Negativity Fasting and Spirituality Hacking - Luke Storey : 562

Imagine reducing your stress, getting rid of toxins, supporting your heart, recovering faster, maybe even helping your body burn fat while you're watching your favorite show. That's what infrared sauna therapy can do for you, and that's why I use my Sunlighten sauna almost every day. It's a type of good, mild stress that strengthens your cells and still supports recovery. Traditional heat saunas are great, but for some people, the intense heat can be too stressful and uncomfortable. Infrared is way more comfortable, and it works without stressing your nervous system. You're delivering light energy that supports circulation, cellular energy and recovery in a way that your body really likes. And consistency is what compounds results, not heroic sessions you do once a week. Infrared makes it easy to show up even on busy days, so you get results that last and feel good while you're doing it. Sunlighten delivers one of the highest quality infrared saunas on the market using very precise wavelengths, so you get effective absorption and you get the most benefits. The focus on quality is why they've led the infrared space for more than 25 years. I've used a Sunlighten for more than 10 years. If you want a recovery tool you'll actually use, that you'll actually feel, this is it. So go to sunlighten.com/dave to save up to $1,600 with additional savings throughout the year. That's sunlighten.com/dave.

Are you ready to plug into the latest science of longevity and human performance? Come to Beyond, the biohacking conference where biology, longevity, and consciousness collide in real life. Join us May 27th through 29th, 2026 in Austin, Texas. Experience breakthrough tech, meet world-class experts, and connect with people who are also committed to being the best versions of themselves because strong community isn't optional. It's how we live longer. Register now at beyondconference.com. Live longer, live better, live beyond.

Bulletproof Radio, a state of high performance.

You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today's cool fact of the day is that increased nature time leads to decreased behavior problems in kids. Who would have thought? Put kids outdoors, they stop complaining. Well, at least if they're not complaining about their iPad or lack thereof. Recent research that just came out shows that spending time in nature has a bunch of different health benefits. Environmental programs around the world are trying to treat this nature deficit disorder. And the WHO, World Health Organization, is monitoring implementation of the Parma Declaration commitment to providing every child with access to green spaces to play and exercise in within 300 meters. And now they're doing a new 16-parent questionnaire to measure connectedness to nature in very young children. And this is through the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Hong Kong and also through the University of Auckland. And what they found is that there's 4 areas that show whether kids are tied into their environment: enjoyment of nature, empathy for nature, responsibility towards nature, and awareness of it. And the results of the study showed that parents who saw their kids had a closer connection with nature had less distress, less hyperactivity, and fewer behavior and emotional difficulties, and improved prosocial behavior. Well, it turns out it matters for you as well, but if you, like me, are a parent, and you can get your kids a dose of this stuff, you might actually have a much lowered stress and cortisol level yourself as a parent. And that's why I like to kick my kids outdoors every day for at least an hour, even if it's raining. Rain makes you tough, right?

What if quantum physics could make your supplements work at a whole new level? Igniton is the only company that quantum charges their clinical-grade supplements. So they work better than the same ingredients without the charge. This isn't some woo-woo idea. This is real physics with real results. University studies show Igniton's Cognition Formula improves memory, attention, and mental performance more than the non-charged version. And their Longevity Formula supports healthier aging markers like IL-6, CRP, and blood pressure better than the same ingredients without quantum charging. They do this with absolutely no fillers and no stimulants. Just clean inputs carrying the same kind of life force energy that ancient cultures called world spirit. Think of what Google and NVIDIA do for quantum computing. Igniton does that for your biology. I spent time in their Colorado lab. I saw the tech, I used the supplements. In fact, I believe in it so much that I invested in the company. So if you're serious about living longer and having a brain that works better, this is for you. Go to igniton.com and use code Dave for 15% off your first order. That's I-G-N-I-T-O-N.com, code Dave. Igniton, born from light, backed by science. Modern life keeps your nervous system in overdrive. Most solutions try to change your brain chemistry, but your body also runs on electrical signals and rhythms. Your brain uses electrical waves, your heart beats in patterns, and your nervous system sends signals through tiny pulses. Light and sound are also forms of energy your body can sense. Scientists have studied them for decades because certain wavelengths and frequencies influence how cells and nerves respond. That's why I use the One device. It combines light and sound in a wearable. It sends gentle signals your body can respond to while you work, meditate, or wind down. Most wearables just track stress. The One device supports your nervous system directly without any Bluetooth or EMFs. People who wear it report sleeping more deeply and feeling calmer, more focused, energized, and grounded. It's wearable frequency support you can use all day long. Learn more at theonedevice.com/dave.

Today's guest is with a kindred biohacker, a guy who actually used to be a coaching client of mine years and years ago. And he's a lifestyle design expert who spent the last 20+ years developing lifestyle-based powerful principles on health and spirituality while allowing room for technology and urban living and things like that. And he's also a motivational speaker, Kundalini yoga and meditation teacher, and host of The Life Stylist Podcast. And if you've been a podcast consumer for a long time, you might have heard my interview on there, I think back in 2016. I'm talking about Luke Storey. Welcome to the show.

Dave, it's good to be back on Skype with you, man. It's been a little while.

It has indeed. It's good to chat. I mean, we had you on Bulletproof Stories, our video, in 2017, and I think just recently at the Bulletproof Labs in Santa Monica, you did a meditation class, which is pretty cool, and you're always talking Bulletproof, and I see you on social, which is awesome.

Yeah, I'm a convert, dude. That's the thing is when I find something that works, I talk about it, and Bulletproof's been one of those things for me, you know?

You've always been at the Bulletproof conferences. You coming to the one this year in April?

Oh, hell yeah, of course.

All right, and I'm really hoping that we get to see Luke probably, what, hanging upside down from a rope in an advanced yoga posture or something?

Something like that, yeah. Is that the plan? Yeah, out front with my shirt off doing breathwork, something to get myself Lively.

Yeah, I think that's a, that's a good plan. Well, let's talk about lively, Luke. Uh, you, uh, you do a lot of things to maintain your energy. I mean, you and I spent some substantial time talking when you were first getting going back when I think you were doing the Story of Style, what was your kind of original thing? You were, you were talking about how you kind of, kind of came out of that side and how you've had a mindful waking up for lack of a better word. What made you go from sort of more style-focused to like, hey, there's something deeper? What was the transition?

