Q&A 443: The Latest On Diet, Supplements & Cognition, Melatonin, Natural Testosterone Boosters, Blood Flow Restriction Training, Managing Inflammation & Much More!

In this episode of the Ben GreenfieldLife.com podcast, the latest on diet, supplements and cognition. Melatonin, natural testosterone boosters, blood flow restriction training, and much, much more.

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

Jay. What is up man? It's been a little while, kind of.

It has been a really long time, man.

Well, no it hasn't. Like we're kind of lying actually, because you and I talked for like an hour and a half couple. A couple days ago we recorded a podcast about this HRV monitoring system that you've been working on behind the scenes. But that's a chat for another day. This Q and A thing that we haven't done in a while, I have a lot of news flashes that have piled up and I suppose because we try to engage in some kind of witty banter, pretend like we like each other before we actually dive into the interesting stuff. Did you have anything happened in the past month or so that's been groundbreaking, shocking news flashes? Any changes to your daily smoothie or your evening exercise habits or your morning poop habits or anything at all, dude?

Well, kind of. As you mentioned, a lot of my life has been building this company that's a story for a later time so people can listen to the Honu Health podcast when we drop it. But kind of very much coinciding with that. But also too within my self quantified biohacking domain, I've been just kind of playing around with watching continuous heart rate variability and just kind of doing some experiments if you will, on what is making the most immense change both transiently and then long term. And there's a lot of things that I've figured out, but one thing that's really cool that I think you'll appreciate. And now Ben, since you have the Honu, you can play with this and see what effect you have. So like anytime before I go onto a podcast or I do anything or I am publicly speaking and I feel like I need to be just like at the top of my game. I will do a lot of times I like to be fasted, but a lot of times I'll take about, I think it's like 10ml of that ketone ester from ketone aid and it just gives me that little edge, that little bit of sharpness. But the really cool thing that I've noticed and I don't have a great physiological explanation for this, so I'd love to talk to like Dom d' Agostino or a ketone expert on this. But I've noticed some really interesting autonomic nervous system changes. Like, whereas I might would see a suppression of HRV right before a, you know, a stressful or semi stressful event like a, like a podcast. I've actually seen that when I take this, yes, I remain good, cognitively focused, but also see like this appreciable jump or bump in hrv. And it's been a fascinating thing. So if anybody out there who wants to test who's using Hanu for a continuous, you know, HRV monitoring just. I love testing things and I just found that one to be a really cool one in the past few weeks. Cool.

Well, first of all, thank you for using my what's up Jay As a, as a shameless plug for your. For your company.

Do it again. Second of all, yeah, there's. There actually has been research that I've seen before about ketone esters and their ability to be able to act as kind of like a mild anxiolytic. And so it is true. And for people who don't know what a ketone ester is, these are like the drinkable ketones that would kind of shift you into the same type of state as you'd be in if you were fasting or restricting carbohydrates, but they increase your blood ketone levels appreciably more than that. And yeah, they can actually decrease stress. I hadn't really thought about like using them before. I'm going into a stressful scenario aside from like a workout that's actually pretty. Pretty good to know. So cool. The other thing, speaking of stress, I was gonna say the one thing different that I've been doing that has just been shocking and I've been posting this to Instagram is I got a new workout machine and I've been just lifting weights for twice a week right now for 20 minutes. And it's one of these, like single set to failure workout machines. Oh my gosh. It's like fighting a giant robot for 20 minutes. Like, you can hear me. You can be screaming from inside the house. I mean, you know, because if I do anything, I want to do it 110%. I suppose you don't have to go on as hard on it as I do, but oh my goodness, like, I am piling on muscle. I'm gaining like one to one and a half pounds of muscle a week right now. Basically I'm doing this machine and 60 grams of kion aminos a day. And like. Yeah, and like My. You know, my. My. My. My butt can barely fit into my nice pair of skinny jeans. It's crazy. So this. It's called a. So the exercises I do in it are chest press, row pull down, shoulder press, deadlift, and squat. It's called a arx. And it literally is like. It's like a machine with a bunch of cams and chains and resists with literally, like, hundreds and hundreds of pounds of force, pushes you through the whole range of motion. It's like super slow training on steroids. There's like, a screen that kind of shows you how much power you've produced and how your previous workout compared. It is nuts. And the only reason I'm talking about it right now is I don't want this to sound like a shameless plug or commercial, but it's, like, the one thing in my protocol that I have changed, and it's pretty crazy how. How well it works, but it fries your nervous system, dude. Like, I sleep like a baby the night that I use it because my body's just like, dude, what did you. What did you just do to me?

Did you mention how many times a week are you doing this? And then how much, like, space are you putting in between workouts in terms of recovery?

I've had it for four weeks, and I start the first two weeks. I did it once, like, per week, and then these last two weeks, I feel like I'm. My body's kind of grasped what is required to use it, and I'm doing it twice a week now. And. And what was the other question you asked me?

Yeah, just, like, recovery time, but you.

Kind of like a solid, like, three to four days easily of not lifting heavy weights at all.

Geez. Are you doing any other exercise in between or. That's really been kind of it for the last month.

I walk, I hit the sauna, I do the cold tub. But, like, as far as, like, exercise. Exercise, Yeah, I mean that and I play tennis. So, yeah, it's. It's pretty nuts because, like, two times a week for 20 minutes. And I realized, like, some of these machines are kind of spendy, but, you know, it nonetheless is pretty cool. So that's my newest. That's my latest. We should jump into today's news flashes because we have a bunch. I've just not been doing this Q and A for a while, so let's jump right in. Let's jump right in. Oh, and folks, by the way, show notes for everything we talk about are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com 443 and then also the news flashes and the stuff I talk about. I constantly put these out on Instagram, on Twitter, on, on Facebook. So if you follow me there, you can get these hot off the presses. So the first little flash here, J this was a large cross sectional study which measured cognitive function. And there are a few things that came up from it and a few studies that were kind of related to it that I wanted to mention. So basically no surprises here. The title of the study was the Evaluation of Adiposity and Cognitive Function in Adults. And I realized that there is this whole hypothesis of like being overweight or being obese offering you some type of health protective effect, which I think in maybe a famine scenario might come in handy. But ultimately, the biggest takeaway from this study was that higher levels of adiposity are associated with vascular brain injury and cognitive impairment, meaning that for intelligence. And this would even be something for people to think about with their kids, like paying attention to body adiposity, not fat shaming, but really paying attention to low level physical activity during the day, cold thermogenesis, paying attention to what you're stuffing your mouth with. It actually has a pretty big, bigger than I thought impact on cognition. It was pretty significant, the drop in cognitive function that occurs if you're not paying attention to your adiposity. And again, I'm not saying.

