Turn Off Your WiFi Tonight and See What Happens to Your Sleep : 1414

Out of all of the things happening in the world today, what is the single most damaging part of modern technology?

Probably sounds like a cliché sort of answer, but I just think that the blue light, Dave, I really do. I think that's super damaging, not only to our sleep and health and circadian rhythms, but also, I guess, on the other side, the flip side, just the amount of content we're consuming as well is pretty dangerous.

And then we have the same thing happening with modern tech where, well, let's acknowledge that AI is causing brain rot and acknowledge that if you don't control your algorithms on social media, an evil dictator will.

So, so simple on this one.

The things that we do day to day— come home after work, switch on our lights— how that simple flick of a switch is opening up a whole host of metabolic diseases and impacting our sleep.

Just understanding those a little bit more and how it works in, in terms of disrupting the energy within our body and within our cells. And, you know, just little simple things like switching from 4G to 5G isn't just a little step up in EMF, it's a huge, you know, exponential increase in, in the amount of energy we're receiving.

And then I did for bone density and all that. And right where the phone was is 15% lower bone density. Drowning out the natural synchronization signals of the planet and of humans with each other and with all life. But if you block all of it, you're probably better off to have at least peace. You're listening to The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

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Out of all of the things happening in the world today, what is the single most damaging part of modern technology?

Well, I think it's— again, this probably sounds like a cliché sort of answer, but I just think the blue light, Dave. I really do. I think that's super damaging. Not only to our sleep and health and circadian rhythms, but also I guess on the other side, the flip side, just the amount of content we're consuming as well is pretty dangerous. I think that there's so many different opinions out there and which can be beneficial, but also it's picking what's right for the individual as well. So, I think there's a lot of confusion out there, but also the blue light's pretty bad as well.

So, you want more censorship? Is that what I heard?

No, not more censorship. I think what I want is the people to consume information consciously. Like the stuff you want them to see. Well, no, not so much that I want them to see what's going to work for them.

Oh, that the government wants them to see. I'm confused.

Definitely not what the government wants them to see. They want to get on that, right?

It's not what—

It's what they need to see. That's what they need to see.

Got it. I'm partly teasing you.

Yeah, of course.

You know, putting words in other people's mouths is my love language. So you do not advocate for censorship.

Definitely not.

It's tough because we know that poisoning content with manipulative things is bad for you and that creates stress.

Yes.

But I was totally expecting you to say EMFs.

Yeah, I mean, there's so many.

Expected though, isn't it? You expected him to say that. I'll show a curveball. I go down a different route there, I think.

Got it. So you don't think AI taking over the world is a problem?

I think that's also a problem, definitely.

So you live in a state of fear?

I don't want to live in a state of fear.

It's a state of mindfulness.

Yeah.

Listen to what's going on, I think, is probably a better way of phrasing it.

Yeah, but I think a lot of people are living in a state of fear because of it. Definitely, the manipulation from the media and from the feeding of information that perhaps is being forced into them and shaping their lives. But yeah, we definitely need to have more people that are more critical thinkers.

More awareness.

More awareness.

I totally agree. And it's so fun because I keep misinterpreting what you're saying for fun and profit. I don't know if it's funny, right? But there's a whole mass of problems with tech that are out there. And one of the reasons that I created the whole biohacking word was that I knew what computer hackers do. Like, oh, there's a lot of problems with Microsoft Windows. Like, we don't know what's going on in there and people are breaking into it all the time and there's viruses. Like, so why don't we just make our own operating system called Linux? And most of what we're doing today is based on that, right? So we can just know what's going on in there. So the idea of biohacking is like, well, let's know what's going on in here and let's see what we can do about it. And that means that opens the opportunity for things like red light therapy or other types of light therapy or EMF mitigation or pulsed EMF. So there's all these different things where if we just acknowledge that they're affecting us, then we can do something about it. And then we have the same thing happening with modern tech where, well, let's acknowledge that AI is causing brain rot and acknowledge that if you don't control your algorithms on social media, an evil dictator will.

It's true.

And then they'll cook you with 5G. Yeah.

Even true. But that's the thing you're saying, it's the awareness again, isn't it? It's not a fear, it's being aware of it and knowing there is an option to get out of it. Much like biohacking, you're aware of what's going on in your body because of the environment that you're in. But don't be feared by that because there are options to biohack your way out of it. So don't live in a state of fear like you were alluding to earlier. It is just being aware and addressing it.

And that's the idea with biohacking is, okay, if we're not living in a cave or in a forest with all of Mother Nature, which means you die by 40 of a parasite usually has the same thing. So that doesn't work very well.

Great way to live.

Yeah, it's like no matter what you do. So you end up saying we get the benefits of modern technology and there's a lot like the ability to stay warm at night unless it's too warm and then your circadian rhythm is broken. But having access to data and to information and monitoring all this, it's good. And it could be bad.

If you have a healthy mindset. I think some people can become consumed by it and can live and breathe by data and forget to be human. I think there's a lot to be said for intuition and that gut feeling and understanding your own body without always needing data. I think data's very valuable and it has its place. We have the ability to use technology to harness data now. But let's not forget that we are human beings and at the root core of who we are, we know what we need.

Are you saying that we should like honor our thirst instead of measuring every swallow to make sure we're drinking 8 glasses of water a day?