Well, you know, it's funny, Dave. I've actually, I've had kind of a double life the whole time I've lived in Hollywood. You know, I moved here in 1989 when I was 19 years old. And as a kid, I, you know, had a very dysfunctional family, experienced a lot of trauma, a lot of issues with addiction, things like that. So I split home when I was 19 and moved to Hollywood to be a rock star. Frankly, to do drugs freely without parental interference. And so by the time I was 26, I had pretty much burned my entire life down. And at that point, I started really getting into health and spirituality. And back then, health was, you had infrared saunas, you had like smoothies at the health food store with bee pollen and bananas, you know, and like, you know, giant carrot juices, like the early days, I'm making kombucha, stuff like that, colonics, you know, the things that were big kind of in the '90s in the health scene. So I got into all of that to detox my body from all of the self-destructive Hollywood rock and roll lifestyle that I'd been living. And then, you know, started getting into meditation and reading spiritual books and all of that. But what I did for a career, in addition to playing music, not that successfully, I mean financially at least, is I became a fashion stylist. So at 26, I sobered up. My first job after I had this kind of awakening and was rendered thankfully sober, my first job was working for Aerosmith's fashion stylist. And so I'm this kid who's, you know, had all these problems with drugs and stuff. I get sober, and then as fate would have it, I get hired by Aerosmith, who were also sober at that time. And so there was this synergy there. And so I started to really live this spiritual life and be all into the health stuff, but was totally catapulted into the Hollywood machine and started working with celebrities and things like that. So I did that for 17 years. Actually just dressing rock stars, celebrities, and working in the Hollywood kind of company town machine. But in my off time, I actually wasn't really interested in much of that at all. In my off time, I was going to India to learn how to meditate and trying every kind of supplementation and biohacking device and all of the things that, that you and I are into. And then 10 years ago, started my fashion school called School of Style, which I still own and operate now. It's an online business, so It's like I would turn my friends on to all of these practices and we'd all be detoxing and learning all these strange types of yoga and doing all that stuff. But then my day job was like back to Mr. Fashion, Mr. Hollywood. So 3 years ago when we were doing coaching and I was, you know, wanting to exit that industry because it was very unhealthy and also I just had kind of lost my passion for it, I made a decision to just completely shut that down with the exception of my school and move into this space. And so now it's been 3 years or so that this has kind of really taken off with the podcast as the catalyst, and then doing, as you said, a lot of public speaking events and things like that. And so it's like, for me, I've been doing this the whole time for the past 22-plus years, but to other people on the outside, it appears like, oh wow, so you just kind of came out of nowhere 3 years ago. But this has always been my deepest passion, just because my life has been transformed so much by all of these different practices and modalities and all that.

One of the reasons I wanted a name for biohacking I mean, you know, I'm sure it's in Merriam-Webster's finally as a real word in English language, but I wanted a definition and a word for the community. That's why I started the conference 6 years ago is that there were people like me usually from different arms of biohacking. There's the people really focused on the brain or on nootropics or extreme athletes or cold or whatever, hyperbarics, but there was no clearinghouse. There was no community. What would happen if you took a nootropic and you were in hyperbaric right after using cold therapy with a red light in your nostril or whatever, because it turns out it's additive, right? So it's cool that you, as someone who was early to doing that, joined into the community and that we have a name for what we do now, because before you were just a weird dude and you're like, do I talk about this or do I not talk about this, right?

Totally. Well, that's the thing. Back when I got into all this stuff, you were just called a health nut. You know, my friends would ask me, oh, what are you eating? I'd be eating some strange herb or medicinal mushroom, whatever. Oh, you're one of those health nuts. Or be using some, you know, biohacking technology or alternative medicine, Rife machine, something like that. And people were like, oh, you're a health nut. And that wasn't a really— it wasn't a very appealing word. So yeah, I'm very grateful that you actually coined that term and put it out there.

It's kind of like the modern, the modern equivalent of vegan.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it is good that there's actually something to call it now. And And also, you know, I think that something I talked about at Upgrade Labs recently is, you know, I did one talk that was all about water, actually, about, you know, just procuring spring water and just, I'm such a water fanatic. So that was one talk, but then I did one, as you said, kind of on meditation and mindfulness. And, you know, to me, all of the physical practices have been just a catalyst for me to really strengthen the vehicle of the body to do my real work and my mission here. And I think that's something that we share. You've expressed that at times in the past where, You know, the health stuff is great, but that's, that's not going to give you necessarily lasting fulfillment. But if you have no energy and your mitochondria are fried and you're living in an EMF soup like I currently am, under a bunch of fake light, good luck being a nice person and, you know, having a spiritual mission on the planet. So I'm thankful that all these practices are now kind of becoming popular because it makes it easier to get access to them. And now more companies are motivated to actually make really great products. Like, you know, I've got my Joovv red light device behind me, and that didn't exist a few years ago, except in very obscure realms. And now people are seeing that there's a financial incentive to actually produce really high-quality products. And so it's becoming more accessible and also more acceptable. You're not considered a weirdo. I mean, I'm always shocked, like especially, I think I'm about 65% female fan base on social media and my podcast. I'm always shocked that they're so obsessed with biohacking because it's such like a male normative kind of nerdy thing, or at least it used to be. And now it's like—

There's a lot of women biohackers.

I know, that's what I'm saying. And even in my former industry in Hollywood, I mean, all these celebrities are going to the cryo centers and going to Upgrade Labs and really getting down with all this stuff. So I feel like I've been kind of, doing my woodshedding for the past 22 years and really integrating all this stuff and now have an opportunity to create a platform around it and people are receptive, which is just so cool.

I mean, it's easy to get trapped in this kind of fearful mindset and you got this, we live in a blue-lit microwaved world and the water's toxic and everything around you is bad. And like, you see that out there, right? It reminds me sort of like the orthorexia kind of perspective, you know, that idea like, oh my God, if I eat the wrong thing, I might die. And like, if I turn on the wrong light, I might die. And so there's that kind of negative energy sort of thing. But you actually talk about negativity fasting. That was actually, I think, at Upgrade Labs, if I remember right. So what is negativity fasting and how do you use it?

Well, like any fast, if you say you go on a water fast, well, all you're gonna have is water. Water, you're not going to have any macronutrients, no carbohydrates, fats, sugars, etc., right? And so I like the process of purifying the body, and from time to time I do actual fasting, and I do a lot of just— I think actually when I started drinking Bulletproof Coffee, and I'm not trying to be like a Bulletproof kiss-ass, but it's just, it's part of my story, but I started intermittent fasting without even knowing it just because I was getting ketones.

Yeah, totally, right? You know, you're like, I didn't want breakfast, done, right?

