descent itself, like how to fold your body and do a kick and then one arm pull. It's amazing. And the reason I want to say this is I would just love for more of our podcast listeners to discover the freedom and the joy and the cool sights that you find under the water. It's not. Once you figure it out, it's like you've unlocked this new superhuman power. Almost like being able, not quite being able to breathe underwater, but it has that feeling to it. It's like, oh, the water is now at my fingertips in a much different and deeper, literally and figuratively way than it ever was before.

Yeah. And you also have access to the majority of the world. Let's face it, the majority of the world is underwater. Not that you're going to go diving in the Mariana Trench, but at least you have access to life and environments you've never seen before. So that alone is just wonderful. And something I want to add here is the presence that freediving demands is such that, I mean, you really have to develop that skill and it carries over to life on land. Right. Like, if you can master your breath and you see the impact between your breath and your performance, trust me, that'll carry over into your day to day when you're just out living life.

Our friend Ashley Chapman, who, her and Wren were our instructors at Evolve Freediving. They told us they had a podcast called the Post Sessions Podcast. I actually listened to an episode last night, and it was literally about how they're using freediving for trauma therapy to allow people to be able to maintain a calm presence when they're in a sympathetic state, meaning not able to breathe underwater, sometimes in the cold, etc. And it just made perfect sense. I mean, a lot of times people will use something like, you know, plant medicine or eye movement resensitization training or different things for trauma, but I never thought until I heard this podcast and what they'd experienced with Navy seals and other people who had things like ptsd. The effect that something like, not necessarily spearfishing, but just free diving, just going up and down in the water and learning how to control your physiology can have on something like trauma release.

Yeah. I mean, most people, within an hour, you can teach them to dive to 10 meters, to 30ft. But unless you have some kind of super physiological ability and insane lung volume to get to that 20, 30 meters mark, you really have to develop that interoception, that bodily awareness. And in doing so, you end up achieving something, an ability that carries over to every other area of life. I really mean that. It's a bonus for us spear fishermen that we get to do that while also practicing the single most selective and sustainable fish harvesting method in the world. So when you combine all these elements, you. You really feel like you're at one with nature. You really get to appreciate nature for what it is. And in a way, nature gets to appreciate you because you accomplish physiologically you need to accomplish to be a part of that life underwater.

Yeah. And the eating of the fresh, tasty fish is just a bonus. Although I'm on the fence about octopus after last night, I have to admit, the octopus teacher having octopus made me think twice about having octopus. Hey, so say hello to the little barking dog, everyone. So. So how did you get into all this, man? I mean, I know it's a kind of a loaded question, but you have a very interesting history, not only of the Venezuelan, Romanian, mutt, Jew background, but also just your upbringing. From what I understand, you had, like, severe ADD or adhd.

Yeah, yeah, I did. I'll start with the freediving. I got into freediving through my dad. I mean, he's been freediving and spearfishing since he was, I don't know, 20 years old in Venezuela. And ever since we were, I don't know, four or five years old, he would have us, you know, in the swimming pool going and getting coins at the bottom of the pool and stuff. So I've been free diving really my whole life. I didn't get certified until I was maybe 18. I'm 26 now. And it's funny, actually, my dad and I, we grew up watching a ton of these.

Spearfishing movies on cassette. And I loved watching these with my dad.

You mean like vhs?

Vhs. Vhs, yeah. Yeah, I loved watching these with my dad. And I would always ask him, like, oh, you know, are these guys in the movies, are they still spearfishing? And almost every single Time he'd tell me, oh, no, they actually passed away. And I'd say, how? And he'd be like, oh, you know, well, spearfishing. They were diving alone. And ever since I realized that at a very young age, I actually convinced my dad to stop spearfishing because he would go with some buddies. When we moved to Miami, when I was around, I don't know, six years old. Then I discovered spearfishing. When I was 18, I was with a friend, Belize. And as soon as I got into it, I basically told my dad, I said, hey, look, I'm into this now. I understand what it is. I want to do it safely and I want to do it with you. I want to enjoy this with you. I want to bring you back to spearfishing, and I want us to do it together. And so we did. And now we spearfish all the time.

Safely with each other.

You know, selfishly enough, that's one of the reasons I wanted to bring my sons down on this trip because we go to cool places where I. I've really wanted to spear dive and free. Or free dive and spearfish, but don't have a buddy. I'm like, man, if I could teach my sons the safety and we could all do this together, this is going to be an amazing father son adventure that I think is even better than golf that we can do for life. So I'm right on the same page with you. I think it's a great family activity if you, if you want a buddy, swim. Anyway, best.

And then, you know, after we go spearfishing, we bring back all this amazing fish. And I mean, everyone in my family, all of us, we're super into cooking. I mean, cooking brings our. Our family together. It really is like the glue that holds us together in a way. And so when I bring back all this fish, I mean, we prepared the most amazing feast. You wouldn't believe it. We tell the stories of, you know, how we captured everything. We use every single part of the fish. So we, you know, prepare the collars, we make the, the fish head soup, ceviche, sashimi, Everything, everything, everything. Nothing goes to waste. I was telling you earlier that we shot a big African pompano, and the vertebrae was so big that we even ate the bone marrow out of this African pompano fish.

Was bone so big you need the bone marrow. And not to totally derail your story of how you got into physiology, but I have to say, related to cooking. A couple nights ago, we called Andra's girlfriend Parker, shout out to Parker Rolling Stallone. And we had a canister of oatmeal, like instant oatmeal on the countertop of our Airbnb. And Andres is like, my girlfriend makes overnight oatmeal. It's carrot cake overnight oatmeal. So we shredded carrots. What else do we use?