I'm just to be honest with you, I'm not sure that 8 glasses a day is a set rule for everybody. We're all different sizes. Sizing.

It's 2,000 calories again, isn't it? That whole thing that doesn't really, uh, doesn't really make any sense.

I'm so glad you said that. No one ever says how big the glasses are.

Yes, good point.

Do you know who made up a good point? 8 glasses of water a day? Avion? No, in the early '90s marketing. It's all BS. There is no— like, how could 8 cups make any sense? You are a little bit of a different size than me. Yeah. Right? And you sweat a lot and I know, I'm kidding.

She actually does.

I just made that up. She knew of me.

Right? Oh, and also you might've spent 2 hours in a sauna and I just hit a cold plunge.

Yeah.

And it's dumb.

Like it's—

Absolutely.

Anyone who has the basic ability to think knows 8 glasses of water a day is for people who don't know how to think.

Absolutely. And truthfully, we would not have had 8 glasses of water today. We don't have access to that level of water continuously throughout the day. So for us, it's always been something we've questioned.

Well, I think questioning it is intelligent. In fact, most of the things they tell you, 10,000 steps a day, that was made up in the 1950s by a Japanese company that invented the first speedometer. There's no science for 10,000 steps a day. There never was. So we're programming these people to say, drink 8 glasses of water a day, even if you're diluting your electrolytes.

Yes.

Right? And then do 10,000 steps a day and you'll be healthy.

But they're not even mentioning the quality of the water.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's— so we're in this— I don't actually believe in the word misinformation. The only time misinformation is real is if it's done maybe by like a spy agency, like a propaganda campaign. But really, that's marketing.

Yeah.

The people who invented propaganda came to the US, renamed it to public relations.

Yeah.

The same people looking at it.

Yeah.

And that's from a documentary called Edward Bernays. So we're all sitting in this thing where we've been taught not to trust what our bodies do and that we don't know how to send the right signals into our body in order to get it to do what we want it to do. And some of the signals originally came from nature, but they're gone. And others we can amplify. And what's interesting with you guys is you're playing in a bunch of different fields around that. Out of all the different biohacks that you tried, what was the one that shocked you the most when you were getting Bon Charge started?

For me, it was obviously when we started the company, it was the blue light blocking glasses, how a simple act of wearing a pair of glasses 2 to 3 hours before bed can dramatically impact your sleep.

Got it.

Such a simple hack. And then when we went down the rabbit hole to learn more about how the body receives light, light is information, right? It tells us if it's day or night and allows you to control which hormones you release based on the information it's getting from the light cue. And then learning the impact it has on the skin and how that can still impact your sleep and your body clock. And further understanding that the simple act of changing a light bulb could dramatically not just impact your sleep, your mood, and your hormones, but how you look as well and how dehydrating light can be. So, That at its fundamental stage for me was an eye-opener. 'Cause they're so simple. So, so simple. And the things that we do day to day, come home after work, switch on our lights, how that simple flick of a switch.

Got it.

Is opening up a whole host of metabolic diseases and impacting our sleep. That was my—

Yeah, I think for me, and probably should have answered the first question this way, but it would've been the EMFs.

Oh, the EMFs. Okay.

Yeah, definitely. Just understanding those a little bit more and how it works in terms of disrupting the energy within our body within our cells. And just little simple things like switching from 4G to 5G isn't just a little step up in EMF, it's a huge exponential increase in the amount of energy we're receiving from a non-native EMF form into the body. But then looking at ways to mitigate it and things not being as simple as just blocking it. I made a comment earlier about Faraday cages, like fantastic if you're having a Faraday cage over your bed, but what happens if EMF actually gets in there? It's actually more detrimental to you. So it's not always as simple fix as we think. A lot more thought has to be put into it. So that, that's where I was sort of with, with, with EMFs.

I was a little skeptical at the beginning. This is late '90s when people started talking about this. I'm an engineer, I've worked in data centers and like stuff doesn't seem to be a problem. We're not heating up the tissues, therefore there's not, not a thing. But then I met all of these health experts, including medical doctors who were saying, no, no, it's really a thing. And I started looking into the science and I was less skeptical, but I was still skeptical until I had coffee at the Red Rock Coffee in Mountain View. It's where a lot of tech startups ended up meeting. And this old guy who's probably in his 60s said, I've been wanting to meet you cuz you're in the longevity space. I'm the guy who invented 802.11b, the first wireless protocol. So this guy's the inventor of Wi-Fi. Right? And he says, I have a million dollars worth of test gear and we can see the most subtle fluctuations in electromagnetic fields. And one day I got bored, so I turned it around and put it at my body and look what I saw. And he turns his laptop around. No, it was like one of those 3-inch thick laptops back then. Turns it around and it looks basically like chakras. He goes, I'm pretty sure there's diagnostic data in here. Do you know how exciting this is? I'm starting to think this is believable.

Yeah.

And You read things like The Body Electric and you realize, oh, we are electromagnetic beings and we're chemical beings, right? You can, you can be both. And we're also quantum underneath all that. So that means that we should be able to hack ourselves that way. We should be able to at least influence ourselves. And that explains a lot. Like it is possible. So what do you do with BonCharge to mitigate EMFs? Because there's different strategies for this.