Yeah. So I started to notice everyone in the office was like whining all day about eating lunch, and I'm like, what is wrong with you guys? It's only 5 o'clock, you know? But anyway, you know, I see the value in withdrawing from certain activities, whether that be food, drink, sex, whatever, in order to kind of recalibrate. And so when I talk about negativity fasting, it's really— it comes from, I think, originally like Emmett Fox and some of those early metaphysical sort of Christian Scientist teachers, Napoleon Hill, these kind of guys that were around in the '20s and '30s. There was a real strong movement at that time, which was all about the mind and really having dominion over your thoughts and the fact that thoughts carry energy and they actually have power. And so I started to notice when I got sober, because I was just so, oh my God, just suicidally depressed and homicidal and just had racing obsessive thoughts and was just a neurotic basket case because of all the damage that I'd done to myself. In those years that I was on that path. And so what happened for me was I started sobering up and detoxing my body, but my mind was just so perpetually negative. And it was like I was addicted to complaining, whether or not I was verbalizing it or not. Sometimes just in my mind, like, "God, those bastards," just resenting people and hating people or ruminating on guilt and shame about mistakes that I'd made and things like that. And so—

You had a voice in your head that was, That was me.

Yeah, very mean voice, a real a-hole living inside my brain, and I couldn't shut it off, you know? And, you know, hence doing, you know, 40 years of Zen, neurofeedback. I mean, I've done a lot of things on a physical level too to assist the brain, but really this is more of a spiritual practice and negativity fasting. It's anytime that my perception paints something as dark, negative, wrong, bad, is to get really quick at sort of like thought sniper type practice where I'm seeing anytime my mind says, "That's bad, that's wrong," and deleting that thought and eliminating that thought. And it's really kind of based on the Shakespearean principle, "There's no such thing as good or bad, only thinking makes it so." And that's hard for some people to hear, especially your skeptic analytical type, but I truly believe that reality is created by the thoughts we have because that's been my experience. Thought, you know, negativity fasting would be like, I go out to my car right now and I get a parking ticket. And one way to look at that parking ticket could be like, "Fuck you, City of Los Angeles. Are you serious? $85? Really? $85?" You know, to some people that's like a couple days of groceries, you know? And then just start ruminating on how wrong it is, what a victim I am, how I'm gonna pay them back and get them and change, you know, the whole thing. When another way to look at it would just be like, "That's interesting. There's a piece of wood pulp on a piece of glass that's connected to a piece of metal that's on 4 pieces of rubber that's sitting on some asphalt, and it has something called ink on it that's supposed to mean something to me.

And plus, parking was going to be $50 if you paid for it. It was really just $35. That's how you look at it.

Exactly. In LA, that's true. So, you know, the negativity fasting is just like— it comes back to the Course in Miracles too. Would I rather be right, or would I rather be happy? Making that choice of self-righteousness, indignation, complaining, fault-finding, or actually making the decision to have some sort of authority over how I'm going to feel. And to me, my feelings and emotions are usually dictated by the thoughts that I give energy to. And so it's my daily practice to not say anything negative about myself, about life, about reality, And if possible, to squelch even negative thoughts as they arise, 'cause they're still gonna come, you know, but they only really start to grow if I give them energy. And this is, you know, this is the practice for anyone that's in recovery from addictions, like I mentioned before. I mean, this is like, this is ground zero. You've gotta do this, otherwise life becomes so painful from having a negative perception of it that people like me seek ways of escape. From those negative feelings that can sometimes be very destructive and even life-threatening, um, at a certain point.

You talk about how, in your experience as a biohacker and a meditation teacher and all that, that reality is created by your thoughts. What role do emotions and feelings have in creating reality?

You know, it's interesting, um, I've noticed that it's definitely true for me and most people that I've worked with and observed that A feeling is oftentimes a result of a thought. You know, there's a thought about something and then the mind has a perception, then it creates this, you know, usually negative or sometimes positive feeling. But there are times where a feeling just comes up and it can't really be identified. And then so what happens is the mind tries to find out what's wrong in the environment, you know, and the ego comes in and tries to sense what the threat is. And then you have this rumination thing where you're going think, feel, think, feel, think, feel, and that's a real trap. My practice in terms of emotions and feelings and sensations in the body is really learning how to allow them to be there, even when they're painful and uncomfortable, and not to get caught up in the habitual mind game of trying to label those feelings or find the cause of those feelings or trying to escape. So when the sensation comes up and I feel like, a sense of anxiety or a little bit, a wave of maybe sadness or depression, I spent my whole life with exogenous methods of changing that, whether it be a cell phone, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, pornography, spending money, you know, just some dopamine-producing behavior essentially to shut down that sensation. And what I've found is that it's really natural to actually just experience negative feelings and emotions at times because there are so many unseen influences in our environment and in our life and in our subconscious and our psyche that we have literally no control over. And that really where the problem arises is when I suppress and repress, whether consciously or unconsciously, those negative sensations and emotions, 'cause then what happens is they start to bottle up. And next thing you know, I'm acting out in some way, trying to avoid those feelings. When the funny thing about it is it's like, the fastest way through a round of feeling is through it, you know? And so I've really gotten in the practice of just facing negative feelings head-on and just kind of saying, hey, all right, here I am, come and get me. And most of the time, those negative feelings tend out to be boogeymen, and within moments, they're sort of just— they've dissipated without anything really having to be done about them.

A lot of the Buddhist teachings are aligned with the idea that feelings happen and then the thought happens. And at 40 Years of Zen, I mean, neurofeedback here, I can show you that your body knew the feeling sometimes up to 3 seconds before you had the thought. But you think the feeling came about from the thought, but that's just that mean voice in your head, also known as the ego, that's sabotaging you. Like, you know, you felt uncomfortable because your survival pattern matching things happened. Then you made up the story in your head, I'm uncomfortable because this guy's a jerk or whatever. Right, right, right, right. How much validity is, is there in that, that dance? And ask you, because I was a meditation guy, and as the dance between I felt it, I told myself a story, I believe the story to be true, versus I told myself a story, it caused a feeling, and I told myself the feeling to be real.

You know, honestly, I, in my experience, Dave, it goes both ways. You know, sometimes there is— I just start a negative thought pattern and they're, you know, at least there's no discernible feeling or emotion associated with it. It's just my mind is just sometimes has that negativity bias and it just looks for what's wrong in my environment or in my life experience. And then I start to feel these, these welling negative emotions. So there's that side of it. But from, from the perspective of there's a sensation going on and then the mind tries to label it and create meaning out of what that experience is, I think that's probably more common. And I know we've both interviewed Byron Katie, who I just spent 4 days with over New Year's. I did something called a mental cleanse, her New Year's mental Cleans, which was a very arduous, hardcore experience of really taking a look at that voice in your head. And it was funny because I was having, you know, I just sort of started exploring a new relationship and I was getting triggered by the relationship because I'd taken a year and a half off from dating and sex and all of that and just really, really went inside and just reworked a lot of things within myself. And so I started to reenter that, and I was at the Byron Katie thing kind of freaking out, and you do this thing called the work which is where you put your thoughts on paper and you question whether or not those thoughts are true. And so I really got to see in real time, I've been into her work for ages. I think I saw her speak 25 years ago the first time, but—

She's OG personal development.

