Unconventional Biohacks for More Radiant & Resilient Skin - Rachel Varga | 1092 | Dave Asprey

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Formerly you're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Today is an in person interview here in Austin, Texas at my studios and it's with a longtime friend, Rachel Varga. You're going to get a masterclass on what you can do for your skin, specifically around oxidative stress. So if you want skin, whether you're a man or a woman, whether you want young looking skin or just healthy skin that works as a better membrane, she's going to teach you some things that you probably don't know. Skin being the largest organ in your body, it's kind of important. And she was on episode 686 of the podcast.

686.

Oh, sorry, 668. Geez. I don't normally have dyslexia, but apparently I do with numbers Today. This morning, not enough danger. Coffee. She just came out with a paper called Oxidative Stress Status and its Relationship to Skin Aging. And she has a book called Radiance, the New Skin Science that's coming out. I've known her for a long time. She's done weird stuff to my face that made it look better. Double board certified aesthetic nurse specialist with 20,000 procedures performed since 2011. And she trains doctors and nurses and their teams on how to use tech to make your face look better. If you're wondering, you know, why I look like I'm 18 years old, like a Greek God, well, I don't think you can blame Rachel because I actually don't look that way, but I look pretty damn good. And she's definitely done some work on my face with lights and with other prickly things that we may or may not chat about today. Because what I want you to learn from her is what's really going on with your skin. Rachel, welcome back on the show.

Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to connect.

And also thanks for making your way down from sunny Canada to Austin for.

The studio Canada, then South Florida, then here.

That's how it works. All right. Oxidative stress. People listening probably think they know what it is, but I don't think they actually know. So walk me through your take on it and then tell me about skin.

Absolutely. Oxidative stress status is something that people really need to pay attention to. Another framework of otherwise known as OSS is the toxic bucket analogy. When this toxic bucket gets too full, it's going to tip over and then you'll have over displays of oxidative stress on the skin. There are areas of the face and the body that are highly metabolic that tend to display oxidative stress first. This is an underlying issue of skin and aging, as well as sleep issues and energy issues as well. We're all about being powerful, radiant humans. And with biohacking, I have the perspective of reducing oxidative stress status through different purification methods before adding the advanced layers. So I'm excited to get into that with you.

One of the things that's important to understand about oxidative stress is that oxidative stress is different from oxidation, because if you turn off oxidation in your cells. Rachel, as a nurse, what happens when people stop doing oxidation in their cells?

We always have metabolic processes happening, but.

That was a dodge. You die if you don't have oxidation happening in your cells. Literally, it means that they've shut down. So the trick with oxidative stress is you have too much oxidation. And what you want to be able to do is reduce the excess, but not reduce it so much that you start having the other side of taking too many antioxidants.

Absolutely.

What parts of the skin show too much oxidative stress first?

Yeah, I would say the skin's keratinocyte stem cells. And through air exposure. So mold exposure, pollution in the air, heavy metals. Actually our body intakes heavy metals through air. A huge majority of it.

You mean air goes right through my skin?

It gets. Actually it rests on the skin. That's why it's a great idea to be washing your face. I think, I think of the AM and PM with the double cleanse and the pm. And what happens is when these stressors land on the skin, they actually tell the skin cells to undergo apoptosis, which is cell death. Cell death.

Okay, so let's say that you live in New York and you get on the subway. By the way, if you live in New York. I know the subway is like a religious thing. Have you ever smelled the air in the subway? I wouldn't put that air in my lungs. In fact, I've actually seen people who couldn't get pregnant until they stopped taking the subway and breathing that moldy, chemical laden, fire retardant, just bad air. That's.

And the EMFs from the trains as well. Huge emitters.

But regardless, you're not just breathing it, you're getting it through your skin as well, because it settles on your skin. And your skin is porous to gas as well, right?

Absolutely. It's an organ. It absorbs everything.

So I happen to know that you're wearing EMF protective clothes when you got on airplanes. Cause you told me about it.

And right now as well.

That's right. You're wearing them right now. Okay. And yes, you sleep in an EMF beanie, which is hilarious.

Oh, I sleep in a full on.

And just to be really clear, I have not actually seen her sleeping, but she told me about it, and I was like, that's absurd. Then again, I'm like, I've traveled with an EMF tent that I slept in for a little while to see if it worked. So maybe it's not absurd, but I don't think it's worth the wait in my luggage for the sleep improvements I get. But you notice profound changes.

Absolutely. As a biohacker, we love to test. We need to make sure that what we're doing is working. We don't want to have blind faith, especially when you and I are sharing different technologies with who listen to us. That trust, that bonding, is really important to me. So the first time, and I've told you this before, the first night that I slept in EMF clothing was the first time that I achieved 100% sleep score on the cooling mattress that I use, as well as a ring that tracks things like sleep quality and hrv.

What about ring mattress?

There's really only one.

Actually, there's two. There's another ring company coming out.

I heard there was actually one coming from France.

Oh, man. If it's like French cars, I don't think you want to use it.

Yeah, there's some interesting things with that as well.

Sorry, France. Peugeots suck. I used to drive one.

Yeah. When you start to feel. First of all, tracking through biohacking metrics is really helpful to learn when things are helping you. So the first night, getting 100% sleep score through two different technologies. Okay, this is telling me something that this made a big impact for me personally.

So do you think EMF blocking would make your cells work better and reduce oxidative stress and eventually make its way into how your skin looks?

Absolutely. It's gonna impact your sleep. It's going to impact your metab. Personally, I postulate that EMFs, wireless cellular radiation, or the smoking of regeneration. And I talk about this in my research as well.

They're the smoking of our generation.

Well, as well as all the other things.

I thought glyphosate was smoking.

Yes.

I thought phthalates, estrogen disruption, all of that. Bpa.

Yeah.

Chemtrails, aliens. Which one is the smoking of our generation?

I would say the one that we can have Easy ownership over. Because it's all about identifying threats.

