The World’s BEST Alcohol Alternative. Pleasure, Relaxation, and Clarity with TRU KAVA : 1226

Affects dopamine without creating that addiction dependency withdrawal type cycle. So it's not a state where you lose control, you actually feel like more of yourself. Which is what makes kava the most unique and relevant psychoactive medicine for our modern age. Kava is really amazing at getting you into what I call the perfect state of mind, hyper sobriety. If they ever layer in like a traditionally prepared kava into coffee, you get this amazing elation. It just like supercharges it.

Is kava a drug? You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Today we're going to talk about alcohol. Some interesting things are going on in the world that you might not know. About 41% of Americans say they're planning to drink less alcohol, which is a 7% increase in one year of people saying, I don't want to drink as much. And, and 61% of Gen Z say that they're reducing that up from 40% in 2023. So we're seeing a massive societal change where people are saying alcohol just isn't worth it. And it's not like they're just sitting around drinking water, they're doing something else. And we're going to talk about things you can do instead of alcohol that are still fun, that still give you the benefits of alcohol. And what are the benefits? Well, fun social lubrication. The problem is if they come with a huge health impact, which alcohol has. And since the very beginning of biohacking, I've been saying all you have to do is track your sleep and look at what one drink does to you and you realize alcohol is a bad idea. If you wanna live a very long time like I do, or if you wanna have a highly functioning brain like I do. So what's in the middle? Our guest today is my friend Cameron George, who runs a company called Trukava. I've been an advisor and investor in Trucava since just about the very early days of the company, right?

Pretty early. Yeah, it was. We were a couple. I mean, I spent seven years developing the framework of the company and the supply chain, the South Pacific. Once we launched, it was probably like two years after, maybe. So it was early on. Yeah.

And you guys are now in sprouts.

Yeah.

And so the company is going well. And if you've never heard of kava, kava is a really interesting compound. Cameron, tell me about kava.

Kava is a stress relieving social tonic. In fact, it's nature's original stress relieving social tonic that builds mental health instead of detracts from it.

Okay, nature's original. What does this mean?

Well, it means that it's. It's a whole food substance that's been prepared from the roots of this shrub like plant that grows in Polynesia.

Okay.

So island chains like Fiji and Vanuatu, which is like right off the coast of Fiji. And it's really on these island chains, like all through the South Pacific. And it's been used there for over 3000 years by like 90% of the culture in Vanuatu for everything from weddings, funerals, spiritual ceremonies, social gatherings. Basically any context where people come together, connect, relax, want to elevate their, you know, emotional state and kind of get into a better centered frame of mind to experience something at a higher level.

Is kava a drug?

No, I would say that it's a psychoactive plant compound that's in a category of its own. So it's not really classified as an adaptogen like a ginseng or a rishi mushroom. Even though it has adaptogenic characteristics, it does increase a person's adaptation potential over time. But typically an adaptogen is more like a nutritive substance exclusively that doesn't have a powerful, tangible, psychoactive effect. Like in the short term, you take it over time and you kind of notice a subtle sort of more energy and things balancing out. Kava has that component it, but it also has the drug like, component of like an acute effect that you would get, say, off an alcohol, but without depleting, you know, the receptors that it hits, or also without causing any level of toxicity or inebriation. So it doesn't have any of the side effects and it doesn't set up habituation by artificially stimulating the receptors to dump tomorrow's stores to pay for today's.

I just had my 29% birthday and I serve true kava at, at my party. In fact, all the stuff that I go to my girlfriend Christina at her wed immersion. You were kind enough to provide kava shots for everybody. And it's kind of cool because alcohol makes you more relaxed, but it also makes you a little bit dumb. And we've all seen videos of people, you know, falling over from it. You're not going to get that from true kava, but you do feel more conversational, more relaxed. What's it doing to neurotransmitters?

Kava binds to a specific set of receptors called the GABA A receptors in the brain. And gaba kind of think of it like the primary brakes of your nervous system. Right. It's the thing that anytime you take something that affects gaba, it's going to make you feel calm, it's going to make you feel grounded, it's going to make you feel comfortable and, and safe. It really opposes the sympathetic nervous system. Okay, so the sympathetic, like fight or flight, like, brings you into rest and digest. That's its main mechanism. But it's really interesting because it doesn't have just one linear mechanism like a pharmaceutical would, like, say a benzodiazepine like Xanax that only hits those receptors. So it just brings you down, down, down. Kava also unilaterally hits on four of the major other key neurotransmission systems, but not quite as powerfully as the GABA system. But it also has effects on dopamine, for example, okay. Similar to alcohol, but again, without depleting it or without creating toxicity in the, in. In a side effect to it. So it affects dopamine without depleting it and setting up the need to further stimulate it more and creating that kind of addiction, dependency withdrawal type cycle that you see.

Okay, so you're, you're not feeling tired, at least for me. Back when I, I drank regularly when I was in my early 20s, I would go out and I'd have, you know, a few drinks and I'd get really tired. And this is probably because I wasn't very healthy. But I would just say, I'll just drink three shots of espresso and then I'll have three drinks, and then I feel pretty good. So I wanted the upper. And the alcohol effect. Look, if you're in your 20s, this is the dumbest thing you could ever do. Like speedball. Yeah. Your, your brain doesn't need the alcohol then. This is when we typically drink. Drink the most. And then it causes cognitive issues. Sometimes even just getting shitty drunk one time can change your brain for periods of time. So I was doing that because I, I would get so tired. I don't get tired when I drink two kava. Why does kava not make you tired the way alcohol can?

Because it's the way that it affects the receptors. It's very interesting because there's a lot of great literature on this and the mechanisms are actually pretty well understood. So it doesn't just plug into the GABA A receptor, for example, and just stimulate the dumping of the available stores of GABA and you just get this really, really big dump. It has more of a modulatory effect on the GABA system and the dopam system and the serotonin system and the cholinergic system. So what it does is it's up regulating these things instead of down regulating them, which is why it's not addictive. In fact, it's anti addictive because of that, because it helps to replete them. But it naturally gives you this sort of calm, centered, but yet lifted state of mind and state of consciousness. So it's really that sort of calm centered focus. So you're not sedated, you're not wired up, you're just clear and calm and you're ready to go. It's the perfect state to get into a reflective, a creative or an empathetic state of mind, which is why it's such a good connecting tool.

Okay. You know, when I look at Mother Nature's original nootropics, we have my favorite one, a caffeine here on my arm. By the way, tattoos are bad for you. I know they're bad for you. I just got this one anyway because I use carbon black and it's a small amount of ink and whatever I wanted it. But if I was going to get another tattoo, it'd probably be nicotine. And for 10 years now I've been talking about nicotine as a nootropic, anti Alzheimer's thing. Smoking's bad for you, but a little bit of nicotine is a longevity substance. You can read about it in my cognitive enhancement book. You can read about my longevity book. So I'm finally, I'm really stoked to hear guys like Andrew Huberman, who was on the show before he had a show, actually getting on the idea that, okay, a little bit of nicotine is actually good for you, even though smoking's not. So if we have caffeine, we have nicotine, and those are active compounds from plants. What is the active compound in kava similar to cannabis?