Oh, I mean, she's just—

She's fantastic. Love that interview.

Yeah, she's locked, she's just, she's made something so complex within the human experience so simple. And so in a situation like that, here I am. So I'm at the Byron Katie event at some crappy kind of, not cool-looking hotel by LAX, and I'm starting to feel these emotions come up because I'm afraid, I'm being vulnerable, I'm being intimate with someone, I'm starting to open my heart a bit. And so these feelings come up, and then my crazy mind, I was watching it in real time as she's doing her course, my crazy mind starts creating meaning out of these scenarios. And then like you said, those thoughts start going, but without the ability to, whether it's through her modality or not, without having the ability to actually question the validity of those thoughts, they're just gonna take me over and run with me. And it all started just because there was an uncomfortable feeling that, as you said, the ego, the mind has to come up with some sort of categorization or meaning behind it. And in that is where the real suffering happens.

It's a constant dance. And the longer I do meditation retreats in Nepal or neurofeedback, the 40 Years of Zen stuff, I just become more and more aware. I pretty much never trust the story. It's one of the laws in Game Changers. Totally. Your story is probably wrong. It's an assumption. And it goes back to like "The Four Agreements," a book I'm sure you've read it. I think I've seen you talk about it some time or another. And one of them is, you know, don't make assumptions. And usually in your story, you're assuming you know what the other person's thinking and you're usually wrong. You only know what the other person is doing, right? And if what they're doing is, you know, out of integrity, you're like, "Well, I know that they slapped me in the face." Well, that's pretty, hard evidence that there's something not okay going on. But, you know, that voice, "Well, maybe she's texting me or not texting me because of whatever." Like, "Maybe she was pooping and she didn't want to text you." Like, you just don't know. Like, it could be something stupid or gross or whatever. And you just, you don't know, but you're going to make up this whole story. And it's just, I think, part of being human. But I don't have that voice in my head anymore. It's just, it's gone. And that's been really useful for me.

Well, listen, man, whatever you're doing, I need to do more of because mine's gotten much, much better, but there still are times, every once in a while, I get trapped for a period where the mind is making up some narrative about reality and I'll actually believe it. And I think that's the real goal of ascension and what I would consider enlightenment is to become free of actually believing the fake news that your mind creates. You know, I recently did a talk in New York and that came to me. I said, you know what, the mind is fake news. You really can't trust it. You can use it to do math. You know, you can balance the books. You can go get your tire changed. I mean, the mind is great for a lot of uses, but it's not very good for deciphering other people's behavior and for, as you said, making assumptions and guesswork and trying to figure out how to become safe. And that's really, I think useful information, especially because in many traditions, the ego is considered like sin. We demonize this thing that's trying to protect us. It's just doing its job. It's just the animal part of us trying to figure out, use the mind, the supercomputer that's there to protect the animal. And it's trying to figure out what the other person's doing and what this means so that it can become safe. And I think that, you know, once we realize that it's innocent, that it's there for our benefit, but that it's not to be trusted, you know, we're on our way to being on the right track. And, you know, to live a life where that voice is quieter and speaks up less frequently and where we believe it less is the real key to fulfillment and happiness.

It's kind of funny, you know, we're both biohackers and here we are talking about the age-old stuff that people have been working on for thousands of years. That old, "How Do You Get On Top of It?" You've done a bunch of neurofeedback. What's your experience with that versus the 21-day kind of silent things that you've done in India?

Well, you know, it's funny, I was thinking about actually prior to our call, just thinking back to a couple years ago, it must've been, God, I wanna say 2, maybe even 3 years that I did "40 Years of Zen" when it was out in Sedona. And that was, I went there over my birthday in the month of October, drove out by myself, picked up some spring water, of course, in that, uh, at the spring there, and stayed in a little Airbnb. I was doing cold plunges in the creek, almost fell off the rocks at one point because it was so cold I couldn't climb back out. So the whole experience was great. But in terms of, um, actually doing the neurofeedback, I think what was interesting about it for me was— and I don't know that there's any way to produce this naturally without the, um, the science involved in neurofeedback— but the sense I got is that my brain was watching my brain and then teaching itself how to respond to stimuli, which is a really interesting phenomenon because in meditation and mindfulness practices, of course, over time, you start to get this witness perspective where you see the thoughts coming before they take hold and you see the emotions and you're seeing, wow, I'm a soul. My higher self is observing the phenomena of my personality and of the mind and the ego, but that's really a soul watching the sort of lower nature. Whereas in neurofeedback, it's the physical mind, it's the brain watching the brain. And then you as your spiritual self or the witness perspective, watching that phenomenon take place also. So it's really profound and unique. And I don't know how else you could achieve that. Without that technology.

I mean, you could do it, but it usually takes, you know, 20 years.

Exactly.

That's what attracted me to this starting back in the early '90s. And I've worked with a bunch of different practitioners, and I've worked with, you know, a bunch of different technologies I've had at home. And in the last couple years, we've come up with some, like, some new proprietary stuff with new, new waveforms that, you know, we didn't we didn't have the ability to manipulate even 3 years ago, uh, in the program. So I'm, I'm excited, just constant evolutions in that space. But it's, you wanna talk about where the health nuts are, you know, that's pretty cutting edge biohacking, right? If you, if you kind of dig in on what it all, what it all might be, but it, it sounds like it worked, uh, it worked for you.

Oh yeah. I mean, just having more access, I think for me with the Alpha training was more access to, uh, creativity. And actually being able to find flow state easier. And yeah, and even just being able to differentiate when I'm in that state and when I'm not, and being able to choose like a project that I may or may not work on when I'm in that state. And if I can't achieve that state, then I do something rote that doesn't require creativity or personality, you know. So it was a real— it was actually a very interesting experience. And I've done subsequent neurofeedback after that, just working on focus or working on sleep or going through a particularly stressful time in work, um, in relationships, etc., and just, I need to just go in and get like kind of a dry float tank theta experience, you know. It's just incredible.

At Upgrade Labs.

