The Ultimate Guide to Longevity Supplements and Psychedelics | Shawn Wells

If we want longevity, seek to understand, be curious, and don't believe that there's two boxes.

Today's guest is Shawn Wells, who is a world-leading nutritional biochemist and expert on health optimization. He's been dubbed the world's greatest formulator, biohackerist, and keto authority. Shawn faced and overcame significant obstacles with his own health— weight issues, depression, autoimmune conditions, 2 cervical disc replacements, and more. They say everything happens for a reason, and in Shawn's case, his health problems led him down a winding path that required him to find science-based solutions that sparked his personal passion for biohacking. He's known as the ingredientologist, the scientist of ingredients, and formulated over 1,000 supplements, food, beverages, and cosmeceuticals. Shawn is a former chief clinical dietitian with over a decade of clinical experience and a world-renowned thought leader on mitochondrial health. He's also the author of The Energy Formula, which has been recognized by both USA Today and Forbes, as well as an Amazon bestseller in multiple categories. Welcome to the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast, Shawn. I'm very excited to have you on today.

Thank you for having me on. I'm excited to be here.

Now that we've clarified names, Sean was just sharing that he had an exchange student previously who was Claudia. So people ask, is it Claudia? Is it Claudia von Boeselager? Having lived in 8, 9 countries, I'm used to many different versions of my name, including the Chinese version, Claudia von Boeselager.

Ah, nice.

So I want to start with how you became an ingredientologist, which I think is such a cool word in itself.

Yeah, I mean, I made that up just so you know. I'm the scientist of ingredients. I am a biochemist, a dietitian, a formulator. I've been doing all of those things for about 20 years. I've been patenting unique ingredients for maybe 15 years, and I have about 25 unique ingredients, over 1,000 supplements formulated. I've flavored about 300 products. I'm known as the world's greatest formulator, something I did not give myself, but I think I've, I've gotten to the top of the pack in, in that small and unique field. I think, like, you know, if I think all the way back, my mom— I just turned 49. So like my mom and I was born in the '70s. She had like Shaklee in like the late '70s, early '80s. This is Linus Pauling had just kind of come out with this idea of like orthomolecular dosing for vitamin C, which was kind of breakthrough, like we had always thought of vitamins in such a way of like the RDA that now became the RDI, like in, in the U.S. So it's like kind of like to stave off illness. So like vitamin C was thought of for scurvy, you know, like that kind of thing. So like this idea of like taking grams of vitamin C was like really shook up the idea of supplements in general at the time. And she had like that tackle box, like literally, like I remember maybe 1981, she was selling Shaklee, which is a European brand, more of like a whole food kind of brand. And like she had the VitaLee, which was like this whole food multivitamin. She had like a little vitamin E soft gel and You know, the big vitamin C. And then there was like actually like a whole food, like kind of chocolate bar. And this is like 1981.

Wow, she's one of the originals. Health optimization. Amazing. Good for her.

Right? So like it was cool. Like every time I was getting sick, like this was part of the protocol, you know, like these kinds of things. Like she'd open up this magic You know, it's kind of like this thing, like, like my dad was into fishing and it's kind of like similar to that kind of thing, like with a little tackle box. Yeah, exactly. So I just thought there was like magic in that, and I always thought supplements held some kind of power, and I just found them fascinating that these like ingredients could like make impact on this kind of level, especially when I started thinking about orthomolecular dosing and what some of these things would do. And then it started to be like there was like larger doses of B12, you know, like for energy. And it was just fascinating to me, all this stuff. And then using protein powders. So that's a big part of it. But I ended up having a, a difficult childhood and, um, and using food to soothe that. I fought depression quite a bit, and as I put on weight, then I got bullied at school, um, like relentlessly badly, because not only was I an overweight boy, but I had fat legs and butt, you know, which like really led to, you know, harsh bullying even from teachers.

I'm so sorry.

Yeah, yeah, it's part of my path. But, um, that led into me really getting sick over time, um, because I hated myself, I hated my body, um, I had like these visions of taking a knife and like cutting the fat off my body. I like— I thought my body was gross and my body was betraying me. And at some point, like, I just decided, like, I'm going to start working out. And I started using, like, supplements, like, you know, the whey protein and creatine had just come out. This is when I was in college. And I saw huge differences. Like, I was using all these supplements and these bodybuilding magazines and, like, you know, I think at the time thinking that I'm going to transform my body like these steroid guys that are clearly using a lot more than supplements in these magazines. But as someone that had gone through most of my life humiliated and, and powerless, like, I think it struck a chord, and I'm sure it did with a lot of young men in particular at the time. I think there's a much better nuanced understanding of fitness and bodybuilding and those kinds of things now, but that nevertheless, like protein, creatine, and a number of these ingredients were very effective for me. And in short order, um, I transformed my body, and that was powerful to me. And then people were asking me about like what I did, and then I started working at GNCs and vitamin shops and these, you know, mom-and-pop kind of supplement stores on the weekends and evenings, and people would come see me just for my advice and I couldn't stop reading all the magazines and books. And there was this book from Dr. Michael Colgan that worked with Olympic athletes called Optimum Sports Nutrition, where he was like stacking different amino acids together to elicit like GH responses. And, and I just found all of this stuff so fascinating. I was just doing a deep dive into it and I started dreaming about this idea of becoming a formulator. There was this one guy in the bodybuilding magazines, uh, Dr. Marv Hoyer with MuscleTech, and he was a cardiologist and he wore like a white lab coat and he had like the, you know, the beakers and the bottles. And I was like, oh my God, that would be so cool. And I was in school for business, um, at a very elite business program at Babson College, like number one business specialty school in the country. And doing very well. But I ended up going to the doctor, and he was like, oh my God, like, you've had this massive transformation. And I was like just going on and on about supplements. And I was just expecting, you know, an MD at the time— which, let's see, this was '94— I was expecting him to go, those are stupid, you know. But instead He saw my passion and he drew out this lifeline, and it was, you know, I was 20 at the time, and then he drew out to 80, and he's like— and he showed me this piece of paper. He's like, why not be happy between here and here?

Wow.

And I was like, what? Like, it just like blew my mind. There was no— for me, there was no like Tony Robbins, like Oprahs, and let alone Instagram and all these influencers saying, go chase your dreams. Like, all I was hearing was, you need to finish up school, you need to go get a job, you need to pay your bills. And it was like, this medical doctor is telling me to go chase my dream. And I was like, oh my God, like, they gave me permission to do this.

What a gift.

What a gift. And yeah, it ended up like really sending me down that path. And like, there would be no Shawn, you know, the ingredientologist, world's greatest formulator, without that guy. So, you know, and that wasn't his responsibility. So just a quick nod to him, like, yeah, like, he, like, he really made me who I am by just that one statement to me. So we never know, like, when we're going to have that kind of impact on a person.

Yeah.

Quite frankly, we can impact people the other way too. We can break their dreams. I have some stories like that too, where some words almost pushed me to the point of suicide along my path from actually a guidance counselor that told me my whole idea was stupid to go pursue this formulator position.

I'm glad you didn't listen to the counselor.

Me too, me too. So, you know, words are powerful. And yeah, I think about both of those men. Luckily, like, I had almost killed myself with that guy.

I'm so sorry.

It literally sent me reeling, like I had just wasted all my time. He made fun of my body as well, actually, and, um, and told me this, this was stupid. A business student would fail and fail miserably and all this kind of stuff. Um, but I ended up not obviously taking my life, um, and giving up the dream. And I decided to like, you know, double down on it. I was just— it made me so mad. And kind of in an unhealthy way, I thought of that guy every single day. Like, it fueled me. Like, whenever someone's like, let's go out and party, let's go out and do this, let's go out and do that, like you know, let's, let's go chill and relax. I was like, no, no, no. Like, I am going to get straight A's. I'm going to get into my dream program. I hate this guy.