Oh, so masks are the smoking of our generation, Is that what you're saying? So that was very aggressive of you to say that. I'm embarrassed that you see something like that on such a prim and proper show. Oh, my God. Do you know how many angry people there are right now because you said that.

Well, there's always angry people out there. But the trick is to have yourself functioning in such a way that that doesn't impact you. So when it comes down to things that we can make a difference over, wearing protective clothing to shield while you sleep is something really easy to do.

It is. This was a trick question because Shielding yourself from EMFs is actually pretty easy. Just wrap yourself in foil or more attractive silver clothing and all that embedding and. Yeah, and you know, there's sheets and.

There'S all kinds of turn your router off at night. That's another free tip.

It's in, it's in my books. You probably mentioned in your book. And it's like, I don't know, I've probably had a dozen episodes about EMFs, so. And if you're wondering what those are, we'll put those in the show notes for you. Because you. Actually, there is an argument for at least turning off your router. I do that at least most nights.

Absolutely.

But my router's far away from my bed, so that cares. Now, the reason it was a trick question, Rachel, is that protecting your skin and your body from emfs is easy. But what are you gonna do? Wrap yourself in like a whole body, like latex condom so that no gases can permeate through to your skin? Given that we just said that the air in the subway and the air around you is getting into your skin. So what's the protection of the skin look like? Because I don't think it's a barrier.

You just do the best you can. I mean, you've seen my spacesuit, the.

Shoulder length rubber gloves you travel around in.

You see what I wear behind the scenes. And this is.

She showed up in a silver hoodie, like on top of this green dress.

And I do that when I fly as well. I'll have different things on under my outfit and then slip things on and. But it really did make a difference for me. And the other thing that I noticed, another free thing is just getting outside and grounding. So I'm an avid outdoor enthusiast and I started to notice on my off grid, off roading days about 200 miles into the wilderness out of cell reception. When you're out of the house, you're not going to be working, especially if you don't have cell reception. And then I started to notice when I was doing this weekly, my skin was better, I was having less acne, I was sleeping better, I was feeling better.

Is that the clean air? The emfs?

I think it's a combination as well as grounding and doing cold therapy.

Now grounding sounds a little bit mystical because what do you sleep on?

Well, you're sleeping on a mattress and you're not getting the. Well, I actually don't do camping, I do day trips.

Oh, okay, got it. And so now is it true that you've replaced the tires on your Jeep with leather because leather is conductive and rubber isn't.

I know you have a Jeep. I had a Jeep before as a V8 lared a great vehicle to learn 4x4 on, but I started to have mechanical brakes.

You got rid of your Jeep?

Yeah, I have an older Land Rover now.

A Land Rover. Oh, I have a Land Rover.

Well, it's actually older so it's analog and non digital and the emfs in it are really low.

I prefer cars that are 10 years old. Now, like you've seen my Jeep. It's a magical, highly upgraded, Kevlar coated like military looking thing.

Our rides match.

They do. But the reason for that is the interior lighting isn't bright. LEDs that destroy your night blindness. And the car works and is serviceable. And you get these new cars and they just remotely shut them down. They're constantly running WI fi inside them.

Bluetooth for communication, for connection.

I actually traded in my F150 because the dashboard was so bright that you couldn't see at night. And the headlights, not only were they blind everyone else, I had to wear like the true dark amber glasses at night because the lights were so weird. So I'm like, screw all this new stuff in cars. It's not better.

Yeah.

So a 10 year old, well maintained Jeep or any other kind of car, or heaven forbid a BMW that you don't have to pay a subscription to make your seatbelts work or whatever the hell they're doing these days. So I'm getting a little bit. I'm going to be a Luddite when it comes to vehicles because older vehicles cook you less electrically.

Oh my goodness.

Changes how you look too.

People don't know this, but they have their babies and their cars, especially their new electric vehicles. And I've actually seen people take EMF readers Stand inside their microwave, and the amount inside their electric vehicle is just as high.

Oh, I sold my Prius when we had my daughter. This was quite a while ago because I did exactly that. I'm not putting my kid in that backseat. And I traded in for a baby Hummer. And I kind of felt bad because I knew I was angering all the people in the Bay area at the time.

Those are pretty wide vehicles, but you had fun parking.

Well, this wasn't like the H1s, the big ones. This is the bay ones. It got the same mileage as any other suv, but it had the reputation of Hummer. So to cleanse myself morally, I took the hybrid synergy drive plaque off my Prius and I put it on the Hummer before I drove in.

Of course you would.

Before I drove in the high occupancy vehicle lane, it seemed like it was the right thing to do. But I digress. The deal here is, guys, your electromagnetic environment affects how your skin looks, but it's not the only thing. And it does it via redox signaling, right?

So what's really happening is we're seeing red blood cell morphology.

Ooh, morphology is a big word.

So under the microscope, if you've ever had a live blood analysis done, you can actually see your red blood cells underneath the microscope. And we want our red blood cells to have a very smooth endothelial lining, kind of like a smooth donut or an inner tube. And then they're going to have beautiful electromagnetic repulsions from other red blood cells. What happens is five minutes on your phone, those red blood cells start to stick together, and they actually form chains called rouleaux. Then we get clotting factors. So here's the situation with the brain and your organs and your skin. When you are electromagnetically 2 positive, it actually impacts blood flow to your organs and blood flow to your skin, which we can actually see and quantify through speckle contrast photography, which I reference in my paper. So five minutes on your phone starts to change your blood as well, as we have a reduction of toxins, metabolic waste products then being filtered out to the liver and kidneys. So it's important for blood flow. It's also important for detoxification to simply get outside and ground about 30, 45 minutes. The impacts on the skin happen pretty quick. And this is a big missing link with people working inside so much. They're not going barefoot. They live in cities. And really getting back to how we used to live, doing some of these really basic free biohacks are essential to basically surviving in everyday life. It's like convenience is killing us these days, and it is impacting the way that we look at.