Yeah, it's incredible what, you know, what you can do, um, to alter your emotions by going through the route of the brain too. It's, it's really fascinating, and I love, I love merging, you know, the metaphysical, the spiritual realm with the technology because I think there's so much potential there. And I actually interviewed Chris Keen on my podcast, uh, your, your 40 Years of Zen guy, recently, and he was telling me about some of the updates you guys did. And I'm like, that sounds very cool because in the old, in the old version of it, you weren't supposed to take nootropics, and there were, there was kind of a lot of rules because there was a, you know, a third party, I guess, involved. And so it was a little bit more restrictive And Chris is like, "Yeah, we just totally blew the roof off and we just do whatever we want now." So I'm like, "That sounds pretty cool." Yeah, we're continuing to evolve that.

And that's one of the things that brings me joy is just developing the hardware and the software in such a way that no one else on earth is doing that, as long as it works. Now, there's another technology that we've both spent a lot of time with, one that really kind of helped open my door to the spiritual stuff. It's called breathing. Breathwork, like holotropic breathwork. Stan Grof has been on the show and on Bulletproof Radio, and he's the guy who invented holotropic breathwork, although frankly, he kind of borrowed it from the Tibetans and some Ayurvedic practices. I mean, I've left my body. I've become one with the universe and had all kinds of strange visions and personal growth things just from breathing. And in "Game Changers," I write about some of those and like why breathing is a massive technology for this. What is your specific experience with breathwork and what kind of breathwork do you teach when you teach breathwork?

Well, you know, I've had numerous experiences. I've done some sessions with some people in New York. They have a place called WOOM Center, W-O-O-M, and they do sort of a sound experience combined with holotropic breathing and they've studied with Stan And so I've done that, I've done the Wim Hof breathing. And after I started to get exposed to some of these breathwork workshops and things like that, I realized, guys, you're just, you're doing Kundalini yoga. That's what, as you said, because I've been practicing Hatha yoga now for, oh man, over 20 years. I don't do that style that regularly now. About 7, 8 years ago, I discovered Kundalini yoga, which is, um, for those that aren't experienced in that, it's much different than other types of yoga because you don't really hold stretches. There's a lot of really strange movements you do with your hands. There's a lot of chanting. There's a lot of different breath patterns that are used. And these technologies are going back thousands of years, you know, and it's— no one's really sure what cave in the Himalayas they came from, but humans have figured out for a very long time that you can get high on your own supply. And then You know, it's— so I've been through, I think, 4 Wim Hof trainings, and every time I do it, I'm like, yep, here we are, Kundalini yoga again, you know. So what I teach comes out of that tradition, and depending on the, the type of workshop I'm doing or what the goals are, I'll typically do something that includes mantra. And that sound vibration to me is a really important part of the breathwork. And even if I do at home just a simple you know, 6-minute, 11-minute breathwork session when I'm watching the sunrise, which is one of my favorite practices to combine with that is being grounded and sun gazing. I always have to have mantra on, you know, it's just part of the process now because that's, it's like if I'm gonna sit there and do the breathwork, I might as well have something meaningful and a vibration going on at the same time. So the patterns that I use, it's funny, I just did one yesterday. I went to a Kundalini yoga class and there's like, like, just for an example, with your right hand you sort of do— I don't know if anyone will see this video, but you sort of do that, um, you know, I think it was, um, Nanu Nanu, that Robin Williams.

Yeah, or the live long and prosper.

Yeah, yeah, the live long and prosper. You do that with your right hand, and then you have your left palm facing down about the level of your, your, your pec, and then you do round mouth inhale and exhale deeply and slowly and powerfully as your left hand sort of gyrates to the exterior of your body and back toward the body. And this goes on for 11 minutes to the tune of a mantra. And then at the end, you do a long breath hold. And I'm bursting into tears, having, as you said, having this awakening, which for me yesterday was about just further opening my heart and just being open to intimacy and love and things like that. And I had this amazing revelation and it was triggered by nothing than just some really profound music and my own breath and the intention to, expand and evolve. But it's not even that the teacher said, okay, this is a breath and the mudra for opening your heart. She's just like, we're gonna do a cool meditation now. Next thing you know, I'm transported into this other world, having, you know, almost a psychedelic experience. And so the thing that I really like about Kundalini yoga and why I like teaching that is there are literally thousands of different movements, breath patterns, mantras, that all induce different experiences. And oddly enough, they were all sort of brought to Western culture by a guy named Yogi Bhajan. And I mean, there's just books and books and books and thousands and thousands of what you call yoga sets, where he does all these different combinations of movement and breath and all of that. And you could live, you know, 5 lifetimes and probably never do them all. And so I think the novelty of that is what keeps me coming back to that. That practice, although I do just standard kind of the, you know, what's called the Wim Hof method when it's just, you know, I don't wanna think and I don't have access to my workbooks and things like that. But I think this is just something that's inherently largely been lost in our domestication is our access to the elements. And it's funny when you read the fact of the day, when I was thinking about the final question that you ask, or I don't know if you ask it anymore now that you have a book out, you know, but I was like, you know, it's connecting to nature and getting in touch with the elements. And one of those elements is air, and we need it. It's not just the oxygen, it's, I mean, it's the breath of life. And so using your spiritual will to have the discipline and the determination to really work with your body, your physical vessel, to bring that air in and out in all these different ways with these strange nostril holds and movements with the hands. I mean, there's just like an endless treasure trove of ways that we can access our environment and connect to nature in that way.

It's powerful stuff. And it's still something that I think a lot of people listening are a little skeptical about, right? Like, how is it possible that in taking some strangely structured breaths can have this weird effect? But it does. Different traditions, whether you're talking about an Aboriginal tradition in Australia or something at the North Pole or something in South America or something in North America, it doesn't matter. Indigenous people— not, not to discount all of Asia with all the different cultures there— they all have breathing practices that are ancient. So it seems like it does something. So even if you're really skeptical and listening to this guy seriously, You know, it's okay to just try it. Or you go to a yoga class where if they say pranayama, that means that they're going to teach you how to breathe and try it. I would say try with the teacher because you'll probably do it wrong if you're just doing it, or try it on YouTube. Like, it's all good, but there's something magic. And if you do it for 10 minutes or 20 minutes, however long they say for that kind of thing, uh, I mean, I've seen some crazy stuff. Like, I did this thing, this must have been like 14, 15 years ago. It was billed as a breathing meditation. And I get there and what you do, it's called the Tibetan breath of fire, but you do it blindfolded in this big room. It was actually an old church that had been converted into like a community center. And then the lights are off, you're all blindfolded. And then like a DJ comes in and everyone starts dancing and you're like, okay, you're going to whack into people because you're blindfolded, right? Like there's going to be black eyes. There's going to be And you know what? You don't. And it's the weirdest thing. You know, we did this, we're in a very altered state just from the breathing and you dance for like, I don't know how long it was, probably a couple hours and never hit anybody. No one ever got hurt. And it was like my body developed some sense of radar and you just knew I wasn't hyper-focused. You're just listening to this loud music, but somehow I can't explain that stuff using science the way we do it. I actually had like micro radar transceiver algorithms. I, I mean, it doesn't— well, you can't do it, but it worked.

