An Anti-Aging Chat With A 65-Year-Old Finnish Businessman Who Plays Tennis Left & Right Handed, Defies Modern "Unhealthy" Clothing Fashion & Invented The Most Unique Chair In The World.

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

In my company, nobody is sitting in this strong radiation field. So you should avoid long stays in this kind of strong field because that's very bad for your health, especially bad for your joints. When you pull up your thighs and you get this 90 degree angle in the pelvic, then your back tilts back and gets rounded and then you need a back support, but even then it doesn't work. I take some supplements for my eyes. I'm 65 now. I haven't gone to the eye surgery. I drive car, I play tennis, so I don't need glasses for anything.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And I was at a biohacking summit in London last year at a dinner and I ran into a very, very intriguing gentleman, a 65 year old man whose name I'm likely going to butcher. But he goes by the nickname Vesey and Vessi. Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you pronounce your name Veli Zhalkonen.

Veli Jussi Jalkonen.

Veli Jussi Jalkonen. I will put the, I'll put the full spelling over in the, over in the show notes for this particular episode. But if you want to access the show notes, you could just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com s a l l I BenGreenfieldFitness.com S a l l I like Sally and you'll learn why I use that word Sally in just a little bit. But anyways, I got to speaking with Vessian and first of all, he's one of the most physically talented older men I've ever met in my life. He competes competitively in things like shooting and military, three skill sport and diving and sprinting. Lives over in Finland. By the way, he also is an accomplished horse rider, he plays tennis and I actually want to ask you about this during our call. Vessi both left handed and right handed, he's taught himself how to be ambidextrous. He swims, he skis he skin dives, he walks ultra distances, he swing dances, he can crank out 25 dead hang pull ups at a time. He speaks multiple languages. He owns several multinational corporations in the ergonomics and the health industry. And we'll talk about that a little bit. And he looks like he's about maybe 40. So he's definitely an accomplished guy. We can learn a lot from everything from clothing to nutrition to fitness. And what he's perhaps most well known for is ergonomically friendly furniture that he designs. And we'll talk about that a little bit in today's show too. But I guess speaking of furniture, Vessi, I'm looking at you right now and the folks who are listening via audio can't see you, but you're surrounded by like models of the human skeletal pelvis and all manner of different furniture designs. And it looks like you've got some kind of funky stand up, sit down workstation desks set up around you. So describe to me what your ergonomically friendly workstation looks like right now. Like how is it that you're seated or standing as we're talking?

Yeah, I'm trying to obey what I suggest myself to stand 10 to 30% of the desk time and 10% moving around and the rest sitting on a saddle chair. I have a divided swinging saddle chair that I'm sitting on with my sitting friendly clothes. And then the table what I'm using is what I call Autosmart. It's one of my inventions. So this autosmart is programmed program table with the software and so it has 3, 327 inch high resolution monitor so that I can turn my head a lot and so my neck gets some exercise. But the table is something which is, has the, the monitor tree has a separate engine separated from the table and, and the table itself goes, runs according to the software. So it means that when I'm in the morning come to the table and I say hello by clicking the icon, then the table will activate itself and it first takes the reading position, knowing that first I will start reading my emails. And then it's optimized by the screen height and the table height for reading. But then when I start typing and I exceed a certain number which is like four keys per three seconds, then the table knows that I'm typing and then the table goes about 3 inches lower but the monitors stay on the same size because the table doesn't want me to tilt forward my head, but my shoulders relax lower. And in the afternoon, interesting.

I'm going to Interrupt you for a second because I have one of these. I have a rebel desk, which is a standup workstation that operates on a hand crank design. And I've actually found that like when I'm reading, I got to crank it up a little bit. And when I'm typing, I crank it down so my, my shoulders and elbows can be in the correct position. What you're saying is this auto smart desk that you work on, that you've invented, it will actually go up or down based on whether you're reading or whether you're typing?

Yeah, that's right. It is sensitive to the keyboard and you don't need to adjust anything. And then you can adjust that how many seconds or minutes you need to wait before it will go up back to the reading position again. And with me it's 180 seconds, meaning three minutes. And in the afternoon, the whole table set up and the monitors are about quarter of an inch or half an inch lower because the spine gets compressed during the day. And so even that I don't need to adjust myself.

Interesting. So why wouldn't you just like go hang from an inversion table?

Well, you see, people forget to adjust. I have noticed that during the years they forget to adjust. And when you have it automatic in the table, then it really happens and you keep the good posture all the time.