Yeah, absolutely. I think we developed a product line that helps mitigate some of it. But the thing is as well, you've got to take free sort of fundamental hacks as well into your life, which is where you should get started with EMFs. Things like unplugging the Wi-Fi at night is a huge one that we've seen massive improvements to our REM sleep from unplugging the Wi-Fi, having our phones on airplane mode before bed, sometimes not even having the phone in the bedroom.

We, well, sometimes, like, what is it, like some nights you leave it? You sleep with your phone next to your bed?

Yeah, sometimes we need an alarm. Like majority of the time it's out, but sometimes there has to be an alarm to get us up if we have to be.

My phone's next to my bed every night. It's just in airplane mode, seriously. Like, it's a nice alarm clock. I don't know.

Yeah, but looking at EMFs as well, we had the worst 2 years of our lives from a health perspective living in an apartment. Absolutely horrendous. We had a building biologist come out to basically tell us exactly what we thought, that we're getting bombarded by EMF. The amount of Wi-Fi signals, even if we switched off our own modem, that was coming in whilst we were sleeping, whilst we were being in the apartment, was really detrimental. We had 5G towers pointing directly into our bedroom.

Wow.

It was disgusting.

It was a microwave. Our bedroom was literally a microwave. That's how she described it.

I think that if they measured a lot of modern apartment buildings, it would be illegal to be there. True.

Yeah.

Because you have neighbors on every side. Some of them have 2 Wi-Fi routers and all these other things.

Yeah.

And it adds up. All of the safety standards are, well, you have one of these things and they make these assumptions. I don't know how anyone feels good surrounded by that much Wi-Fi unless you literally wrap your bed in silver mesh and ground it out. That's what I would do if I lived in an apartment. I'd sleep in a Faraday cage. Did you guys do that?

No, we didn't because we actually had some controversial information on that that they said that you can actually be ungrounded by doing that. The advice that we had at the time was to not do that to our bedroom because we were on the third floor and you can actually be disconnected from the ground and that has its own host of problems that came from that.

I'd rather be disconnected from the ground and not by Wi-Fi.

We just moved house.

Yeah, we solved it.

That would be better.

Yeah, absolutely. It's also differentiating between native and non-native EMFs. It's because a lot of EMFs are beneficial for us, touching upon grounding like we just said, you know. And I think there's a lot of misunderstanding in the community when we use the word EMFs. They can't differentiate between nature and man made. And that's the root cause is the issue is the man made elements.

It's basically a form of noise pollution. So I'm making EMFs right now and I'm actually hacking both of your nervous systems.

Positively.

At least develop some skill here.

Once I get your crypto, I'll be okay. But really we're all using EMFs and probably some other signaling protocols to influence other people. right? We're designed to do that, and we're not supposed to see it because we don't need to see it because it's not logical. This is, you know, my heartbeat shifts and your heartbeat will shift in response to how stressed I am and things like that, and vice versa. So there was a subtle dance, and now there's a punk band playing, and you can only hear that, and they're not even a very good one, unfortunately. And that's kind of what's going on with 5G, right?

It's true.

It is drowning out the natural synchronization signals of the planet and of humans with each other and just with all life. Yeah. But if you block all of it, you're probably better off to have at least peace. But what would be better would be filter the bad and keep the good. So what's the Bon Charge approach to doing all this?

Technology where you can harness the beneficial frequencies is my favorite modality. So things like PEMF. Therapy where you are using technology and EMFs, but the positive frequencies, so the delta waves, alpha waves, beta waves, theta waves. And then you're connecting with frequencies that are beneficial for you as opposed to the 4Gs, 5Gs, Bluetooths, and Wi-Fis that are disrupting our body and our biology.

Right. Are you replacing nature with an electric signal?

Absolutely. I know, absolutely you are for the people that can't get out in nature. Nothing replaces nature. And I say that on every podcast I go on.

It's always there.

You don't need any technology if you can get out in nature. The problem is we can't these days. We're working, we have families, we're traveling, whatever it might be. We can't, we live in an apartment. Some people are in cities. They can't always get out with nature. So it's a hack.

And also if you live in a house, you don't live in nature, even if it's in the suburbs or something like that. And it always makes me a little bit crazy when people say, oh, just go to nature. Like, have you seen a city on the planet? There is no nature. Like, go to Shanghai, go to Beijing, like, go to São Paulo. There is not nature that is available. And if so, it's 4 trees. That's Central Park.

It's true, it's true. That's a reality. You have to face that reality. And then you do need hacks and you do need technology.

Yeah.

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Mhm.

So when I'm indoors, I would like all of the benefits of being outdoors, right? And having EMF mitigation is a part of that. So I think it's brilliant If we can identify the most important parts of all of our environment and we can replay those for ourselves when we're not in it, then we can become a multiplanetary species. You literally can't have a spaceship without knowing how to do this. And we don't know how to do it because we tell ourselves lies about, oh, EMFs are just fine.

Because we don't want to face the reality of a life without that technology. And a lot of people aren't prepared to spend the time self-educating or absorbing the right level of information to learn to know how to overcome it easily. So it's easier to avoid the topic altogether and plead ignorance to it than do a bit of self-education and learning the, yeah, there's very simple hacks to overcome it.