It's funny that you, you mentioned that, actually, because one of the things that's taught in Kundalini yoga is that you can actually manipulate your auric field or your magnetic field with the breathwork, you know, which would indicate that proprioception, uh, acuity that you experienced, you know. So I, you know, I'm definitely more on the woo-woo side, and I would say I have some rationality to me. I don't just go along with anything. To me, it's all about results. I'll try something. If I don't get a result, I'm done. If something happens, I don't so much care why or how. I just want to know that it works. You know, it's funny what you mentioned, the pranayama. Um, years ago I was doing hatha yoga, and I had this great teacher, Mas Vidal. It's just really old school Ayurvedic, just pure tradition, does not deviate. It's not power yoga, not gym yoga. Like, he's the real deal. Been to India a million times. And he taught me something called alternate nostril breathing, which is also in fitness, they use it and it's called box breathing. So a couple of years ago, so I do that when I need to calm down, it's very calming to your nervous system. And even like before interviews, I often do that just to kind of ground myself. And then a couple of years ago, I was doing an escape and urban evasion course at Neil Strauss's house. I think Neil's been on your show too.

And Neil, you know, 2010. Yeah, it was fantastic. You did it. Yeah, what you did.

Yeah, Neil's just— he's just, you know, he's a nut. He's into all this stuff. He wrote a book called Emergency, which is about all this kind of stuff. And so he invited me over and, um, you know, met some really great friends that I'm still friends with today. But anyway, we have these ex-military guys. Like, these are not guys you fuck with. I mean, these are real deal. They've killed—

he was there.

They've killed a lot. Yeah, yeah, they've killed a lot of people. They are not playing around. And And so we go out to get tasered. You know, you get tasered, you get waterboarded, and then they're like, all right, we're going to teach you this breath. It's called combat breath. And I thought, oh wow, fascinating. You know, I love breathing, so what have you got? And they go ahead and they teach me the Ayurvedic ancient yogic practice of alternate nostril breathing. That's literally what it was. And they're like, this is what you do when you get, you know, captivated in Afghanistan and you're going to be beheaded. This is how you calm your nervous system. And so It was experiences like that that validate from sort of the linear world of science and practicality that actually validate these practices and their efficacy. And I find it interesting when a practice or modality crosses the lines like that, that to me is something to pay attention to.

You talk about having a soul mission or a life mission. In some of what you do. And you've talked about how you went to Date with Destiny with Tony Robbins. And, you know, Tony's been on Bulletproof Radio and, you know, kind of a larger-than-life figure. And you said you came out with a laser focus on your true purpose and, you know, to follow your life's mission. But I know a lot of people, people who are reading Game Changers right now and people have asked me over the years, like, how do I know what my life's mission is? How did you figure out what yours was and what is it?

I mean, Tony Robbins is just a force to be reckoned with. First off, if you go to one of his events and something doesn't happen for you, you might want to check your pulse. Um, whether you, you know, whether his personality jives with you or not, uh, he's figured a lot out psychologically and he knows how to change your energy, you know. So, um, definitely something I would recommend to most people is, you know, the funniest thing about doing a Tony Robbins thing for me is the most challenging is I'm really picky about music and I can't stand like techno kind of music. I'm a musician, I like playing blues, like I like laid-back music, you know. So I was just going, oh my God, why? The hardest thing is not the emotional inner work, the hardest thing is not running out of the room when this really crappy music plays and all, and all the blue light like in my face and all that.

But I had to wear my hat and glasses the whole time.

Oh, totally.

When I was on stage and you're like, all right, I'm still wearing the glasses, right?

But, you know, to me, it's like I've known in a more broad sense for a long time that what my purpose is here, at least what brings me the most fulfillment, is to alleviate suffering for other people. Because I'm someone who just, frankly, I've suffered a lot. Not so much in recent years, but I had a really rough childhood and endured a lot of abuse and trauma. And through all those years that I was describing earlier of just complete, you know, reckless self-destruction, pain and abuse on myself. And so, and just, you know, physical issues and illnesses and all kinds of things that I've overcome. And it's like every time I overcome a hurdle, I'm just driven to pass on that information. So I've known in a sense that my mission is to help alleviate suffering for other people in ways that I've done so for myself. 'Cause once I cracked the code, it's like, I'm like, oh my God, I gotta get on top of a mountain and share this information. You don't have to suffer. Like, you find something for, you know, like neurofeedback. Someone has PTSD, and I'm like, uh, you know, you can cure that in a few weeks. Really? You know, it's like, yeah, I've done it. So, um, so that was kind of my broad mission. But as I started to really drill down, I, I was really looking at, you know, the human needs that I'm trying to fulfill. And, you know, it's— this is kind of the core of that last Tony Robbins experience. And it was great to be able to have it articulated in that way because I know I have these what are the drives that motivate me to make decisions, to do something or not do something? And having discovered in myself that, yeah, I do have really high empathy and compassion for other people and I want to alleviate suffering, I still am very much addicted to control and controlling my environment and controlling everything with the health practices, like you said, kind of the orthorexia side of that. And that really one of my core values has been certainty and wanting to know how everything's gonna go and be safe all the time. Kind of thing. And when I really started to look at that, not that that's a wrong way to live, but I started to see that, you know, all of the things that I've done professionally or personally that I thought were to achieve certain goals, really at the end of those goals, if you sort of look over the hill, okay, so if you, if you get the career, if you get the house, if you get the wife, the family, the notoriety, the fame, the money, whatever it is that you're going after, What's on the other side of that? Well, the other side of that is a sense of love and connection, you know? And so having really reoriented myself as that's the thing that I really want, well, how do I achieve that love and connection on a daily basis? And not that much had to change in terms of, you know, my game plan. It's more about the intention behind it. And it was in alignment with my original intention, which was to alleviate suffering. but to do so in a way that's more connected and more intimate and actually allow a bit more freedom in terms of my own capacity to care about people and allow them to care about me. And what really came out of that for me, the word that came out of it was a healer. And it was so strange to discover that because I have a negative connotation in many ways about a healer. You're like a flake that does Reiki you know, like that kind of healer that— there's a lot of snake oil kind of healers, and I don't see myself as that type of healer that works on that level. But, um, because love and connection and being of service is what's most important to me, uh, in a sense I really am a healer. And when I look at the impact I've had on some people in my immediate life, you know, intimate personal friends, relationships, etc., I really have helped people to overcome some profound challenges. And I think that's really my life's purpose. And perhaps I'm just starting to do that in a way that's a bit more scaled up and is appealing to and affecting people en masse rather than just one-on-one, a friend here, a family member here, where I'm able to help them work through some things. And so that's kind of where, where I've arrived in 2019 is kind of, as much as I was reluctant to be that guy, it just seems as though that might be my fate and also might be what will really lead to my sense of living a life that's on purpose and really doing what I'm here to do, which is clearly not picking out shoes for movie stars for the red carpet, as I did for 17 years, and, you know, trying to be a rock star and not doing very well at that. There's a lot of different things I've done that I've been successful at, or at least marginally successful at, but they haven't really fed my heart. And so what I'm about now is about love and service. You know, that's my mission.