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, cool. So you have this auto smart desk and then you said you're using a saddle chair. Can you describe the saddle chair to me?

Yeah, it looks like a little bit like a horse saddle. It has a 35 millimeter by about 1 1/2 inch gap in the middle. There is a spring system under so that it swings very easily when you move your pelvic or upper body. And this will activate your low back and so you get more circulation to the low back and there's the gap in the middle. And then when you tilt your pelvic forward as it should be tilted, the same position as when you're standing, actually. Then the pubic bone with the genitals, female or male, on the pubic bone, need the space in the gap while your sit bones sink in the padding.

Okay. So it's basically like a saddle. Almost like you would see for anybody who's ridden a horse, if you haven't ridden a horse before for. I'm sorry, it's a saddle and it looks, I'm looking at a picture right now. And by the way, if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Sally S. A L L I. You can take a look at these chairs. But it's very interesting. There's a huge gap between both sides. Like, it's like one butt cheek goes on one side and one butt cheek goes on the other side. What's the idea behind having a gap like that when you're sitting down?

Well, it has multiple, multiple functions. First, it will take the pressure away totally from the tailbone. Many, surprisingly many people have hurt their tailbone and they hate to sit normally. Padded chair. And then it takes the pressure off from the pelvic floor. And the pelvic floor itself is full of all sorts of sensitive nerves and circulation which shouldn't be pressed. But when we in normal chair, you put the pressure with the paddings on the pelvic floor. You also create the pressure inside the pelvic in the medicine, we call it the pelvic bowl. And inside the pelvic, the huge number of important things. I mean, organs, and then also the genitals on the pubic bone. So it takes the pressure off from that and it gives ventilation, female or male. And you need that ventilation on the pelvic floor and the genital area, because the physiology is just designed that way for the humans.

Yeah, I sat on one when I was at the biohacking conference in London. I actually, I haven't gotten one yet in my office. I actually have a stool, though, that I lean against sometimes during the day. And the stool is almost in the shape of a pelvis bone. It's called a mogo stool. M O G O. It's made by a company called Focal Upright and they do some ergonomic furniture as well. But your chair is not a stool that you lean against. It's an actual chair that you sit on. But when you sit on the chair, it is putting you in more of a position that would be the same as if you were standing. Is that correct?

Exactly. We say that the upper body is standing, but because everybody know that the legs get tired and they don't like standing, that's why we support the upper body with our sit bones, which are big bones under the pelvic. And so the legs can rest on both sides of the body all relaxed.

Okay, so basically a saddle chair, this special saddle chair allows you to sit during the day. Let's say you don't have a standing workstation or something like that. But. But you have the same kind of like, ergonomic benefits of standing and less stress on the lumbar spine, less stress on the genitals, et cetera yeah. Okay, gotcha.

You get the benefits of standing and sitting in the same package.

Now you also, and I'm not saying this to insult you, but you wear some strange clothing, like not bad looking clothing, but when I ran into you in London, I think you'd lost all your bags and you were kind of. Because you didn't have your special clothing with you. But like right now, the way that you're standing it, like you have this funky like sleeveless shirt and these kind of like loose fitting, almost like Capri style pants. And you call these sitting friendly clothes. Can you describe what you mean by sitting friendly clothes?

Yeah, it's an overall. It can be a short trousers overall and then it can be long trousers overall, which I have now. It took me quite a number of years and quite a lot of studying the microcirculation before I noticed that the body actually hates clothing. And that's why when you go someplace where you can take all the clothes away, your body really rejoices and say, hey, this is what we want. Or if you go nude swimming, this is what the body says, hey, this is what we want. When you go bare feet walking on the sand, this is what the feet say, oh, this is what we want. So any clothing will strain our skin, which is the biggest organ in the body and putting pressures and high temperatures here and there and. And clothing is really a nuisance for the body. And that's why I'm minimizing the clothing. So I'm wearing an overall so that I don't need any belt or anything to hold up my trousers. But nobody sees that it's an overall because looks like a shirt and trousers. And I like. Now I have this decoration belt on me which is just for decoration. It really doesn't press me at all. And I have just got this one piece of clothing on me.

It's just for fashion. So you're not a complete robot?

No, no.

Okay.

All right.

Just checking this clothing, is it made out of a special material like hemp or cotton or something like that?