I heard two words there that actually weren't true. It's a matter of survival, and it's killing us. Which triggered everyone's fight or flight response subliminally, which actually was bad for the redox signaling because you created a stress response which made people look older. Are you doing this, like, to sell more of your skincare stuff, Rachel? I bet you are. You're pretty much like Fauci right now, you know, telling people one thing and doing the opposite. So you're triggering fear to make people look old so that you can sell them products. I can't believe you do this on this show.

Let's talk about something. I know you're pulling that out.

You're really hard to troll. I'm doing my best here.

Jeez, we've known each other.

No reaction at all.

I can take it. I can take it. So here's the situation. A lot of times people think about the skin, and they think it's all about vanity. And this is actually one of the barriers they have to looking after the biggest organ of their body. They think, oh, it's vain. However, there is a deeper need and survival function going on here. When we look beautiful, we feel more confident. Then when we're more confident, we're better able to actually get out there and form our community. That, right there is a deep survival need that oftentimes people don't think about. When they think about skin and rejuvenation, they want to look good, but at the end of the day, it's going to better prepare and allow people to be more able to connect and form community.

So there's these four mitochondrial behaviors in your meat operating system. There's fear, right, which happens first, Then food, then, well, fertility, right? And then friend. And what happens when you look healthy is that the last 2F words typically happen better. So you're more able to find a mate if you're looking for one, or just be attractive to your existing mate. And you're better able to go out in the community because despite the fact that we like to think that we're rational beings, we make a decision, really, in our mitochondrial networks and our subconscious about someone based on how they look before we talk to them. And then we talk to them and decide to believe that we were. We thought what we thought, but we actually felt what we felt based on looks.

Here's also the interesting piece of this when you see someone and they're traditionally beautiful based on modern day constructs with social media, you know, they look pretty good, their makeup looks great, their outfit, their hair, and then you actually engage with them in conversation and there can be a mismatch in their energy as well as their communication and the words that they use. So this also then plays into nervous system regulation and mastering your nervous system. So cold therapy is excellent for that heat contrast, all of that with different timing. We did cold plunge yesterday and that was fantastic. Kept me wired actually for most of the night. But these are all aspects you're presenting as your most radiant self. And at the end of the day, the more beautiful, high vibrating humans there are in the world, we're going to have better exchanges with each other. And compared to if someone's nervous system is dysregulated, they've had mold exposure, you know, they're having neurological issues.

How do you respond when people say that you're a lookist?

Tell me more about what a look.

You know about lookism.

Tell, tell us more.

This is a word for. Well, this is a word that victim minded people will use to describe people who judge others based on how they look, as if it mattered. Because everyone knows that good, moral people don't pay any attention to how things look because they live in a world of just make believe that things are as they want them to be. So when someone says you're a lookist because you believe how your looks matter, how do you defend yourself against that terrible, terrible comment that people might throw your way?

Interesting. What I've observed since 2011 working with thousands of people is there's actually the subset of people that I've observed and as a researcher I love to observe and, and there's actually men and women that I've seen aged 60 to 90 that show up as more beautiful than someone in their 20s and 30s. Even though they have overt signs of visible signs of aging, it's the way that they carry themselves and there's very specific things that they do in their lifestyle that give them energy and it actually that they're living basically a life with body, mind, spirit, energy, practices, family unit.

I'm marveling at the strength of the media training you received to completely dodge the question so effortlessly. Have you thought of politics?

Definitely not.

So back to defending yourself as a lookist. How are you going to do this?

I look at people in a certain way. What I'm actually looking at when I'm seeing someone is the brightness in their eyes. I'm actually observing for signs of oxidative stress status. So do they have overt signs of inflammation around their eyes?

To use science and facts to defeat lookism. Okay, well that works because looks, lookism is actually completely a fantasy of victim minded people. Here's the deal. How you look does matter, even if you wish it didn't. And I've been obese, I've had really bad skin. And even in those situations, it doesn't affect how good of a person you are. It doesn't affect whether you're a moral person, whether you have high integrity. But it does affect how people judge you before they have a chance to think. Because your operating system automatically judges all of reality for a third of a second before it shows it to you. That's just facts. And that's one of the reasons that you might consider taking care of your skin to the best of your abilities. And I know I've spent a lot of my life not as healthy as I am now, but to pretend it doesn't matter is a very weird, just mental, gymnastic yoga pose.

So many people do it right, especially the super crunchy granola type of individuals out there. They take such good care of themselves, themselves in various aspects, but they're not looking after their skin. And in fact, when they're using products that they think are clean, they actually don't realize that some of the ingredients are actually full of rancid oils.

So what we're talking about here, just to be really clear is we're talking about not makeup and stuff like that, but we're talking about having healthy skin as an organ which affects what you could call beauty or handsomeness or attractiveness or the glow or whatever. So what I'm suggesting, and I think what you're saying here is let's have healthy skin. But most of what people do for their skin is bad for their biology. From what I've seen, and I mean even in my fertility book, like 10 or 12 years ago, I'm like, if you can't eat it, you probably shouldn't put it on your skin because you know, there's, there's stuff in a lot of skin care products that honestly I wouldn't rub on top of my dog.

And those formulations change so often.

Oh, talk about this because like you had it checked out last quarter and it was really safe. And then what are companies doing now?

Yeah, it's really interesting because I connect with people, I love to see what products they're using and actually looking at the ingredients of every single product they use. So I have my Bachelor's of Science in Nursing, then I have my gen Chem, organic chem and Biochem. So I love to have my finger on the pulse of some of the trends. Get this. I have seen ingredients, including BPA and even tiny as ingredients in skincare that are being marketed.

They're adding tin.

They're adding tin.

Tin is a toxic metal.

Yeah. As well as I've even seen DNA. And these are in some of the biggest brands that are marketed to. I'm curious if there's DNA in there to younger individuals. But, like, what DNA is that?

Not a vegan?

Is it an animal? Oh, definitely not a vegan.

I know that was a joke. But even vegans eat plant DNA and like humans, healthy humans eat animal and plant DNA.

So I'm also seeing more canola oil, because canola oil.