So it's almost looking at the meta view of it, right? And seeing that it was the, the gift in that too.

True. No, totally true. Like, luckily it did turn out that way. And, and, you know, now I, I see the bigger picture like that where, you know, that was, that was a gift as well. Um, but yeah, that's— that like led me down this path, and I got in my dream school in Chapel Hill and pursued nutrition and biochemistry, became a chief clinical dietitian. I worked for about 10 years in hospitals, nursing homes. Um, all the while I was working with supplement companies, helping them with formulations, with write-ups, and then I was like working at these booths at, you know, these various trade shows and and really doing formulations from the ground up with some of these companies. And then I got hired by a big company here in Dallas, Dymatize, helped take them to sale and, and grow that company quite substantially. And then I worked with BioTrust, like some other companies, as the chief science officer, and I was over quality control, R&D, supply chain, and regulatory at a number of these companies. And then I created my own company now where I do formulations, regulatory, and all that stuff, quality control for many companies. Um, I've, yeah, flavored hundreds of products. I started down the path of like all these unique ingredients, and I have a team now in China like with over 100 scientists. I have a, a two German scientists that are part of my team, Dr. Ralph Jaeger, Dr. Martin Purpura, that are great with studies and intellectual property. So, you know, like my newest ingredient, this caffeine metabolite paraxanthine, we have about 14 studies already finished and 40 patents filed, and it's just making its way to the market now and doing very well.

So congratulations.

Yeah, so that's, that's, uh, yeah. And I have another one that's just releasing called Dilucine for muscle. Um, so yeah, it's really cool, uh, everything that I've been able to accomplish, and I'm very blessed. I speak on stage and all over the world. I've spoken probably 40 different countries now, and, um, I've been on over 1,000 media experiences between radio, podcast, TV.

You're quite the pro at this stage.

Yeah, yeah, I have a, I have a book called The Energy Formula that's on biohacking that's a bestseller that was listed on Forbes and USA Today. And it's just insane because this is just like, this wasn't what I was supposed to do with my life, you know.

I was supposed to do business supposed to, right?

Yeah. You know?

Yeah.

And, um, and like I said, like, if this one guy didn't, you know, talk to me, and really maybe that's that other negative voice like you're saying, like, you know, I wouldn't be who I am. So it's a very unique path, and it definitely involves the, the hero's journey. I battled a lot of autoimmune issues, and I kind of skipped over that I was in bed for 6 months with Epstein-Barr, and, um, I've had a brain tumor, and there's just been a lot of, uh, health issues along the way and a lot of learnings. And most recently, um, a lot, a lot of work in psychedelics and, um, and doing some deep internal work there to, to really free myself from a lot of the chains that have been on me through, through my life, a lot of the insecurity and, and hustle and grind and all that kind of mindset, the, the wounded masculine. And, um, yeah, very proud to, to make it to where I've made it. And I feel like now I have the accomplishments and I have inner peace. So, wow.

So yeah, the circle is becoming the whole again. Yes. Thank you for sharing that. That's really beautiful. I mean, look, we're all on our our different journeys, right? And our hero's journey. And my philosophy is actually, or my thinking around the hero's journey is that in a lifetime, you go through the hero's journey several times because I feel like with every awakening, you set new views of the world and then you're living in that space until you actually have a further awakening, hopefully, right? And then you keep going, right? And sharing that with the world as well. So everyone has a different view, but that was my more recent assertion of that also. And I think that's what makes it beautiful. Yeah. Human, right? Yeah. So a load of stuff there I'd love to dig into. You covered a lot of space in a bit. And first of all, thank you so much. And I honor you for being vulnerable and sharing that as well. And I think the world needs more of that. And helping— and I think particularly men suffer with having to have this image that, you know, we're emotion and we're fine and we're tough and I think it's really difficult. And the more I'm learning about it and looking into it, yes, okay, women have a lot of things to do and to step up and need support, but actually men are really suffering as well. And I think that that support network for men is not as well there as it is for women.

100%. 100%. Like I just said, Men's Mental Health Week, and I talk a lot about my battles with depression and suicidal thoughts and things like that. 19 out of 20 men won't get help, like won't get therapy. Like it's epidemic, like how bad it is with men that we think it's weakness, we think it's, you know, vulnerability is pathetic, like, you know, all of these kinds of things. And I'm definitely here with a message of my vulnerability, if anything, feels bold and courageous. I have stepped into the role of being the warrior king After a number of journeys and inner work that I've done, I am the strongest I've ever been as a man by being vulnerable and showing other men how to do that. And also providing a safe space for women and not being predatory towards women has been a big part of my journey. So encouraging men, showing them vulnerability and how that strength and then providing that safe container.

So beautiful. Yeah, that's actually a topic I'm digging into of late this year, the divine masculine, divine feminine, and how men can actually help women show up as the best version of themselves. And as someone who suffered sexual abuse as an 8-year-old, it's taken a long journey to actually just change that perception and that shift as well. So that's part of the hero's journey, right? Of these different experiences that we have, and then it's how we view them. And changing how we view them from, as I used to perceive some of them as like, these things happen to me, to taking out and being like, well, what did I gain from them? And like, what are the things I wouldn't have had had that those experiences not happened to me for different things that have happened in my life as well? And I think it makes life so much more interesting, so much more beautiful, and the ability then to connect and be vulnerable and share compassion with people from all walks of life is so much more enriching, had, you know, thanks to these different experiences versus, you know, had everything been happy clappy, it might just be living in a very high shallow level along the way. So, um, hats off to you, Shawn, and thank you for sharing this and supporting men, I think, in such an important area for, for the world in general. So Yeah.

Thank you for sharing what you just shared. It's tough that that happened to you. One of the, one of the things that I've come to believe or learn, I don't know if you've ever watched The Egg. It's an 8-minute video. It's on YouTube. I would encourage your viewers, listeners to watch it. Maybe you can list it in the show notes, but also just if anyone's listening, just go to YouTube, watch The Egg. It's a really great group that animates this and puts it together. It's a short story. About someone that passes away and this interpretation of life as multiple lives. Um, but it's so much deeper than that, like, in that, like, we are all part of, like, one being, if you will, like, when you explore this, this whole thing. And, like, that's probably the, the bigger lesson in life, how we're all so deeply connected. And if I do something to you, I'm doing it to myself, or vice versa. It's just like when I project pain on you, you know, or I project love on you, it's like I'm projecting my internal environment onto you, and it's how I interpret you. It's how I— the lens I'm viewing you through, uh, by is myself. But it's a beautiful story, and one of the concepts is that we choose this life I love this idea because I move out of being the victim to the victor of my story. You want to talk about the ultimate hero's journey? If I choose this life, I choose not just had this life happen to me and I did a good job, I chose this life so I would learn the lessons. That's very empowering. And I'm here for a reason. I'm here to gain these lessons. I wanted to learn these lessons, and I have done my best with them. And instead of, yeah, me being the victim, I am the victor in this story. And that's a huge paradigm shift to me, like taking your power back. Yeah, taking my power back. And you know, with most people, if anyone talked to them like like you talk to yourself, you know, you wouldn't be their friend, right? Like, if, if you're like the way that you— your inner dialogue.

Yeah.

So yeah, anyone talk to you like that, you would be like, that's gross and ridiculous, you're out of here.

Yeah.

You tolerate it to yourself.

Yeah. I mean, I, I teach my clients this as well, and I need to practice myself. It's Are you your biggest bully or are you your biggest cheerleader? And are you constantly beating yourself? I used to beat myself up all the time. Perfectionist, like hyperachiever. Nothing was good enough. For everyone else it was okay, but for me, I was like, yeah, same.