No. No. Yes. I use as natural clothing materials as possible. And nowadays I've taken the take the role that I take to my tailor a fashionable shirts which I can find in any fashion shops. And I just tell her to do my kind of trousers for that shirt. And my kind of trousers have two seams that nobody normally. Trousers have one seam and it's in the middle. And it's okay when you're standing, right. But especially with boys, men, when you, when you stick your butt out and sit down. That only seam between your legs get tight. And even small tightness presses your tissues and blocks the circulation on large area. And the pressure, which often comes, is not slight. Many men know that they hate sitting down with their regular trousers. And in my trousers, the seams are like V shape on both thighs. And so they are designed so that the trousers don't get any tighter when you sit on a saddle chair.

Okay. So if I wanted to do that, if I wanted to, let's say for like my long airplane rides or times where I'm going to be sitting a long time, if I wanted to wear the same kind of clothing you do, do I have to know what to go in and tell like a tailor to change my clothing or is there like a website where I could just buy clothing like that?

Unfortunately, there is. The world hasn't realized this yet, but I'm going to make a revolution. I'm going to try to make a revolution there and I'm going to hire some very famous cloth designer and make them understand about this, the smartness of this kind of design. And let's see, let's see what happens during the last next few years.

But anyway, you should talk to that fashion guy on, on Shark Tank. What's Damien John? You know who I'm talking about, or Damon John? He's like, he's an entrepreneur. I know he's, I know he's big time into clothing. You could, you could get on Shark Tank with your special, your special pants and see if he, if he springs for it.

Okay, send me the contact information. I would be interested.

Yeah, I wish, I wish I had him in my Rolodex, but I don't. Anyways, go ahead.

But the other development with the clothing is that you try to get rid of their underwear. Actually, men don't need underwear for anything because women do need. But very often they get liquid out of their body and they need panties to hold up their sanitary napkin. But we men don't have that problem. But what is very useful for us that we learn to wash our butts after toileting. I know that in, in all parts of the world, like United States, you don't often have these hand showers that you can wash the butt, but a.

Bedet, we call them.

Yeah, that's fun.

That's funny that you bring that up because I just bought one I'm going to install in my master bedroom because I was down in, in Malibu at somebody's house and they had like this fancy one that does like hot and Cold and different like angles and everything based off of your, your sitting type. And yeah, it definitely, I feel like, I feel like it's something I would have thought would only have been found in like a nursing home or a Japanese bathroom. But I'm actually pretty excited to get my, get my little bedet built now. But, but anyways, I interrupted you. What were you saying?

You are going to love it. Once you leave your underwear away. Learn to wash your butt one week. There is no way, no return.

Well, yeah, but the problem is that when you're not wearing underwear, you bounce up and down when you're exercising. I mean, like you point out with women a lot of times who get like incontinence or if they've had children that, you know, it's a whole separate issue, you know, or if it's, you know, their time of the month and they need some extra, extra support for what's down there. But for guys, I mean, like, how do you, how do you exercise? How do you do like, like running or sprinting or play tennis without underwear on?

In my, I also designed my own tennis shots. So in my tennis shots I have this kind of little, very loose under shorts under the, the shorts where the pockets are and, and that, that takes care of the problem. But it's like net, very, very airy net. So in the, yeah, that's, that's good.

Yeah. See because I'm not, I'm not into briefs and even my wife is aware of this, this research that shows that like bras, like tight fitting bras worn all day can actually be associated with lack of blood flow and even potentially breast cancer in women. And I don't know if you're familiar with any of that research at all. So we're careful with our undergarments. Like we keep it kind of loose and you know, but, but we also try and strike a balance between, you know, fashion and, and looking good in your underwear, which we want to do sometimes. And also the biomechanics and some of the abnormalities that come with wearing underwear. But it sounds to me like big picture what you're saying is if you're wearing loose fitting clothing during the day, you're ultimately going to have better biomechanics and better blood flow.

That's right. But not only that, because the physiology has proven long time ago that the optimum temperature for the testicles is 33. And now if you put underwear and you have trousers on that you sit on a chair, especially on a regular body chair, there is no way how you could cool, keep the testicles in 33, but they are 37. And this 4 degrees extra temperature is so bad for your sperm production plus your testosterone.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Although, did you meet at that same dinner that you and I were at? There was a physician there named Ollie, a Finnish physician. You know Ollie?

Yes.

Okay.

So yes, I know him.

Yeah. Okay. I think he only lives a few hours from you, right? Yeah, over there in Finland. But he sent over research. He actually published an article at Ben Greenfield Fitness showing that red light exposure can actually triple testicle function and give you a big boost in testosterone and sperm quality. When you shine red light on the testicles, like not when you increase the temperature, but when you like, exposure, expose the testicles to red light. Have you seen this?