But when someone says there's DNA in there, it's like, well, what is it? There's DNA floating in the air in this room that's not mine because you're in here too. And we'll just have to deal with that.

It's interesting to see the shifts. So what happens is I noticed that these big skin companies that previously were actually pretty good. However, they were somewhat clean, but actually not providing the results and performance that people are really seeking. And then the formulation shift. And I've seen that quite a bit over the last six months to a year. And I think it's just, you know, companies, they get bought, they're wanting to increase their margins. And actually every quarter I go through every single ingredient, every single product that I offer. And most people don't do that.

Oh, when you say products you offer, these are other brands that you just carry on your store.

Yeah, I work with a number of.

You can have a shout out on, on the podcast. What's your URL for your store?

The schoolofradiance.com schoolofradiance.com Cool.

All right. And so you go through and you review because the ingredients change.

Because I care.

Well, yeah. And sometimes they're not disclosed. Like one of the companies that I'm well known for working for, like, I haven't been able to review anything other than what's printed on, on the labels. And I know the labels have changed, but I have no idea what's going on.

Yeah.

So it gets, it gets like that with food companies too. You know, it's really good this quarter and then next quarter you start getting highs from it and like, oh, look, they added more protein in the form of some Latin words, and you look it up, and they're putting, like, locusts in there, like actual bugs, because it raised the protein count. But they don't tell you on the front label. So skin care is even worse because it's not regulated, which is good, because if they regulated it, you could only put gasoline on your skin.

It is all about being a more conscious consumer. And I know that's what this community is all about. So it's not just about your skin care. It's about your hair care. It's about your personal care, hair products, what you're washing your clothes with, what you're washing your dishes with, what you're cleaning your home with. So the angle about being a biohacker isn't just about buying all this technology. It really is about making good decisions as often as you can to reduce that oxidative stress status.

Okay. You convinced me, and I think our listeners, that if you take care of your biology using core biohacking techniques like cold plunges, EMF blocking.

Yeah. We'll all add to what my basic recommendations are too.

Okay, well, those are. I think we talked about each of those, didn't we, already?

We missed a couple.

Okay, tell me the other ones that we didn't talk about that are just, like, foundational to being a healthy human, which give you healthy skin.

It really comes down to purification.

Okay, master list. Give me the bullet points.

Air, water, lighting, electromagnetics, and regular detoxing. So with your air, making sure that your air is purified in your main living area to reduce VOCs when you're cooking as well as while you're sleeping. And I. Yes, I pulled the air purifier from the main living area last night into my room because I noticed that the air quality here is a little different than what I'm used to. A little bit more pollen.

Oh, there's a ton of pollen here.

And I noticed it in my eyes as I was washing my skin. So when we're caring for our skin, doing our cleansing, actually touching your skin, doing lymphatic drainage actually really helped me last night to mitigate that as well as some other things. But air purification is so key. I even have it in my car too.

Oh, you put an air and travel.

With an air purifier.

And so I have two spare guest bedrooms. Rachel stayed over, and I didn't know it, but apparently you stole the air filter from, like, the media room, which is great because that was the one bedroom that doesn't have an air filter, because right now, my studio has one slash, office. My bedroom has a whole house. One. The kitchen has one. Like every room has a large air filter. It's probably enough to filter four times the house that I have. Because you feel so much better.

Absolutely. And your skin looks better and you sleep better.

Right.

So purifying your air is super key. The next thing is water. Drinking purified water. So many things that we can do with water. We can structure it, we can remineralize it, we can add different nutrients to it. Bathing and consuming purified water, super key. However, there are various different levels of water purification. So there are some readers that we nerded out about last night that I was able to share with you as well. So purified water with what you're consuming, what you're bathing in will make a big difference. Lighting is really key. So one of the things I love about here is you've swapped out all of your LED lights. Well, with the exception of one or two.

I missed two.

Yeah, that's something I do too as well. So it's about having as much control as you can in your environment so that when you go in the world, you can handle a little bit more oxidative stress. Then when you're home, when you're sleeping, you're spending more time recovering because you're in a more purified environment.

Changing the environment around you and inside of you so you have more control of your own biology.

Kind of what biohacking is.

Oh, my God. Right? Yeah. But it's neat because you're an aesthetic nurse. So you're looking at this through the lens of skin health.

That's my angle.

Radiance. And of course, how it looks. But it's not just how it looks. It's actually how healthy it is as an organ in the body and validating the core biohacking technologies, saying, look, no, they actually do work, but you have.

To stick with the core ones for purification.

Yeah. In other words, if you slather some expensive stuff on your face, but you have rancid oils and bad air and bad water, this stuff isn't going to work.

You're wasting your time and money. Same with even investing in rejuvenation. So in my last paper, the whole intention of it was to obviously support the biohacking community, to understand which biohacks are going to best support the skin and my opinion, through reducing oxidative stress, basically purification at its finest. And also disrupting the aesthetics, cosmetic dermatology, plastic surgery industry, a little bit, to get them up to where functional practitioners are also running. Because I noticed when I did this, when I first met you, 20, you know, I think it was like we first met in 2012, 2013, something like that. I started to employ biohacking. I was in 2000 car crashes. Thank goodness. I had been looking after myself to support recovery. So it's always being ready to always be radiant. So the biohacking, when you reduce your oxidative stress status, you're going to be better able to manage stress. And stress is a sign of being alive, right? Absolutely. Key. And I just find that this is, it's almost like a clarification point here to not get distracted by all the expensive technology, which is fantastic. But to start with the basics. So air, water, lighting. Also the thing here is we're seeing ocular diseases.

I've been predicting this for 10 years. Tell me more.

Yes, absolutely. So as you know, my background's ophthalmology for well over 10 years and we're actually seeing ocular diseases like cataracts in 40 year olds. This is an 80 year old disease. So what? The eyes are highly metabolic area of the face. So blue light, air quality, emfs, they all impact the eyes. And also cleansing the eyes and the lash line and using good products are really important for eyelash health. Things like dry eye.