I don't want this to turn into a billboard that's like fat people are stupid. But instead what I'm saying is the more you can do to restrict excess adiposity, the better, especially when it comes to cognition. And interestingly, I wanted to mention a couple of things that popped up in the studies that are pretty relevant to this. The first is that they did a look at certain food variables that can, as opposed to adiposity, actually increase cognition and make you smarter. And so these are all recent, which is why I'm bringing them up. One was on the polyunsaturated fatty acids, the omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in fish. And what they found was that a diet that is rich in regularly consumed fish, like the so called Smash diet, like sardines, mackerel, herring, anchovies and salmon, resulted in a, or was associated with a significantly reduced risk of dementia and an improvement in cognition, particularly in elderly people. And so that was one food group that looks like it's actually good for making you smart. And these people were getting the equivalent of like, if you were looking at it from a fish perspective, about 2 grams of fish Oil per day. So you could either do fish or 2 grams of fish oil per day, but that would be the dosage for the cognitive component. And then the other one that was really interesting was a study that looked at the associations of dairy, meat, and fish intakes with risk of instant dementia and cognitive performance. And there were several foods that kind of stood out on this as far as doing things like increasing verbal memory and better cognitive performance and lowered risk of dementia. But the two that were the most significant one was exactly what I was just talking about. Higher fish intake being associated with people being smarter. But then the other one was non fermented dairy intake, AKA cheese. So cheese can actually increase cognitive performance. Fatty fish is another one. And so those are two food groups that would actually be good for cognition. And then the other one that I wanted to mention, because I just actually did a podcast on this new company called Zero Acre Farms that's developing like a fermented form of oil that could scalably be able to replace vegetable oil. Well, during that conversation that I have, the founder of Zero Acre Farms, we were talking about, like, how a lot of times Alzheimer's is called type 3 diabetes, like, related to high amounts of sugar causing inflammation in the brain, and how it's likely that Alzheimer's, in terms of a higher risk potential from a dietary standpoint, because you can go burn off glucose and exercise and stuff, would be the omega 6s found in vegetable oil. And I'll link to one of these studies, but basically what it looks like is you get a massive increase in amyloid plaque formation, especially if you have certain gene variant like the APOE4 gene. If you consume cooked and oxidized oils, particularly those with a low heat point, or those that have been processed like a vegetable oil or canola oil or sunflower oil or safflower oil. And.

These oils accumulate in the brain and cause neuronal death, chronic inflammation, chronic hypoxia to neuronal tissue, and arteriosclerosis. And that would include arterial stiffness. And that applies to the brain as well. And the conclusion here would be that vegetable oil would be one of the major culprits behind Alzheimer's disease, which is really, really interesting because you can also see a drop in choline levels in people who have early onset dementia or Alzheimer's. And a lot of times people who are not getting enough fatty fish and eating too much of the omega 6 fatty acids, like seeds, nuts, vegetable oils, et cetera, they actually display lower amounts of these choline levels. So the takeaway message here. And I realize I'm going on a little bit, but if you want to be smart, pay attention to overall adiposity. Eat fatty fish if your gut can tolerate it, add cheese in as well, and then avoid vegetable oils like the plague and you're going to be one smart cookie. What do you think?

Totally agree. I mean I see this obviously in the research, which is what we're discussing now. I see this clinically as well or when I working as a consultant with people who are looking to perform their best, especially if they're looking to cognitively perform best. Well, there are obviously things that we can do behaviorally. But one of the core things that I go to if someone's battling with this is what changes can we make in their exercise or nutrition routine to really help cut down some body fat? Because we know that that is so interconnected with overall cognitive performance. So yeah, eat your fish, eat your cheese and lose that excess body fat and you're good to go.

Yeah. And I know I talked about things like cold thermogenesis, fasted workouts, paying attention to calories, all these things being important when it comes to overall adiposity. But one other thing that popped up in the news flashes in the past month was this idea behind environmental toxins worsening the obesity pandemic. And this is one thing I always chuckle about when the science bros out there say oh, there's no such thing as detox or toxins aren't as big of an issue. But this latest evidence for so called obesogens like environmental obesogens was based on research by more than 40 scientists in, in three different big review papers. And they looked at chemicals in water and dust and food packaging and personal hygiene products and household cleaners and furniture and electronics. They looked at 50 different chemicals, you know, BPA, phthalates, plastic additives, a lot of the stuff that we're kind of familiar with. And then other things that are also pretty prevalent or pervasive like pesticides, you know, DDT, flame retardants, dioxins, PCBs, air pollution, and even these so called forever chemicals which are called PFAS compounds. And these are the ones you find in food packaging or in cookware or in furniture or even like child car seats. And I'll link to the study in case people just want to go full on orthorexic and live in a bubble and get rid of all these chemicals and toxins, which I'm not endorsing but I am saying you should be aware of your environment without getting excessively stressed by it. But these obesogens, what they do is they kind of upset the body's metabolic thermostat. They make gaining weight easier and losing weight harder. And the main reason for that is they directly affect the number and the size of fat cells because a lot of times fat cells are where your body actually stores toxins. They alter the satiety signals that help people to feel full. They alter thyroid function, which is obviously one of your metabolic set points, and can speed up or slow down your metabolism. And they affect your dopamine reward system, which could increase things like food cravings, et cetera, or help full you feel when you're eating a meal. Then finally, they affect the microbiome in the gut, which can also cause weight gain by making the uptake of calories from the intestines more efficient. So it turns out that these chemicals are working on like, you know, seven or eight different pathways. And there is a direct causal link between the cleanliness of your environment, your household cleaning chemicals, your personal care products, and a lot of things that I think people who are trying to lose weight don't think about as much as like the, you know, the healthy eating and the exercise. But it's very pervasive, it's very pernicious, and unfortunately it's very lucrative for a lot of these chemical companies. But people need to be aware of this. There are wonderful, wonderful resources like the Environmental Working Group website, which I think. Do you remember Jay's@ewg.org or EWG.com I think it's. Org, I'm not sure. EWG.org, yeah, that's a good one for making more informed personal decision choices when it comes to environmental toxins. But it's, it's a bigger issue than even I thought until I saw some of this newer research that just came out. And again, I'll link to it in the shownotes@bengreenfieldlife.com 443. But definitely also something to bear in mind when it comes to obesogens and environmental obesogens particularly.

I agree, I agree, but I hear the bros chirping in the peanut gallery at you, Ben.