There's not just one. So as where with coffee or with tobacco, there's one sort of leading instrument in the orchestra of instruments that plays the loudest. With kava, there's six major ones.

Okay.

But the main, if there was main one, it would be one called kavain.

Kavain.

Yes, kavain. So K A V A I N Kavain. So if I was to get a tattoo, I would actually get cavane across my chest, probably, and then the five other supportive kavalactones right under that on my belly somewhere, probably because I'm just obsessed with that combination of actives. Right. As far as molecules are concerned, they're fascinating how they work together. But so there's cavane, there's a double bonded form of it called dihydrocovain. There's one called mesticine, starting with an M, it's hard to say. And there's one called dihydromethystokine, which is double bonded form of that. And then there's one called yangonin and one called desmothoxyngonin. Okay, so those six are actually the ones that we test for in every batch to get a good sense of what the potency is. And we actually do a chemotype that tells us the ratios of those things. I can tell you what the effects are gonna be. Is it gonna be more heady or is it gonna be more relaxing? Or it's gonna be perfect in the middle, which is where we like it.

That's one of the reasons I decided to start working with you as an advisor, is that you're very precise and you're testing because there was a problem in the 80s with kava that was made from the wrong kind of plants and extracted poorly. That had some liver issues. It feels like that's much less of an issue unless you're just getting some random, random kava that maybe someone found a root. And also you're very clean and very precise in it. When I open up a can of Trucava and it's like a beer can, I probably should have got one for the show, but it looks like a can of beer or something, and you drink it, it's sparkly, it tastes good. Are they all the same? Is one of them more ampy than another? Do different batches vary or is it always the same?

For us, we standardize it to be all the same. And the reason is when you're trying to bring a new commodity into the market, say like I was trying to bring Coca Cola into the market 100 years ago, you really kind of want one thing and you don't want to spread out with too many options and try to be like, this is what kava is.

So you would have put cocaine in every batch.

Correct.

The way Coca Cola did.

Or coca leaf extract? Coca leaf extract would be great. Coca Cola can still use it for flavoring, but you know, they're the only ones that can bring it in, so.

Oh, really? I didn't know that. Yeah, so they actually. But they're. It's probably free of the. Of the cocaine.

Like it's processed in a certain way down to micro concentrations. But they're the only company that can bring it into the United States in mass quantities to use it.

I Have no idea.

Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah.

So Coca Cola is behind Air America.

You know, I don't.

Oh, wow. We're going to go deep, Cameron. We've got the whole, you know, conspiracy theory. The deep state in Coca Cola, CIA.

Coca, you know, erythroxylam. Coca. Right. From Peru is actually, it's not totally harmless, but it carries a similar safety profile to coffee. It shouldn't use it every single day. No one's robbing convenience stores. But then if you isolate the active, the most active alcohol, the instrument that plays loud, loudest in that orchestra, cocaine, and put it in a synthetic sort of isolated form, then it'll ruin your life over the weekend, you know, that's cocaine. We all know that.

I would just like to point out that cocaine is vegan.

Yeah. I mean a lot of vegans I know are kind of feel like they're on coke a little bit.

I did when I was a vegan. It's like I'm so ungrounded. My body's starving. I have nervous energy.

Yeah.

And I'm yelling at everyone. It's almost like it's a little bit of angry.

A little, little you.

Yeah, it happens. Yeah. It's interesting that when I went down to Peru and Ecuador, I would chew, you know, I would drink mate de coca or chew the coca leaves. They work great for altitude and like I said, it feels like coffee. It, it's, it's pretty neutral. But there's all kinds of political and socioeconomic things that get in the way of it. Chukava is not at all a controlled substance anywhere though, is it?

No. So it's kava is actually by World Health Organization standards via a regional or international quality standard that was submitted by our kava coalition and a few others well back 6 years ago they adopted it. And initially it is seen as a food. So if it's prepared traditionally the way that we prepare it using only water and pressure extraction, and it is actually the definition of kava via the Vanuatu Kava act of 2002. It is the water and pressure extraction of only the roots. That means the above ground stump and underground lateral root portion of the plant of Piper mephisticum, which is the genus and species name for the kava plant, means intoxicating pepper. So that is what kava is by definition. So most people that have seen kava kava extracts capsules, liquids, paste, tea bags that are out there floating in the Internet in a few locations, in a few places. Most of those, pretty much all of those are kava extracts. So while there's nothing wrong with most of those, even though you can go wrong with some of those if you use the wrong parts of the plant and things, and they can become slightly toxic and problematic, traditional kava is the thing that's really considered as a food both in the United States and elsewhere. And previous any bans that have been on kava around the world have been in response to what you alluded to earlier, which was this misnomer around liver toxicity that was was shoddy and baseless, similar to what happened to tryptophan in the early 90s. Someone created a toxic batch with the wrong parts of the kava plant, just like happened with tryptophan. And then the whole thing got ostracized for a period of time. Pretty much all bans in the world have been lifted. US never banned it. It's so it's never been a scheduled substance ever, because it's a food like substance like coffee.

Let's talk about tryptophan for just a second here for listeners, if you've read any of of the books. Amino acids are like letters in the Alphabet, and so your body makes proteins by assembling letters. And peptides are like words, and a whole protein would be a sentence. You have these letters that build everything. Tryptophan is just an amino acid building block. It's actually essential for life. And like you said, one company in the 90s made a bad batch and the pharmaceutical industry was like, aha. People are taking tryptophan because it works for sleep. So now we have an excuse to ban it so we can sell more chemicals. And this is what happened. So it was just dirty pool, typical big pharma behavior. And just if you're working for a big pharma company, did you just see that Bobby Kennedy is now coming in? So I think you, as he says, should maintain your records, if you know what I'm saying. I'm actually a huge supporter of pharmaceuticals because I want control of my own biology. I want every tool. I want good science. But if you're making one tool and you try to suppress another tool, like, we will come for you. Like, give me the full menu and I'll choose the right one with the right risk profile. And when I look at everything in life that way, whether it's a food, it's a form of exercise, there's always a pro, there's always a con. When it comes to parties, I don't like drinking. I didn't serve any alcohol on my birthday. The last three parties I've been to, no one drank. And granted, I'm in Austin, you know, we're cutting edge and all that, but it just. People don't want to drink. And there might be some other things. There's usually Trucava and there might be some other things like microdosing or whatever, but the risk reward on that is better than it is for alcohol. So if you work for an alcohol company, well, you wouldn't want to try to suppress coke, right? It's like it's a, it's a, a playing field where you get to do what you want to do.

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How has the reception for Trucava been? It's in grocery stores now. Like this is a big change.