It sort of drives me nuts. If I had to choose between a life that was 100 years with no mobile phone access whatsoever and a life that was 95 years with a mobile phone, I'll take the 95 years because I will have seen so many more friends and done so much more fun and cool and interesting stuff because there is actually value to this.

This connection, though, isn't it?

Yeah, it's connection. So that said, I think we could probably engineer our phones to cause less biological harm if we would admit that it actually caused biological harm. But I'm still hearing it. So you like PEMF and you like replicating some signals, but this is not that scientific. So what are you making at Bon Charge that does something good for EMF?

Yeah. So I guess on the pulsed electromagnetic field side, Katie's spoken a little bit about that, but we're ensuring that our technology isn't emitting copious amounts of EMF as well because it can be a double-edged sword. You can be doing a lovely red light therapy panel session, maybe you're doing an infrared sauna blanket session because you can't get to a regular sauna. It's all about mitigating the EMS from those types of devices as well because there's so many devices out there that people think they're doing good, which they are by absorbing, letting the cells absorb the red light therapy or the infrared, far infrared light for the detoxification protocols in sauna, but they're also sitting in another hotbed of EMF. So at Bon Charge, we make sure all of our products are very, very low in, in harmful EMF and sometimes EMF-free where we can, to ensure people aren't, you know, getting all the benefits of red light and then all the negative benefits of EMF radiation.

So if we look at the Bon Charge sauna blanket, compared to average ones on the market, what's the percentage of, of lower EMFs that your products are likely to have? Like, what's the worst one you've seen and where is yours?

We've seen ones that go completely off the radar when you test them.

Is that like 7 or 8 off the radar? Give me some numbers here.

We've seen, we've seen one at around 8.5 and ours is around 0.6.

Okay, so 0.6. What's the What measure? What's the—

That was in milligauss, mgs, I believe.

Okay. So, yours is 0.6. The competitors were like 8 and change.

We saw 1 at that range.

Okay.

Yes.

So, there's kind of a big difference.

Yeah, huge.

Okay, cool. And, that is one of the reasons I like Bontech is just that I know you guys are paying a lot of attention to that and it's hard to do. So, lower production of EMFs is one of the things you'd look for in your biohacking Absolutely. And what are you doing for EMF mitigation?

For mitigation in terms of in those products or within sort of general mitigation?

Don't you have some sort of—

We do.

Yeah, you have products that block EMF. So like explain how those work, right?

Yeah.

Because you sent me a bunch of them.

Yeah, I know. You want to know the science, how do these actually work?

Absolutely. So we put in like, we'll talk about a laptop mat. That's the most popular.

That's what I was thinking of, yeah.

So cool. And the one that we sent you and you loved it. But it's so simple to have. It's just literally a mat, like a dinner mat. You know, put on your table. But inside we've got EMF protection, 4-layer fabrics, like basically made up of silver fabric which blocks all the harmful radiation. So Wi-Fi, cellular networks, 5G, 4G, Bluetooth. So when you've got your laptop on your lap, you're not absorbing all of that harmful EMF into that groin area, into reproductive organs, which is probably the worst place to have it.

Yeah.

Another really popular product is our anti-radiation air tubes. So we did some tests on actual wired headphones, and you're still getting obviously the RF radiation passing through the ears. They're better than using Bluetooth headsets, of course, but you're still not 100% safe from EMFs using the wired ones. So with the air tubes, we put a little regulator transformer within the top of these hollow air tubes, which turned the RF signal into an acoustic signal, which completely eradicated the EMF from going into the brain area. And that's the obviously, you know, one of the most sensitive areas for EMF to go in is where all the brainwaves are happening, you know, apart from the reproductive organs as well. So those are two of our most popular EMF protection products.

I would say so.

Yeah.

The laptop mats are so important. I can't imagine putting a laptop on my lap without using a mat. Yeah. It's just so dumb.

Of course it is. But even on the table, so many people don't realize it. The EMFs will pass through the table as well to your lap. So even if you're working at a desk, don't need it.

Well, at least you have some space with the desk.

True.

But, and my kids have never been allowed to put a laptop unless they have a pad because kids are even more sensitive to this. And I see these kids coming home from school and like their tablets right here, their laptops right here. And we wonder why testosterone is so low in young people. It's not just from EMFs. There's a lot of chemical stuff and light stuff and all kinds of things. I think it's a much bigger problem. And here's one of the reasons. I used to keep my mobile phone in a pocket on my right thigh. I just, I lived on a farm, so I just always wore cargo pants. Plus my style is pretty much extra pockets, extra straps that you don't need. It's just how it works. So anyway, I always kept it there. And then I did a DEXA scan for bone density and all that. And right where the phone was is 15% lower bone density in my right femur versus the left. And it only in the middle of the femur where the phone sits.

Wow.

And I'm like, this is a problem. It's a measurable problem. Right. And I don't hold the phone up to my head.

Good.

Yeah. Never.

Yeah. And now there's people in the audience here who are going, I saw you doing it. Now I'm going to confess to something. When I walk through a crowd, everyone knows who I am. I put my phone on airplane mode and I hold it up to my head and I just say, release the Kraken, release the Kraken over and over. And people think I'm talking to someone. And then they let me go through.

That's hilarious.

So yeah, I was just saying, I was making jokes about releasing the Kraken on Bill Gates the entire time I walked through. So, but if you see me with my phone by my head, I'm actually, it's on airplane mode.