Brian Johnson's one of my buddies who's done a lot of work on talking about, you know, reversing aging and symptoms of aging, which I really like because I did the whole anti aging book Superhuman about it. But one thing I don't know that I mentioned in that book and I don't think I've seen Brian talk about, I'm working to get him scheduled on the show so we can chat about it. It's actually aging of the eyes. So I went in.

That's the first area of the face that shows signs of aging. That was my first research paper, but.

I'm talking about the eye itself. So I went in and had a really, really high end eye exam done. They looked at cytokine expression in the tears and the ophthalmologist looked at me and she said, this is really weird. She said, your cornea doesn't exhibit any of the yellowing that's expected over time.

Fantastic.

People don't know this, but as you age, the lens in your eye gets yellow and so it gets cloudy. Well, even if it doesn't get cloudy, it gets like a yellow tinge. So then when they pull that lens out in a cataract surgery, you can get the Same colors you had when you were 20 with no yellowing. But then it feels really odd, like everything's too blue. So if you're 70 and you get surgery, they give you a yellowed lens to replace your yellowed lens. But my lens didn't yellow. And then she said, and it doesn't exhibit. I don't know if she just poked me or whatever, but it doesn't exhibit any of the stiffening that you would expect at this age. And she said, I don't know exactly what you're doing, but it's probably those glasses. I was wearing my yellow true dark glasses. I do not go out at places that have LED lights without wearing glasses all the time. And I think it's protecting my eyes. I also take Astaxanthin. I formulated eye supplements.

Lutein.

Yeah. And I do all the biohacks we talk about. Right. And I created biohacking. Right. So I have a head start. Advantage of people listen to the show.

Who say, are you protecting your eyes from EMF while you sleep?

You know, I actually create a bubble in space time around my bed when I sleep. So, yeah, absolutely. I sleep in a total vacuum.

I protect my eyes while I sleep. So either with the blanket that I'm sleeping in or a hoodie or a beanie, I do cover my eyes. Because light creep in the eyes is going to mess with your sleep.

What do you mean light creep in the eyes?

So when you're sleeping, if you see a little bit of light coming in.

You allow light into your bedroom. That's so harsh.

No, I don't. No, no, no.

I'm sorry. We can have to.

No, I reduce light creep. It's really important.

There's just no light in my room. I just make sure there's none. How hard is it?

However, if you also couple a little bit of the EMF protection with say, silver threaded article, some type of item, it's going to allow the eyes to recharge because it's not just the router.

I can see that working.

It's not just the wireless cellular radiation. It's also the wiring in the home.

So do you plug your silver sheets into an electrical grounded outlet?

I don't actually. Because when I've slept with an article plugged into a grounding outlet, even though I tested it, I didn't sleep better. It's better if you basically take a second spike with that cable and put it in the earth a couple feet away.

So that's what you do.

I actually don't do that either. Because I do question some of the insulation with some of the cords. So what I would rather do is when I get up in the am, have my AM Danger coffee.

Wow.

Structured hot water. Lemon.

Tell me more about this danger coffee stuff. I bet it grounds you too.

It's delicious. But I ground outside. I go barefoot.

This is a really important thing for nerdy biohackers. I've been teaching since probably my fourth blog post, the importance of grounding. And when I started talking about this, I took a lot of hits because I'm writing at the beginning for Silicon Valley engineers and rational minded people. And I am one of those. I'm just like, well, the data behind earthing is really strong. And then the recommendation is, well, when you're sleeping, I did this for years. Plug your sheets into the grounding outlet, at least in North America. And I would travel around with the thing and I would do this. But it's provably better to drive a spike into the earth and do that. However, in a lot of places you live in a high rise or something, you can't do it. What they don't talk about too much, except in, I don't know, probably some Reddit forum somewhere that I don't know about, is that if you plug yourself or your sheets into the grounded outlet or into the grounded outlet in your building, the odds are that there are chaotic, we'll call them reverberations, even in the grounding system that come from all of these devices that are plugged in and possibly from wireless or smart meters. So you might not be getting a clean ground.

You got it.

It'll allow electrons to flow, but it's like, here's a picture for you if you were to say, I am going to make like a C note with music. Like, great, a C note's good for you. Well, you can make a really ugly sounding C note.

Hitchcock has to be bang on, right?

Well, even if it's bang on C note, it's just like a humming sound. But what you actually needed was a kind of like music where it's orderly, right?

So Mozart, where's the coherent, coherent energy?

There you go. So the grounding that you're getting is, it is electrically a ground that will allow you to play electrons through it, but the pattern of the electrons isn't spaced the way they should be. Kind of like heart rate, coherence, spacing. And so the spike, well, the spike will work to ground you out, but only if we haven't buried electrical lines outdoors like we do in much of the world. Like in Florida, where hurricanes knock them over if they're above ground, then if there's leaks, if electricity is leaking into the ground, you may not even have a clean ground in your ground. So an expert can come out and measure this, but you may actually be better off doing this.

Just be barefoot. So the thing about if you're barefoot.

In one of those areas where it's not a clean ground, you also won't get the benefits. But near a body of water, you will.

So I was just gonna say salt water. Like I love to mermaid snorkel, get in that salt water as often as I can. So this, the electromagnetic piece. Get this. In Ayurveda medicine, the tenth body in Ayurveda is the radiant body. It's the humming along of all the other bodies. It's body, mind, spirit, energy, and then other aspects of ourselves. The radiance piece is something I can't rejuvenate in people. It comes through diligence, and it comes through having a conscious approach of always making great decisions. And the more people that are operating from the system, that are as pure as possible, they're simply going to go out in the world and have better relationships with themselves and others and are very much more likely to do good things in the world as well, because they're less scrambled, not only energetically, but they can tune into themselves. Then they'll begin to notice when things are off. So pollen last night, for example, noticed it in my eyes right away. Did some extra things to care for myself. Probably do a sauna today and do a little bit of detoxing. I love to talk about how important detoxing is as well.