It's been phenomenal. It's been phenomenal for a couple of reasons. There are a lot of emerging, what I call social tonics that have come out on the market as of the last handful of years just because this whole sober, curious movement that's blowing up people are looking for not necessarily to get rid of alcohol totally, but what lies beyond it. Is there a more efficient technology that can allow me to have my cake and eat it too? At least part of the time? Maybe not all the time, but part of the time. But the reception to Kava has been so strong because where a lot of these companies and a lot of biohackers and just different people that are looking for how can I get that elevated state but without being a different person, without my ego coming out, without anger coming out, without losing control over my internal domain and without losing 20% of my productivity for the next two days afterwards? Right, right. Without killing myself in the brain and without cumulatively actually getting white matter loss over, you know, over the course of my life. Which there's a study back two years ago in London, they looked at 30,000 people and they saw white matter loss, significant white matter tissue loss in even mild to moderate drinkers of one to two drinks per night average. That could be, you know, a drink every night or that could be three days on the weekend, three days in the week. So that actually is. And Daniel Amen's work has actually showed metabolic holes from almost every subject that's done a brain scan, functional brain scan, spect imaging scan that has drank. So people are actually looking for what lies beyond it. And I think why Kava is being so successful is because of all of the options. It actually delivers on the effect, but only the fraction of the effect that people are really looking for. I think that it really actually delivers on the promise that alcohol has made to us or the powers that be that have had vested interest in pushing alcohol is, you know, that social lubrication, right? So that ability to sort of relax and connect in a social setting, because we all have a fundamental human drive for that. That need to feel safe, that. That relaxation, that groundedness, and then that elevation of mood that gives you that zest for life that makes you just want to engage with the environment around you and be connected to it. Kava delivers on those, but without intoxicating you. So I call it hyper sobriety, right? It's not. It's not a state of intoxication, so it's not a state where you lose control. You actually feel like more of yourself. So even though kava has been compared to alcohol in many ways, it's actually the opposite in the sense that it expands your consciousness. And the Polynesians have always talked about this. They saw it as a spiritual sacrament because, you know, anybody could take it. Unlike, say, psilocybin, that gives you an altered state trip that you can't function in regular life. But it actually is entheogenic in a sense. Entheogenic, the term means the divine within. So it sort of elevates a person's spirit and opens them up to feel more authentic, and that allows you to connect with people in an authentic way. As where alcohol, you feel like that you're connecting in small doses, you can to some degree, but the more you get drunk, the more simplistic and idiotic the conversation gets, because it gets more primitive. And I think everybody knows that. But on kava, you have these deep conversations that you remember, which is great. And so people are gravitating towards kava because there are many other things that people can use, like these drinks with the theanines and the. And the magnesiums and stuff like that. And those things are. Are. Yeah, I mean, there's no problem with any of those things, but they don't give you that tangible effect that you're looking for from alcohol and kava does without the downside.

Magnesium and theme are both things I recommended for many years, but if you drink them at a party, it's not going to change how you behave. Maybe if you're super tweaked at theanine might help a little bit, but it's not the same sensation at all. And I'm be really clear here. I. I'm not opposed to alcohol. I. Once or twice a year, I will. I'll drink a really good sake or really, really good wine, and I'll feel like crap. The next day. But I treat it as the same thing. If I was going to go do, you know, a medicine ceremony or if I was going to go to 40 years of Zen and do ketamine as part of my neurofeedback experience under a doctor's career, I know that I'm not gonna do this every day. So for me alcohol would be maybe once a quarter, but I think for me it's about once or twice a year and I'm gonna really enjoy it and I'm gonna have to recover the next day. So doing that every weekend just seems like the worst idea. And the feeling from Kava is so close that it seems fine. But I gotta ask you this because some of the parties I go to, it's not just Trucava that's there. So does Trucava work with mushrooms? Does it work with mdma?

Oh, good question. I love that one. So in short term it definitely can. Obviously this is a contextual thing. It depends on how much you're taking. It depends on what context. Anytime you're dealing in something that's sort of mind expansive, anything in the psychedelic category, the standard sort of tryptamines, the sort of more ceremonial type medicine, psilocybin, lsd, dmt, ayahuasca, mdma, any of those set and setting, and there's so much context to whether or not you're going to get a good or bad experience. It's not all of those things. Just like alcohol or just like anything else. I don't see them as good or bad. The moral dimension comes in with how they are placed and how they are used. They're all technologies and how you place the technology determines the effect that you're getting. Right. Some technologies are more efficient than others. Right. It's like a gas powered car engine or say nitrogen based fertilizers back, you know, you know, 50, 60, 70, 100 years ago. We're good for a short term benefit, but if we use them too long, they deplete the soil and you get this. So is there a technology that we could use that allows us to have our cake and eat it too? That's kind of how I think, how I think about it. Right. Like, like even in context with alcohol. Right. It's just one of those that you get a lot of negative feedback if you use consistently over a long period of time. So what are the other options? Technologies that I can layer in. So but as far as mushrooms or any of those things and layering them on with mushrooms, people are doing a Lot of that, especially in states where it's been legalized, especially where people are microdosing. And I can tell you, kava doesn't. It doesn't dampen or downplay or reduce the effects of any of those, like psychedelic substances or even cannabis. It really just enhances them. And the reason is because unlike say, a benzodiazepine, a lot of times people, if they go to, like a music festival and they're going to be taking psilocybin recreationally or something, they'll keep benzodiazepines around because if they have a bad trip, starts to spiral to control, a benzo will actually neutralize the bad trip because it neutralizes the amygdala and stops that spiral, but it also kills the trip, it numbs the trip, because it dumbs you down. Kava grounds you through that gaba system, but through the unique plant pharmacology that's in there, it grounds you and expands you at the same time. So it's great. It's actually a great companion to people doing things like ayahuasca ceremonies because it helps with integration, because it helps to ground the experience. You can take everything that you're getting from the opening of that crown chakra, so to speak, to use Eastern terminology, everything that's swirling around up here, it helps to ground it into a practical reality, into implementation, into your life. Because the biggest thing I believe that people are missing from utilizing those medicines in modern culture, Western culture, is the thousands of years of historical context of how to ground and integrate the lessons or the insights or the perspectives or the connection that you're getting. So a lot of people are using it for that. They use it before they do an ayahuasca ceremony, they do it after to kind of keep those doors open, but to ground themselves and to reduce the over chatter that can come from that over intenseness of the experience. It just grounds everything out, makes everything more comfortable.

If someone's having a hard time with a mushroom experience or something, should they have some kava when they start having a hard time? Or should they just take the kava along with the mushrooms at the beginning?

You could do either one. I've seen people do it either way. Sometimes if people just want to ensure a smooth experience, they'll actually take it on the front end. But also having it around in large dosages in case something starts to spiral out of control or they get into a situation that they can't quite control, that's not good for them. They don't feel that's good for them. It's one of those kind of spirals. Then kava is a perfect substance to take because it reduces that amygdala activity, but it won't kill your experience. So it allows you to kind of ground well. I mean, here's what it's doing. It's. It's working in that context in a similar way that we're seeing it clinically work on things like ptsd, which I think it's going to be a huge application for that going into the future. It's bringing you into a state of mental and emotional safety by holding down that amygdala response. So it's allowing you to reflect on what's going on internally and your past experiences from a place of emotional safety, which allows you to form new associations and neural connections in association with those things. So instead of being that sympathetic fight or flight, it's a. It's. It's sort of a way like you can't change the past. You can change how you relate to the past. Okay, so that's what we're starting to see. Like that's one reason why the Polynesians have always seen it as a processor of trauma, mental, emotional and physical. But we're talking about mental emotional because it helps the brain to plasticize and rewire its associations to everything going on internally and even into the past. It's a reset.