Well, you know what? We'll just, we'll just keep on rolling then. We'll keep on rolling. So that's right. The next one that I thought was interesting and this is the reason why I mentioned the kion aminos at the beginning. Again, not wanting this to sound like a commercial, but all the people I train, especially the older people above 40, I have them on 40 to 60 grams a day of essential amino acids along with around 0.7 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight. And yeah, there's certain days of the week or certain times of the year when you want to restrict protein from a longevity standpoint, like you know, on a recovery day you might eat as low as 0.5 grams per pound of protein. Or every quarter you might do like a four to five day protein restricted fast. But that's kind of few and far between. But what this latest study looked at, and again most of these are very, very recent studies, was to determine the association between protein intake and all cause and cause specific mortality in this case amongst men. But you could probably extrapolate a little bit of this to women. And basically low protein intake, irrespective of source. Right. Whether we're talking about vegan protein, meat based protein, whatever was associated with a pretty significant increase in all cause risk of mortality, especially amongst older men. And so whereas I think we often think about restricting protein as being this longevity enhancing strategy, it turns out that within reason that might be the case. If you're constantly, if you're eating four rib eyes a day your entire life, yeah, you probably would accelerate aging a little bit just due to the constant intake of methionine and the constant activation of MTOR pathways which could accelerate aging. But if you're getting like 0.55 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight from nice clean sources and then occasionally fasting or engaging in protein restriction, it appears to be one of the better things for longevity to actually not be swearing off protein or being. I never ever thought I would have to use this phrase, but being like protein phobic, which it seems like a lot of longevity enthusiasts kind of seem to be these days, so definitely do not swear off protein, especially when it comes to the anti aging component.

So Ben, from an anti aging longevity perspective, a lot of people kind of in the field now are coming to this. I won't say conclusion, but for lack of a better word, I'll say conclusion that if you want to have your carbohydrates, you better earn it. Or that's kind of the idea. Earn your carbs. Do you think the same applies to protein or does the protein work a little bit different? Like if you're gonna like intake plenty of protein, just make sure you earn it. And by that I mean get your butt out there and move.

Yeah, well, specifically for protein, you know, get out your butt out there and move, I think would be more relevant to fatty acids and maybe carbohydrates for protein. Yeah, the more weight bearing, the more loading that you do, the, the, the more protein that you're gonna need. Of course. But I kind of like this idea and this, this is kind of how I live my life, kind of. And I talked with the guys of the. It was like the thermogenic podcast about this, this idea of like fasting, calorie restriction, carb restriction, some protein restriction, et cetera, and then low levels of physical activity and how that compares to like lifting weights, running, being outside, sporting, playing tennis, playing golf, like living life at a relatively faster pace, but then also having a really high throughput of nutrients and calories and actually keeping the body charged up with fuel. And I think that the latter scenario, which is kind of how I live my life, I eat 4,000 calories a day. I'm constantly moving, I'm constantly exercising, I'm constantly just like, yeah, moving. I think that ultimately that results in a healthier human than the person who's just cold and hungry and libido less and only able to do yoga because they're always fasting.

And not eating enough protein, if that makes sense. And speaking of fasting, this one was interesting, this recent study, and this is kind of related to what you were talking about as far as ketone bodies go, Jay, you know, there's this phenomenon, it's really weird, where when people fast, and especially if they lift weights when they're fasting, they don't seem to lose muscle. And in some cases, and some studies have shown as little as 800 calories a day, people are putting on muscle, which seems to kind of like defy thermogenics or defy thermodynamics and, and the law of the conservation of energy. But this recent study actually kind of highlighted why that might be. What happens is when you do a short term fast, like anywhere from 24 to 72 hours, and you could probably kind of sort of throw even like an intermittent fast of 12 to 16 hours into this scenario. The ketone bodies that you produce, specifically beta hydroxybutyrate, what those function as is what's called an HDAC inhibitor. And that can lead to the activation of a protein called p53. And p53 can actually cause what's called quiescence. Quiescence allows your muscle cells to be able to maintain themselves and basically not degrade when you're in a fasted state. It's almost like this body has this protective mechanism that kicks in when you're fasting, especially if you're sending the body a message via weightlifting that it needs muscle that allows it to maintain muscle even when you're restricting calories. Now that might fly in the face of what I was saying earlier about like, eat enough protein, eat enough calories, et cetera. But I think this study is interesting because it shows that if you are kind of following the rules that I just laid out a few minutes ago, but then throwing in a few times a year like these longer periods of fasting, well, continue to lift weights, perhaps even consider supplementing with a little bit of extra exogenous ketones. And it appears that there's kind of like this muscle protective effect that kicks in if you're fasting, if you're load bearing, and then if you also have elevated ketone levels. So it's kind of like a way to have your cake or in this case not have your cake and eat it too. Because these ketone body signaling combined with fasting and weight training seems to allow the muscles to not degrade, to not atrophy quite as quickly. So it's pretty interesting.

A lot of people become really concerned regarding fasting and muscle loss and then even to kind of energy and what happens to energy expenditure duringduring fasting. But this is an interesting one that shows that you can still actually promote muscle gain during that period of time. But to your point, again, it's not like the researcher, you or I are saying that you should be fasting all the time, every day, like every week, and then expect to kind of have these gains occur. But if you are going through kind of these periods of times when you are doing maybe some more longer term fasting or even shorter term fasting, that you can still grow muscle off that. And I've heard Jason Fung talk about this, heard Dom d' Agostino talk about this, but this is good, kind of confirming and interesting research on kind of the actual physiology of what's occurring. So it's great.

Yeah. And then one other kind of, before I turn to a few interesting ones on sleep, one other little anecdote that came up in the literature in the past month that I think is relevant to exercise and muscle is on creatine, one of the most common oral supplements used by pro athletes particularly, but a lot of recreational exercises for boosting strength and muscle mass and power. And there's even some evidence now that it can improve cognition as well. So throw that in there with your fish and your cheese. But creatine supplementation in this particular scientific literature review appears to have no detrimental effects on kidney function unless you have underlying kidney disease. And that's something I hear a lot from people is, creatine's bad for the kidneys. Creatine bad for the kidneys. And the reason for that is when you have elevated creatinine levels like a blood test, it can be indicative of poor kidney function. It can also be indicative that you're just consuming creatine and you have some creatinine breakdown as a byproduct of that creatine. But what this literature review showed was as high as 30 grams a day of creatine, which is way more than I recommend. I only recommend 5 grams a day, just consistently throughout the year, had caused no significant effects on kidney function, like glomerular filtration rate, for example, or cytotoxic metabolites of creatine. You just didn't see these things like methylamine and formaldehyde in the urine of healthy humans consuming up to up to 30 grams of creatine per day. So it goes to show, this is still a pretty safe supplement. Now, there is one thing to realize. If you're mixing up your creatine and you mix it up in water and you let it sit for longer than about eight hours, the creatine breaks down into creatinine. So if you do that, you know, if you make your creatine shake and put it in the fridge and maybe drink half today and half the next day or something like that, you actually are drinking something that is bad for kidney function. Okay? Because all the creatine breaks down into creatinine. So the takeaway from that is don't be worried about consuming creatine, but don't make your creatine supplement or mix it in water or a smoothie or anything like that, and then wait and wait and wait and wait to drink it. I don't know a lot of people who would do that. But make sure that if you have a creatine powder that when you consume it, you just. Or when you mix it up, you consume it pretty quickly just so you don't get that creatinine accumulation.