No, I haven't seen that.

Okay. Yeah, it's really interesting. I forget the nanometer wavelength. I actually have. And again, I know folks are probably laughing if this is the first Ben Greenfield fitness podcast that you've heard, because we're delving into the nitty gritty Woo woo. But I have a whole red light panel behind me right now called a Joovv. And I'm going to begin doing red light therapy on my. Well, I'm standing at my desk because this thing can literally just like lean up against my desk. So anyways, it's interesting research on red light therapy, but yeah, it's true what you say about the heat issue and testicular function as well. So I wanted to ask you a couple more questions about ergonomics and about furniture and this stuff that you design on this saddle chair, when you sit in it, how does your back not get tired? Because there's nothing to actually lean your back against when you're sitting in a saddle chair.

Well, at the moment you are standing and I'm standing and neither of us feels has any need of leaning back because when we have the back in the standing balance, it is truly in balance and there is no need to lean back. We do have such thing as stretching support. So in some professions where you need to work very statically for a long time, like surgeons, et cetera, there we have something that they can temporarily stretch back and stretch their back over. But that's different thing. So in a well designed saddle chair where the pelvic turns into the position, as in standing, you don't need, you don't even long for backrest.

Okay, gotcha. Because. And is that because you basically have like a wide gap between your pelvis, so your feet are planted and your back's More supported?

Yeah. Well, the thighs, when they get connected to the pelvic so they balance your pelvic and you have huge muscles in the legs and thighs and buttocks and core body. So they are used to keep your upper body in balance. So there is no problem at all. But when you pull up your thighs and you get this 90 degree angle in the, in the pelvic, then your back tilts back and gets round it and then you need a back support, but even then it doesn't work.

Okay, got it? Yeah, because like I mentioned, I have this stool that I lean against, this mogo stool, and I find it that it acts kind of similarly. I kind of like lean against it at an angle, but I'm not actually sitting on it. I'm more leaning on it. And that's, that's interesting. I guess I haven't sat in one of your saddle chairs for long enough to, to know that the back doesn't get tired. But. But you originally came up with this design by riding horses, is that correct?

Yes. Well, I've been sitting on the horseback since 1970s. I started riding when I was past 20 and first, the first 10 years I was just riding in my woods, checking up my woods and planning work. And then I started competing and I was competition rider for 20 years. And 1990 I went to see a doctor, a friend of mine and I asked him that when I'm sitting on the horseback I can sit for hours, but when I go to my office I get tired in my back very quickly. And this specialist physiatric and rehabilitation said that yes, the riding sitting would be much better for you. And actually you should have chairs which give you this kind of position. And that's when I started experimenting.

Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. So do you think that part of the reason that you can sit on that chair for so long, just playing devil's advocate here, is because you're a horseback rider or have you had other people who use these same kind of chairs that you use?

Well, we have about 400,000 of these chairs out in the world at the moment. And it takes, it takes one to two weeks for people to get, get used to this. And we have saved well, 50 to 100,000 health back health from people and from them from getting to early retirement, etc. With our technology.

Gotcha. Okay, interesting. Well, I'll put a link to all of the, all of the furniture that you talk about. I know we even have a discount code for folks who are listening in for. I believe it's the is it the US distributor that we have a, that we have a discount for or just for people to get it anywhere? Like I know backdesigns.com is the website URL. I think that's right. Is that correct?

Yeah. Eileen Volovich is an old friend of mine. She's a physical therapist and she knows sitting inside out.

And that's in san francisco.designs.com okay, cool. But I'll put a link in the show notes you guys. So you can use code BGF2016 if you want to get like the desk or the chair that Vessi talked about. BGF 2016. But I also have some other questions for you. Some other intriguing things I learned about you. For example, you play tennis with your right hand and also your left hand. Can you tell me why you do that and how you figured out how to do that? Because I'm a tennis player and I completely suck with my left hand.

I started playing tennis when I was an early junior and played a few years. And then when I came to Sahala after my university, I started playing and then I built up my own tennis court and I built it up 1977 and it was 1980, about 1995 or 6, I had a small injury in my hand and I couldn't hit backhand anymore. I had fairly good backhand, but still, as we all know, we need to struggle with our backhands. And then I was waiting for rehabilitation, couple of weeks and not much happened. And so I got very impatient and I started well, maybe I should try hitting with my left hand so that I could get back to the court. And I was stunned how quickly I learned to hit better forehand with my left hand than my 30 year old backhand. And since then I have been teaching dozens of people how to learn to hit with the left hand, the forehand hit with the left hand, and it goes surprisingly fast. If I teach juniors to do all the rehearsals first with the left hand and then with the right hand, you can't see the difference.