This is a really important conversation. I'm definitely have been doing work with psychedelics for actually since 1999. And I think there's a risk when people are saying, I've taken ayahuasca 87 times and. And you look at like, well, every weekend. Yeah. When are you going to notice it's not working right? So I, I've done ayahuasca twice in my life. It's not something that I recommend doing regularly. In fact, it's the last psychedelic I think you should try if people are into psychedelics. But there are lots and lots of studies now of psychedelic mushrooms. And recent studies came out that showed if you take MDMA with mushrooms that your odds of having a traumatizing experience that causes additional trauma. What they would call a bad trip. Well, you don't get re traumatized because the presence of the MDMA makes the potential scary stuff. You might see that you. You don't know how to process it. It makes it not stick in a negative way. It sounds like kava might have a similar effect. I don't think it's as well studied, but if you're someone who has A lot of fear around. Maybe your first mushroom ceremony or something. Maybe having some kava alongside it is just a way to say, all right, I know that my fear response isn't going to be as big because the way you get through a psychedelic experience is by surrendering and by, okay, you know, if my body's feeling whatever it is, I know it's going to end. So I'm just going to roll with it and experience what I experience and just be aware. But if you're totally in fight or flight, it's so much harder. So kava can help with that because of amygdala response. That's a big deal. I think it's time for some studies with maps or something.

It's why during any crisis situation, one of the main things that's always encouraged is to not panic. Right. Because panic just takes you out of that integrated state of mind where you can take in what's going on and actually assert a proper response that's going to get you the best result.

It's kind of funny telling people don't like. It's like saying, just calm down. You're like, well, duh. You know, those are sort of thoughts. And so I'm thinking, what's the opposite of panic? And it's surrender. And panic comes from resistance.

Yeah.

So double negative just feeds the loop. So instead of don't panic, it's more like, lean in, relax, and be curious. And being curious will take you out of fear. But it's a lot easier if your amygdala is harder to trigger because you had kava at the same time. So I think there's something to be said for people who are doing deep work, and it could just be breath work. I mean, I know people have had very profound holotropic breath work experiences. And you could take true kava before you do that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

When that's the good thing is that here's what distinguishes and differentiates kava from all these other medicines that we're talking about, is the spectrum and. And ease of use. You can use kava daily in almost any context, whether you're going to work, whether you're around your kids, whether you don't have to, like, set out this. This very specific ceremonial retreat, like context. Right. Where you go somewhere else and do it because you can't be around anyone else that's going to interfere with your life. So you can implement kava into those practices, but you can also implement it into your daily breath work. It's one of those things That I kind of see these plant medicines, the ones that are in their plant form that still have the full intelligence inside of them, I see them as counselors of some degree, and forming a relationship with it is like forming a relationship with a human. Some humans are better wired and synced for your biology and your framework to have a close relationship with. It's healthier for you. And some you should only see them every once in a while for it to be a healthy outcome, and some you shouldn't see at all. Right, right. And so these medicines have different characteristics. The thing about kava is the way that it's adapted and evolved. It's very compatible. It's almost. It's probably the most compatible psychoactive substance that I've ever seen with human biology to be taken regularly without any drawback. Whenever you bring kava into your body, it's like having a counselor there to some degree or someone while you're in your experience, whether it be your sort of daily practice, your daily breath work practice, or your marriage counseling or your actual plant medicine ceremony. It's like bringing a counselor into your body that's telling your fight or flight system to shh and sort of grounding you to calm down. So you're like, okay, I get it, I get it. So you're not frantic. It just does that almost better than anything because it has such a strong characteristic for grounding, which is what makes kava probably the most unique and relevant psychoactive medicine for our modern age, because of all the trauma we're all stuck in. Sympathetic.

So you said something really important there. You said with your marriage counselor. So if you wanted to have a hard conversation with your partner, maybe you both should have some kava before that, because you're less likely to trigger each other as you're working through something you probably need to talk about.

Absolutely. It's. It's used in Polynesia like this.

Do you do that in your relationship?

Well, I'm not in a relationship right now, but I have done it.

Okay. Do you have. Do you take True Covenant, like Canada, out on first dates?

Oh, sure, absolutely. Because similar to giving it to. I've given it to a lot of comedians and public speakers whenever they're about to go up on stage. Because it works a little bit like beta blockers in the sense, you know, how, like, a lot of people take propranolol, the beta blocker, before they go on stage to block adrenaline so that they can better have a smooth experience. Kava similar.

I've coached a lot of a Lot of execs over the years. And the number one fear in the US is of public speaking. More than sharks, more than, you know, government people forcing you to take medications you don't want, like the number one fear. So some people who are really highly performing, you put em on stage and they just turn into idiots because of their fight or flight response. And you can do breath work and, and I have a whole practice. I don't have any stage fright at all. I'm the same person now.

Or public humiliation. It's being ostracized from the tribe. It's. It's deeply embedded in us.

It's a deep fear and so you can work through that. So it's like, I'm comfortable, but that's very rare. And a lot of musicians in particular have a big problem saying I can't do it. So they take beta blockers. If you're a musician, that works. And these are prescription drugs and they block adrenaline's effect. The problem is if you're a speaker and you can't make adrenaline, if you need to bring it, or there's a hostile question from the audience or you want to emote, it doesn't work. But kava, if you were to take that before you went on stage, then you can still emote.

Absolutely. In fact, you're much more clear.

I never thought of that. This should be on every. If you're a speaker coach and I know a lot of guys, listeners like Beau is probably listening. Absolutely. Who's one of my favorite, Bo Eason, one of my favorite coaches for that.

I know, Bo.

So Bo, you guys need to talk about using kava for people who are really anxious. This is a cool idea.

There are so many applications like this for kava and it's, it's so good for so many things. Which sometimes makes it difficult to talk about because it does. Because anywhere where you're trying to communicate ideas with people, Kava is really amazing at getting you into that. What I call the perfect state of mind, hyper sobriety.

How many true kavas did you have before you came on the show?

Well, how many? It's morning time, so probably two.

And how many do you have in a normal day?

It varies day to day depending on what I'm doing, but probably like 3, 4, 5, something, you know, spread throughout the day. I use certain varieties, like some of my own, like R D batch type of a stuff, sometimes whenever I need like an extra kick. But our regular products are what I use consistently. And all of my friends and everybody on Our team is sort of always on kava. In our office, we have a kegerator full of kava on tap, where everyone's just constantly. Because we actually wanted everybody in that state of mind where people just feel more connected. It just sort of creates a better, well oiled machine. It really helps for team environments of all kinds of like boardrooms. It's great for, for just stimulating creativity and getting everybody connected and getting kind of that left, right brain hemisphere connection going on where you get this integrated thinking where you can see the big picture. That's why people microdose. But kava allows you to do that legally and it allows you to use. Utilize that effect almost any time of the day without being on something that either could be illegal or that will lose its effectiveness like some of the triptamines do.