It makes sense. I wonder if there. I don't even know if there are products like this, but I could imagine, like, with like the ready to eat products, there might be some products already out there that have creatine in them.

There are. I've seen them. Some. Some energy drinks add creatine. That's bad news. Bears don't, don't drink an energy drink if it has like extra creatine added to it because it breaks down into creatinine once it's in that liquid medium. Unless there's there. There might be some kind of stabilization method I'm unaware of that some companies might be using. But as far as I know, like, there's no way to keep it from breaking down into creatinine. So just, just a little heads up for folks. Okay, so now I want to move on to a few things regarding sleep. So one study was based on artificial light and sleep. And it's obviously not a news flash that if you're looking at screens and you have a TV in the bedroom and bright overhead LED fluorescent lights, you know, on a screen or in the light bulb in your bedrooms, that is going to disrupt the melatonin production and deleteriously impact sleep. But what this latest study looked at was the physiological effects of 100 lux of light on healthy adults while sleeping. And just so you know, 100 lux is like almost nothing. That's like what you might get with the full moon coming through your window. And what they found was that that very low level 100 lux light did actually suppress melatonin levels significantly. And so this just basically highlights what I've mentioned before. Like, get the room as freaking dark as possible. When you sleep, don't, you know, not only wear a good sleep mask, but also because your skin has photoreceptors as well as your eyes, make sure that you get really, really good blackout curtains. Make sure that you've got the bedroom as dark as possible. For me, if I'm going to a hotel, I'll unplug stuff like that, the TV or the alarm clock or anything else that's generating light, because it's not hard at all to produce 100 lux of light. And you have this body's master clock called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. And not only is that pretty sensitive to this light, but it's interesting. Back to the issue with hormonal disruption, you get an increase in a lot of the type of hormones that are going to increase appetite and cause appetite, appetite dysregulation the next day when you're triggering the suprachiasmatic nucleus with light at night. And so this also has impact from a metabolic and a glucose metabolism standpoint as well. So long story short is like, get the room as dark as possible. It's like you shouldn't be able to see your hand in front of your face. Ideally, when you're sleeping, and unfortunately, whether it's a night light in the bathroom that's right next to the bedroom, or a little bit of light shining from an alarm clock or, or a tv, a lot of people have a hundred lux in their bedroom and they aren't sleeping well, and they don't realize even that little bit of light is affecting them.

Let me know, play a little bit of devil's advocate here, Ben. So you mentioned kind of the example of like a hundred lux being like, let's say moonlight. Let's say if someone, they do not have exposure, which isn't going to be, this is going to be a minority. It's not going to be a lot of people, but they don't have exposure to, let's say outside, like artificial lighting, you know, whatever it may be, streetlights, lamppost, but they just have kind of moonlight coming in. It's just more kind of like that natural outdoor light. Like, do you think we're gonna see the same effects or do we have research that says like, oh, actually we should still black out the curtains there, or like someone like you who's out in the middle of the woods, maybe it's not as necessary.

Yeah, no, they've actually done the sleep. If you go to the Sleep foundation website, they have multiple analysis that have reviewed data from hundreds of people in sleep studies. And those sleeping during a full moon had lower sleep efficiency, less deep sleep, delayed time, reaching REM sleep. So, yeah, the moon is natural. Yeah, but the moon also disrupts sleep. So just because it's natural doesn't mean that, that it's still not going to affect sleep. So even if it's like a full moon, you're like, oh, it's totally natural. I'm gonna have my windows open tonight. It's still gonna affect your sleep.

So, yeah, makes sense. But once a month, man, our ancestors were screwed with that full moon. Watch out, you guys are getting crap sleep.

Yeah. And again, like, I'm all about getting out there and stargazing and occasionally enjoying a full moon. Like, it's not all about protecting sleep, but at the same time, like, long term, like, be careful. And then the, the other interesting thing is, and this was another study that recently came out, bright nocturnal light has been known, as I just described, to suppress melatonin secretion, which is, you know, going to keep you from falling asleep quite as well or reduce the, the quality of your sleep. Now we also know bright light exposure during the day is something that can be good for your circadian Rhythm. Well, what this study looked at was the idea of whether bright light exposure during the day, if you did get exposed to high amounts of light at night, could reduce the amount of melatonin that gets suppressed when that happens. And it turns out that that is the case. Meaning that if you are sleeping in an artificially lit environment or you're unable to reduce light at night, one of the mitigation strategies you can use for that is to get as much bright natural sunlight as you can during the day, because it turns out that when you do that, it actually decreases the deleterious impact of bright light at night. So it's really interesting. We all know that we should be outside in bright light during the. The day, but it really does have an impact in terms of keeping the light at night from being quite as damaging, which is kind of cool to know about.

That's really interesting. I mean, again, more. More of a need for us to commit more time outdoors.

It's helpful. Yeah. And. And obviously, you could take melatonin supplements. And. And this is another one that's really interesting. And. And it actually came out in 2017, but I just found it. What. They. They actually analyzed 30 different melatonin supplements. Actually, it was 31 different supplements. What they found was that the vast majority of them did not contain the amount of melatonin advertised. It ranged from a negative 83% up to plus 478% of the actual labeled content when they tested these melatonin supplements. So the long story short there is be careful. Ideally, you can ask for a laboratory certificate of analysis or. Or something that reflects that it does actually have as much melatonin or as little melatonin as it says. Now, I've mentioned before that I'm not opposed to using what I call the melatonin sledgehammer when you're traveling. And you gotta, like, reset your circadian rhythm. And what I mean by that is, if I go overseas, the first couple nights I'm there, sometimes I'll take like 100 to 300 milligrams of melatonin, which is a massive amount, but massive. But then, like, for the average person who say, like over 40 and 60, starting to produce less melatonin, you don't need to do that melatonin sledgehammer all the time. You need about 0.3 to a maximum of 3 milligrams of melatonin to help you out with sleep. And if you're grabbing a supplement that says it has 0.3 milligrams in a capsule and it's actually 400% more than that, then that could be an issue in terms of causing maybe some morning grogginess or, you know, or you just basically overloading yourself with more melatonin than you actually wanted to. So I would say be careful with melatonin supplements. They're not all created equal. And it's pretty shocking the range in the actual melatonin content when they looked at some of these supplements.

Well, this is why there's some inherent distrust from consumers with a lot of supplement companies is because when you trust that the bottle says what itwhat it is and it's not, you know, it's negative, whatever you said 83% to over, you know, close to 500% over. Uh, yeah, it, it gets you a little bit shaky because the last thing you wanna do is like take something that you think is going to aid you, but then it ends up having these deleterious effects. So I think sourcing is such an incredibly important thing because like right now you go onto Amazon and you type in melatonin supplements. I don't know what it's gonna be, 100, 200 plus, like different brands that you can get. And most people are gonna say, well, which one has the most reviews or which one's the cheapest and which one will get to me in one day. But I think it begs the question, uhm, should we just just hop onto Amazon and grab something or should we really dig in and do our research? And I think the answer is the latter.