Yeah, same. The standard was impossible.

Yeah.

And I really bought into like all that kind of like, you know, ultra male, like David Goggins, like Gary Vee, like hustle and grind, like, you know, like I was watching Arnold and Sylvester Stallone. It's like, like, you, you gotta withstand the pain, and like, a real man knows how to like dissociate like hell. Like, and I found that, you know, one of my most recent journeys, I was like crying, sobbing, and shaking for hours and hours and hours, and I realized that I had spent most of my life dissociated.

What a release.

I was like, I was never in my body. I was never feeling anything because it was too much. I'm also an empath, a highly sensitive person, HSP. And so like, I feel things on a, on a very deep level. And so between the abuse that I was surrounded by and what I was doing to myself, like The only way to like withstand it all was to just be dissociated.

So I did the same. I was sent to boarding school. I was joined— I had to join my older sister, and I came to the conclusion as a 12-year-old— was in a different country, I was unhappy there, didn't want to be there. My conclusion at the time as a 12-year-old was that my parents abandoned me, that they didn't care anymore. And that's when I completely shut down. And then I thought, well, people don't actually care if I'm upset, so I better just put on a facade and pretend everything is okay and completely push down pain and emotion. And it's taken until about like 5, 6 years ago to actually be able to talk about emotions. Like anyone else, I'm super happy to help and connect with, but to talk about that myself was really, really different. I just wasn't able to. So yeah, I totally relate to that as well. And it's incredible how professional we can become at just shutting things down, just not even going there, and how unhealthy that is. Because essentially then I also had health issues.

Yeah, exactly. You can push way past the pain. I mean, Claudia, like, I almost died. I mean, I can think of like 15 different times where it was like if I was in my body, the red lights would have been going off for like months. You know, it's like the, the car like says low oil, the engine's like overheating, there's smoke coming from the radiator, like the engine's SOS. Yeah, you know, like the tires like starting to wobble, and I'm like still driving down the road like, like just because I'm not even in the car, so I don't even know what's going on, but I'm still like pushing the gas like as hard as I can. And if I was in my body, like, and it seems like, oh, it's like some kind of award that you should win for like how much pain you can withstand. And it's not like, I was just never in my body to know the damage I was doing to my body, how hard I was pushing myself way past like where I should have already sought help. I should have had interventions. I should have like had self-care. I should have taken time off. I should have stopped being around these people or these, these things that are robbing me of my health. But I wasn't listening to any of that. I was just dissociated. And then I'm almost dead many times.

It's amazing how you made it through though, right? That you overcame. And did— was there like an inner voice in you that is like, I know I meant for more? What was, what was that inner talk? To push through.

You know, the biohacking— you know, you talk about kind of the multiple hero's journeys. Like, sometimes the biohacking pulled me out of my sickness, but also the biohacking was a way for me to do even more and hurt myself even more and survive it. So I became really good at doing twice as much as everyone else and using all the biohacks to keep myself going. I knew all the chemicals. I knew all the little hacks to, like, get myself back on track. If I was sick, if I got 2 hours of sleep, if I, like, was overstressed, you know, whatever it was, like, I knew how to handle it. I can just do this, take that.

It was to the detriment of yourself, though. I mean, you were like— any other person would have collapsed by then and been in hospital, but you knew how to keep the fumes going.

Exactly. You know, there's a beauty to that in that I learned so much about my body and, and what works, and I was always pushing too hard. And, and that's where doing some of this, you know, work in psychedelics and this inner work that I've done has really brought balance to me, where now I see all the, the brilliance and incredible gifts in like the biohacks and, and the supplement knowledge and nutrition knowledge and all these different things. And I, like I said, I, I have a lot more inner peace. I'm a lot less of that hustle and grind and more of hustle and flow. Like, I have to be in sympathetic nervous system sometimes. You got to be in your, in your male, your masculine, your puma. Sometimes you got to go chase it, you got to go get it, you gotta hustle, right? Like, of course, this is a part of life. You got to chase things down sometimes. But in this Peruvian animal energies, it's like there's the puma that is like that masculine. Then there's the snake, which is like a grounded energy and also can shed its skin and be transformation. And then there's the condor energy, which is like more of that feminine energy where it's kind of gliding and manifesting. And there's you know, letting things come and nurturing and, you know, all of those kinds of things. And there isn't like a right energy. Anyone that's listening, like, if you're a man, it's don't just be in masculine. If you're a woman, don't just be in feminine. And just condor isn't the perfect way. Like, it's really this balance of hustle and flow, and it's being in sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system. It's just we're in an ultra-masculinized world, and we are in, um, this wounded puma energy all the time, and we're in sympathetic or ultra-sympathetic nervous system all the time, and we're not really seeking ease. We're not really taking breaks. We're not really doing enough self-care. For ourselves. So, and that's something that I see in like a lot of the masterminds and, and circles I'm in with millionaires, billionaires, CEOs, celebrities. Just, it's almost like 90% of all these people I talk to have this trauma history. And even with men, I would say about 40% of them have been sexually abused, and you're not hearing about that. You know, you never hear that. A man would never talk about that. Like, so, you know, there's still a lot of work to do, but luckily, you know, we are getting some of these circles now and, and people are interacting and sharing their stories. And, um, there is more work happening in psychedelics. There is more on biohacking that's coming through that is more of that feminine energy with grounding, journaling, breathwork, you know, stretching, yoga, like, um, you know, all these kinds of things are finally being seen for what they are and, you know, promoting longevity, promoting that balance. I think we're seeing that it's not about pushing the limits. Like, now we're seeing it as like resilience comes from centeredness. And yes, there's times like this hormetic concept where you push that circle outwards, you can grow that circle. But to have ease, you, you reside in the center. And the bigger that circle is, the more resilience you have, the more you can, um, have this, this, um, kind of eustress, like, uh, capacity allostatic capacity, like where you can deal with stress to a greater degree. Your bucket, your stress bucket, this allostatic load and capacity is like a bigger bucket so that you can handle more. And I think that idea of like centeredness and resilience is now coming through as a, as a stronger message rather than pushing to the edge and staying at the edge.

And I think it's, it's, as you said, the combination. So it's, you know, putting yourself outside of your comfort zone, growth challenges, allowing yourself to be in a stress state where needed, like in a punctual thing, but having the strategies and tools to recenter, to become grounded again, to become rebalanced, to calm the nervous system. So almost with like your heart rate variability, right there, and then get it down again. Right. So So beautiful. I have a whole list of questions that we've gone like completely off topic, but I'm absolutely loving our conversation. This is an area that I love having deep conversations on. So this was quite a delight, Shawn, to discover you're on this path and this journey as well and what you're sharing too. I think for people listening, of course, questions are also around supplementation for longevity. What are some of the formulations and the supplements people should be looking at? What excites you most about the longevity space and in terms of supporting it with different stacks and supplement ingredients that you're using, etc. So could you talk a bit about that?

I got all that. I got all that.

I got it done.

Trust me, even though we went all woo and all the things, I love it for you too. So for those of you that stuck around, it's, it's worth it for the science right now. Are you ready? Okay, so polyphenols are associated with anti-aging in the blue zones all over the world. You see, these anti-aging molecules are powerful in the way they affect the body. You've got things like quercetin and pterostilbene and resveratrol and EGCG and catechins, fisetin, apigenin. These are powerful, powerful compounds that affect anti-aging and the sirtuin genes. These are the resilience genes, the anti-aging genes that affect how long your telomeres are, or some people like to say telomeres. And so this is, I think, one of the most important things. And for me, in my research thus far, there is one polyphenol that stands out above the rest. It is not resveratrol or pterostilbene or EGCG, which are very common. It is fisetin, which you can find in strawberries and maybe apigenin. I would take apigenin, uh, which comes from parsley. I would take that one at night. It has a little bit of a sedative effect. So fisetin during the day, apigenin at night. Those are the two most powerful. They've been studied side by side with a number of different polyphenols, and those come above everything else. So those two next up. And by the way, they actually protect NAD by inhibiting NADase, also known as CD38. So NAD is like your mitochondria fuel to help make ATP. Super important for DNA and again anti-aging. So love those. Next up, and by the way, mito is just, is the next keto. So I'm all about mitochondrial health. So mitochondrial biogenesis, which is the creation of new mitochondria and preventing mitochondrial dysfunction or senescence, which is like the kind of dying of the cell.