Wow. Okay, this is, this is super cool stuff. We've never gone this deep. And if you're a new listener to the show. Thank you. There's always new people coming in. And Cameron's been on the show before where he talked about his, his background story and how kava made a big difference for him. But we're going deep on how to use this as an adaptogen, as a nootropic. But I gotta ask you the real question. Some people are thinking that we talked about. Use it when you're having a tough relationship conversation. What? You're not having a tough relationship conversation and you're heading to the bedroom. What does kava do?

This is probably one of the things that people ask me the most about or come back and report to me after they've used kava. It's that people report significant increase in libido. Like it's not.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah. It's not a small thing at all. Like it actually is substantial. And the reason is there's a few mechanisms actually that aren't totally understood, but especially if you use over a certain amount, if you drink like two or three cans.

So this is why you bring it on dates.

Sure, Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, among other things, it allows you to connect. I mean, it allows you to have an authentic experience. But also it just, it allows, it brings this sort of zest and arousment for life which carries over into sexuality, obviously. So it's everything.

I want to talk about that for a minute. So in, in the world of biohacking, what I've learned about mitochondria, and longtime listeners know this or if you've heard me on stage, but all life allocates energy across the things that you do to stay alive. And number one is fear. It takes the most energy, happens first. Number two is food. Right? So this is why you run away from scary things and eat everything else is a good algorithm for a bacteria to stay alive or a slime mold or a human. It doesn't matter.

Infertility, right? Fear has to be.

Fertility is the next F word. And then after that is friend, and after that is forgive or evolve. So energy will flow into the system. And what we're talking about here is if you are feeling less fear because your amygdala is calmer because you took some kava, now that means more energy flows into food. And let's assume that you ate a nice meal on your date instead of Taco Bell or something. Okay? So now you're nourished and you're safe, where's the energy going to flow to fertility? It's fear, food and then fertility. And sex is one of the ways that adults play. Right? So it would make more sense that the energy is shifting. And assuming you've been nourished in an intimate way, then your community happens. And where does kava center? It centers on community. Right? And it's because when you come out of fear, more energy flows into community. But before it flows into community, it flows into, well, fertility, which is another word for the other F word that you can't say on most shows without giving explicit lyrics. So this makes sense in a biohacking world. You're reallocating your energy away from fear when you use kava.

Absolutely. In fact, if there are four verbs that I would use in relation to kava that you just sort of map out as far as the kava experience, it's relax, engage, connect, create.

Interesting.

So just like you were talking about with that energy continuum, it's taking care of your fundamental fight or flight, sort of, you know, desires. And it's making you feel safe. It's. It's satiating. It's getting rid of all of that, because those are the most immediate things that are wired into us that are pressing for survivals. If those needs are met, then you can connect with other people, and then you can create things in your life, which is. It simulates creativity of all kind, which actually, I mean, sex is one form of creativity. That's your creative energy that creates life, but also it allows you to engage and to focus in creative aspects of all kinds, which is why we give it to public speakers, which is why we give it to CEOs in boardrooms, which is why we give it to writers, it's great. In fact, it's really the best drink. From my standpoint, Kava is for podcasting. I actually think in the future it's going to be the go to substance that people use for podcasting. Because Kava is so great at opening and centering the mind and getting you into that integrated state of mind where authentic connection and, and mental energy, but also just sort of the vast landscape of your mental and emotional framework. You just get access to all of it because it's an integrator of your consciousness instead of some psychostimulants. Like if you take Adderall, for example, it's going to impress your. It's going to suppress your empathy and your emotional framework. It's going to make you less creative and more predictable, but you're going to get stuff done like a robot. But with Kava, it actually stimulates the left. Right. Brain hemisphere interaction. Right. So that connection between those two things, which brings you into a state that I call systems thinking, which is kind of like what, what. What psychedelics bring you into in. In high doses or even in the background with microdoses. But Kava, it runs in the background to where you can still function your everyday life, but you can kind of see things in, in terms of. Instead of being zoomed in on the pixel of your. Of this. Of a single circumstance that's happening right in front of you, you're able to zoom out and see the whole picture. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. And that's kind of like you're able to lay it on the table and that, that allows you to sort of look at your life like an engineer would, and you're able to make better decisions.

So to be able to, to step back and have what's called meta awareness is an advanced meditation technique. And it's just being curious, what is my state right now? And it's very hard to have meta awareness if your state is triggered. You can, because then you realize, oh, now I'm aware of my trigger, instead of believing it's real. And that's the first step to learning how to let go of a trigger. And with Kava, what you're saying is it's easier to have meta awareness. And that might be because you're just triggered less, but it also might make you more aware when you are triggered. So that then you can say, oh, I recognize that an external circumstance is hitting an old program and I don't want to be triggered right now, therefore, I recognize the trigger and I'll probably do some healing, work on that later, but at least I won't be reactive. And so to be able to come out of that loop, it seems like there's a lot of people who would benefit from being less triggered now.

Absolutely. As. As Joe Dispenza would say, it allows you to become. It helps to. Kava does. It helps you to become the consciousness. Observing the program instead of being the program.

Wait, Joe Dispenza said that about kava or just about Meadow?

Well, just about meditation. Reform of meditation. But kava is a great tool for getting you into a state that you can expand better during meditation, because all of the. The state that you're trying to get into to have a good meditation is all of the things that kava does. So again, it's just like marriage counseling is good by itself, meditation is good by itself. But kava is pro. All of those things. It just kind of enhances all of those practices because it naturally helps to relax you to and expand you at the same time. And there's just not many substances that do that.

When is kava not a good idea?

If. If. If there's one thing that makes kava more valuable than anything else, it's its broad spectrum of use across so many different domains. The only times that I can really think of where it's not a good idea to use kava are, man, there really aren't many.

Oh, what. What about pregnancy?

So pregnancy is an interesting one. And while I can't tell people I get this question all the time, I can't give people medical advice. And I always have to say, consult your doctor before you do anything pregnancy wise.

Can your doctor spell kava?

No.

Okay, so maybe do your own research. That's a better advice.

That's more of a legal thing, but you're not going to come across a doctor that's going to know anything about kava, you know, just to be clear. But. Well, I'll say this, that in Polynesia, they do it all the time. They use it whenever people are pregnant. The reason is it's considered a food, and we don't know of any negative side effect if you're using traditional preparations made from the right parts of the plant.

Okay. You can't recommend that in the US.

I can't recommend it, No. I can just observe where people have done it and that we don't have any evidence to suggest that it's pathological or that it's damaging.

Okay, good deal. So compared to alcohol when you're pregnant, which has clear, very Negative effects. Kava is very likely safer, and it's been used for a lot of years. Then again, people also used to drink alcohol when they were pregnant all the time because they didn't know.