Yeah, yeah. And obviously it's not just a case of someone trying to cut corners to make more money or something like that. It just emphasizes the need for further research to determine the best manufacturing processes for melatonin because a lot of times just getting degraded. Right. The majority of melatonin found in supplements is usually sourced from like a porcine pineal gland or sometimes produced synthetically. More frequently it's produced synthetically. And so you actually can get some breakdown products of melatonin, particularly serotonin, in some of these compounds. So I think it is important to make sure that you go to a good company and not just grab your melatonin out of the bargain bin at the supplement store. I use Dr. John Laurence, he's a guy who's been on the podcast before. He has a company called Mitozen. I use his melatonin and it works pretty well. And, and I'm pretty sure that he produces it.

Without cutting corners, so to speak. So that's one brand that I can Actually stand by and get behind. He has a really good book called the Melatonin Miracle too. If people want to learn more about the miracle of melatonin because it has a lot of cool anti inflammatory benefits as well. And if you accidentally do take too much, by the way, getting lots of morning sunlight exposure can kind of get rid of the grogginess right away. Now one other one related to sleep was again this idea of shifting your circadian rhythm, like shifting it forwards or shifting it backwards, meaning like let's say you're waking up at 4am and you want to start waking up at 6am Maybe it's because you've been traveling back east or something like that and your body's on a different time clock. There are so called zeitgebers, which are time cue stimuli that help to alleviate circadian malalignment and a lot of like the jet lag or metabolic symptoms that get associated with circadian rhythm disruption. Now one of those is food, like eating a protein rich meal at the natural time where people would normally be eating in whatever area of the world you happen to be in. One would of course be light, not lots of natural sunlight during the day and as we've already established, little light in the evening. But exercise is a really powerful zeitgeber. Now what this study looked at was the impact of exercise in terms of its ability to shift the circadian rhythm. And it turns out, and it's pretty practical takeaways if you want to do a phase delay, meaning cause your body to start staying up later and sleeping in later, Exercising between about 7pm and 10pm seems to do the trick. So this would be like, I don't know, if you travel to Europe and all of a sudden you're in a scenario where people are going out to dinner at 9:30 or 10:00pm, sleeping until 8:00am or something like that. And you're one of those Westerners who's used to getting up at 5am and going to bed at 9pm well you just exercise and the hotel gym or whatever at some point between 7pm and 10pm and it does a really good job delaying the circadian phase. And then if you want to advance it, the two sweet spots for exercise, meaning let's say you want to start getting up earlier and going to bed earlier would be to exercise as close to 7am as possible or at some point between 1 and 4pm, which actually surprised me. Early afternoon exercise does a good job at a circadian phase advance in terms of allowing you to go to bed earlier and get up earlier. So if you want to go to bed earlier and get up earlier, exercise at either 7am and or at some point between 1 and 4pm and then if you want to sleep in later and stay up later, exercise at some point between 7 and and 10pm Yeah.

I have been having to do a lot of travel this year and that has been like my go to, like my reset has been light, it's been food and it has been like exercise. And I've heard Joe Rogan talk about this a lot as well that he does this. But for me it's like if I get into where I'm going and I haven't been timing it like you have stated here. I've just been trying to maintain kind of my exercise schedule, not get too sedentary, just make sure that I'm continuously maintaining moving, I'm lifting, I'm you know, strength training. I'm doing everything that I would normally do. And I think, I think like I could utilize food as a good zeitgeber. I could utilize light. But I think exercise has been like the best thing for me. It's my, it's my absolute go to that seems to work every single time. So this research continues to make me want to do that and I will do so when I travel and my.

Favorite form of exercise when I travel because it hits so many different variables and including left and right brain, hemispheric activity, endocrine system regulation, fat loss. Nice wakey wakey effect is swimming cold water. Like if I could choose anything, any form of exercise when I travel it's swimming in cold water. Which is probably good because I just signed up for the 1.2 mile open water swim competition over in Sandpoint which happens in about a month. So I got to start doing more swim training. So speaking of jet lag, of course one of the things that that causes is brain fog. And here's another great article from our friends at levels and I'll link to this one also@bengreenfieldlife.com 443 what they did was a really great comprehensive article on all the things that can cause brain fog, which is basically everything from problems with verbal fluency to irritability, moodiness, mild depression, not being able to manage tasks or multitask, you know, low energy or fatigue, you know, feeling like you're walking in molasses, a loss of mental sharpness or mental fatigue. Well what they did was they listed all the different things that could cause this type of brain fog and I Think it's really interesting to know because if you know this stuff, then you know what you can go after if you don't have the cognitive performance that you want. And of course you're already eating fish and cheese and paying attention to adiposity and those other things that we talked about, maybe taking a little creatine. So main things would be lack of sleep, right? And that's basically because a full night of sleep deprivation can impair how effectively your brain cells communicate with each other. So that can cause lapses that affect memory and cognitive performance. We know that you clear waste from the brain when you sleep, which also helps to improve memory recall and reduce mental fatigue. So sleeping, that's not a big news flash. Exercise is another one that seems to improve executive function because of the release, release most likely of the brain derived neurotrophic factor which is really important for memory and for cognitive function. Another one would be hormonal change. And so a lot of times, especially in women, the decrease in estrogen and progesterone can lead to this brain fog that sets in, you know, sometime between 35 and 45 years old. That's why a lot of, especially a lot of the women that I work with, I've got them taking a little bit of DHEA and a little bit of like a transdermal topical progesterone. That, that's like what my wife does. And oh my gosh, it's amazing for libido, for, for sharpness, for, for, for energy, for exercise performance. So a lot of women do really well on, on like a DHEA progesterone combo. Guys be careful with the DHEA because it can cause a little bit of over aromatization to estrogen. So guys, not quite so much. But for girls, that DHEA progesterone combo can be really good. Another one would be medication, particularly sleep aids and pain medications. A lot of people don't realize sleep aids and opioids make you stupid during the day and could cause brain fog. And so that's another one. If you're using those and you're getting brain fog, then you may want to consider some type of natural alternative. And then one really interesting one that I think a lot of people don't realize or they forget about is the gut dysbiosis, right? You have a gut brain axis, this bidirectional highway between your central nervous system and your gut nervous system. And it links the emotional and cognitive center of brain, the brain with a lot of your peripheral intestinal functions. And so this would Be like recent antibiotic treatment or poor dietary choices or poor bacterial balance in the gut, or even the leaky gut that can cause the flow of what are called lipopolysaccharides from the gut into the bloodstream. And a lot of times that'll happen if you're eating a lot of high fat, high sugar meals, ice cream, things like that. So basically the gut is another big, big one when it comes to brain fog. And then of course, because this was written by our friends at Levels Health, the hyperglycemia, like a lot of blood glucose fluctuations during the day that can cause it as well. But I just thought the article was really well written and I've only scratched the surface of what's in it, but I would recommend if you're, if you're dealing with brain fog, you want to banish it or learn a little bit more about brain fog, go read that article because it's a good one. So.