Interesting. So do you think that there are benefits? I mean, do you do this in part to help to keep yourself young? Do you think that there are neurological benefits to learning how to do something ambidextrously or. And if so, do you do this in other areas of your life? Do you teach yourself how to eat with your right hand and left hand, or brush your teeth with your right hand and left hand and things like that?

I do. If I do some outside garden work and so on, I've taught My self to do a little bit shoveling and raking and seeing thing on both sides just for muscle muscle reasons. But I'm no, I'm quite absolutely right handed guy. But I know that learning this with the left hand is easy. And there is so many benefits in tennis about that. First you'll avoid the injuries. Then you build up your muscle structure the same on both sides of the body. Then you can reach much more on the left side. Then your opponent cannot tease you on your backhand as they normally do. They just put ball on your backhand knowing that you are weaker on that side.

We have a lot of people who listen into this show who are kind of like in the 40 to 70 year old age range, which always surprised me. I always thought that folks who listened in would be you know like 25, 30 year old, you know, whatever, triathletes and spartan racers and bodybuilders. But actually most of the people who listen to this show are older, like baby boomer plus kind of a mix of male and female. And a lot of them are interested in things like anti aging and longevity and how to look good as you get older and also how to live a longer time. You're one of the more, I guess I should say well preserved older guys that I've met. And I'm curious, first of all, what is your body fat percentage?

Body fat? Yeah, it's 17.

Okay, 17. So it's pretty low. And you're 65?

Yeah.

Okay. What's your workout routine? Do you follow a special workout routine?

Yeah, Well, I do six to 10 hours different kind of exercises in a week. And in my office I have, I have 16 kilogram which is about 35 pounds. And then I have about 65, 55 pound kettlebells. And when I'm doing phone calls, I swing them.

You swing a kettlebell when you're talking on the phone?

That's right. This is part of our sitting concept. So that there is, that is like work and gym part in the.

How do you maintain a conversation while you're swinging a kettlebell?

Well, what I suggest to people to keep the phones away from you. So use this kind of small ear device, Bluetooth device. And as you can see my phone there on the table, it's like three meters away from me. I need to roll and reach to get that. But when I get the phone call, I just put this bluetooth on me and I don't touch the phone. And with this one you can click the phone on. And when I get the phone call Then I go there and I have half a dozen different kind of gym things in my office and I do them during the phone calls.

What else do you have other than a kettlebell?

I can, I have a. I have a bar. I hang there and do pull ups and then I have a flexi bar. A flex.

What's a flexi bar?

I'd show you.

And by the way, for those of you who are. Who are listening, I'm recording this video and I'll put it in the show notes he showed me. Oh, it's. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like a. Yeah, it's like that bar that bends and, and flexes. Yeah, I know what you're talking about now. Okay. Yeah, gotcha.

And I have a old bull Walker from the 1960s. I have also tennis racket with the COVID on. So there is a lot of wind resistance. I do.

Oh, yes, you could swing with resistance. Yeah, that's an amazing. I never even really thought of that. Such a simple idea, but I never even thought of that. What was the thing you said that was invented in the 1960s?

Yeah, this bull walker. I show you.

Bull walker. All right, let's see what this thing looks like. Okay, so now he's holding up. For those of you listening into the audio, it's like a. So that's like a weight that you walk with?

No, no, there is a spring inside. So you keep pushing it together.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Wow. And so what you do, like your method is you'll work during the day. Okay, I see it now. You'll work during the day, but you use like a Bluetooth headset. And when you're doing your phone calls, et cetera, you're basically just exercising with all these little toys that you have around your office.

Yeah, that's right.

Do people ever think you're having like a cardiovascular incident or something like that when you're talking on the phone with them and breathing so hard?

Well, I usually do only 2, 3 minutes so that I don't start heavy breathing. And so I just do enough to produce some PDNF in my brain and then I stop so that they don't know that I'm doing this.

Why don't you have a treadmill workstation?

I have been reading some studies and experiments that the treadmill and typing at the same time doesn't seem to work out very well. And so one of us in our team has tried out. She wasn't very happy about it. So I haven't got it.