And you can use it in just about any context, any time of the day. And I know sometimes to some people, it sounds too good to be true. It's good for all of these things. You can use it all the time. But with kava, I mean, I'm very honest about these things because I came from a place of being near death and sick. This is how I got into all this to begin with. And the only thing that mattered to me when my back was up against the wall was what actually worked. Like I didn't give a shit about the bullshit. Because if I focused on the bullshit and I went down those trains of thought of, of, you know, wrongfully believing something or, you know, wishful thinking, I would have been dead in. In some context. And so kava really just blew my mind. That's why I got into it. Because kava has the greatest therapeutic effect to drawback ratio of any plant compound that I've personally ever used. It doesn't mean that there aren't some things that are better in certain categories, of course, but just across the board, because it has such a powerful, acute, tangible effect that works like a drug would. But then it also has the safety of the adaptogenic or nutritive compounds that you can use regularly. And you can just use it virtually anytime to sort of make your day better, to open you up, to allow you to relax, engage with the world around you, connect with other people, and create positive things cumulatively in your life. That's the kava experience.

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Do you think Mike Tyson should have used cava before his fight with Jake Paul to make it easier to throw the fight?

I think so, actually, in that case, I would say like that's, that's one time we. You probably throw in the towel. You know, I'm 50 years, you know, 58 years old. Well, but I, I tell you what it would have done is, I mean, kava is one of the most profound neuro and tissue protective substances that I've ever worked with.

Oh, really? You would want it before you take a hit to the head?

Absolutely, absolutely.

You have good evidence for that?

Yes.

Okay.

In the sense of it works on virtually every neuro and tissue protective pathway that we know of. So virtually out of all of the. Because I had a bad chemical brain injury, I got a brain scan, you know, from Daniel Amen's network for years and years ago and I had to be very careful about this stuff. And what we see in people that use kava and what I saw in myself and everybody else is that their scans and obviously their symptoms improve over time whenever they use these things. What it does is. So it hits on a few key mechanisms. So it hits on the GABA mechanism, which opposes all of the, all the sympathetic excitotoxicity, opposes glutamate.

Right, okay. Which is a problem.

NMDA receptor, that, chronic glutamate activation and that lipid peroxidation, your free radical generation, that just doesn't stop for Years and years at a time. But it also is a sodium calcium channel blocker as well, too. So it kind of works like some things like lamotrine or Depakote or some of those.

Wait a minute here. It's a calcium blocker. Calcium channel blocker. All right, so this is probably out of left field for you, but I've done a lot of episodes over the years about what are EMFs actually doing to the body. And EMFs are incredibly useful because they let us have all kinds of technology and information and knowledge. And in fact, this podcast relies on emf, so people listen to it. So they have benefits, but they also have a biological downside. And EMFs act on the body via the voltage gated calcium channels. Martin Paul's work. Yeah, yeah. So if you're saying that Kava is a calcium channel blocker, if you're exposed to high levels of emf, doesn't it make sense that you'd want to have some trucava?

Absolutely. And even though we don't have any studies on this, specifically, what I can tell you, working with thousands of doctors in our network of functional medicine doctors, and seeing these things clinically and seeing it myself whenever I was sick, and you can watch past episodes that you and I did to kind of get more of my story. But I came, I became one of these extremely hypersensitive, sort of environmental illness, kind of autoimmune patients. I was one, too, driven by neurotoxicity, toxic mold, a few other things. One of the things that I became severely sensitized to was emfs. Like, I had to put my phone on speaker and put it on the other end of the table. And I didn't even think that was possible, given this was not something that was brought on by placebo, because I thought people were crazy at this time in my life. This was like 15 years ago, whenever they would say, I'm reacting to my cell phone. This is before we had all the information I have today in their research and everything. And people like Joe Mercola's book emf, which is great, anyone wants to read that? But basically, I got so reactive to where I couldn't even use my cell phone at all. And if someone had their cell phone on, especially if they were doing anything that's getting rf, like actually making a call, not just, like, having it on, then I would go into a full seizure. It was. It was crazy.

So you're really sensitive?

Absolutely. Severely sensitive. But. And I knew people actually at this medical research facility in Dallas full of Very sensitive autoimmune patients that were reacting to all their foods, reacting to everything that were even more sensitive than that. Like it was. It was dangerous for them to be around EMFs. Okay. So once I started working with Kavan, working with it clinically and working in myself, I couldn't use my cell phone, I couldn't turn on the TV to watch a movie for probably like a year. When I was at my worst, once I started using Kava, and there's a whole story behind that. But I. I realized that during the time while I was on Kava, especially certain strains I would use that had like a 48 hour half life, all of a sudden I could talk on my phone, no problem. And that was like. I was like, holy shit. That, that is crazy. So as far as the sensitivity portion of it and what we know about, you know, mitigating the damage, it hits on most of those protective pathways like the sodium calcium channel blocking. It's also a powerful two up regulator, you know, activating these substances in the body, like, you know, glutathione and catalase. Sod.

Wow. So. So th. This is really, really important. A lot of people listen to the show, are frequent travelers. There's a lot of executives, a lot of really successful people. And I have a whole protocol that I do when I fly. And I am not at all sensitive to EMFs anymore. And I was never terribly sensitive. I was more chemically sensitive when I had mold and all the other stuff, chronic fatigue. But I do know that when I'm on airplanes, I'm exposed to incredibly dumb levels of emf because you're in a metal box with WI fi bouncing around. So I do a bunch of things to protect my mitochondria when I fly, but I'm actually going to start taking trukava shots with me and I'll just do one before I take off. If it's going to block the calcium channels, I'll have less mitochondrial swelling when I fly. And I already know how to feel really good when I land, which is just a whole transformation. I used to get just destroyed by a six hour flight. And this weekend, actually I flew. It was about seven hours including a connection time to get to Coeur d' Alene for the upgrade labs grand opening there. And I flew there. And then I was on stage for or on camera for like five hours, went to sleep, woke up and flew home and then went to a party. And for me to do 14 hours of travel in two days and to be completely fine to stay out late at a party. It was unimaginable in my 20s. So my protocols work, but I haven't used Trukava in that way because I didn't realize the calcium channel blocking this is something. So if you're a frequent traveler, just experiment with it. Try a Trucava shot. They're little two ounce things. You throw them in your backpack, TSA won't bother you. I know because I use two out shots of other things when I fly. So if, if you do that, you may find that you feel even better and you have less brain fog from flying. Yes, this is a big deal.

It's actually something that, I mean, kava works more tangibly on the EMF front than a lot of the. Just the, the preventative factors like you take the NAD precursors and the mitochondrial boosters and everything in iodine or whatever you're taking to try to mitigate the damage from it. There are thousands of people, millions perhaps, that actually have low grade EMF sensitivity. They don't know it, they just know. I just get headaches. I'm just used to getting headaches. I'm on my computer all day, all day long. Because it's a spectrum, the sensitivity spectrum. And it's basically comes from a form of collective ptsd, from being assaulted by all these stressors chemicals in our environment. You develop these sensitivities because the system is tired of being assaulted.