Yeah.

So, and speaking of protecting senescence, the, the kind of death of the cell. Senolytics. Yeah. Senolytics. Yeah. Or senotherapeutics. Yeah, exactly. AKG, alpha-ketoglutarate, is a powerful compound as well. So that's one of the TCA citric acid cycle intermediates similar to like malic acid, citric acid, if you remember that kind of ATP crank, you know, the Krebs cycle. So AKG. So we got AKG, vicetin, apigenin. Next up, to make NAD, you probably heard about NMN, which they're trying to take off the market. Unfortunately, you've probably heard of NR, which is nicotinamide riboside, also called TruNiagen. I prefer NMN, but I really like nicotinic acid, which is the full flush, really cheap, straightforward niacin. Now the problem with that is that the doses I'm talking about that really move the needle, it's 500 milligrams 2 times a day. This is going to give you paresthesias. Like, you will look like you have a sunburn for like an hour. Your skin will itch. Like, you'll feel hot. Like, it's kind of intense. You can get used to it over time. Um, but I do like the full flush version, not the, um, nicotinamide or the inositol hexanecotinate, like these non-flush versions. I like the full flush version. What would kind of be the best stack would be taking NMN and the full-fleshed niacin, the nicotinic acid. That's going to promote more NAD production. And now you're already taking things that are inhibiting the breakdown of NAD, NADase, this enzyme also called CD38. So you're inhibiting the breakdown of NAD, you're promoting NAD. As we age, NAD production goes down, NADAs, the breakdown of it goes up. So it's a double whammy. So, you know, we're working on those fronts. Next up, there is a specific antioxidant that's unique that may end up becoming a vitamin, a new vitamin. This hasn't happened in many, many, many decades, and it's called ergothioneine. It's a trace amino acid that's found in mushrooms. The research is extremely compelling. You have a unique transporter system for this nutrient in your body. You have a unique storage system for it in your body. This tells you how important it is to your body if you have these things, and yet no one's talking about it. Almost no one knows about it. And it's very low dose, like anywhere from 5 to 20 milligrams a day. So this one literally protects the mitochondria. Promotes mitochondrial biogenesis, inhibits mitochondrial dysfunction, like saves the mitochondria. And we've found that cellular antioxidants actually are fairly equivocal in the research in that there is actually a time for cells to go through these redox reactions where you're kind of impairing signaling when you are taking too much antioxidants. So for example, cancer cells, you don't want to protect those, you know, and a lot of times in these high-dose antioxidant studies, that's what they saw. They saw increased rates of cancer and things like that. That's not the case with ergothioneine. And the mitochondria really is more important than I, I believe protecting the cell in the same way via antioxidants. Um, so the next one up is cleaning out the cell with something called autophagy, and then even including mitophagy where you're cleaning out the mitochondria. And there's a unique ingredient that's a polyamine called spermidine that does this, that has definitely gotten a lot of attention. I think people have been underdosing it. And not using the pure form. They've been using this wheat-based form, using many capsules to get 1 milligram. You can now get a pure form. And I would take— there's some new data showing that like 3.3 to 5 milligrams is kind of like where you're starting to move the needle. This 1 milligram is not effective. So, and that's been shown in a few human studies now. So if I'm to go through my, my anti-aging stack right now. So we got spermidine, 5 milligrams, ergothioneine, 5 to 20 milligrams. NMN, I would take 500 milligrams maybe twice a day. With niacin, I would take 100 milligrams full flush nicotinic acid once, once or twice a day. Especially a great time to take that full flash niacin is when you, if you're getting into a red light sauna, it would be a great time to bring that peripheral blood flow vascularization to the surface and then get that mitochondrial effect really enhanced and augmented. So Vicetin, Maybe the liposomal form of fisetin and apigenin may be better. Apigenin at night, fisetin during the day. And I think that was it. I believe that's my stack.

Ergothymine, yeah, you mentioned as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

We got that in there. Amazing. What are you taking every day?

I take all those things. Oh, last thing I forgot to mention. Maybe my most, most important anti-aging compound, dihydroberberine. This is one that I've patented, but I looked at berberine. Berberine was already outperforming metformin. Metformin has been used right now. It's in a study with over 10,000 people in the United States for anti-aging, studying that in non-diabetics. 10,000 people like that is like a study like that's never been done. Metformin has been used for 25+ years for anti-aging outside of diabetes and insulin resistance. So yes, there is an impact of absolutely with advanced glycation end products, also called AGEs, aptly called AGEs, right? That when we have elevated blood sugar, elevated insulin, there is an issue there where blood sugar damage is like damaging these tissues, right? And we do see that when you have like an elevated hemoglobin A1c and all those things and fasting blood glucose and all that. But what hasn't really been discussed is that the lower, the lower insulin is, the lower blood sugar is, the longer you live. And this is past the range that is even within normal limits. So why is that? Because we see all these growth factors go up. We see autophagy and mitophagy go up. We see growth hormone go up. All of these things that are healing, anti-aging, cleaning up, almost like if you remember, like I like to think of autophagy almost like if you've ever defragged your computer's disk drive. Like, you know, I love that image.

I remember that.

It's kind of cleaning things up and storing things and comparing things and like recompartimentalizing. Yeah, exactly. And so that's happening. And that actually happens in your brain at night too, by the way. And those growth factors in the brain are things like BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, NGF, nerve growth factor, mTOR in the brain. Which is muscle protein, sorry, is protein synthesis, although there is muscle protein synthesis, which is important for aging. We can talk about. So yes, dihydroberberine is more effective, more bioavailable than berberine, and berberine outperforms metformin. So dihydroberberine, you avoid the GI distress, your doses are much lower, it lasts longer in plasma. So you're looking at about 200 milligrams twice a day instead of 500 milligrams 3 times a day. And so this is a powerful anti-aging compound. So now getting into the, the, the brain, I'll get into next.

Can I ask one question before we hit on the brain? You mentioned about low glycemic levels overnight are seen as very beneficial, but does it get to a point where it's detrimental? And I asked because I was doing the trial of Levels Health, their continuous glucose monitor. And even though I was optimizing my sleep and diet, et cetera, because I was doing longer windows of intermittent fasting, I was becoming hypoglycemic at night, which on my Oura Ring, I could see that I was waking up. I didn't realize I was waking up, but I was like, what's going on? Cortisol release from the liver to keep my energy production going. Where is the level that it's beneficial versus the cortisol response and waking you up becoming detrimental?

Yeah, that's a great question. And it just depends like how tuned in your body is to being in the sympathetic nervous system and using cortisol often. Like you have like entrained your body to think that it needs a certain amount of glucose, um, because it never knows like how deep the stress is going to be. So the more you can de-stress, anti-stress, like the less of a kind of strong result that's going to be. But also, you're right, and it does seem like women are more prone to that than men. Like, men seem to be able to go longer with, like, deeper into keto and longer fasting. And I think it's just You know, again, if you're past the age of menarchy and premenopausal, then you're in a phase of life where reproduction is important and being able to maintain another life is important. So your body kind of holds on to more, thinking that's a strong possibility versus a man. So You know, there are gender differences for sure, and that's one I've seen pretty consistently. I think like if you are postmenopausal, like you can, you can get away with, with a little bit more when it comes to fasting or keto or some of those things. I do know that with keto in particular and kind of the ease of fasting in keto, the more muscle you have, the more easy it is to maintain ketogenesis. Um, that's because you have these GLUT-4 receptors on the muscle that take up blood glucose and, and shuttle it into the muscle. So, you know, I've had friends— I had one guy that was a huge bodybuilder, and he could have 150 grams of carbs a day and still be in ketosis.