Ginger, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, had some maple syrup in there, some chia seeds, some high quality almond milk. So it's just almonds and water.

Yeah.

And yeah, we prepared that overnight and then.

Well, then you baked it oatmeal, chia cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, maple syrup or honey and some kind of a creamer like almond milk. All we did was stir that all together with a whole bunch of grated carrots. And the ratios I think are kind of like eyeballed. But anyways, so after it soaked overnight for 12 hours, I'm giving you guys this recipe so you can try it. We thought, well, what's better than cold overnight oatmeal? Baked oatmeal. So I lined a little pan that we found in the Airbnb with olive oil and we baked that oatmeal about 350 degrees for a half hour and then topped it with a dollop of yogurt, almond butter and a touch of maple syrup.

And it was conscious butter. It was conscious bar chocolate. Break it up and put it.

Sprinkled some conscious bar chocolate on top of that. Oh, my goodness. Amazing. So if any of you want to make carrot, if you don't have carrot cake for breakfast, that's how to do it, basically how to feel good that you're, that you're, you know, giving your, giving your hdl and you get glycerides a favor and you pull the carbs.

Even if you heat them back up afterwards, you still get some of those resistant starches.

That's right. So there's a glycemic index and then.

The gscs in there is a binder. You know, they'll lower the glycemic index further. So yeah, the carrot. Yeah.

So yeah, yeah. As a matter of fact, my sons and I did murph the mile run. 300 squats, 200 push ups, 100 pull ups, 1 mile run this morning and finish it off with of the, the rest, rest of the overnight oatmeal. So it's pretty good as a workout brew as well. So. So back to your, back to your story of how you got into the physiology component. Yeah, you're free diving, you're spear fishing.

But that's not how I Got into it. That's. That's kind of like on the side. Like, that's. That's. That was once. I actually wanted to have fun with the stuff that I was learning. But so here's how it worked is, yeah, I was diagnosed with ADD when I was 8 years old. And ever since then, then I was taking amphetamines, so Adderall, Vyvanse, you name it. And I spent a while, I mean, 10 years taking that medication and dealing with the side effects. So the side effects were everything from anxiety to very low body weight. I was skeletal. I was like, 5, 9, 120 pounds, 115 pounds.

The drugs for ADD caused body weight loss?

Yeah, I mean, there are.

Just. Because of the increase in metabolism and the curbing of the appetite.

Yeah, it's kind of like cocaine. I mean, it's almost identical. Right? So you are jacked up on energy and focus, and I guess that's what people take it. Right. But I was taking the extended release, so I wasn't sleeping because I was in such a potent, sympathetic state all day long. I wasn't sleeping. I wasn't eating. I wasn't drinking water. So I was extremely low body weight. I had developed a stutter because I was just. My brain was so overactivated that I would, you know, just kind of slur my words. And then on top of that, didn't have any friends. I was basically depressed. And it just became this perpetual cycle, this vicious cycle, because the more it took away from my health and wellness, the more I needed it the next day to kind of get by to the point where I was taking the highest prescribed dose. 60 milligrams of Vyvanse, 70 milligrams of Adderall. Sorry, 60 Adderall, 75. Ants. And it was just like, you know, at one point, I was studying for this test, and I kind of felt like the room was moving. And I remember I looked at my mirror in my room, my bedroom, and I was so jacked up on amphetamines that my body was literally moving back and forth.

How old were you?

I was like, oh, my God. I was like, 14.

Wow.

15, like your son's age, you know, And I see them now, and I'm like, oh, my God. Like, that's.

By the way, based on our QEEG brain scans, both my sons and I have massive ADD adhd. Based on the way our brains are wired up.

Yeah.

Never touch a drug in our lives for that. But I intentionally, with my sons, nearly every day, do heat Cold breath, work, exercise, and then a good diet that doesn't have a lot of neurotoxins, chemicals, and high glycemic index carbs in it. I mean, you've hung around with them, right? Zero issues. And I wish more like, parents knew that lifestyle factors play a huge role in this. Like, if you're. Let's say you got a boy with add, get them out, have them do Murph in the morning, jump in the sauna with you at night, and do breath work and cold therapy and make sure their diet's clean. And all of a sudden, you turn that add in the massive amounts of creativity, focus, performance, fitness, etc. So, yeah, I look at it through a different lens, but you're. I mean, what you experience, from what I understand, is the most common way that many parents in society in general, addresses what we call add. I kind of call it being a kid. But, yeah, whatever.

Well, I'll tell you what, to that point, I think that ADD is, in fact, a superpower. And I'll get into that. And actually, I'll get into how I cured my add. But before I get there, I want to say, you know, my parents are medical professionals. They always had the best intentions. They love us unlike anything else in the world, and they always wanted the best for us. So my mom, she. I mean, before anyone, before I got my prescription, she went deep on the Adderall and how it would infect me, this, that, the other. And she was the one that was administering it.

And she knew at the end of the day that it was gonna, I mean, I guess, help me with my confidence. Let's face it, I wasn't.