Yeah, yeah. The only one that I might even add in there, Ben, that I didn't hear you mention and obviously this is, is gonna be very obvious when I say it would just be overall psychological stress. We know that stress really just makes you stupid. Uhm, especially if it'sif it's long, long term, chronic and sustained.

So yeah, yeah, don't stress.

Nah, you will stress just control your nervous system.

Yup, yup. Breath work. Yoga.

That's right.

I don't know. Antidepressants. No, I'm just kidding. We've already established this cause brain fog. Uh, okay. And then a few other kind of cool things. I guess this would be bad. Well, one, one on. On allergies because I know we're, we're kind of in a season right now where a lot of people are dealing with allergies. I don't want to bring this up because I literally just kissed both my sons off to a big backpacking trip they were going on and one of them had a bag of spirulina in their backpack. Because there was a recent study that came out. I've talked about it a few times, but I just wanted to highlight it again. Spirulina seems to be really, really good at modulating the inflammatory response of allergic rhinitis, like runny nose, nasal congestion, you know, itching in the nose. In this study, they gave people 2,000 milligrams of spirulina, which is kind of like a little less than a teaspoon, three times a day, and it resulted in a significant decrease in allergic rhinitis symptoms. Probably because of its impact on the immune system and on the histamine pathways. So that's just a cool little hack. You know, we already know, and I've mentioned this in other podcasts, that spirulina, similar doses of what I've just described can be really, really good for mitigating a lot of the damaging effect of vegetable oil. Like, if you have eaten out of fast food or restaurant, you don't know what kind of oil they use. Spirulina is kind of a good one to have in your, in your, in your first aid kit, so to speak, for, you know, a cheat day when it comes to food. But it's also got a really, really good impact on allergic rhinitis. So, again, the dosage, super simple, around a teaspoon, three times a day, 2,000 milligrams, three times a day. Fantastic for allergic rhinitis. So that's kind of a cool alternative therapy for those of you who might be out there struggling with that.

That's great. I mean, I didn't eveni haven't done a lot of research on spirulina. Spirulina. And. But that'sthat's a really good one, especially like, with having kids who haven't had a ton of allergies, per se. But I've noticed it here and there. But, yeah, got some spirulina at home. So here we go.

Yeah. And thenthen a couple other things, and then we'll take a few Q and A's here because we're getting kind of long in the tooth on our news flashes, of course, which I knew we would do. Two studies that came out that looked at herbs and plants that had promise for increasing testosterone. All right, so I already threw you ladies a little favor with the progesterone DHEA tip. Now, for you guys out there, they looked at everything from cinnamon to this stuff called Phoenix dactylothera to theobromine, from cacao to punica, Grenada fruit rind, like all these crazy herbs. And they tested hand grip strength, they tested testosterone levels, they looked at muscle strength. And what they found, I'll give you two that ranked really high. That would be super easy for you to get for either increasing testosterone or increasing libido or both. And one of them also also seem to have an impact on fertility. So the first one is theobromine from cacao. Okay, so adding a little bit of cacao to your morning smoothie, for example, that had an impact. And then ginger was another one. And ginger actually had an impact on fertility as well, which is kind of interesting because if you see ginger in nature, it does look just a little bit like sperm, which is kind of interesting based on nature's signature doctrine of signatures. But yeah, ginger and cacao for you guys out there, I know there's a lot of stuff, but those are super simple as like culinary ingredients that are fantastic to cook with anyways and have a lot of other effects for their, you know, antioxidant and flavanol and polyphenol effects. So ginger and cacao for you fellas out there. And that'll, that'll also make cooking a little bit more tasty. And then the last one, and this is kind of cool because a lot of times I will go on walks to take phone calls. I'll sometimes do this if I'm going for a swimming, sometimes if I had a crappy gym and all they have is like an elliptical trainer, I'll do this. You put on blood flow restriction bands on your arms and your legs to walk or run or swim or do any form of cardio. And we already know that that's really, really good for maintaining or building strength or muscle when you don't have access to heavy weights like strapping on blood flow restriction bands on the arms and legs and cranking out some pull ups and push ups and body weight squats and lunges and things of that nature. Nature. But what this study looked at was the effect on cardiovascular performance and cardiopulmonary function and also muscle strength in endurance athletes. And it turns out for people who would perform their running sessions, in this case, three minutes of five sets each of running sessions, so about 15 minutes total of running with a minute of rest in between each with these blood flow restriction bands on, they saw a significant improvement in cardiovascular pulmonary function and strength. And they do kind of burn, I'll warn you, like you get a lot of lactic acid accumulation in the muscles when you have these pressure cuffs on. But yeah, they actually showed that similar to a lot of the research and training they've been doing out of Japan for years with endurance athletes, swimmers, runners, et cetera. And these blood flow restriction bands, or so called Katsu bands, it turns out that they actually really do help you build not just strength, but also endurance. And again, it can be as simple as just like strapping these things on and going for a walk or one of the things I'll do when I travel is I'll put blood flow restriction bands on the arms and then the legs. And if I'm in, like, in my hotel room, I'll do some squats, I'll do some push ups, do some, like, door frame pull ups, some lunges, maybe some type of a core exercise for, you know, 20 minutes or so. And then I'll just head out the door and walk for 20 minutes with the band still on. And so I get that strength and then the cardio stimulus afterwards. And it's nice to now see research coming in showing that it actually does have a pretty significant impact on endurance and cardiovascular function.

Ben, I don't know if it was you or someone else I heard say this, so maybe it's a myth for dispelling or maybe you can just tell me your thoughts on it. I have heard this notion that it could be potentially dangerous to put cuffs on both your arms and your legs at the same time, but it sounds like in this study that you're referring to, they actually were doing arms and legs at the same time or were they rotating or just what's your general thoughts there?

I think in this study they were doing at the same time. But it is kind of like a. Gosh, whenever I interview people in blood flow restriction band or KATSU research, they're kind of like, yeah, you should be careful not to put it on both the arms and the legs because there might be that random incident where you get a clot or something like that. And then they're like, but nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Everybody puts them on the arms and the legs, right?

They're covering. They're covering their tails.

Yeah, basically, I've always used arms and legs. I suppose if you don't play it super duper safe, you wouldn't, but for the most part, yeah, I don't, I don't think it's an issue, but, you know, proceed with caution. We're not doctors. We only wear T shirts that say that. We play one on tv. Okay, now we're recording from Twitter. Sophia, do you want to bring somebody on to ask a question from Twitter? Bringing Brad up. All right, take it away, Brad. Yes.