Wow.

Um, you know, I can, you know, when I'm— I can do 50 grams and then if I'm really active and doing a lot of things, playing volleyball, like, you know, I can, I can have more. But, you know, some women I know that I feel like if you're more sedentary, if you have less muscle mass, then, you know, you might need to be at like 20 grams. You know, like it's just, it's harder. It's going to be harder.

It's different. Yeah. I mean, I, if I, you know, when I've done keto diet and I've been measuring with the Abbott Laboratories blood finger prick test, I haven't gotten over 2 molimars. I mean, I found that really tricky to do as well. Again, I guess everybody is different, but I've moved away from the ketogenic diet, even though there's phases where I think it is optimal. I think also according to the hormone cycle where women are. And in general, I think with fasting, there was this huge trend and everyone should fast all the time. And I've seen some clients and they're suffering and they're exhausted, like they're totally mineral depleted and they're not even eating proper food. They're eating like one salad. They're like, small eating window. Anyway, so it's with caution. And I think for men, typically it's a bit easier than for women, right?

Yeah, agreed. So yeah, absolutely be careful with it. And, you know, some people really like the idea, and this may vibe with you. I haven't really experimented with it much, but some people that I'm friends with have had great success with it. It's like carb backloading. So like having carbs at the end of the day and loading on your carbs at the end of the day. And there is a lot of good data that in the morning, you know, having like more of a ketogenic meal, like kind of the Bulletproof Coffee or, you know, whatever, like a high protein, high fat breakfast is, is the way to go. And avoiding carbs, especially first thing in the morning, like you really want to like I think of carbs as like you have to earn them. You do not need carbs. So when you're active, when your body's moving, you can have carbs. So like, that's where when you first wake up, you haven't been active yet. You've been sedentary. And that's okay. That's a good thing. So if you're going to eat first thing, have like a high-fat, high-protein meal.

Yeah.

And have your carbs like later in the day. And especially towards the end of the day is this concept after you've been active the whole day and the hormonal response to your point is actually much better.

So, and for sleep as well, I find personally I'd notice a big difference as well. It's much more helpful than just having a steak and a salad for dinner, even with healthy fats.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Okay. So yeah.

So now the brain, I got more, I got more.

So the brain, keep going. So the brain, BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor is neuroplasticity,, right? So neuroplasticity is like the resilience of the brain, the, the youthfulness of the brain. Um, there's two types of learning that you have. There's crystallized and fluid intelligence, right? So crystallized is like how we get smarter when we get older, like where we get better and better and better at something like that we've done over and over and over. So our box is kind of getting smaller and smaller. This is why we And I would get, um, set in our ways. That's a great way to put it.

Yes, ingrained. It's the, the superhighway in a certain direction. Exactly.

And learning new things is very difficult. Learning a new language, learning a new instrument, you know, things like that are harder. Going to a new country, being around different cultures, dealing with how society is changing, you know, all that kind of stuff, right? It wasn't like this when I was a kid. Yeah, exactly. So that's crystallized intelligence, and that does have an advantage in that, like, you know, if we're driving to work, we could get there faster than some young person that's, you know, because we've done it 100 times and we know all the shortcuts and all those kinds of things. But the young person has fluid intelligence, and that is the kind of youthful resilience of the brain and and BDNF, this brain-derived neurotrophic factor protein, promotes the growth, creation, and maintenance and protection of neurons, the brain cells. So there's very few things that do this. And some of these polyphenols actually do that. It hasn't been shown with fisetin or apigenin, but I'm 99% sure given if I extrapolate other polyphenol data over that, it does happen. But there is a really cool— you've probably heard of lion's mane for this, especially if you know Paul Stamets' microdosing stack and those kinds of things. It works. But there is a unique compound called 7,8-dihydroxyflavone.

Okay.

And this actually works better than injected BDNF. This is insane. So, and then there's actually a metabolite of that called 4-DMA-7,8-dihydroxyflavone. I'm so impressed. For someone who did chemistry and, uh, and so I've actually been stacking the two of these together, uh-huh, this, this molecule and its metabolite. And I do feel like a youthfulness to the brain. It's also something I do post-journey. After I have a psychedelic experience to keep my brain in that neuroplastic state so that I can readily make changes better, so that I can be in a position for my brain to create these folds and these new habits, right? And make these new connections and connect these synapses in all these all-new ways. Whenever you have an epiphany, That's like synapses connecting like two dots that have never been connected before. Right.

That's— then you need to reach for the 7,8-dihydroxy-4-DMA.

7,8-dihydroxyflavone and 4-DMA, 7,8-dihydroxyflavone. So those are really cool.

You just always have them handy and you just, you take them.

Yes. Yes. Yes. All right, so wait, I got a couple more. So for muscle, grip strength is the number one predictor of how well we're aging. This has to do with how we're activating our muscles neurologically, how well we can recruit muscle fibers, which I'm sure you've seen, like if you've gone to the gym, there's all these, you know, the big steroid guys that are, yeah, they're lifting a lot of weight and hypertrophy that the size of the muscle matters., but there's something else. You've probably seen like, who's that guy who's like half the size is doing the same weight? Well, that's because he's done it the hard way, one, but two, he's neurologically learned how to recruit that muscle better. So that's where that mind-muscle connection comes in.

Can you explain that a bit better?

This is— Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's literally like that, um, like I'm talking about the, the, the firing. One, the synapses, and two, the recruitment of the muscle. It's an electric contraction. It has to do with calcium ions. I don't know if you ever had like the frog and you can like bathe the muscle in calcium like liquid and it's like it makes the little leg jump and the whole thing. It's fascinating. But yes, it's in— these are electrical reactions. The body is an electrical body system, and we can recruit this muscle, and there can be more, uh, like a greater nervous system recruitment, like with more of that training. Like, um, the more— like, for example, I don't know, like on video, like I, I can like—

okay, yeah, the Arnold Schwarzenegger move, right?

Right. So like, that's a learn— so for people that are listening, you probably can't see it, but I can recruit my pecs I can make my pecs jump. I can go like left and right. I can go at the same time. That's not something you're born with. That is a nervous system training. And that's actually where like there's a lot of benefit to, uh, this posing that bodybuilders do. Like when they're, when they're like learning how to like— now they're, they're flexing, but it's like, you know, you're kind of like learning, like, okay, like, if I do it this, you know, and it's like, okay, I'm getting a little bit more recruitment like this. And it's like, okay, so this is like— we're flexing—

for those listening, we're flexing our arms like bodybuilders.