I was a smart kid, but I just wasn't getting by in school because I wouldn't do my homework right? And so. And I wouldn't focus in class, but when I had to take a test, I would always do really, really well. So anyway, she wanted to help me get by in school, and so she felt this was a safe and effective method at the time. So what ended up happening was that it became this vicious cycle, as I expressed. And what I started to realize, however, was that when it came to my real, let's say, passions and obsessions, I would always, always, always, always excel. I mean, to the nth degree. Like, whenever it came to my hobbies and passions, I would learn and absorb so much so quickly, and I knew that was a superpower. And if you look at this from a neurophysiological perspective, you know, guys and gals with ADD you have a very low level of dopamine.

Your baseline dopamine levels are low level of dopamine.

Yeah. So you're constantly craving these little hits of dopamine.

Or poor, from what I understand, it's either low dopamine or poor dopamine sensitivity.

Yeah, exactly. Or both. Yeah. So you're constantly creating these little hits. So that's why, you know, it'll be in class and all of a sudden something gets kind of boring and you kind of like look around and you want that stimulation or you know, you go on your phone or you start playing video games or smoking weed or whatever. So you want to get these little dopamine hits because your body has a very low level of dopamine or very poor sensitivity to dopamine. Well, when it comes to your obsessions, you'll end up really truly diving headfirst because if you find something that you like, you're constantly going to want to be stuck, stimulated by it to raise that level of dopamine naturally. So essentially if you find something that you really enjoy, you'll end up going after it and after and after it and afterwards.

That's how it can be a superpower. Yeah, I think that a lot of these like nootropics or smart drugs, like anything that has mucuna, like dopamucuna in it, or there's a new one that I've personally been experimenting with. I think I got it from I believe, Nootropics Depot. I'll find it and link to it in the show notes. But it's called cognance and it's this massive like dopamine precursor and donor. And I take that with some acetylcholine and dha. Cause it burns through those levels very quickly. And I can stay hyper focused for like 8 to 12 hours on one capsule of that stuff. And again, it's probably because I have some of those fast burning, dopamine desensitized pathways just naturally. But again, like I've found the same thing as you. If I find something I really enjoy, I can absolutely crush it. So I totally get the superpower thing.

Oh yeah. And so essentially what happened was around my, you know, going into my junior year of high school, the most important year, you know, technically speaking, you have all the standardized tests, the SATs, the ACTs. I was taking five AP classes the summer going into that year. I had the chance to take take a summer scholars program at um. So that's a program for high school students in college, on a college campus. And I was studying neuroscience, and I was just. I don't know, I was curious about neuroscience. I had no idea really what it entailed or what I was going to learn, but I just signed up for the. Sign up for the course that it looked good on my. My resume. And because I was on summer break, I wasn't taking the medication, but I was on a college campus. I had a ton of people around me. I had unlimited access to the gym and dining hall, and I was learning about the brain. I was learning about neuroplasticity. And with the first few lessons that I learned, I started to apply this stuff and I started exercising. I started to eat omega 3 rich foods and a few other foods, avoiding gluten, et cetera. And within two to three months, believe it or not. And this just goes to show, by the way, how deprived I was.

Yeah.

Within two to three months, I was more confident than ever before. I had gained 15 pounds of muscle in three months. Wow. And I was social. And to me, that just. Oh, my God, that changed me forever. So what I wanted to do my junior year was I wanted to really prove to myself what I was capable of. So I ditched the medication. It was the hardest thing that I ever, ever did in my life. You know, even though I was on that summer break and I wasn't taking it and I was, you know, I enjoyed all these benefits still. I had very intense withdrawal symptoms. What were those? Like, I was depressed.

Wow.

Like, I was totally depressed. I was just very low energy.

Yeah, it was. It was. I didn't. I didn't know what these words meant at the time, but looking back, I was totally depressed.

So, yeah, I wanted to prove to myself what I was capable of. I didn't take any of the meds for my exams or to study for them. I didn't request the extra time that I was eligible for. And with the new stuff that I had learned and applied, I made it to the 99th percentile across all my tests.

Wow.

Got all these awards. And I just made this promise to myself that I was going to continue at the time, selfishly to learn about my physiology, to know my physiology. And so I went back to, um, where I did the.

That's why. That's why your podcast is called Know youw Physio.

Yeah, it's the power of. You just gave me goosebumps saying that.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I went back to, um, and I studied exercise physiology because exercise had saved my life, and nutrition with a.

With a minor in psychology. And then I went off and got started my master's in physiology, nutrition, and now I'm actually about to begin a second master's program in neuroscience to return to the very science that initiated all of this.

Wow.

So that's pretty much how things evolve for me.

You mean the next Dr. Huberman? If you're not careful, man.

Yeah, definitely. The biggest.

Before me, what you said about increasing the omega 3 fatty acids, based on what I was explaining earlier about the need for more choline and dhea, a lot of times when you're trying to balance dopamine in the brain, makes total sense, right? Like walnuts, fish eggs, DHA, rich fatty acids, etc. But you also mentioned gluten. You said that you cut gluten. Was that related to the add or is that like different GI issues that you do that?

Definitely add. And it's actually a recent thing that I discovered. So.

You know, my whole life I've been eating gluten and my parents didn't really know or didn't really think that we were sensitive to it. I actually did a genetic test and I found that I am in fact predisposed to celiac.

And on top of that.

Every time I have it, I'll get crazy brain fog, low energy. I didn't really see the link before. It wasn't until my girlfriend actually pointed out herself, she started cutting alkaline and actually it's not gluten per se. I think it's.

Were we talking about gliadin protein?