But you've now just divulged that, so everyone's gonna know now.

Yeah, they'll be like, Dave's not on his phone.

They will, and they'll just be like, I'm on a call. Yeah.

The other area as well that's a concern is the thyroid. People are holding their phones, especially like, you see it in Gen Z quite a lot. They're continually scrolling their phone it's around this area so much, not just the blue light that's having impact, but the EMF on that sort of hormone hub is pretty detrimental as well. I think there'll be more and more studies come out of thyroid impacts with non-native EMF, especially from phones.

So, do you just never use wireless devices?

Well, I think you just got to be smart about it. I think you just got to limit the time you're using it. Can you use a wired Ethernet desktop or laptop as opposed to scrolling through a phone 90% of the time. It's just limiting it, right? You don't want to go— and we were saying earlier to Will Cole when we were on his show yesterday, it's more about finding ways to hack your environment, not giving up technology, not going and living in the middle of a field. Like, are you spending 4 hours a day scrolling? Can you get that down to 3, 2, 1, half an hour? Are there certain times of the day that you can do it? Can you do it outside, grounded? Would that be a little bit more beneficial for the individual? So it's just looking at ways that people can still enjoy that modern technology without severely damaging their, their health.

I would say building more resilient humans by any means necessary is a really good strategy. So then we can use useful technologies.

Agree. Agree.

Yeah. Like airplanes.

Yeah.

Like they're kind of useful, but they cook you with the amount. They're not good for you. But I was just on one for 20 hours to get here.

Gosh.

Yeah. So how do you not feel bad when you do that? And there's a variety of things. One of them that really makes a difference is red light therapy. What are you doing with red light therapy now?

We've got a whole host of things happening with red light therapy. It's probably one of our biggest selling collections right now. I think the world is starting to tune into the benefits and the vast benefits that it offers at the different wavelengths, at the different frequencies. If you're talking about red or near-infrared or far-infrared, they all offer very different benefits. But I think there is a shift happening where people are understanding it's not just a beauty tool, because I think the beauty industry, although they were late adopters of red light technology, the fact that the beauty industry is so saturated and market quite heavily, it became known as an aesthetic product, whereas the world is starting to understand a bit more that originated in the wellbeing industry, more for recovery, more for performance, more for optimising sleep, cellular energy. And there is a big shift that we're seeing happening, not globally, it's certain pockets around the world that understand it more than others. Unfortunately, Australia we're finding is one of the last to adopt it. They're slow on the uptake. The US much further ahead. And in fact, the Middle East. We did a big, big global red light therapy trend report at the start of this year. And the UAE in particular were leading the way with red light therapy. And it was as many as 70% of the people we surveyed regularly use it on a daily basis. And we surveyed about 7,000 people. So it wasn't a small segment. So it is starting to shift more back to where it originated, which is in the wellness space. Prior to that, obviously it was in the equestrian space. Rather than just the beauty industry that it's been known for more recently.

I got into red light because late 20s, I got whiplash, right? The first time I got it, someone drove into me at a stoplight and it took a year to heal. And I was in so much pain. My hands were always cold, I had headaches. I get— it messed me up. And then a couple of years later, I got hit go-karting by someone who couldn't read the signs. He didn't speak English well enough to understand, like, if the light's yellow, I mean, stop. So just— oh no, I am— did to me. And I had really bad whiplash. And a friend said, well, this isn't legal for humans yet. There's a red light therapy device for horses. It was a naturopath. And we put it on my neck. And in 3 minutes, I felt like 3 lightning bolts go up my back. It was like, what? And then my hands got warm and the muscles uncoiled. And I'm like, I want one. And it was thousands of dollars. So I put it on my Discover card back when people still used Discover card. And I have been into red light therapy ever since because I just felt such a shift and I was fine in 2 weeks with what would've been a year of suffering.

Phenomenal.

And people, when I first started talking about this in the biohacking world, they're like, this crazy guy's like, put butter in coffee and shine a red light on your head cuz it activates your brain. I'm like, try it.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And with infrared, which is part of what you guys do as well. There was a guy on a Yahoo group, which is basically Reddit before Reddit existed. He said, you know, I have all these problems with my brain. And I saw the one study showing infrared light on a rat brain would penetrate the skull and then improve performance. He said, so I built one in a little pill bottle and I'm selling them. He sold 200 of them. And he said, I did it down the midline of my brain and over a couple areas. He's like, my life has changed. I'm not depressed. Like all kinds of powerful effects. So of course I had to have one. And I started using it. And for a while, it was one of my favorite tools because it just made my brain work. And then one day he said, my brain is so good that I'm going to medical school. And he deleted the group, tried to remove all evidence of it because he was really selling a medical product. Yeah. Right. And I still have that in a desk drawer somewhere.

Wow.