Yeah. So, yeah, and, and there's, there's something to that, like, um, knowing how to use your body, um, Knowing how to recruit these muscles properly, you have way more strength in these muscles than you think. Yes, they could get bigger, but before that, you're learning how to recruit them. Like that first so many weeks, it's just you learning how to turn on those muscles. Um, it's a very fascinating process, and you can spend a lifetime getting better at just that before the muscle even gets bigger. Um, so very cool. But you read, yeah, grip strength. Yes, grip strength. And so that's very important. And also the more muscle you have, the more bone mineral density you have. And so like, you know, when you have a fall, which happens a lot as we age, like hip fractures, you can go in a nursing home and 6, 6 weeks later you can be dead. There's a lot of data around this. So, you know, having more bone mineral density, having more muscle One, you'll be able to move better, fall better, come back from that fall better if you do fall, a good chance you'll probably prevent the fall in the first place. So, all of those things are important. Having muscle as we age, having strength as we age, having the ability to innervate these muscles better as we age is important. And 2 really important molecules, one of which I've worked on pretty heavily. But HMB free acid is an ingredient that protects the loss of muscle, which is known as muscle protein breakdown or catabolism. So it's going to reduce the amount of muscle loss. And then leucine is the amino acid that drives muscle protein synthesis, which is part of the, the other side of the equation, the anabolism, the growth of muscle, the maintenance of muscle, the hypertrophy of muscle. As we get older, we have more insulin resistance and we also have more what's known as anabolic or leucine resistance. And it just takes more and more leucine and protein to turn this on. Also, I think important to that is that androgens, and most particularly is testosterone, as we age is very important. This is very important for women too. It's very underappreciated for women. You know, again, it protects bone mineral density for women. Yes, it does have an effect on libido and drive, but certainly on maintaining muscle mass. It's a very important hormone.

Now you're in your 40s. Energy to get through the day as well.

I think.

Yeah. Yeah. Don't appreciate that they actually need testosterone and to even have that checked. And only when I did a Dutch test, which is a great hormone test in Europe, you can just order it online. My testosterone levels were pretty much zero. So when I started doing a clinical trial on HRT, including testosterone, I'm like, I was like, yes, I'm back.

I've got my energy.

Yeah, you don't even need high doses. And it's a lot of bioidentical, as you say in the US. So yeah, really, really important for women to look at that too.

Yeah, yeah. And for women, like you're saying, it's much lower, but still in that sense, it's like almost more critical because like the small changes can, can result in massive effects for women. Right. So, but anyway, this, there's a new form of leucine that I've worked on called dilucine. So it's two leucines put together in your gut. There is a unique transporter system that prefers di- and tripeptides. That's 2 or 3 amino acids together. This seems counterintuitive that a single amino acid is slower than 2 or 3 amino acids to the plasma. It sounds like it doesn't make sense, but I was looking at it, I was like, okay, well, if that's true, what happens if you have 2 leucines put together? It's 186% faster. We see 60 to 80% better muscle protein synthesis. And if you're aging, like 40, 50, 60 years old, massive, massive difference because of this leucine resistance, this anabolic resistance. So, you know, this is important too, is all the compounds I've mentioned, you know, having that insulin resistance lowered with something like the dihydroberberine or the drug metformin, Taking testosterone if you can, or at least taking things that promote it. You know, maybe DHEA, even progesterone to some degree and some of these kinds of things. And then doing something about the anabolic resistance, the leucine resistance by taking leucine, BCAAs, EAAs, protein. Or I think this best form, dilucine, and also taking dilucine with HMB would be really, really good. So, all right, so muscle, dilucine, HMB free acid. Brain, 7,8-dihydroxyflavone, 4-DMA, 7,8-dihydroxyflavone. General anti-aging, we have ergothioneine, spermidine, Apigenin, Fisetin, the nicotinic acid, and NMN. And also take the dihydroberberine for insulin resistance, blood glucose health, etc. And then maybe lastly, there's some really compelling data around the hormone melatonin. Which you have to play with. There's some unique, like, you know, some people don't respond well to it. Yeah.

What's your view on that?

What do you take? Well, I, you know, it's, I think like find out what the kind of minimal effective dose is for you. It's highly variable. I think one of the big problems is that we have so much blue light exposure, so much junk light that we're not releasing melatonin like we used to, but melatonin naturally does decline as we age. Like many hormones. So the idea of hormone replacement is ideal. And if you are not able to kind of control the amount of blue light that you're getting, especially late in the day, that melatonin can be powerful, especially if like you travel like I do. It can help reset your circadian rhythm. And I actually take pretty massive doses on my first day. I've taken like anywhere from 10 to 50 milligrams, which is insanely high. Very high. But, you know, that's something that I've, you know, talked to many other people about and it seems to like, kind of hit the reset button. When do you take it? That would not be a dose to take consistently at all.

Yeah. And anyone listening, please consult your healthcare professional before trying these. Ben Greenfield was speaking at the weekend at the Health Optimization Summit. He was saying he takes a double dose of melatonin when he gets on a flight, an overnight flight as well. Is that something you recommend? Is that a good anti-jet lag strategy?

Okay. Yeah. And again, you can take doses as low as 0.3 milligrams. There's There's tablets as high as 10 milligrams. If you tend to be younger and you tend to be around less junk light in the evening, then you can try the lower doses. If you're aging and you just feel like you're not getting as restful sleep as you used to, and certainly initiating that sleep, that's really where melatonin works. Then, you know, try some higher doses.

I'm going to ask you a question, scratching my own itch before we jump over to psychedelic supplements, which I'm very curious about. But my REM sleep, Shawn, is pretty crap no matter what I do.

Yeah.

What do you recommend to improve REM sleep? It's like 1%, 2%. Doesn't matter how long I sleep. It's always on my indicator, always red. I don't think I've gotten once like a white happy line. Is there a magic formulation for improving REM?

Sleep? That's a tough one. There are some things, but sleep is such a complicated subject. I would say, like, for me, a lot of my issues with sleep have revolved around anxiety and that carrying into my attempts to sleep that, you know, I have something to wake up for in the morning. Am I going to oversleep? Like, you know, like if I have to catch a plane in the morning, oh my God, what if I like miss my plane, like I have a big test in the morning, you know, whatever it is, it's like, it's kind of like, and for me, like when the lights go off, my brain goes crazy. Just like thinking goes into overdrive because it can no longer be distracted. And, and now it's just going full on. So what I've found is there's a compound Honechial that comes from magnolia bark that's anxiolytic and it's very powerful. It's kind of like a nature's Xanax, if you will. Um, and I've found that to be very effective and even more effective is its metabolite called dihydrohoneychial beta. Um, but you can get the, the honechial pretty easily from magnolia bark extract. Taking a few steps back from that, some kind of easy-to-get compounds that you can take is just magnesium for relaxation. Theanine, which comes from green tea, it's an amino acid that's relaxing in nature. And then using some of the adaptogens throughout the day can kind of normalize and restore resilience in your body and, and put more ease in your nervous system. Yeah. So things like ashwagandha, rhodiola, ginseng, things like that. Yeah. I've found those to be very effective. Actually, ashwagandha, rhodiola are my two favorite. That's what I would recommend. There's a lot of other things to do, like, you know, sleeping on like a cooling pad, like a chili pad. You know, certainly blocking out blue light in the evening and like wearing a blue light blocking glasses and, you know, on your phone, on your computer, on your TV. Now there's always settings to reduce that. Yeah, the brightness and also kind of shift into the warm light. So psychosomatic anchors are like, you know, psycho meaning like the brain and somatic meaning the body feeling and then the anchors connecting it in the body. So If you have your room be a place where you feel unsafe, if you feel busy, if you feel attacked, if you feel like it's like maybe that's where you have a lot of your arguments, maybe that's where you, you know, have your laptop and your office, like you need to get all that crap out of there.

I've cleared it out. I've even, I've had Marie Diamond on for Feng Shui. I've even have all the mirrors out of there. This is like all the electric.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's important to make that like, your, um, yeah, your sanctuary. Yeah. Um, having plenty of plants in there for that, um, oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange, making sure that it's dark enough. Like, even like a little bit of that LED light, um, can mess with you. And you can try using like the Manta mask. I certainly use that when I travel. Yeah, it's great. Huge. Like, because in hotels you get the light coming under the door, you got the light coming the, the, um, the window shades, you got like the little smoke detectors and the flashing LEDs and all these things going on. And yeah, I would get zero sleep if it weren't for a mask. Yeah. Um, so all those things, uh, help. Those would be what I'd recommend. And even like, speaking of anchors, like, uh, olfactory scent is like one of the most powerful ways to anchor. And so like using like lavender spray or something on your pillow, like, can be a powerful way. And, and I use a, um, a white noise app. I've found that brown noise is the most effective. It's kind of like a deeper, bassier white noise.