Yeah, gliadin protein, exactly. So it's like a low quality gluten that has this protein. If I'm not mistaken. Please correct me if I'm wrong. That can give you these symptoms because the other day.

If it binds to.

Some of the opioid receptors, it can cause a little bit of a hyper addictive response. You combine that with some of the gastric inflammation from very high concentrated sources of gluten and then some of these other gliadin proteins can cross the blood brain barrier and cause a neuroinflammatory response that dictates that. Although I'm not against things like pasta and bread, etc. I think that wheat, especially in the US that's been bred for high yield crop, that tends to have hyper concentrated sources of gluten. And wheat or grains that have been exposed to herbicides and pesticides, which increases the absorption of a lot of these problematic proteins and can trigger an autoimmune reaction, dictates that if you're going to have gluten have it from basically like ancient grains. Like say like Einkorn or Himalayan tartary buckwheat. Ferment it, soak it and sprout it as much as possible. So you're deactivating even more of those gliadin like proteins. And that way you can get some of the nutrient density and some of the beneficial gastrointestinal modulation and immune modulation that some of these grains can provide. And even like the triglyceride lowering HDL increasing effect. But yeah, I mean even if you're not doing like the ketogenic low carb thing, you still need to be very selective about your wheat sources and the way that you prepare wheat. Another shout out to overnight carrot cake, oatmeal. If you are serious about it not affecting you from a neural mechanistic standpoint. That makes sense.

Yeah, exactly. So I would experience things like tremendous brain fog. Actually all the symptoms of ADD brain fog. Trouble focusing, just very poor energy, trouble digesting. And funny enough, the first day that I arrived here in Wilmington to meet up with you guys, I believe it was Taran that made some those cookies. And I asked him, I was like, are these gluten free? He's like, no. And I was like, ah, it's late enough at night. Like I really want a cookie. I might as well. And I had. And I had zero issues.

Yeah, exactly. Because if you, if you eat anything that's like a cookie, a cinnamon roll cake, biscotti, because we make those kind of things at our house. But if you look at our flour part of the pantry, they're all ancient grains. Again, it's all Einkorn, Himalayan tartery, buckwheat. Most of the time when we're preparing wheat, it is soaked in like a vinegar, like medium overnight. So there's a little bit of a pre fermentation process that takes place. So it's just those little details that you pay attention to. I kind of have the same thoughts about gluten as I do about a vegan or a plant based diet that many carnivore or paleo enthusiasts will say is harmful for you. Well, it is. Unless you decide you're going to choose your plant sources and prepare your plant sources properly. And if you do so, it kind of becomes a non issue. So it just depends on how something is treated. Really.

Yeah. So my girlfriend and I today, I mean we soak everything and we really take our time to prepare everything so that if it does contain gluten or anything that we're sensitive to, that we prepare it correctly. And that's really what it's, what it's all about. You can get a high quality ingredient and you won't have the same symptoms you have you would otherwise have with low quality, mass produced, you know.

Yeah.

Stuff you find in the grocery store. Yeah.

You're obviously very, very fit. I'm curious, like from an exercise physiology standpoint, what you learn in your exercise physiology training, because you and I have similar backgrounds in that respect. I don't talk about this a lot on the podcast, but my master's degree is in nutrition and exercise physiology with an emphasis in biomechanics. And so I did a lot of physics, a lot of digitization of human movement in the biomechanics lab, and a lot of testing of people's VO2 maxes, lactate thresholds, things like that. Like, for years in Spokane, I ran a sports performance laboratory where we do high speed video analyses and indirect calorimetry and a lot of, you know, geeky physiology type of stuff. And it still informs the way that I train today as far as like heart rate zones, lactate thresholds, fat burning zones, etc. So I noticed that when I surfed around your website and stuff, you seem like a very data driven coach. You seem like you gather a lot of metrics from the people that you work with. So tell me a little bit about how you work with what you know of physiology and what kind of metrics you pay attention to in yourself or in your clients.

Yeah, I became obsessed with data ever since I started to really, again, selfishly wanted to understand my physiology. I started getting obsessed with data because I wanted to see just how efficacious all these new habits, tools, tips, tricks, biohacks, if you will, how effective they were. And sleep was the biggest one. Sleep was absolutely the biggest one in regulating my nervous system and helping me get that focus, you know, getting all that dopamine for the next day. I mean, there's tremendous benefits for anyone with ADD or trouble focusing. Tremendous benefits. You can drive from deep restorative sleep. And in these modern lives that we live, it's just so hard to get deep sleep nowadays, really restorative sleep. So sleep is a huge one. You know, I work with everyone from elite athletes, you know, you take, let's say former champion of the US Open tennis to billionaires, which in my opinion are elite athletes themselves. You know, the level of decision making that they have to consider. And they're traveling. So in my book, they're elite athletes to race car drivers, poker players, and World Series poker finalists, I mean, you name it. One of the biggest things that I help them dial in is their sleep and actually returning to breathwork. I think breathwork is one of the best ways to achieve deep sleep because it's the most accessible way to influence your nervous system. And a lot of these guys are traveling, they're so worked up and they can't tell, but they're mouth breathing, they're breathing with the upper chest, they're sympathetic state.