Hey, thank you guys for just this wealth of knowledge. Question for me is I. I'm somebody who's dealt with inflammation. I've have done some blood panels, figured out that taking extra vitamin B, even copper, has helped tremendously. And then, of course, sleep helps. But yeah, still, still kind of the constant thing dealing with inflammation. Wondering if you folks have any thoughts, information there.

All right, well, let's make this fun. Jay. Let's tag team this and both of us give our top Tip for managing chronic inflammation. Now what I'm going to highlight here before Jay goes is the fact that you definitely don't want to be putting gasoline on the fire on one end and water on the inflammatory fire on the other end. Meaning like cut out vegetable oils, cut out sugars, cut out inflammatory foods. That should be a no brainer to actually make sure that you're not consuming things that would be causing the inflammation. But I think one of the best things that you can do that really flies under the radar, probably because it kind of sucks for inflammation, is regularly dosed, super cold cold water immersion. I mean I've seen people manage things like rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, high levels of CRP inside a keens, autoimmune issues, etc, with a couple times a day of like a two to five minute super duper. I'm talking like 33 to 36 degrees cold soak. Yeah, it sucks. I mean I, I personally do this twice a day right now during the summer, in the winter, not quite so much, but I, I am in 32 degrees in my Morozco forge twice a day for anywhere from two to four minutes for me. And I just sit in there, I box, breathe and I feel so fantastic. My joints feel so, so much better. During the summer. I just don't feel as inflamed and hot and itchy and bothered. And so that's my top tip is, you know, of course avoid things that will cause inflammation, particularly vegetable oils and inflammatory foods. But then try a couple times a day super duper cold thermo. And while there's a ton of other stuff you can do for inflammation, we talk for hours about it. That's one that I think flies on the radar. How about you, Jay?

Yeah, so, you know, I think it depends on what type of inflammation we're talking about. But if we're talking, let's just speak systemically because I think that's kind of how you were responding there, Ben. I think my number one, while there's many that I'd love to speak to, I think my number one would be controlling blood glucose, controlling blood sugar. And so I think utilizing some type of monitoring system where it's, you know, we'll use levels because that was an example you used earlier nutrients, any other type of CGM for monitoring. I think it's incredibly important. But it's not just the monitoring, obviously that is the most important. It's the way that we regulate blood sugar and we regulate blood glucose. So I think if I were going to kind of push everything to the side and say if you had to really focus on one thing, it would be that one. But here's my guess, is that if you're listening to this podcast, Brad, you're here. Ask this question. Is that these might be things that you're already doing, but I think if you're not like, including kind of these, these strategies would be incredibly important and valuable. But, you know, other things like, like red light therapy, breathwork, or, you know, types of biofeedback for stress resiliency, weight management, exercise, all of those are incredibly valuable as well.

Sweet. Sweet. Cool. All right, well, let' slet's go ahead and bring another question on. I'd like to get at least, you know, two or three questions in. So we got a guy named Psychic Brian. Psychic Brian, 33. Brian, I'm gonna bring you up. So, Brian, go ahead and ask your question.

Hey, guys. Hey, Ben. Hey, Dr. J. Thanks for inviting me up. A couple quick questions. Is there any natural alternatives to ADD medication like Adderall and Ritalin? That's my first question. And I wanted to ask Ben what his thoughts on SARMs for muscle building and testosterone production. If you didn't want to go herbs and potions and things like that, that.

Jay, I think probably, man, you could crush this, this natural Ritalin alternative question. So I'll turn that over to you shortly because I know you've got a lot of experience in that department. Now, first of all, relate to the SARMs, selective androgen receptor modulators. I used to kind of sort of be a fan of those, particularly for muscle building and fat loss. The more I use them, the more I researched them, the more I saw the potential, potential for the risk of heart attack or stroke or cancer or liver damage. And the more I realized that peptides safely and effectively get you the same or better results, the more I've switched towards recommending peptides over SARMs. I just think peptides work a lot better. So for example, for a muscle gain, fat loss stack, you could take Tessamorelin in the morning, that's a peptide, cjc, Ipamorelin in the evening, and stack that five days on, two days off. And that's a fantastic stack. That gives you a lot of the fat loss, muscle gain type of effects that you might be looking for from something like a sarms. There's another one, particularly when it comes to reducing adiposity and increasing metabolism, called tessofensine. And tessofensine, it kind of impacts your serotonin and your dopamine pathways. People who are super duper sensitive to those type of things may want to be careful with this one because it could kind of keep you awake at night like Modafinil might, but it increases your metabolic rate, helps you to burn fat, crushes appetite cravings, and that one's really good for pre fasted workout as well. And you could even take Tessamorelin and Tesselfensine at the same time in the morning Again, do the CJC 1295 with the IPAMorelin in the evening and that's a fantastic stack for fat loss and muscle gain. And then Jay, do you want to briefly address his question about the natural Adderall alternatives or Ritalin alternatives? For sure.

So I think everybody is quite familiar with some of the potential long term deleterious effects that ADHD medications, especially Adderall, Ritalin, more of these amphetamine type stimulants can have on the body. So if we're looking at natural alternatives, if you look at the literature for ADHD supplementation, so this is kind of more of like the one to one, but I don't like to say it's one to one because you can never go one to one medication and supplement because. Because what I will say quick, like a quick caveat is that there are some individuals who can thrive off the utilization of these types of medications like Adderall, not become addicted to them and really like can sustain great focus and attention. But that is not the majority what we're seeing in the literature. But if we're looking at good supplement opportunities that can kind of go somewhat in place, and I'm not telling people to come off their medication unless they've spoken with their physician about this. The number one would be omega 3 fatty acids. So that would be fish oil. And I would say like a really good quality pure fish oil, one that's not rancid. So there's this great company that I've heard of called Kion that people could try out that have an amazing supplement. The other one actually in the literature that's really helpful for focus for individuals with ADHD is zinc. So zinc's a really good one because it can essentially cause like this psychostimulant effect for people. Then you also have vitamin D is a really important one. And then the last one or the last two I would say would be magnesium. And then there's some herb supplementation like ginkgo biloba, which can be quite incredible. You stack that on top of the things that we already mentioned more ancestral living. Like a lot of walking, a lot of exercise, and even throw in some, let's say tech or biohacking, things like biofeedback or neurofeedback, especially, especially in training. More activation of the. The frontal lobe. With neurofeedback, these can be quite effective. But I think those are good, good, good replacements if you have found from your doctor that they are okay with it, which is, again, the caveat.

Yeah, cool. All right, well, I hope that's helpful. Psychic Brian. Great handle. And let's, let's go ahead and do. Do one more question. So. Well, let's. Let's see. I've got requests. So Glenn. It looks like Glenn has requested to come up. So I'm reading Glenn Holmes up, my homie from. From Box and Burn down in Santa Monica. Been beat up by him and Tony down there before. So I'm gonna add you as a speaker, Glenn. All right, Glenn, you're on.