I prefer brown exactly as well, especially if you have an ADHD tendency. It's quite good. It, whatever resonates with people. Some people like the pink I find the white noise distracting, but I'm all for the brown noise. Good for you.

It's too sharp for me. Yeah, same.

Yeah. Okay. And I'd just say for you, what I'm testing with— I was chatting with Michael Porter of BrainTap. I don't know, have you tried devices yet? But I've been practicing getting into the delta, alpha, like the different brainwaves, and especially before bed. So that might be helpful if you have that anxiety.

For sure. Yeah. Binaural beats, meditations, like Finding ways to kind of wind it down, certainly not being on devices that last couple hours before bed, and, and just finding ways to, to wind down and get your, your nervous system regulated.

Yeah, yeah. So psychedelic supplement stacks, what is happening in the psychedelic supplement stack space, Sean? Um, super, super exciting. I've had a guest on also who do a lot with psychadelic therapy. It's really phenomenal from ketamine-assisted therapy to psilocybin, et cetera, you know, the full, the full range. But what's happening with the psychedelic supplements stacks? What are you doing there in that space?

I've really come up with a lot of stacks around like pre, peri, post journey as well as microdosing. I'm really working on kind of nuances with like different compounds, like having different stacks. I've also trademarked this idea of echo dosing where, um, yeah, so it's like you may have heard of like, oh, microdose after your journey, and that's cool, but like what I'm doing is let's say you're taking, uh, MDA, which is sassafras, which is similar to like— it's kind of like a milder MDMA as a heart opener, and then you take ceremonial cacao and psilocybin as the journey. Like maybe let's say it's 2.5 grams of Penis Envy is the strain. For people that don't know, yes, it's actually called that. Then I would take that exact ratio and microdose the whole ratio of the MDA, the ceremonial cacao, the psilocybin in that strain prepared by the same person that prepared those compounds for you to be going through your journey. That would be microdosed in the next 8 weeks following to, again, psychosomatic anchors to hearken the body back to what it experienced. Also, like if I'm using sage or agua de florida or things like that during the journey as these scents that you might spray or, you know, use, I would use that when I microdose. Also, if you're listening to a playlist while you're going through your journey, or there in particular there's a song that when you have an epiphany that really is the song that's connected to that, playing with that playlist while you're microdosing so that I can like keep myself neuroplastic, so that I can keep the default mode network turned down lower, which is the ego. These two things, the neuroplasticity, the, the BDNF being elevated, and the default mode network being lowered, allow for greater change to take place. And so it's important after you have your facilitated experience to work on integration, to work on the changes being not just entertainment, like an entertaining experience, but you need something that's long-lasting. And so you need to put those into practice, you need to have accountability, you need to go back to those feelings revisit those feelings, remember your truth, remember your authenticity, your integrity. Um, so that's where all that comes in. Then I have these stacks that you take to keep yourself in these places with supplements. But then my echo dosing is that I'm microdosing those stacks during the journey. So this is the echo, is like I'm going back and forth with macro and micro. To like have the body be aware. Beautiful. Yeah. So it's something I've worked on and it's really, really effective. And I have a trademark too. So it's pretty cool. But the, the neuroplasticity elements I've already talked about the, the 7,8-dihydroxyflavone and the 4-DMA-7,8-dihydroxyflavone. Lion's Mane is decent. You could add that in on top of those others if you wanted. I do like using the NMN and the nicotinic acid. Really powerful for, for getting the mitochondria back functioning, especially when you're talking about things that are like MDMA. That have a little bit of neurotoxicity potentially. But these are compounds that really the data shows that if you use once a month for 3 straight months, people never needed to have psychotherapy again, never needed to have SSRIs again. This is like when I look at these numbers and a number of these studies from MAPS, from Johns Hopkins, from Stanford, Northwestern, I mean, like very, very good universities. We're seeing like 50 to 80% cure rates depending on the length of time and what the psychedelic intervention was. So, I mean, literally no longer being on psychotherapy or medical intervention of any kind, like kind of mind-blowing. So even if there is like a touch of, you know, this quote-unquote toxicity, I think that's okay. Like, it is very minor. And again, you can, you know, take some of these supplements to protect yourself. But also, like, if you do bigger experiences on plant medicines, um, you know, think of like ayahuasca or large-dose psilocybin, um, you know, you may have like a very depleted body And that's where kind of getting the mitochondria ramped back up is important. And doing really the whole supplement stack I mentioned before, all these anti-aging things revolve around the mitochondria and resilience. I do find the adaptogens are potent. So, and potentially these anxiolytics going in. So pre-journey, I like doing the, the anxiolytics and the adaptogens because A lot of times people are anxious coming into these journeys. What I find is that we've been told like, oh, like, you know, you're a big guy, so you need 5 grams, and she's a smaller girl, so she needs 2.5 grams. Has nothing to do with anything. It has to do with the nervous system. And if you are a more sympathetic nervous system, you are the larger doses you'll need to overpower that nervous system. So if you're hypervigilant, if you're in your ultra sympathetic nervous system state, you can't lean into these substances and experience them as well because you have cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine floating around. And it's just like, you know, if I gave you, you know, 6 shots of tequila and you might be like pretty well buzzing, but then like someone falls and, you know, splits their head and there's blood everywhere, you're going to be like, Boom. Yeah, I'm— it's like you've turned it back on. You're sober as hell. Like, you're ready to roll. Like, where's the ambulance?

Let's go. Pretty good in an emergency.

Yeah, right? Like, so, yeah, that's, that's the nervous system coming back online. And, and I've heard it so many times when people are in journeys, they're like, it comes in waves. That waves thing is the nervous system going online, back offline, online, back offline. Like going sympathetic and going right back to relax to parasympathetic. That's one of the reasons you might use a heart opener, what's called a heart opener before a journey, MDA or MDMA, or you might do breathwork or intention setting or these trauma release exercises, TRE. There's a lot of different things you can do to get into parasympathetic and relax more. But most importantly, you need to be safe in that environment. You need to trust your facilitators. And look, safe is to you. Don't like over-rationalize, don't like over-cerebralize. There could be a guy who's the most amazing guy in the world who has worked with 100 people, who is high integrity, beautiful soul, gotten tons of people to make amazing changes. And just like, you're like, this is definitely the guy, this is the one I want to work with. But if you're coming from a background of sexual abuse and you had a male abuser, you know, that could be like the wrong thing at this point. Not always, maybe just right now. Like, so you just have to feel into your intuition and say like, what makes me feel safe so that I can lean in and I can get a lot out of this experience. Because I'll be very honest that what can happen is when that default, the default mode network is turned off and you're highly neuroplastic and you're cracked open emotionally and your operating system is exposed, and it's great, you can upgrade that operating system in a way that can never do with psychotherapy or just rationalization or reading or any of that stuff. Like, this is like the, the highest hack there is. But you can also downgrade your operating system and seal in trauma in a way that you didn't think was possible because you are sensing, feeling things on a much deeper level and you're cracked open. So this is where I don't like the idea of things like MDMA or mushrooms used at parties, used at raves. These are unsafe environments, very unpredictable environments. You may have beautiful experiences on them, but you're really rolling the dice, and I don't like that idea at all. Um, I like facilitated experiences. I like keeping those substances kind of held in high regard. Like, they're very, very powerful substances and need to be treated like that. I mean, it's like having a loaded gun or something, you know. It's like you treat it— you treat a gun with respect. Like, if you're gonna like have one in your hand, you treat it with respect because it can— it has a lot of power. And so, and so do these substances. They have a lot of power. Like, they can really change your life in one way or another. So yeah, for me, overall, it's been very, very powerful in me making huge leaps forward. So I'm very blessed and thankful, but I've done a lot of work in understanding them. I have great facilitators. Um, actually, like, one plug for my facilitators that they no longer facilitate, but now they train people to This is called The Condor Approach by Todd and Cole Witty, and this is like a workbook that they have on Amazon. And yeah, so they're training all these facilitators now. They kind of went the legal and safe route, but they've, they've been facilitating for 20 years and they're just— they taught me so much about safety, about the process. And, um, you know, they'll do like a, a 2+ hour intake before they even think about bringing someone on like in a journey, you know. So You need to make sure you're, you're working with the right people. Um, so I think that's the most important thing, even before the supplements. But I can send you a full deck on all my, on my psychedelic supplement science and stacks and all the things that you could, you could list in your liner notes and all that kind of stuff.