Totally agree. As a matter of fact, one of the best things I do for sleep, especially when I travel and I'm in a more anxious state when I travel just because I'm in an unfamiliar location, an unfamiliar bed, is breath work and mouth taping. I use that stuff called hostage tape before I sleep and I wake up in the morning not remembering when or how I fell asleep. But all I know is I was typically doing breath prayer or 48 breathing with the mouth tape on. And I just, you know, Yeah, I do put one of those high dose melatonin suppositories up my butt that I gave you. But, but man, breath work, I just wish more people would try that before they pop yet another pill or double dose what they're already taking for sleep with the idea, well, I might as well just knock myself out, you know.

Yeah. And I'll tell you guys what, that my mission at the end of the day, as I was telling you, is to make, make this kind of science as accessible as possible. And I just mentioned a whole, I guess, handful of individuals that are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Right. It's a very exclusive service that I offer them. But in doing that, I realize what everyone is lacking and just how valuable this information is. So for anybody tuning in, you don't have to be a billionaire or an elite athlete. As long as you start enabling some of these habits to, to breathe better. And as long as you can really drill that connection between your breath and your ans function, autonomic nervous system function. As long as you understand that you're going to sleep so much better and you're going to set the pace for your best quality of life and performance.

Okay, boots on the street. What's that look like? Like, are you having people wear a pulse oximeter? Are you importing their whoop or their oura ring data and looking at something specific, specific, or how does that look for you in terms of tracking and coaching people on sleep?

Yeah, so I use all kinds of devices. There's a few that I really love and Trust. And I mean, people are going to argue with me here, but it's just, I go by it by clinical validation. So the device that I was using for a very long time was Biostrap. Very clinically validated device, but it's not as user friendly as something like Aura is nowadays. And then table. You know, I think Aura right now is probably the all around, the best fit considering that I get a lot of really good quality data.

It has slightly higher.

It's also, yeah, it's also very minimalist style and it's a very, very, very nice user experience, which is important because if you want adherence, if you want people to actually track their data and be excited about it, you need a good user facing app. So Aura, in my opinion is the best all around. But then if I want to go really in depth, I'll use something like Cardio Mood. So Cardio Mood will give me more insights as to, you know, cardiovascular, how that's going.

Hrv, what is Cardio Mood telling you?

Oh my God. I mean it breaks up HRV into like five different metrics. Gives me the VO2 max, the lactate thresh, I mean everything. Like it'll go super in depth.

And is that a, is that like a wearable?

Yeah, it's a wearable.

Okay. Okay, interesting. What else are you paying attention to or tracking?

All right, so a huge, huge, huge metric. Probably the main metric that I track is hrv.

Hrv. And HRV is interesting. And I've, you know, Jay, your co host, Dr. J. Wiles here. Give it a shout out, Dr. J, for joining me on the show multiple times to dive deep on the science of HRV and really understanding it in a practical, from a practical perspective. But HRV is probably the most important metric that I track because it gives us a sense of what people can handle on a day to day basis. So when you look at all these hormetic stressors like exercise, like cold exposure, fasting, et cetera, all of these things are in a way stressors. And the idea is that you can effectively recover from them and you become smarter, faster, stronger. But when you sort of add all these up and on top of that you're already stressed, they're going to do more harm than good. And for a lot of these folks that are traveling that have high level decision making, that have high level physical demands that they need to embark on on a day to day basis, you want to make sure that you're adding these things in when they make sense. And that's why HRV Makes sense to track.

Do you ever intentionally? Because I do this for some of the folks I work with, especially the athletes, but also people who want to get that stair stepping effect of big increases in fitness that occur gradually over time using what's called periodization, meaning that you have certain periods of the training year or the living year in which you push yourself from a stress standpoint, maybe you know, an extra kettlebell workout or introducing blood flow restriction bands to a workout you'd normally do or pushing yourself with a few extra hiit workouts and a lot of times with an athlete leading up to a competition who has freedom of schedule, all intentionally by monitoring their hrv, get their HRV supers low and then give them a recovery week. So they do what's called super compensation.

Exactly.

And with my executive athletes like you referred them to or referred to them as people who aren't necessarily athletes per se, but who have high demand lifestyles, who want to operate at the pointy edge of their body and brains performance capabilities. I will look at their schedule because all my clients share their schedule with me and see when they have vacations or periods of time when they're going to have less work or less stress. And I'll load them up with some pretty hard workouts or workout weeks leading up to that point. And then during their vacation, during their off time, during their family time, they'll have less workouts. They'll be doing like some walking and some breath work and some golf or pickleball or whatever. Their body super compensates and then we get back into a cycle cycle of harder training. So it's okay sometimes. You know, I learned this in athletics training to intentionally get your HRV low, intentionally get close to not over training, but we would call overreaching the body and then give it a rest week or a period of days of relaxation and allow the body to super compensate.

Yeah, that's exactly what I do. The way I would describe it is I'm shooting darts in a moving target and I do this on a short term schedule and in a long term schedule. You know, I identify long term what are their goals and how can we make short term progress towards those goals that isn't going to overwhelm them. And so yeah, I mean it's a strategy that we have to develop not just in the very beginning but on a week to week basis to ensure that they can afford these stressors and that according to their schedules they can make the most of them in a way that really makes sense. It feels good to Them. So yeah, I'm absolutely doing that.

Have you ever used so. So in terms of like dashboards to keep track of all these metrics, these wearables, the training information, the diet, etc, have you ever used Heads Up Health?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Heads Up Health is fantastic. Like I have that dashboard and I can see at a glance like everybody's oura ring data biomarker, bloods, like it intakes all labs. I don't know if it's available like to consumer, but versus if it's more of like a B2B product. But that's amazing. Like if you're a coach listening and you attract this stuff and your athletes and your clients, Heads Up Health is amazing.