All right, let's definitely talk about detoxing because it is a part of radiance. And one of the things that I hear at the biohacking conference every year. And by the way, it's gonna be in Dallas at the end of May or June. I'll be there end of May, right? Okay, cool. I'm getting a thumbs up. So Dallas in May, biohackingconference.com but what the press people will say when they come and walk around their cameras, they're like, oh, my God, everyone here is so beautiful. But you look around, it's not like everyone's a model. What you're seeing is you're seeing people of all ages, all different sizes, but there's a huge amount of radiance because, like, their eyes are glowing and they're happy. And that's from having resilience.

Absolutely.

Which is really the core of what biohacking gets you. You can heal with it, but really it's about having enough energy to handle anything life brings your way, including bad light on your skin. So talk to me about detox, which has changed my life.

Yes, It's. It changed mine as well. I shared with you that my flax was doing a cold plunge for eight minutes at a time up to my jawline in the Canadian.

I did a 15 minute just two days ago on Instagram. Only eight minutes, Rachel.

Only eight minutes.

I thought you were tough, okay? You dropped your G for a Land Rover, and now you can only do an eight minute cold plunge. Your biohacking cred with our audience is dropping dramatically.

Here's the issue. Here's the issue. So being a woman doing too much cold plunging can definitely mess with.

I'm sorry. The preponderance of evidence shows there's no difference between men and women. Women are just little men.

That's not true. We are.

Oh, my God.

Really cyclical, rhythmic beings. So this whole program. Right.

It's important to have the differences.

Absolutely. This also comes down to detoxification of the mind and deprogramming. Right. Women cannot work like men. We are rhythmic beings, and we need to respect that. So for myself, if I know I'm pushing myself too hard, I can notice the stuff show up on my skin and energy.

I actually.

And then I take time to recharge and detox.

I actually think that women who are at their full power can work like men. It just comes at a greater cost.

It does come at a cost, but.

It'S possible to do it. It's just like you're.

You'll age faster. Your hormones will likely be off.

Yeah, it happens.

And you might be too masculine in your relationships.

Oh, my gosh. Now you've opened a can of worms. I've seen those patterns over and over.

Absolutely. Because I have too.

I mean, because I do 40 years of Zen.

I've been there.

Yeah, you have been there. Just from a masculine, feminine perspective.

Way too masculine. Especially because I didn't feel safe. Right.

Wow.

We overcompensate.

It's interesting. Women who go into healing professions. I've noticed this, and I was married to a doctor for many years, and I have, like, some of my closest friends in the world are female healers of various flavors. And what you'll find is when. And this is, again, broad strokes. Like, there's all different types. I have a couple friends who've run emergency rooms. Right. And the amount of, like, ordering of chaos that's required for that. It's really hard for them to relax at the end of the day and, like, switch from the masculine, you know, charging mode into feminine mode. But I imagine that there's probably some opposite thing for guys as well that I would not know about because it would be invisible to me because I'm a guy. So what's the opposite of that?

Well, it's really all about balance. So yin yang, good, evil, cold, hot. If you're doing cold plunge, you want to make sure that you're also balancing it. So whether that is doing a detox bath at the end of the night, I love a good detox bath.

What is it with women in baths?

It's warm, it's safe, it's comforting, it relaxes you. Especially if you're bathing in Epsom salts. I. I'm going to be super honest here. I bathe in Epsom salts, Borax and baking soda.

Borax, don't you know that's an industrial cleaner?

It's a detergent.

Oh, my gosh. And Borax is a really good treatment.

It's an excellent cleaning product in the home, too. And it's dirt cheap.

I put it in my laundry.

Yep, me too. So that's a pretty much like a free thing to do a detox bath for about 20 minutes, get a good sweat in, rinse off afterwards. Doing saunaing is also excellent. And there's phenomenal technology out there that's combining near infrared, red light therapy.

Now, is this like, I have a sunlight and downstairs and I'll show. I think I showed you the biohacking room yesterday.

I'm going to be in that sauna tonight.

I'll probably be doing another show. But what I want to know, though, is what you just described. You said there are big differences for men and women, right? When it comes to radiance and detoxing. Walk me through what a guy does to be radiant versus what a woman does to be radiant.

When I see a man who's radiant, it makes me so happy.

How often do you see that?

It depends where I am. It depends where I am and whether I'm kind of looking for it. However, what I will say is when you are operating from a radiant position, your electromagnetics are humming along. You're doing the detox work not only physically, but also non physically. With positive emotional mindsets and deprogramming and just really living your best life, it becomes very easy to. And this is what I've observed a Number of years ago, I would show up at an event. People would come up to me, oh, Rachel, your skin looks great. What products do you use? What do you do for your hair? I love your outfit. Now people come up to me and they say, I saw you come in the room, and I just wanted to say hello. So when we're operating from this frequency, and also I spoke at your conference, and then right after that, I had two lovely ladies come up and I had recently moved, and they were from the same place that I currently live at now. So when you're operating from this position and frequency, the right people show up in the right way at the right time. So when I see a man who is radiant, they have beautiful, balanced, masculine energy. It makes me feel very safe. That's what is so gorgeous about that masculine and feminine dynamic. Men absolutely love to be around a feminine woman. Men want to protect that energy. And I know this is something that you have a huge passion about. And women, when they finally are around gorgeous masculine energy, what does it do? Turns their nervous system into honey.

Women can feel if a guy is in the right space and they can relax or not. Like, you can feel safety. Guys can feel safety, too. It's just, you know, usually we're more like Worf from Star Trek. Like, no one is trying to kill me now.

Love Star Trek.

Worf is one of my favorite.

The other thing here is Worf is known as warrior. So for myself, when the masculine and feminine was off nervous system dysregulation. Yes. I was in a moldy home as well. In a previous partnership as well, where the biohacking values weren't aligned, I had air purifiers turned off. It's very frustrating to save on the electricity bill during renovation. And I knew that I was getting mold exposures. What did I do after that in that sauna twice a day? Detoxing. And just when the more pure you are, the better able you can listen to what your body says.