What happens is there's a sliding switch. And if your mitochondria are working really well, you know, 100% efficiency. I love my life. I have plenty of energy from my family, my community. Like things are moving and you can still have trauma and you can solve stuff you're working on, but you have the energy to evolve yourself. And everyone over age 40 has mitochondrial deficiency. We call it aging. And 48% of people under age 40 have early onset mitochondrial defense dysfunction. And dysfunction doesn't mean on or off. It means it went from a hundred. Maybe you're running at 60% and you probably won't really feel it. But if you're like you or me, when we got chronic fatigue and like really seriously messed with. And you can be messed with by toxins, by emotional stress, a bad breakup or a car accident, whatever, Your mitochondrial networks can go almost into shutdown. And then you develop something called a cell danger response. And then anytime that trigger happens, a lot of people, toxic mold. You smell mold and it's like someone hit the off switch. Yeah. So everything in your body kind of freaks out. And what kava's doing the way you're describing it here. Well, your amygdala is less triggered, so you're less likely to get a central nervous system danger response when you don't want to. But what's happening before that is because Kava's blocking some of these inflammatory channels that cause mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondria stay healthy, therefore amygdala doesn't get triggered. And the amount of stress for the amygdala would have to be higher because of the effect of Kava. This is actually really important. So if you have chronic fatigue or you have just extreme tiredness from travel, this might really be a game changer. I've not tried it for this, but knowing how all this stuff works, because I'm a biohacker and I write books on this stuff, I'm super intrigued. I mean, I have another one too. Yeah.

So Kava is working on this entire continuum that brings safety and groundedness and stability to the nervous system all the way down to the cell level. Right, Right. So what we're talking about are the most tangible effects. That's why we talk about GABA a lot and we're talking about things in the chemical level, but the chemistry in the body is just a byproduct of cellular function or cellular dysfunction. Right. One of kava's almost never talked about components or constituents or mechanisms is its metabolic effects.

Okay.

What I noticed whenever I was starting to take kava, I was metabolically broken. That's why I was so non adaptive and everything, because I was so toxic and so inflamed. Automated the whole thing. And so I was trying to keto adapt and I was trying to fast. I was trying to implement some of those strategies at one point.

Not always a good idea in those cases.

No, it's not. I, I found out, but I found out that I could start layering in some minor intermittent fasting about 10 times easier whenever I was on high doses of kava. And then after diving into the literature and reading every piece of literature ever published on Kava, we find out kava is a powerful amp K activator. So it's, it's, it's an MK activator, the adenosine monophosphate activated protein kinase pathway that stimulates fat burning and ketone production, MTOR suppression, et cetera. So what it's doing is it allowed me to go much, much longer periods of time, even longer than I've been able to go whenever I'm on coffee, which I can't really drink coffee that much Anymore because I'm still kind of sensitive just to the stimulation. I love coffee, though. But I mean, you know, but back in the day, coffee would suppress my appetite for sure. I've never seen anything that has suppressed my appetite and allowed me to go longer without putting glucose in than kava. Like, it really is that it's really powerful. We've used it for adaptation, for intermittent fasting and even for certain forms of like partial fasting, because it's just supplying energy to the cell while reducing that cell danger response through the chemistry.

Now, true kava, you don't have sugar in it, right?

No. No.

Yeah.

So it's stevia and monk fruit, but the new drinks have a small, like 1 to 2 grams of sugar, but oil has none.

Okay.

And the new products will have none.

So it. It's an interesting idea because we know that caffeine can double ketone production by itself, even if it's not coffee. I prefer coffee because it has all the polyphenols. So that's an independent pathway than what kava does. So my protocols for intermittent fasting, well, at least use black coffee. And of course, you could use mcts, which you're still fasting even though there's calories because it doesn't affect insulin or mtor. But you could layer in TRUCAVA and then just go 24 hours without eating, without feeling any pain.

I've been doing this for years. I actually think that that that trio, I kind of call it the fasting trio, and I recommend it to whenever we're working with the doctors and anything, and we've just got amazing results. Obviously, the combination that you've been doing and recommending for years of coffee and MCT is fantastic. But whenever you layer kava in with that, especially the right dosage, the right amount, it really rounds out that combination into something on a totally another level. From a nootropic standpoint, from a grounded centenness, from a creativity standpoint, and also from an appetite suppression, ketone production, the whole thing, people just feel elated, but yet calm and centered. So for some people to get anxious off of coffee, kava really helps to take the edge off of that to where they can tolerate it. But also both, both MCTs, you know, medium chain triglycerides and caffeine are both potentiators of kava because they help to. Actually, what we see actually is that the MCT actually helps to shuttle the kavalactones across the gut barrier and across the blood brain barrier, and coffee helps to do the same Anybody just objectively who's a kapha drinker, if they ever layer in like a traditionally prepared kava into coffee, you get this amazing elation. Like it's just like, it just like supercharges it, it puts it on a super. Which is why conferences we, we're, you know, right across. You got danger across from us.

This is at the biohacking conference. Yes, and I have to plug that. It's in May, May 28th. Biohackingconference.com the largest and first biohacking conference. We're expecting 4,000 people.

It's fantastic. It's the best conference of its kind. There's no questions.

So we're gonna have danger coffee and walk through Cava right across the way. So you'll be able to do what?

So people can, can do a shot or they can come over and we'll put some, some cava oil in their coffee. So we have people that shuttle over after they get their danger coffee in the morning and they just walk around. It just, it enlivens the whole experience because you feel connected, grounded, you're just ready to learn, absorb information better. It's great.

Let's talk about this for a minute. Tru Kava makes a kava oil called Kavaplex and I use that before sleep and it works really, really well. But I don't typically use it in the mornings or during the day. And for me, kava has always been kind of like a. An evening ish sort of thing. It sounds like there's a use case for at least the oil in the morning. What's the difference between the Trucava oil and the Drukava beverages and what are the different effects?

So right now we've got three products. We've got the beverages, we've got the shots, and we've got the oils.

Okay.

The beverages are more like that social tonic. Take it any time of the day. Gives you a little bit more of the euphoric up sort of kick and it's sort of a little bit more well rounded. As far as everything we've been talking about as a social tonic, the Kavaplex oil, we've got two forms of it. We've got the Kavaplex and the Kavaplex Mine. The Kavaplex, it's made still without any use of solvent extraction. Don't make it an extract and make it weak. Like I talked about before, it's made through a hydraulic pressing method that doesn't oxidize any of the oils in there and keeps them stable. And whatnot. But the way that we've extracted kava in that context, it brings out the tradition, the broad spectrum of traditional kava's effect profile, but at a depth and concentration that's more mild, that gives you more of that just sort of anxiety relief, therapeutic run in the background type of thing. So it's the oil. Yes, the Coloplex oil is more like that. Some people report they get some of the other effects too, some of the more nootropic effects, but those come more for the drinks in the kavaplex mind. The reason why they come through with the complex minds, because we use a strain from Tonga that's very on the euphoric side, so it comes through.

So kavaplex mind is a kind of oil?

Yes.

I don't think you've ever given me that stuff.

Oh, you definitely had it. Maybe you didn't.

I just have. I. It's on my counter in there. It's just kava flex. So I'm an investor and advisor in Trucava and you never send me cover flex mine.

I will. So special if you haven't had it. I'm pretty sure you actually have.