I love Heads Up Health. Shout out to tj, Dave and Chuck. Shout out to them. Those are great people and they have an incredible platform that allows me to see and compile all of this data and also how it's all related and really helps me deliver. Because, because at the end of the day I'm the one considering all the data and compiling all the data. But the way I deliver it isn't like, hey look, this is this. No, no, no, no. When I deliver the data, it's very simple, like hey, maybe you should take this on or let's make this adjustment. It's all very again, user friendly so I don't overwhelm my client.

Yeah. Okay. Blood work and biomarkers, is there anything that people are not paying attention to that you think kind of flies under the radar that they should be paying closer attention to? Whether it's like acid alkaline ratios via CO2 measurements or you know, not just thyroid but also TSH or some of the total T3, T4 counts or are there certain things that you kind of pay attention to when you're looking at some of these labs, for example, that you think more people should be aware of?

So today I do a lot of. I offer my service in part through a company that I'm a founding member of. It's called Dream Health D R Y M Health. We're elevating the standards for health and performance for executives all over the world. And I actually work now with a whole board of medical doctors that helps me analyze blood work and make decisions. Previously I was doing it all myself and I'd say one of the.

Some of the biggest key markers that I look at are C reactive protein, high sensitivity C reactive protein.

Why I look at, well, just as a marker of stress in the body. I think it goes kind of under looked, you Know, a lot of these guys will deny that they're stressed out, but their body keeps the score.

How do you differentiate between they just did a hard workout the day before and their CRP is high because they did the exercise session you recommended to them.

So whenever we do all this testing, we do it, we establish these baselines early on the first week or two that we engage with these individuals and we tell them, you know, don't do any strenuous activity, try to get good sleep. We typically find a window, a time frame that makes sense so that we know that their body isn't artificially influenced by, you know, by stress. So and then we retest every. Every quarter.

Yeah.

So I think high sensitivity CRP and CRP are great metrics.

And by the way, you know, for using those as an inflammatory marker, I think it's useful especially for muscle protein breakdown or potential for cardiovascular disease if it's consistently elevated even after a recovery period. From a vascular inflammation standpoint. You know, I like to cluster that and look at homocysteine, I was about to say fibrinogen apple B. The reason I'm saying this is I want to get the point across to people listening that if you want to know if you're inflamed and I believe that either doctors diagnostics or I'm sorry, Genova diagnostics rather they have some panels that show a more complete inflammatory count that goes beyond just crp. I think it's prudent if you're concerned about inflammation to at least on a quarterly or at least a couple of times a year basis, look at your full range of inflammatory markers because you know, as we know from that whatever Time magazine cover story that came out like a decade ago, inflammation is kind of like the hidden killer. But a lot of people don't have a full picture of where the inflammation is coming from and what it's specific to. And that's why I think also if you get something like a really good Cyrex food allergy panel, an autoimmune panel, and then pair that with good blood work and inflammatory panel and then finally an omega index that gives you your omega 3 percentage and that should be close to 8%, then you're able to get a real picture of how equipped you are to fight inflammation, how inflamed you might be.

Yeah. Another interesting marker that I've just, I don't know, it's an interesting pattern that I've noticed is a lot of these high performing CEOs that also happen to be, you know, endurance athletes and such. There's actually, for some reason a lot of these guys tend to love triathlon and you know, marathons and such.

It's a chronic repetitive motion sport that hits that dopaminergic pathway we were talking about earlier. Oh yeah, because a lot of these people, they need that, these driven individuals. I interviewed a guy named Doug Brackman about this. They literally thrive off chronic repetitive motion because it hits that dopamine signal in the brain even better than something like weight training sometimes does.

Now, when you look at their executive lives, I mean it's almost identical to, you know, as far as the pace and the training and just how prolonged it is. It's almost identical physical to mental perspective between marathon and being an executive. Hyperbole executive. So anyway, I started to notice a pattern. It's a lot of these guys have elevated sex hormone binding globulin and so their free testosterone is kind of low. And my hypothesis, because I've seen this pattern now time and time again, my hypothesis is that they're under consuming carbohydrates. I think a lot of these guys are suddenly carb phobic. And look, while I really, truly believe in maintaining stable blood glucose levels, if you're a high performing executive and on top of that, if you're doing physical activity, your brain and your nervous system and your muscle is soaking up glucose, soaking it up, you need to make sure you get enough, otherwise you're going to tank your hormones.

Yeah, it's definitely a balance. You're right that in a carbohydrate and even a calorie depleted state, it's essentially a signal to the body that it's a poor time to make babies. Therefore it'll take total testosterone, even if you're making it adequately bind that up with sex hormone binding globulin, unless you have low free T. Now though I agree with you, you see that a lot in people who eat a low carb diet, especially if they are active. You see it track and correlate to cortisol so it can track distress. No surprise. And interestingly, you also see, and there's a few studies on this high linoleic acid and vegetable oil intake having an impact on sex hormone binding globulin, meaning a positive correlation. And so yeah, there are a lot of things to look at before you just go smear some testosterone cream on your, on your scrotum, you know. Yeah.