But the reason I really know that it works is I shined it right over the language processing part of my brain above the left ear. And of course, being a biohacker, I did 4 minutes, not 2. And then I spoke in garbled words for about 6 hours. And since I made my money at the time talking about cloud computing security on big stages, I was like, I just fucked myself. I'm so ruined. But I just overstimulated that part of my brain. It took me a while to recover, just a few hours, and maybe it was good for me. But you can argue that it doesn't work. You can also argue PEMF doesn't work. I love the skeptics. Oh, let me put you on the high-powered machine. We'll just put that right on your hip where it hurts the most. It'll turn it all the way up. And then when they jump up screaming, I'm like, it cannot work. Therefore, it doesn't hurt. Get back on there. Yeah, right. And at that point, they have to face this idea that that doesn't work because it can't work has nothing to do with whether it actually works. So I'm a huge fan of RiteLite. Of light therapy. But what I've seen now is you can do it for skin. Yeah, you do it for hair, you do it for brain, you do it for tissues. So how do you differentiate between those different uses of red light? Like, what devices do you recommend where, and how do we know what to do in each location?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it all comes down to how the two different frequencies of light that is typically in red light therapy works. So you've got the, the surface level sort of red visible light that you'll see when you put those panels on, or the face mask or the hat. You'll start to see the red glow. That's the visible red lights. Normally between 630 and 660 nanometers for those that are interested. And that's, um, some of the most studied wavelengths within red light therapy, the most bioactive. Now you shine that on the skin and it will stimulate fibroblast production, more collagen, smooth out fine lines and wrinkles. Great for that— what Kaylee was saying earlier, that aesthetic sort of appearance-looking beauty sort of industry. You see the face masks, the wands, those types of things. Then if you want to go deeper, you start to use something called near-infrared light, which is also in the red light panel. Now, that's an invisible frequency. You don't see it. It's 850 nanometers. Normally, anything between 800 and 880 typically is okay. And that penetrates deep within the bone and the muscle. And what that does is that starts to increase cellular energy, that mitochondrial level starts to free up more oxygen for cytochrome oxidase to start making more efficient ATP. And that's then the process that starts to heal and repair joints and muscles. So, what you do is you just pick a product that say you have an ailment, say you have a really sore knee, arthritis in your knee, or you have really sore muscles after the gym, you would look for something like a panel or a small handheld red light device that you can shine on that area. Maybe it's a strap, a wrap. Maybe you're just looking to improve the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, so you would wear a face mask. That's nice and close to the faces as well. And if you want hair growth, you'd wear one of those sort of hair growth caps as well. But you've also got to look at the irradiance that's given out as well, because you can't just have like a red light bulb because that also glows at 650, 660 nanometers, but it's not enough power density within there. So you've got to go for the therapeutic wavelengths. You want to go for that, you know, muscle and joint pain, you want to be looking at 100 milliwatts per centimeter squared. The face, you can go lower because it's right against the skin, maybe 40, 50 milliwatts per centimeter squared. But we've also seen seen some studies, what PhDs have seen some studies in our Sydney office where you can actually go a bit too high on irradiance as well and it can start to become a little bit more dangerous. So, you don't want to—

What's the danger of having too bright of a red light?

I think it's not the brightness, it's all that sort of power density and the overstimulation of cells from what they've reported.

And what would happen if you overstimulated a cell with red light?

I think it's like you don't want to overenergize, I guess, the energy production system at all. You don't want to negatively impact I'd have to speak my PhD for all that.

I think you have to give the body time to process anything it receives, right? And there are some studies that show that you can actually do too much red light therapy, even irrespective of the radiance, that the body needs to process what it's—

the body doesn't need time to process things.

You don't believe that?

Yeah, you just push it harder, and if you just keep pushing it really hard, then it'll give up and it'll just surrender.

I think that's sometimes the difference between men and women. I was going to say, that's quite a masculine response. Yeah, women women need to sort of nurture and slow down sometimes.

I'm just messing with you guys.

Okay, uh, of course, of course, I'll let you off.

Um, you're like, you're so masculine. I'm like, it's funny, all the trolls don't say that.

No.

So what I've seen in red light, and I've gone very deep on this for years, is that there's a certain point where for most things, even exercise, you have this inverted U-shaped curve, which means if you don't do any, you get no results, and you start doing, you get results, results, results, and then there's an optimal amount, and then you're on the other side of the U, and then you keep— you do more, but you get less and less and less and less. And the good thing about light therapy is that unless it's so hot that it's burning you, you're not going to harm yourself with too much red light. You just don't get the benefits of it, right? Right. So it's like red, you know, good, good, good, good, good, and then you should stop. But it's hard to know exactly when to stop, which is why you have recommended usage levels. And you can usually do red light like 3 times a day depending on the intensity and the length and all that kind of stuff. But I don't think there's any risk in any study I've ever seen that says red light therapy is going to actually harm you. The only risk I've seen is that it might stop working because you do it too much, which is different than, you know, you're going to grow a mushroom out of your forehead. That's like more of a, of a Pfizer kind of a thing.

Right.

Yes.

I've been making a lot of Pfizer jokes at this conference. I'm sorry, Bayer and Monsanto, I haven't been including you in my absolute lack of respect. I will do my best.

Hilarious. No, but you're right. But I swear I read a study where they were looking at athletes and some of them did it multiple times a day versus another group that did it once a day. And the people that did it multiple times a day actually had a decrease in performance. Now I can't remember that study. I'll have to try and dig it out and send it through to you if I can find it. But I remember reading— because we have so many studies sent to us to read through, I can never remember all of them— but I remember that jumping out at me because I thought people that were doing it multiple times a day actually performed weaker.

Weaker than people who did no light therapy?

They did it once a day.

Oh, so once a day worked better than multiple times?

Multiple times, yeah.