Beautiful. It's been a long time evolving for you. If you could have told yourself something when you were 20 about this path, you could go back in time and do that, what would you say?

Dave, I think I would tell myself that I was worthy of love, that I was worthy of happiness, that I was worthy of success. Something I struggled with a lot when I was younger was just this overwhelming sense of shame that I carried.

Yeah.

That I was, there was something wrong with me, that I was flawed, that I was unlovable, that I wasn't deserving of happiness. So if I could go back, I think at any point in my life, 20 or otherwise, it would probably be to really imprint that message that it's like, you're doing okay, man, you're good. You know, you deserve to be happy and you deserve to be loved. And that one took a long time to be able to actually own. And now at 48 years old, I feel most of the time that I have access to that experience. But at 20, oh my God, I felt, oh, I was just so self-deprecating. I mean, it's just such an understatement. I had like deep self-hatred at 20 years old.

Oh yeah, so did I. And it's hard to get yourself to listen.

Yeah, I know.

A lot of people carry that with them for their whole life and it's unnecessary and it's a huge burden on society because when you have that, you treat the environment that way, you treat other people like that. Your filter on the world doesn't make the world a better place, that's for sure. So whatever, whether it's breathing, meditation, neurofeedback, coffee, or whatever the heck else it takes to get you out of that, therapy, EMDR, whatever, It's up to each of us to figure out what's gonna turn that off because it's like driving a car with a broken exhaust pipe spewing crap everywhere. You don't wanna be the guy doing that.

Yeah, well, I think that's why the physical practices do have a validity. It's important. It's like, if you want to have the experience of self-love and self-acceptance so that you can reflect that back to others because you have it to give, Try doing that when your sleep sucks or you're living with your head next to a smart meter, or, you know, you're living in a, in a junk light environment 24/7 and you have no connection to, to nature and all of those things. So I, you know, I always count in the physical part, but then again, you can't just do the physical biohacking and not really address the deeper psychological issues and spiritual disconnect either. Then you're a guy that's, guy or girl that's really ripped and healthy and has a great gut biome, but you still hate your life and you have no sense of purpose, you know? So it's— I think balance is really the thing that's starting to become key for me, is to explore all these different areas and find ways to integrate them and to become whole and not too hung up on any one of those different sort of quadrants of our experience.

That's a good— that's a great way of putting it. Well, I've got one more question, sort of the new question at the end of the show. And this one is interesting because I've been pretty public about this fact that I am actively working on living to 180 years old.

I've heard you say that and I want to know why did you pick that particular number?

It's pretty straightforward because I've seen 120. I know we can do it. And with the, when I started with, you know, the, last 20 years of improvements and all the stuff that I know, I think 120 is achievable. And Headstrong is really a book about longevity, especially in the brain, because that's one of the things— who cares if you make it to 120 if your brain's gone? It doesn't matter. Like, that's the part that you work on first because it has to run. And in order to work on the brain, of course, you have to work on your metabolism. So a lot of the, the current crop of anti-aging thinking is it's like It's like the pages of Headstrong, you turn it, you're like, yep, yep, yep, around the mitochondrial theory of aging. So I went into that, that's 120, and given all the different studies, oh, this increases lifespan in animals by 20%, by 30%, by 50%, by 95%, I'm pretty darn confident that in the next, oh, we'll just call it 136 or something years, I'm pretty sure we're gonna get a 50% lifespan extension unless there's some sort of global war, famine, or famine, asteroid hitting the Earth, or some kind of big external event, pretty darn sure we're gonna get 50%. And I'm pretty sure that I'll be there when we get there, 'cause I don't think it's gonna take very long. So I'm basically like, what I know we could do plus 50%. And you look at historically what happened 50 years ago or 100 years ago. We didn't know about DNA. We couldn't spell mitochondria. We didn't even know about antibiotics or the role of bacteria. And we still don't even know the role of bacteria. Someone just discovered, oh, it looks like there's actually bacteria inside the brain doing stuff. And it's not an infected brain, it's just kind of part of how the metabolism works. So there's probably a brain microbiome too, but we never noticed. You're like, oh, that's kind of mind-blowing. Literally, it's the wrong bacteria. But so all that stuff's going on. So I know what we don't know, which is most of it. And I'm just like, we can do this.

Yeah.

And so I was I was actually in Men's Health this month. I don't know if you've had a chance to see it. Oh, cool. As in, like, there's a picture of me with my shirt off as a former 300-pound guy, which is like the most unlikely thing I would have voted ever in my entire life, other than maybe being in Glamour magazine also, which is not something I would have ever as a fat computer hacker expected. But certainly, like, I would have been frankly terrified to have a shirt-off photo. And you look closely, you're like, "Yeah, I still got some stretch marks. I don't care." and, uh, that, that was kind of cool. But in the article it's like, well, you know, Dave's, you know, helped build his business by talking about this 180. So I'm gonna ask you, turn it around. 180 is my number. How long are you gonna live?

Okay, sure. I will answer that. I just, I gotta ask you one question and I wanna turn the interview around on you. And I know we're, we're short on time, but, um, with the mitochondria piece, have you looked into the relationship between, um, deuterium and metabolic function?

Oh yeah, it's, it's old. It's old stuff, man. Um, yeah, back in 2014, I looked at the one company that was shipping the stuff. Uh, you can get this water that's depleted in a heavy isotope of hydrogen, and there's a few people recycling old, old stuff online about it now. And I actually have like private research reports I've had done on it. Here's the short deal on deuterium depleted water. It's terribly expensive and it makes a very small difference. In mitochondrial function compared to anything else. You want to look at ROI on your time and money and things, that's an example of orthorexia gone mad. If you're dying of cancer and you need that 5% bump and you're willing to spend $2,000 a month to get it, or to like freeze water and break it and freeze it and all this other crap, yeah, go do that. But maybe if you took that time and you did breathwork, meditation, and got some sunshine, the ROI is about 10,000 times higher.