And you know what, I, if I were to, let's say compile 90% of the executives I work with and identify. One of the biggest issues that they tend to have is these guys, they want to do it all. They want to do the marathons, they want to travel the world negotiating big business deals, they want to delegate to their team. They're fasting and they're doing high intensity training and low carb. I mean, they're adding in all these stressors. And what I help them appreciate through data as a backbone is that if they can recover better beyond sleep, if they can practice their breathwork, if they can be more conscious of their dopaminergic system, they're gonna get more out of all these things for a longer period of time, and they're gonna feel better and age better in the process. So I use data as proof that they need this and as proof that it'll keep them going as hard and as long as they want.

We're gonna cross the street here into the park where we've been doing an ungodly number of walking lunges. So sorry if I trigger PTSD in you as we do this, Andres, but tell me about the spiritual component. It's something that I'm a lot more intentional with now with the people I work with in terms of ensuring they have a gratitude practice, a meditation practice. I think some of the heat and cold and breath work that I prescribe as a part of their weekly sessions has some crossover because many of them are doing their spiritual practice while engaging these other activities. But how much of an emphasis do you place on. On the soul, on spirit?

You know, it's funny you say that, because a lot of these, I mean, nowadays I have the. The privilege to sort of choose who I work with. There's a high enough demand where I really get to kind of pick who's a good match for me. And even then, a lot of these guys and gals, they approach me because they're looking for improved fitness, recovery metrics. But what they stand, day four, is the soul journey that they go through because they realize in this process that they are looking after themselves on a much deeper level. And I don't really.

Discuss this so explicitly unless it really feels good. But I think that I often allude to the spiritual component that helps them get the best of both worlds. The best of the high performance, the best of the recovery, and then helping them kind of come together into this perfect mesh. And so a lot of guys and girls, they stay for that.

They'll reach their goals, but they realize something much deeper, and that's why they stay working with me.

And what's that look like the spiritual work?

Oh, man, where do I begin?

You know what? I think you and I spoke about this as well, which is breathwork is the most accessible way, the, the easiest and most accessible way to influence your physiology. But physiology is sort of suspended above a deeper layer. In my opinion, that's a spiritual layer.

I'll give you a story. Actually, I think I can wrap this idea up with a story. I had a gentleman that I met outside of a coffee shop after I finished a long road cycling session. He had finished his session too. For whatever reason, I was alone. He was with some buddies, and he said, hey, man, you know, join us for some coffee. You know, you're all alone over there. Come on, come join us. And one thing, like, to another. And we started talking about physiology, about fitness, about fasting. And I could tell this guy really, you know, he could use some help. And he was really curious about his body. He asked me for my information. We stayed in touch, and a couple weeks later, we met for coffee again. And he made the point that he was really impressed by my knowledge at a young age and he wanted to start working with me. And his goal in the very beginning was he wanted to lose some weight. And I said, okay, great, all right. We ended up working together for a few months. He lost some weight. But then we stayed together for about a year and it became two years. What did we accomplish in those one to two years beyond the weight loss? What we accomplished was we learned that he was using road cycling as an escape, as an escape from his life and from his family and really from himself.

Exercise is escapism. I've never heard of that before.

Yeah, yeah, but he was, I mean, he was completely neglecting areas in his life where he. That he knew needed work. You know, he was working all day long. He would get home, he would prepare for road cycling the next morning, and at 4am he was back on his bike, like, and he knew he wanted to invest in his family, etc. So what we ended up identifying was some patterns of trauma in his past. And mind you, this is a very religious Jewish man who, before working with me, I don't think he had.

I don't think he realized that we were about to take this super deep journey together and even consider something as like.

Psychedelic medicine to get to the root cause of these behaviors and these bad habits. And in fact, he listened to one of my podcasts with Dr. Julia Meyer on psychedelic medicine, and that's what kind of sparked that interest. And I got him in touch with a woman called Julie Granger, who leads a lot of these psychedelic medicines and therapy sessions. And they did their session. He saw what I saw, but he had proof. And all of a sudden he was able to identify as a healthier guy. And all the habits that we were trying to work on over the past few months to the year just sort of fell in line like automatically. And he just became this super empowered, open minded and loving guy. He always had that capacity in him. But I think it was working with me that he was able to open his mind to these things in a way that came from a place of real genuine self love. I think it was building that trust with me and knowing while telling him, look, I'm willing to help you get any medicine that we need to get our hands on to help you out. And he sort of opened his mind to psychedelic medicine and wow. Yeah, changes life, changes family. His family, they text me, they call me all the time. I've had multiple Shabbat dinners with them. I've changed the family as a unit, helping him identify where he really needed to work. And that was in his soul and his spirit.

You can certainly see a shift in consciousness that occurs with the use of mushrooms or LSD or Wachuma or even Ketamine for example, that can deactivate the default mode network to an extent to where people realize, for example, harmful patterns that they're in. You know, as Napoleon Hill would call like that hypnotic trance that put you in this cycle in which you're no longer as. I don't like to use these woo woo words like serving yourself or serving the world. Kind of like basically you've lost touch with what you should be doing, what's most important in life and what you should be prioritizing. I'm of the stance now that I really wish more people would take a three day weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, take their phone, but put it completely in airplane mode or leave the SIM card or whatever. You figure out a way to where you're not tied to your phone, take water, a backpack, a tent, a blanket, and spend two to three days in the wilderness in complete sensory depth. And it's pretty rare that people come out of that experience and still want to do magic mushrooms to find themselves. So you know, I, I think there's some utility psychedelic medications, but I think more, more people need to kind of similar to what we were talking about with say like sleep and breath work, like eat the frog and do it the way that doesn't require you to be Dependent on drugs to find yourself. And I, I've personally, through fasting, prayer, meditation, breath work, solitude, silence, and time with God found not only as deep but. But more lasting fulfillment than I've ever gotten through plant medicine journeying. But also it's something that is accessible to anyone. Right? There's a lot of people, I think, being sent the message right now in society that you gotta go do a massive heroic dose of drugs in order to find God or find yourself. I think there's billions of people who hear that message and can't or don't or don't know how or don't know how to access this stuff. And I wish they knew the power of things like fasting and prayer and meditation and breath work. And sometimes the two can be combined. But I sometimes think even the drugs themselves can be escapism if you're not careful, you know.