You had someone turn off your air filters to save electricity.

They would unplug them.

So it's so weird because my way of thinking about that would be like, thank you, because I like to live in gratitude. Thank you for unplugging the air filter to save electricity. We also need to save air. So I'm going to be taping this trash bag over your head because we need to make sure that we save air, right? You think I should run for office? Because that seems like something the government would do too, wouldn't they, for our own safety? Oh, my God.

I think it's a good idea to be able to make your own decisions based on your values and what's important. If we think like a caveman, which is what I know you love to do with getting back to our roots, our core needs.

I like to think, like, it came in with a laser because it's way more interesting that way. But anyway.

Or fire, by the way, candlelight fires in the home. I was like, great. Wait, we used to do this.

Wait a minute.

We used to.

Air quality. What the hell? You can't have candles in your house and talk about air quality.

I know. Especially if you use lighter fluid to start a fire. And rain and hail and wind. Been there, done that.

But this is a serious question for you.

Yeah.

If you only have access to LED lighting in the evening, I would absolutely use candles. But do you know what kind of candles to recommend for people?

Beeswax.

Yeah.

As pure as possible.

Do you know why? Like, do you want to tell people or shall I?

You can tell people. I mean, I don't burn any type of fragrance candle at all. In fact, if I'm somewhere, I will turn it.

Oh, yeah, I'll. Off and out. So any. Any candle that you burn with fragrance is automatically going to be bad for you. It's like those little air fresheners that. That they always hang in Ubers. Oh, my gosh, they're terrible. If you're an Uber driver, here's what to do right now. Take the little pine freshener that's shrinking your balls or your ovaries and throw it out the window when you're near a dump. So it'll be.

Or if you're in an Airbnb, unplug them. I would love just to, for a second, jump back. You went super deep there on the freedom topic. Our human consciousness is getting scrambled at every turn for division. Right. So when you're thinking about political parties, do you do this, do you do that? We all have our own values. So when you are communicating with someone, the more clear you are, I love to study linguistics and communication, the better able you're going to be at discerning who you want to hang out with. And so when I look at someone, I look at their health. If they're taking good care of them, pretty good chance that they're psychologically balanced as well. So I'm going to be more likely to trust them.

You're pretty young, Rachel.

Here's the other thing about what I think is going on. Our brains aren't meant to Be blasted with input from here, there, everywhere. What's most important is the present moment. And then at every turn you are making the best, best choices. You know how to with what you have available for you and your family. And that's going to look different to other people based on their programs and values.

If you use that heuristic, two things are going to happen. One is there are incredibly enlightened and powerful and interesting people who are, do not look healthy and sometimes aren't. But there are some of our elders and the people with the most to teach. But worse, sociopaths and skilled narcissists will intentionally make themselves look that way because they are targeting people who have radiant energy, who have power, fame, money. This is why most people in Hollywood are so screwed up, because they're, because they have all those things. They're attracting huge numbers of these predatory people. So there are lots of people with a six pack who have no consciousness whatsoever and are totally scrambled, right? And even in the biohacking movement, like I know a couple of people who are genuinely like just terrible grandiose narcissists going out there with no knowledge because narcissists don't know what they're doing. So in their own story, in their mind, they're not doing what they're doing, but in, if you look at them, they're doing what they're doing. So I would be cautious about using someone's appearance to do that. But if you see someone who is truly radiantly healthy, not just looking healthy.

But they've got the vibe, it's that electromagnetic projection.

It helps. But remember, a good predator will project that vibe and almost all humans will believe it because they learn how to have the electromagnetics, right? So they're lying, but they're lying consciously to deceive. And the good ones can truly do that. And narcissists, because they believe their own bullshit, they're doing it too. You can tell. I'm working on a book about narcissism.

You know what, it's a really important topic because when you have this tendency to care and be empathic, obviously that's going to make you a target in that regard. So when you have the skills to identify and feel, the more pure you are, the better able you're going to be at reading people. And this is really important. So when you're forming relationships, when in your personal and professional lives to really observe people and how you feel around them. The gut, oh my gosh, the second brain, right? The skin gut connection is massive as well, that's a whole other show.

I always wonder because I, I think there's four brains in the body and so why does the gut get to be the second brain? Like what about the heart?

It's all, it's all connected. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that one is more important than the other.

No, but why is it the second. It feels like there's like some kind.

Of like, I think it's like a program. It's like, you know, gut feeling. Second brain, it's, it's something that we hear all the time. But yes, the heart is so key.

I think that that's programming.

The heart is the most electro magnetic.

You've been programmed to think the guts of. Second. Did you notice that someone programmed you without your consent? I thought you were free. Rachel, this is very confusing now, but.

I'm aware of it. I'm aware of it.

Right here's the four brains as I, I see them. And this isn't taught by anyone that I know of, but you can sort of sense it if you're doing meditation work. So we have our brain brain, we have our heart brain. And there I was an advisor at the Heart Math Institute, Roland McCready in the Global Consciousness Initiative. And what Roland has found and teaches is that 80% of the nerves from the heart to the brain are sending information into the brain. So the heart's a major sensing organ and a decider. And then you have the gut, which maybe is your second brain. And it has all of the bacteria. Oh yeah. Healthy gut bacteria equals. But then the other brain that no one talks about, can you guess what it is?

I would go more energetic.

I actually think it's the reproductive brain because you have a huge number of sensors down there. And if you look at really ancient depictions of humans, it's called a homunculus and it's a picture of a human based on where the nerve endings are. So it's a statue of a little human with giant hands, giant giant feet, giant genitals and giant lips, because those are the places we have the most sensory inputs. So it's like instead of a map of the world, that's just a map. It's like a topographical map, but it's like a sensory map of the body. So if you look at the decisions that are made, like sometimes you feel it in your gut and sometimes you feel it in your groin and sometimes you feel it in your heart, right? And then some people would say, well, now you're getting into chakras. Where there's a little throat chakra. But I don't think there's a lot of decision making in the thread. There can be blocks, but. So it feels like it's brain, heart, gut, genital. And you probably could argue that the skin has its own intelligence because every organ does. But these seem like the major decision making sensing nodes in the body.