Maybe I just didn't know.

Yeah.

Or maybe it didn't work because I forgot.

Yeah, it could be it could you. You had to have had this.

Okay, I probably haven't, but.

But the interesting thing, like I just kind of alluded to, when you add even the regular complex into coffee, it. It kind of takes the edge off of the coffee as that groundedness, but also sort of kicks it up into that euphoric sense too. So. But to your point, if there is one product that's taken more kind of as a tonic supplement, like the latter part of the day or the later part of the day for sleep, it's the Kavaplex. It's not going to knock you out, but it just kind of starts to relax you. It's not really going to get you super engaged like the rest of the products are.

My average time to go to sleep is under two minutes. And that's not because I'm sleep deprived. It's because I'm an expert on knowing how to sleep. Because I was so crappy at sleeping, I just learned how. So I don't notice any difference in an onset because I don't have a problem there. But what I do see is more deep, more REM and higher heart rate variability when I do Kavaplex, which is.

Also one of the key distinguishing factors between kava and alcohol and cannabis.

This ruin Your sleep.

So, so not cbd, but THC and alcohol both tend to ruin your deep and REM sleep. So people say, oh, well, they knocked me out, I slept last night. But they wake up feeling like, and they don't understand why, or they need 9, 10, 11, 12 hours to sleep or they just, their performance is bad.

It's the same logic. You know, I hit myself on the head with a hammer and it knocks me out just great. Like, well, good for you. But yeah, what was the other thing that happened?

Exactly, Exactly. So have your cake and eat it too. Like we were talking about before. Kava actually helps get you into sleep, but it also improves and expands your deep and REM sleep. And we see that all the time with people that are self quantifying with our rings and everything like that. So kava improves the quality of sleep while giving you all of those things that you want from a recreational substance. So it's really the only substance that's natural, that's a food that's recreational. That also improves your recovery and deep sleep and it improves your nervous system recovery, not just your muscle recovery. I mean, so many of the recovery supplements on the market today, like the amino acids, like the creatines, like the, like, you know, the electrolytes and so on, those are all great for muscle recovery and, you know, to some degree feed into nervous system recovery. But kava really is layered, great on those things for all kinds of recovery, helps the nervous system.

So we've covered some new stuff about kava and we've talked a lot, but these are things that I think are probably new to the world. Kava before date night, kava before therapy or a difficult conversation with a partner. And we talk about kava before flying to help your mitochondria out via a pathway I didn't understand before. And then the final thing here is using kava oil in the morning with your coffee in order to get more effects throughout the day. So this is absolutely new knowledge in the world. And Cameron, I genuinely appreciate just the level of nerdy curiosity and focus you have on kava. You are the most knowledgeable kava guy I've ever met. I love working with you, with you on trucava. And just congratulations on taking something that would have been even three, four years ago, sort of a, a fringe supplement and, and getting it into sprouts and getting it into circulation. And I'm not even kidding. It's not just my parties that have Trucava when just I'm out social in Austin and you See, people are putting it there because people don't want to drink anymore. You know, there might be a bottle of tequila, but it's still full at the end of the night. And I run out of TRUCAVA every time I have a party.

Yeah, we're just getting started too. I've always said this, and some people might disagree, and it may be a little bit of a. Of a large grandiose promise, but my goal has always been to make kava as common as a cup of coffee, I believe, because in Polynesia, it's more common than coffee. It is a, a core part of the foundational fabric of their entire social framework. What we're doing with Trucava is creating a new category, not just a supplement that's just mixed into all the other categories. It is a commodity that just like coffee, tea, kombucha, there's going to be kava and you're going to be able to reach for something like that instead of substances that kick you in the head or the borrow from tomorrow's emotional states to pay for today. It's something that actually feeds to your mental and emotional health, which is amazing. I'll say one more thing about this, because this is really important for people to understand because I started Trukava not to sell products, even though that's part of what we're doing. I started it, it because I was severely sick and I was suffering. And I see this, this, this global epidemic of trauma and mental illness and just illness in general and disconnection, isolation, loneliness, all of that stuff. And obviously most of the coping mechanisms are pathological, that people will reach for alcohol and drugs and things like that. And just putting kava into the culture and making it available to millions of people could actually make a significant contribution to the changing of the collective mindset around how we socialize and how we create a space for elevated mental and emotional states and for community. That's what it's done in the South Pacific. It shaped the entire culture there and have healthy values. Michael Pollan, whenever he wrote one of his last books, I think he was on Rogan's podcast or something, and he was talking about how coffee helped to shape the collective productivity driven mind.

Coffee has changed the world. Yes. Even the Enlightenment.

Yes, yes. Because psychoactive substances, even if it seems like a small thing, when millions of people get into an altered state, which coffee is, it's a mild altered state, but you have millions of people synchronized in an altered state, the quality of that altered state can actually help to shape the collective values and aspirations and work ethic of the entire culture. And if you can put a substance which is a counselor of sorts, something that it's biological and pet, that's a friend to us, an organism on this planet into the culture that actually brings about these positive, healthy, cumulatively healthy and mentally fortifying states of mind, then just like coffee did. I think that we could actually help to reshape some of the values that are reflected in our culture. And it's just some of the sense of well being and interconnectedness. So I actually believe it's not just, that's not overly grandiose, that's a real thing. Look in Polynesia and see, see what their mental health statistics are over there. They attribute a lot of it to practices like Kava.

So that's a profound reason for doing what to do and I appreciate it. I love being part of the Trukava path here and seeing biohacking companies like Trukava and biohacking founders like you progress and just make our industry into a global force. It just makes me really happy. You were at the Business of Biohacking conference and we had 125 biohacking entrepreneurs where I brought in the world's best business people and we shared all this information and that's why I'm working with you as an advisor, because I think this really matters and I'm going to experiment on my next flight. I'll bring some Tru Kava shots with me and I'll report on my results androom public speaking.

Destroy it everywhere.

Send me the keg, right?

Absolutely. Yeah, man. We're heading into a golden age. I think it's, it's a renaissance period. Some amazing things are happening. I just love connecting with value driven entrepreneurs, organization leaders that are just. We all play different parts in this whole thing, right? We all have our specialties, but, but man, I just love doing these things. I love doing these podcasts, man. I'm, I'm so grateful for everything that you've done for me, all your advice. I'm, I'm just grateful for all of our interactions and everybody else we interact with too. So good things, guys.

I think you can tell I only bring on people who make good stuff, people who are experts. And I use a lot of different biohacking products and I do this because it works and because each of them it's worth return on investment. Where, okay, what are the pros? What are the cons? How hard is it? How much does it cost? Does it taste like crap? Or anything like that. And I talk about these relentlessly because I want you to know every tool that's available for you to get the state you want. And true kava may not be the state you want. And that's totally fine. You don't have to try everything I talk about now. You understand the mechanisms of kava, you understand the historical usage, and you've got some use cases where you might say, I want to give it a try, in which case go for it. And if you say that's not for me, that's good too. But now you know. I'll see you on the next episode. See you next time on the Human Upgrade Podcast.

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