It also depends on if they were looking at the infrared or the red side of it too.

Of course, of course.

Right. And one of the problems here is most science is done in large groups of people, right? And they go, we controlled for all variables. And I'm like, oh really? What was the genetic makeup of the people? And like, well, we got like 2 white ones and 2 brown ones and 2 men and 2 women. I mean, good for you. What was the genetic makeup? Like, what was their COMT gene? Like, we didn't run genetics. I thought you controlled for all. Oh, you didn't control for anything. All right, well, let's, let's go back. Was it a man or a woman who, who was administering the test? Like, well, we didn't we didn't control for that. Like, oh, that's funny, because if a man feeds a mouse, it has a stress response, and if a woman feeds a mouse, it doesn't. I wonder if it's true. Like, there's all kinds of variables that we don't track. So every study, including all the red light therapy studies, are like, in this group of people, the average one person in the middle, it doesn't even exist, right? So my advice to people doing red light therapy is do it once, And if you get good results, great, do it again. If you get good results, do it again. And if it stops working, you probably did too much. Because I would feel uncomfortable saying that for everyone you should only do it once a day or that it's bad to do it 5 times a day because there's probably 5 listeners who should be doing it multiple times a day. Yeah. Like, and where are you when you do it? When I fly, I'm doing red light therapy sometimes for most of the flight.

Yeah.

Okay.

Dave Asprey, because I'm mitigating the absolute crap environment that I'm in, and I notice much less jet lag. You know, your blood doesn't stick together as much when you have infrared light. So like, there's this really big argument. So I would just say, you know, you have like every form factor of light therapy there is at BON CHARGE. Maybe not everyone, but you've got all the different styles you'd want. For someone who's worried they're going to overuse it, well, try overusing it. It, because it's not going to hurt you. And then you'll know, right? And so you can play around with it.

Exactly.

And I do find like morning and night, like I'll use the red light cap morning and night. And I think that's all right. But I've never, you know, for 2 months done it just one or the other. And I don't know, do you guys have studies that, have you conducted studies on proper duration of usage?

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I think you've done everything right and absolutely nothing wrong. In fact, anything that hasn't gone your way could probably be blamed on your father not being emotionally available because his father wasn't emotionally available and so on.

And now that you're calm and healing, you're probably driving better too.

Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. We haven't on our products personally, but we, for our red light cap, we have done. Okay.

What did you find? Because everyone wants to know about hair.

Yeah, big topic right now.

Yeah.

Well, we found like just in a nutshell, and I can send you the study to share in the show notes, but we found just 5 minutes a day was what stimulated the hair follicle regrowth. So that was—

it was 10 minutes less effective.

Just no, no additional benefit.

Okay, got it. So 5 minutes is all it took?

Yes.

Okay, now here's a question. I have the, the caveman gene that gives you much less back hair, and I want to have as much back hair as Biolane because that guy, he just looks like a Sasquatch. And I feel like I'd be more manly if I could just be more like Biolane, but not as angry and not as bullied in 7th grade. So if I I take the Bon Charge red light therapy— I'm so trying not to laugh— if I take the Bon Charge red light therapy and I put it on my back, could I grow more back hair?

You're thinking of the cap now?

Yeah, yeah, I want like a big, a big clump of back hair.

I feel this is a no-go. Yeah, this could be good. You need to give it a go.

Yeah, you could be our study.

I mean, and then equals 1. Let's do it if you're open to it.

This is my sense of humor, which is uniquely American. But the real point here, I have never seen any evidence that red light therapy increases hair growth anywhere on the body except for on the head.

Yeah.

You put it on your hair, but it's not going to give you like arm hair.

No.

Right. And that's important to know for everyone who's using red light therapy. So yeah. And if you're in like a mustache competition, it's probably not going to help, but it might.

No. Can you imagine people using our face mask and then all the women just getting sort of beards?

I know, right? But people would worry about that. I'm just saying that's They do well. There's no concern about that that I've ever seen in—

Correct.

In almost 20 years of light therapy. But it does grow hair like crazy.

Yeah, it does.

On the top of the head.

Absolutely.

And I think that's because on the head, one of the big reasons our hair gets weak is mitochondrial problems. And our body hair doesn't typically have that same lack of blood flow and the same bioenergetics. So we don't worry about that as much. So we talked about light therapy, different form factors, but PEMFs. How do you work with PEMF? Like, talk about the devices you make and what frequency ranges you use and just tell me how it works.

So PEMF stands for pulsed electromagnetic field therapy in case anybody isn't familiar with that terminology.

I should have done that myself.

That's all right. We have it in a few different formats. Generally, they tend to come in more of a mat format. It's something that you physically connect with.

So like not shiny?

Not.

'Cause they're mat.

Oh no. You're gonna keep getting me, aren't you? Oh my word. You think I would've picked up on these by now?

I flew 20 hours, I had a modafinil, I had 3 cups of danger coffee. You just have to, you have to stick with me here.

Okay, okay, I'm sorry, I'm just not picking it up, am I? I'm falling for it every time, like straight in over the edge. Okay, yes, in that yoga mat style format, different, very different sizes. But ultimately what it does is, if we take it back to the fundamentals of the human biology, and I think you touched upon it earlier, that the body connects with the energy if the environment it's around, it always tries to mimic what it's receiving. And that's just the body's way of conserving energy. A lot of people feel it most when they walk into a room that's sort of high stress, like a busy supermarket. They walk into it, so hectic, they start to feel quite stressed.