And if you're making the wrong decisions a couple weeks after the fact, you're probably going to see it on your skin as well as hair loss, as well as how your nails are growing, your sleep, your energy as well.

That was my next question was what happens if you expose yourself to these narcissist types? If you're basically not dealing with masculine feminine polarity effectively, or you have job stress or toxin stress and all that, what happens to your skin?

Oh, gosh. Well, if you are doing the work, you're doing the purification. For myself personally, I started detoxing. Yeast, fungi, mold, heavy metals, parasites. I know you did, and I learned the importance of this from you. So about a year and a half ago, I started to do more detoxing and cleansing. And then about eight months after that, I did a long fast actually in the desert at altitude and really was able to see my metabolic flexibility and resilience. Right. So always being ready through being as pure as possible is going to allow you to be more resilient and thus more radiant, even when times get tough. So the more clear you are. So after that, I was able to see my life more differently in a different light and realized that I needed to shake things up. And there's no way I would have been able to make those choices if I was neurologically from a nervous system, emotionally toxin system, affecting absolutely everything. I wouldn't have been able to make those decisions in my highest if my operating systems were scrambled.

Right, Totally true.

And then use biohacking to support yourself during times of stress. Stress is a sign of being alive.

It is absolutely a sign of being alive.

That's how you manage it. So some people, they'll go to addictions, drugs, alcohol, alcohol, all sorts of different things. When you go inside, you do the work, you get the appropriate counseling, psychotherapy, prayer, faith, whatever you lean into when you're doing the work and you're literally doing the purification of your air, water, lighting, electromagnetics and regular detoxing. It makes those obstacles. Obstacles, right. You overcome them. That's the whole thing about being a badass biohacker. We just look fantastic and have more vitality and have better relationships in the process and are able to lead by example. So people don't really care about my story. They care about how I am after that to help them inspire.

Having comfort, yeah. Having control of your biology means that you show up the way you want to show up, even in relationships and even in rough situations. It is a goal for me that everyone who hears this could, at a moment's notice, if someone called them right now and said, you are going to be fasting for four days in the desert, that they would say, that doesn't sound very fun, but I could handle it. And instead of getting a fear response, getting a kind of a curious response, and that feeling of safety that comes from knowing you can handle it. I spent most of my life, at least I would say the first 2/3 of it, knowing that I was right at the edge because I had chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia and all these things from toxic mold and very low mitochondrial function. So I'm like, I don't like that feeling. But that's how you feel when you get old unless you do something about it. That's why I'm so into longevity and have been for a long time, because I learned biohacking from my elders who were in their 80s, reversing their age 20 years ago. And so that's really informed me. But the idea here is I just want to know I can handle anything. And it turns out with biohacking, you can. And when you do it, as you just showed in your new paper and in your new book and in my life. In your life.

I've seen it.

Yeah. And in School of Radiance, which is your website, schoolofradiance.com, all of those things. You've proved it with academic research, which is super cool. So biohacking equals radiance when you apply it in the right way.

Biohacking equals resilience to allow you to maintain your radiance and continue to cultivate it. The radiance piece is the missing link in the skin and rejuvenation space. Also, when you're talking about having connections with others, this is where boundaries come in, both with your communication as well as with your values, but also energetically. So I have this in and out approach with people. And if you're a biohacker, you're going to connect with people who aren't biohackers. They don't understand the value of what you're doing. It's not your job to teach them and preach from the mountaintops what you're doing, but they're going to notice. So what you do is when you're in communication, you establish that you might not have shared values. You're having that in and out approach.

It's leading by example.

Yeah.

And when I first lost all this weight, I would just kind of want to shout from, that's like, don't you know what you're eating is bad? And a lot of people go through that. That phase, and I certainly did as a young man. And I remember I was giving a talk at Google's headquarters in Menlo park, and there was a guy in the back room, I want to be a vegan influencer. What's your first piece of advice? And I looked at him, there's a couple hundred people in the room. And I said, shut up and eat. And he was, what? And actually a bunch of people clapped because, well, vegans, sorry, guys. I love you. We have the same values. We just ended up with, like, different results. So when he said, what do you mean? I said, well, here's the deal. You don't get to be an influencer because you want to go tell people what to do. You earn the right to influence other people by doing something with so much excellence that they ask you how you did it. And if someone says, how is it that you're so calm or that you're so fit or that you can do this? You go, oh, sure, I'd be happy to share. That's where real influence comes from. But bullying is what a food influencer does. Who wasn't invited?

Oh, people always ask me, what's the best diet for skin? You gotta test instead of guess.

You test instead of guess. But they ask you, you don't just walk around going, you. You have bad skin. Let me tell you what to do. And that energy of forcing others doesn't work in biohacking and it doesn't work in the world at large. So, Rachel, thanks for coming all the way to Austin. My pleasure to do this episode of the Human Upgrade.

Absolutely.

Rachel's website is schoolofradiance.com. oh, the. Theschoolofradiance.com and your new book is called Radiance, and it comes out on what date?

Next year?

Next year. Okay, cool. So people can't buy the book yet.

They can get the audible first.

Oh, the audible. Is it available now? Where do they get the audible?

Theschoolofradiance.

Com. Okay, so there you go, guys. Check it out. I have done laser work and all kinds of other facial stuff with Rachel, and she is a teacher of other doctors and things, and her academic research and paper she's publishing are really impressive. So she's a real expert, and she's talking about stuff you don't hear in the skincare space. It's not about putting some crap on the top of your skin. It's about nourishing your skin from the inside, doing the energetic practices of biohacking, and then putting some stuff on your face that actually works and is safe. And she's vetting all the ingredients. So I will see you on the next episode. Thank you.

Thank you.

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Aspr.