Okay, interesting.

Yeah, deuterium deuterium, it's like, it's a, it's a mouse nut. It is so small and so inconsequential. And by the way, if you're going to be going after deuterium, you got to be going after radioactive potassium, which affects— you know about that? Oh, oh, well, there you go, right? It's called the banana equivalent dose. And it turns out a substantial portion of potassium in our environment is also a radioactive isotope, just like you have from deuterium water. So basically you better— oh wait, how are you going to filter that? You can't. So you could spend your life worrying and just being terrified and living in a microwave blue light world full of deuterium and bad water and threats from the angels or whatever the hell your current windmill to tilt at today is. Right. But here's the deal. Focus on what gives you the highest ROI for your energy. And I'm telling you, after spending a substantial amount of time running down that rabbit hole, the ROI isn't there for deuterium depleted water. You know, it's terribly expensive. And just not necessary unless you're dying of cancer.

Well, thank you for giving me that perspective because I recently did about 6 hours worth of podcast content on the topic, and I got my levels tested. I did the water, which was quite expensive, for 2 or 3 months, and I got my deuterium levels way down. Now, as far as what that's going to do for me, I've yet to see because it's quite recent.

But, uh, and how do you feel? Same as you did before?

Well, you know, it's tough to It's tough to say, Dave, because I just found out about 3 weeks ago, unbeknownst to me, I've been living 100 yards away from 3 or 2 giant cell towers that were hidden behind this faux wall. I just randomly discovered it one day. So I've had all these health issues since I've lived here, like dizziness, vertigo, bad sleep, just stuff. I'm going, I'm like the biggest biohacking nut on the planet here, maybe after you or a couple other guys, and why is this happening? And I realized I'm like in a massive line of fire here. So my energy's not been that great. So I don't really know how the deuterium depletion affected me because there's this negative influence. So I'm looking for— actually, I was looking at a house this morning in Laurel Canyon. I took my RF meters and all my stuff, and it was very clean EMF-wise. So I'm curious to see how my energy is going to be when I'm not in the environment that I'm in.

So I'm just going to say that for the— you probably spent— if you did it for several months, you probably spent $8,000 on water?

No, it wasn't that much. No, it was like $600 a month or something.

Okay, so for 3 months, so you spent $2,000.

Yeah, I mean, I spent more than that on other biohacks, but anyway, okay, I'll get to your question. I've been so curious because I've not heard you talk a lot about that.

I didn't put it in Headstrong for the simple fact that it didn't make the cut for important curtain hacks.

Wow.

Right? Like, like, I mean, you look at $20,000, you'll get $2,000 on that. If you would have just bought RF-blocking paint and curtains, right, and put those up for $1,000, you probably would have had $1,000 to spend on grass-fed burgers and feel better. I'm just like, that's why, you know, you can make a— you can, you can spin a yarn out of it. But, um, I mean, I, I, I, I can say if you have unlimited money, and unlimited time, you could do it. And I mean, I've, I've, you know, tried, tried the water. Um, if it was a nickel a bottle or like the same price as other water, sure, throw it in there along with, you know, structured water. But right, uh, exclusion zone water is 10,000 times more important as far as I could tell.

Yeah. Oh, you know, one thing I did, one anecdotal thing I can, uh, testify for, for the depleted waters, I got a dog, my first dog Cookie. I got her about 6 months ago, and she had horrible allergies, you know, and I got her on like a nice keto, super clean, raw food, you know, very, very clean doggy diet, and it didn't really help. Eliminated the grains and all that. And then I put her for 3 months exclusively on the deuterium-depleted water, and all of her histamine sort of allergy scratching hotspot shit just went away 100%. And that's the only thing I changed. So there might be something— might be something to that. Yeah, is there any— there is— there is a histamine relationship that I can't begin to explain. But that was, I think that was my one win so far. All right, so the answer to your question, if I could, you know, what age do I wanna live to? You know, it's funny, Dave, because I really have a strong sense that there's a lot of reincarnation going on with us human bodies and souls. And I feel as though I've been here quite a few times and it's possible that I might come back again. So from that, I guess it's more of a Vedic worldview, perspective that I have. And so from that perspective, I really don't want to be here any longer than I'm supposed to be. It's like I feel that there's an ordained sort of expiration date on my time in this body, kind of like, you know, the end of a movie's coming at 2 hours and 3 minutes, and it's just going to end when it's going to end. That said, I'm feeling like I'm making so much progress within this one lifetime in this body that I'm not eager to leave it at all because I'm really growing by leaps and bounds. And I think my soul's evolution has come a long way. So I don't want to put a number on it, but I would like to say that I'm not so concerned with how long I live, but how well I live. I want to live until the day where this meat suit stops functioning effectively and I'm suffering. I don't want to be old and— I don't want to be old and decrepit and suffer. I want to live as long as that universal intelligence has designed me to live and and long enough for me to fulfill whatever I was supposed to fulfill in this life experience as this thing they call Luke's story.

It's really an interesting perspective. If you look at the human body as kind of an eddy, it doesn't really exist because you take food in and you shed cells. So you're actually just taking matter in, replacing matter, and then getting rid of matter. The day you stop moving and evolving, and learning and growing is the day that you're basically dead. You know, that's almost the definition of death right there. So my real age isn't 180 either. It's I'd like to die at a time and by a method of my choosing. Right. When I'm done, I'm done.

Right.

But I'm pretty sure that there's enough big problems to solve and just this amazing world we live in. I'm going to be amused for at least that long.

Absolutely. Well, it's funny you mentioned that because some of the, the great yogis and, and, and, uh, saints, uh, especially from India, you know, there's all these tales where they've come to the ripe old age of 90 or 101 or whatever they were, and they made the decision, okay, I'm ready to drop the body, and very peaceful, you know, and very peacefully just said, okay, I'm done with this particular incarnation, I'm just checking out. And they've got their devotees around, they're like, okay, bye guys. And that's the end.

I'll leave you a few relics.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's— they're off to the races.

Interesting perspective that way. I, I kind of like that. I think that would probably be in alignment with me. It's, you know, as long as I'm useful here, I'm— I want to stay, and when I'm not, I, I'm— I'll freely leave and pop into some other little embryo somewhere across the planet somewhere.

All right, well, here's to staying useful. This was an episode with Luke story. You can find Luke's work at lukestory.com. That's L-U-K-E-S-T-O-R-E-Y.com to learn more. Have an amazing day.

The Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider, carefully read all labels, and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.