We'll put them in the show notes as well. I know it's such an interesting space, so needed. There's so much trauma out there. And as you said as well, it can be such a beautiful experience for so many to heal that trauma in such a much shorter space of time that 10, 15, 20 years of therapy doesn't even get close to. And then that sort of spiritual awakening that comes with it as well, that sense of connectedness and proximity and then empowerment as well. So please do. And how do you spell it? Todd, what was the surname?

It's Ta and Cole Whitty. T-A-A-H. Uh-huh. Uh, and Cole, K-O-L-E, and then Witty, W-H-I-T-T-Y. And it's called The Condor Approach. And actually, you know, I was talking about those Peruvian animals, so this is like kind of that big picture, uh, getting in your feminine healing energy, uh, the condor energy.

So yeah, for men and women alike. I mean, I Yeah, came from investment banking, very male-dominated, to tech startups, very male-dominated, to having to rediscover this feminine energy, which I'm hopefully getting better at. So bit by bit. Shawn, if you could live to 150 years old in excellent health, how would you spend it? What would you do with your life?

I love just experiencing new things. I love staying very childlike. I do remember this verse when I was a kid in the Bible that was about like, come to me as a child. And I like, it's like kind of like stayed in my brain all these years of like, there's a great importance to staying playful, staying creative, staying youthful, staying innocent, being curious. Yeah. And exploring. Like, I, I think it's so powerful. I actually had this thought. It's funny you just bring up that word because I thought like what precedes love and is more important. Like, we talk about love as the most universal and important energy. I think curiosity is, because you can't have love without curiosity. You can't fall in love with things unless you're curious to— like, if I'm curious to know about you, to learn about you, to hear what you have to say, like, you have a different opinion, I can understand you through curiosity first, then I can learn to love I like that idea.

The precursor to love is curiosity. That's powerful. So you will stay curious.

Stay curious. I just want to keep traveling, keep exploring. I love like meeting new cultures. Like, you know, people of very different walks of life are now in my life. Like, um, I have a very, very eclectic friend group and I don't know, I take pride in that. Like, you know, there's like the diversity of your microbiome shows how resilient you are. Yeah, I think the diversity of your friend group shows how resilient you are too, because I have a, I think, a broader mind, and I'm going to be more resilient because I have, um, you know, gay, straight, Muslim, Christian, you know, tall, short, black, white people from every country. I have like children that are close friends, and dogs and cats, and old people, and, you know, people in nursing homes, and, um, you know, handicapped people. And these are like all, all my friends.

You're definitely living the right life, Sean. Well done. Hats off to you.

I like that you said tribe too. That's actually like my, uh, in the energy formula in my book Um, that's the why. Like, I have— so like, ENERGY is an acronym, and it's Experiment Nutrition Exercise Routines Growth and Your Tribe is the why. So yeah, it's a whole biohacking book. It's super cool. So yeah, if any of your people want to check it out, it's, it's, uh, energyformula.com. I have it hardcover, softcover, Audible, ebook. And then I have a bunch of extras if you go to energyformula.com, but you can get it on Amazon too.

Perfect. We'll link it in the show notes and I'm definitely going to check it out. And yeah, I think it's tribe. I think as you grow as a person, we're talking about the hero's journey, you kind of notice shifts in life. You know, when you're maybe at school, it's like, oh, these are the people you want to fit in with. And then at some point you realize, actually, I don't even care what other people think. I just am happy with myself. And like, let me find the people that resonate with me and spend more time with them. And that's what makes this growth journey so interesting and all the people you get to meet. So including yourself, Shawn.

So thank you.

Yeah. What excites you most about the future of health, wellbeing, and longevity over the coming years and beyond?

I think the empowerment that's taking place. You know, people are taking the power back, people are becoming responsible. There's less of this authoritarian model. It's definitely more of a collaborative model. I think there are tools that, you know, while they may seem frightening to some, like, could be very empowering. You know, having spent a lot of time in healthcare myself, I've seen like the gross mismanagement and, um, really bad practices in healthcare that I could do a whole show on that, um, that, you know, AI could solve, you know, like that robotics could solve. Now we still need the human touch, but but there could be a lot of efficiency that's, that's brought through some of these tools, um, if they're used correctly. That could be very interesting. So I think there's, there's a bright future ahead, but I think with— we see this like bifurcation, I think that's important, of it seems like some people are going towards like paleo and primal and like how do we get back in touch with our ancestral health and all these things, and then And some people want CGMs and epigenetics and microbiome and even CRISPR technologies where we're deleting genes and whatever, all these things, right? But I think both can coexist, that we learn the lessons of the past and we don't forget those, and we can also apply the technologies of the future. And that's really the best of both worlds if we can do that. I think that's very important.

Where can people learn more about what you are up to on social media? What are your handles?

Yeah, @SeanWells, S-H-A-W-N-W-E-L-L-S. I, yeah, I have a blue tick and like only follow that one because there's a lot of like fake accounts that are happening a lot where like there's these fake accounts are like hitting on women, trying to date them, or like asking for money. And none of that stuff is me, I can tell you. Like, if that ever comes up, don't listen to that. Delete those people, ban those people, block those people. It's really frustrating. It's really frustrating to get that back from followers. Um, so yeah, so @SeanWells, S-H-A-W-N-W-E-L-L-S. One last thought I'll give, like kind of more on the philosophical side. Please, please do. A lesson I've learned. This is like, I studied a lot in NLP, like neurolinguistics programming. And, you know, going back to that idea of curiosity, there is— if we all have one way of thinking, we're not going to argue. If we have three or more ways of thinking or opinions or beliefs, then we need to talk it through, and no one's necessarily right. But when there's only two, whatever we choose, the other one by default is wrong. This is a protective mechanism you have in your brain, and it is highly, highly, highly leveraged. By a lot of the powers that be in the media and that seek to control you and keep you docile or keep you angry or what have you. There is no such thing as one box or the other box with Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, Christian, Muslim, like vax, no vax, mask, no mask, you know, black, white, like all the— this is bullshit. If I talk to anyone on any one of these issues, it's going to be highly nuanced, and there's going to be with 1,000 people 1,000 answers. And yet you're allowing them to put you in one box or the other box and then label you. It's a very dangerous place to be in, and you will stop listening to people of the other side. And guess what? There's not even a different side. You're all on the same side. So if we want longevity, seek to understand, be curious, and don't believe that there's two boxes.

There's many. We're so complex. Thank you for sharing your wise words and wisdom. Yeah. And we need to keep growing, right? We talk about neuroplasticity, creating new synapses, right? So let's create that for our lives at a higher level each time. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Sean, for coming on today and for all your time. I just realized how long we've actually been speaking for, so I apologize that we've run over slightly, but, um, it's been such a pleasure to have you on.

It's been a pleasure too. I've really enjoyed talking to you.