And, you know, what I'll say is I'm very reserved on the psychedelic stuff. Like, I only have a very, very, very, very small handful of clients that have even considered that in this case, that I think what this guy needed was to feel happiness for the first time in his life. He was never happy. And I think that just expanded his mind to the point where all of a sudden, things like breathwork made him happy. Things like choosing the right foods actually mean he didn't have the capacity to feel happiness. And I'm sure there's other means to do it, but that worked for him. And I'll actually give you another briefer story here.

That really speaks to this soul connection that I have with my clients. I had a client, very, very young guy, about 18 years old, who all of a sudden, he was diagnosed with alopecia, nervous Salis. So he lost every single hair on his body. And all these doctors, they couldn't figure out why. And they were suddenly, you know, prescribing all kinds of steroids and all kinds of meds that were making him weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker. And his parents approached me. They felt that I may be a good mentor for him. And in about a year's time, he regained every single hair on his head. What I was able to identify was that he was using nicotine and all these vapes to sort of fit in, because he always. He grew up feeling left out. He started using all these nicotine products and him hanging out with the wrong people, and it created an inflammatory response that literally killed off every hair on his body, gave him alopecia. And so we were able to identify that. We Were able to do some deep work and figure out why that was the case. And spending time with me and really building a friendship from that, you know, client relationship, really truly building a friendship there. And trust helped me enable all these healthy habits, healthy foods. We took a functional medicine approach with the help of some specialists, and he regained. I mean, he has more hair now in his body than he did before.

There you go. You're better than Rogaine undressed. That's great.

I mean, look, the doctors told him he would never regain the hair back, ever.

Yeah, I feel. I feel like in addition to that, like back to where we started, which is perfect because we just arrived back at our. At our Airbnb here to get ready to gear up and go hunt. What's the kind of fish we're going to go hunt this afternoon?

Look, I have it on my shirt.

Yeah, sheep's head. You got on your T shirt. Even though this isn't a video podcast.

Mark, the guy that's taking us out, he has one of the former world records for.

Yeah, sheep's head. So we might be in sheep's head tonight, but to come full circle, I even think, like, you know, free diving, spearfishing, being in the cold water, man, I think that's a really, really cool way to enhance people's ability to. To wake up, to decrease stress, to get in touch with themselves as well. So I think that's a really fantastic method.

Also, I just want to add a couple more things here about add ifs.

Well, we got about five minutes and we gotta wrap up, so I'll tell.

You what, one last thing that I want to say here is for those of you guys and gals who are having trouble focusing, who haven't prescribed medicine, look, that stuff, I'm not going to bash it. It helped me. It helped me get through school. And I think that if I hadn't gone through school, I wouldn't have developed the self confidence that I have now, and it wouldn't have become part of this amazing story. But what I want to say is really try and make an effort to practice breathwork, to exercise, to get sunlight in the morning, to avoid foods that are processed, to avoid low quality gluten, to really get invested in your nutrition.

Maybe even some nootropics, and just see how that feels. I mean, even you don't have to replace the medicine and it'll work synergistically with what you have.

But really take that chance to invest in yourself and see what happens.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's Great advice. Again, talk to your doctor before you stop any medication. But there are ways to manage what I think is an over diagnosed condition that a lot of times, as Andres basically said, is your hidden superpower.

It really is.

So, dude, you ready to go get some fish? Yeah. And get cold water.

I'll finish off with a quote by Naval Ravikant that you and I appreciate quite a lot. Escape competition through authenticity.

Escape competition through authenticity. What's that mean?

I mean, if you're not authentic, you're going to be like everybody else and it's going to be a competitive environment. Right. You can completely just put competition aside by being yourself and, and doing the things that only you can do.

Oh yeah, that's kind of like be your true authentic self rather than who you think the world expects you to be.

And you escape. Exactly. And you escape competition. When I was taking Adderall, I was competing with the rest of the world. I was just essentially assimilating myself to the rest of the world, to, you know, good students in school. And as I ditched that and really began to dive into my interests, my hobbies, my passions, and one of those became my personal health and wellness, it became something selfless that I could then share with the world. And I think that everybody has that ability. Everyone has a story to tell, but they have to be willing to be authentic. And I think that a lot of everything that we've spoken about on this podcast today can really help folks develop that authenticity.

Yeah, dive into.

I see what you did there. Yeah.

Well, folks, I'll put the show on us@BenGreenfieldLife.com know your physio. Just like it sounds like know your physio. I'll link to Andres website. And also you might also hear this if you're listening to Andres podcast because we're going to put it out on both our shows. He has a fantastic podcast and you can find us all on social media as well. So again, it's BenGreenFootLife.com know your physio Andres. Thanks, man.

Thank you.

Time to have a. Time to have an adventure.

All right, let's do it.

Thanks for listening, everybody.

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining way, well informed and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. And if you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.

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