Yeah, just on migraines. I know typically it's been kind of an area that people have struggled to why they have the triggers. Just wondered if there's any kind of recent research that you found that you might have be able to shed some light on or any kind of success stories that you've had working with people and touched on Jess's issues with this in the past, but just anything new that you could point to that would help kind of get on top of recurring or frequent migraines.

Yeah, migraine. Gosh, that's. It's a big one. So. And I've done podcasts on this because migraines are very multifactorial. You know, there's tons of reasons from hormonal issues to vagal nerve tone issues, to histamine to. To sulfite issues. I think that some of the main things that people need to think about when it comes to migraines is sometimes you got to tackle it from multiple angles. The top things that I've found that especially for women, but also for guys, seem to pop up over and over again is a genetic histamine or sulfite intolerances, meaning a significant need for not only the introduction of natural anti historical histamine, probiotic and other antihistamine products. Seeking Health is one company that does a really, really good job at not only testing you for histamine allergies genetically, but also producing histamine type of enzymes that help to degrade it. And then same thing for sulfites. And a lot of people who have migraines they just need to basically say bye bye to wine for life. And a lot of people aren't willing to do that. Then they complain about migraines. I'm like, when was the last time you had a glass of wine? Last night. Well, there you go. What's more important to you, not having a migraine or drinking wine? You can switch to ketones. By the way, there's some great ketone alcoholic alternatives now that are low in sulfite that actually could help with migraines based on the increased ketone levels and could offer you an alternative to wine. A few other, like histaminergic type of foods would be fermented foods, kombucha, aged cheeses, some forms of fermented dairy, definitely processed foods, and definitely MSG and a spirit. So those would be things to look at from a food standpoint. From a vagal nerve standpoint, poor vagal nerve tone. There's a lot of vagal nerve stimulators you can use out there. There's natural methods like chanting, singing, humming, gargling, yoga breath work, et cetera. But then there are electronic devices. There's one called the Electrocore, for example, that my wife has. And it's two minutes electrical treatment on one side of the neck, two minutes on the other side of the neck. And that thing works like gangbusters. If the migraines are due to some type of vagal nerve issue. The last one that I would consider, even though, again, there's tons of reasons for migraines, I'm giving you the top three that I see that seem to fly under the radar would be hormonal changes, particularly for women. And again, this typically comes back to estrogen and progesterone imbalances. I think one of the best tests for women who get migraines who suspect that it might be hormonally related, should get is a Dutch test, a dried urine test, and it's a urinary test. You pee four to five times during the the course of 24 hours. It can give you a really, really good look at what's going on hormonally or from a neurotransmitter perspective too, that could be causing the migraine issues. So that is. That's where I would start. I don't know. You got anything to add, Jay?

Yeah, I'm gonna sound like such a broken record today, but obviously this is my lens, so I'm gonna speak through my lens. But there's actually been research to demonstrate that biofeedback and relaxation training can Yield anywhere from a few 45 to 60% reduction in headache frequency and severity. So it's actually known as an efficacious treatment or therapeutic for those with headaches or migraines. So in the past, clinically I've done EMG biofeedback, especially working on people who hold a lot of tension in their delts, who hold a lot of tension in their traps and reducing that tension. The other one would be heart rate variability. Biofeedback has been proven to be effective temperature biofeedback as well. So, uh, I think it's just a really good strategy, especially if you're exhausting all your resources and you're ready to add something a little bit more addition additional in there. Biofeedback relaxation training is really good.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, we covered a lot. We covered a lot. But we always like to give some stuff away. Do we have a review that we can give some stuff away on this podcast? Jay?

Oh, Dewey. Oh, do we?

Do we? Okay, so we're gonna root a review. If you go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever else you listen to our podcast and you leave us a review, we pick one, we read it on the show. If you hear your review read, just email gearngreenfieldfitness.com and we will send you a handy dandy gear pack T shirt, beanie cool water bottle, BPA free of course, so you don't get any obesogenic toxins. And Jay, you want to take this one away?

Yeah. So this one comes from a listener whose name is Hunt Smith. And I like the way they titled this review. It's called no Smelly fingers here. And the review is tired of listening to health and fitness biohacking content where you come away feeling like you've been bottom picking and have the smelly fingers to go with it. Well, Ben Greenfield and Jay bring the top shelf content every single episode. My fingers smell like roses or exosomes. What I've learned through this resource has certainly assisted in helping me to influence others to lead a healthier and more sustained lifestyle. Others do the same. And this scales. Much love, Hunt Smith. Wow, that was a good one.

That's a pretty good one.

I just read it because they mentioned me.

I know. Hunt. Shout out to Hunt. So, Hunt, email gearngreenfieldlife.com and we'll get a handy dandy shirt right out to you. Just include your T shirt size for the rest of you on Twitter, spaces and elsewhere. We'll be doing this podcast again. These Q and A podcasts on a regular basis, hopefully more regularly the than we have been doing because it's been a little while. But in the meantime, all the Notes are at BenGreenfieldLife.com 443 if you have comments, questions, feedback, tips for us to improve the quality of the podcast, anything else, we love to help. That's what we're here for. We love this stuff. We love to study it, we love to share it to help you guys out and make everybody smarter, including ourselves. So thanks for listening in. And Jay, I guess I'll catch you on the flip side, man.

Yeah, man, it's been a blast. Talk soon.

Later everybody. Well, I have something that's pretty important for you to know about if you're into electrical medicine or taking charge of your own health using this cool new technology. Well, it's not new. I think it was developed by NASA a long time ago, but it's really taken the biohacking world by storm. Called Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy. P E M F and it's something I use every day. I have a giant machine mat with coils and I'll hit my shoulder with it or my knee or my back or use it for sleep or energy. And basically PEMF is just a natural electrical current that you can run through different parts of your body to enhance your health or your performance, your recovery, et cetera. And it can be a little bit confusing to know what to stack it with, how to use it, what frequencies to use, what settings to use, what kind of power to use, etc. So whether you are a practitioner who wants to use PEMF in your practice, or whether you're somebody who wants to like me, just use units yourself at home. The upcoming Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Healing Summit is this online summit that teaches you everything about how to use pemf, what units to use, what type of things it can treat. We got doctors, acupuncturists, naturopaths, scientists, a whole bunch of people presenting. And it's a pretty cool, cool summit. So it's free. You know, it's one of those deals where you can watch the whole thing for free and you get special welcome gifts and all that jazz. You've probably seen these kind of online summits before. That's what it is. But it's all about pemf. So the link that I've been given to share with you is BenGreenfieldLife.com PemfSummit that's BenGreenfieldLife.com P E M F S U M M I t. And guess what? I even have a presentation on there. Yeah, the guy interviewed me while I was walking around the forest. But hey, it's there if you want it. Check it out.

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, 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.