Or a medium cafe.

Well, for you, that would just be a nightmare. Yeah, exactly. That pent-up feeling from that is exactly what I'm talking about. It's because your body's mimicking the energy of the environment around it. But you can use it to your advantage as well. Well, if you connect with beneficial frequencies and pulse those into the body, then you can fall into that frequency state yourself. And that's what a PEMF mat does. So you can dial into beta waves, theta waves, alpha waves, or delta waves in the mats that we have created to induce a certain state. So for example, if you were wanting to optimize your sleep or you were feeling a bit stressed and wanted to calm down, you would want to dial into more of a delta wave frequency. That's the frequency that your brain produces when you're in deep sleep. So if you lie on the mat, sit on the mat, or some people like to stretch on the PEMF mat and put it on the delta wave setting, it'll pulse that frequency into your body. And after about, so 10, 15 minutes, your body will start to fall into that rhythmic pattern itself. So it's kind of inducing a certain state, very, very similar to how grounding works. When you take your shoes and socks off, stand barefoot on the ground, you're connecting with the Earth's magnetic Schumann resonance, and then you fall into that rhythmic state to connect with nature and your inflammation reduces. But you can use other frequencies through a PEMF mat to induce a certain state.

So if I took a BonCharge PEMF mat and I put it like under the sheets or maybe under the mattress of the bed of someone I didn't like, and I put it on like the AmplifyMe, like the high beta state, like for athletic stuff in the middle of the night, would they be unable to sleep?

It would probably disrupt their sleep. Yeah, it would. Yeah. But you probably wouldn't want to put it under the mattress. You'd want them a bit closer.

I just don't want them to— I don't want them to know it's there.

Yeah, they feel the problem.

You will feel it because sometimes it's adorned with crystals, because like quartz crystals amplifies the effect, so they would feel the bumps.

So darn, it's not going to work. So my evil plan to take over the world by taking the evil people and making them not sleep, it's— you just— you shot holes in it.

Sorry.

Just got to go with the next.

I was going to order like 10,000 to send all the Pfizer executives.

Oh, maybe just start new streaming channel and do what Netflix did and keep people hooked and stop them going to bed. And wasn't that their mission?

Yeah, that's why you do that. And maybe like a TikTok type. Oh wait, no, it's already been done. In the world of PMF, I look at kind of two buckets. There's PMF that's sending a signal to the body and that's what Boncharge is making, right? So you're saying go into this state. So it's a state control. And it also, I think, has some cellular strengthening and detox effects that are subtle because it's a lower signal. And then on the flip side of it, there are very expensive clinical-grade PMF machines that are so strong they're inducing the electrical current in cell membranes. So these are the ones that you put on someone's arm and you've seen videos of me, my arm's like twitching. I'm not twitching the arm, it's getting twitched by that. So that's a, That's like a high-intensity interval training kind of PMF.

Yes.

And what BonCharge is doing is let's gently use the signal to tell the body to move into a state. So if you can't chill out at night, you do that and you get sleep and you can recover faster from exercise and things like that.

Absolutely.

So a lot of people don't know that there's a difference there. And so what it looks like, I have one, I think it's in my media room right now unless when they, the cleaning crew might have moved it, but it's usually in my media room. And it just looks like a yoga mat, but it's a little bit thicker. And it has like some kind of bumps on the top of it.

Ridges, yeah.

Yeah, and they're full of crushed quartz crystals. Right. And strangely, the quartz crystals actually do make a difference.

Absolutely.

Why?

They amplify the effects of the PMF that's been received. Because if you look at some of the areas in the world with high magnetism, like Ibiza, and I think there's areas in Mexico, right?

Oh, so you've been to Ibiza?

I have.

Everyone who goes there says Ibiza and everyone else is like, it's Ibiza. Like, why do you say Ibiza?

Because it's British? Well, the Spanish way of saying it. The correct way.

I'm sorry.

I'm just teasing all my friends who go there. Yes, it's Ibiza.

But they have very high levels of quartz in their soil. They do. And those areas in the world are very magnetic areas and are known for amplifying the effects. So it's just a way of boosting ultimately the effects of the PMF signals that you're getting.

And there are some people listening who are going, that's such BS. I'm like, depending on how old you were, when I was a little kid, they didn't sell them anymore. But like, I think my dad's generation or my grandfather's generation, you could order in the back of a magazine for a nickel or something, a little quartz crystal radio kit.

Oh, I've no idea.

And it was a little quartz crystal and a little copper thing and you'd wind it around And we use those crystals. And so magnets and copper coils and quartz crystals are fundamental to most of the electronics we use today. So there is a mechanism of action for it. So guys, we're coming to the end of the show because we're here at Wanderlust Wellspring in Australia. And thanks for taking time out of a busy show to talk about red light therapy and PMF and how to mitigate the unnatural EMFs with me. And I appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Thanks for your time.

Yeah, exactly. You're super busy and yeah, finding the time to speak to us is really, really amazing.

You got it. And guys, always get your discount. It's boncharge.com. Use code Dave, save 15%. So you want some red light, you want some PMFs, go for it. See you next time on the Human Upgrade podcast.

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