Okay, Got it. Yeah, I have A treadmill workstation that I use when I am similar to you, when I'm talking on the phone or occasionally when I'm being interviewed on podcasts if I can keep it quiet. And then similar to you, I have a heavy punching bag and some weights in my office and then I also have the Jabra 930 headset. And I originally got that Jabra 930 headset to be able to dictate when I'm writing because I use the Dragon dictation software. So you can. I don't know if you've messed around with dictation much at all, Vessi. But rather than typing, which can sometimes be a little bit biomechanically uncomfortable on like the elbows and the wrists, especially if you do a lot of pull ups and stuff like I do, you can dictate your emails and you can dictate even like books and articles and things like that using this Jabra. But I never actually thought of connecting it to my phone and then exercising while I'm doing my phone calls. So the next person who talks to me on the phone may actually hear me struggling through a set of kettlebell swings using your approach. So you have all these toys in your office that you use to stay fit. Do you do things outside of the office? Do you have structured workouts that you do outside of the office? Are you into Crossfit? Are you into triathlon? Do you do things like this?

I have a gym upstairs. I have some bench and some chest press and I have about half, well a little more than 10 different machinery up there and sometimes I go there, but I do this hie tie heat high intensity interval training two times a week in the pool. And then I also go to step stairs running, also with the same principle, 25 to 30 second intervals. I play volleyball a couple of times a week. I ride horses and. But it's funny that even if I do pull ups very seldom, I mainly only just test myself. But my testosterone level and my body functions are on so good level that I can keep up this 25 really without exercising that.

Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. Most of the guys who I run into and the girls who are doing a really good job from an anti aging fitness standpoint, they are doing a wide variety of activities, like a huge variety of activities. Like I was talking recently about how I was down at the home of the guy who used to own Bally's Fitness, who now is famous for having invented like the hardest workout in the world, Don Wildman and He ha, he does like the underwater pool workouts, he does a bunch of mountain biking, he does paddle boarding, he has like a special nautilus based machine workout that he does three times a week. So it's almost like everybody I meet who has a really good kind of like anti aging routine for exercise, it's a mix of a routine with variety. So it's like you have this consistent routine, but then it's also a consistent routine that's not the same thing day in and day out. And I think what you touched on, that brain derived neurotrophic factor and the improvement in neural function when you do stuff like that is, is profound rather than just say like, this is one of the reasons I quit doing just Ironman triathlon. I didn't want to be that guy who just swims and bikes and runs and that's it. Because I think that that chronic repetitive motion rather than exposing your body to a lot of different angles is probably inferior.

The latest finding, what I have done that when I do my swimming in the village pool two miles away, I often spend about 10 minutes there standing on the bottom and I paddle very strongly forward and backward with my arms. And so I get very nice exercise to my shoulder blades and to my chest muscles as well.

Yeah, I'm a huge, huge fan of the water for fitness. Now what do you, what do you eat? Do you follow a special diet?

Yes, I have very strict diet. So I have developed the smoothie which is probably the better I have seen anywhere. It has about close to 10 wild berries and it has soaked seeds, different kind. And there I mix one banana, some plums and about 10 different kind of superfoods. Superfoods. And I have one glass of that in the morning, a couple of hours after waking up and then one in the afternoon. And there I get huge amounts of fiber.

Now are you concerned at all like, like when you do a lot of fruits, like in the morning for breakfast, do you get concerned at all about excessive fructose intake and how that might affect triglycerides or the liver?

I don't eat all that much fruit. I eat more berries. So the finished wild, the wild berries from the, from the forest, they don't have all that much sugar.

You guys have a lot of, you have, you have a lot of berries like the, the, the, what is it? Like the bilberry and the buckthorn, the sea buckthornberry.

We have blueberry. Yeah, blueberry. Blueberry is our main. Because it's the most healthy wild berry you can Find it's the same as you have the Alaska wild blueberry, which you respect a lot in us.

Yeah, absolutely. I just finished writing an article about, about berries in particular because of their, their sirtuin activating properties. Are you familiar with this?

Yes, yes. They have so many good properties.

Yeah. Sirtuins are like this family of age related proteins that regulate a whole bunch of different cellular functions like cell death and metabolism and longevity. And one of the things they do is there's one called SIRT1 and it modulates brain plasticity and memory formation. And then there's one called SIRT 6 that decreases the rate at which your telomeres shortened. And some of the highest containing foods when it comes to these sirtuin activators are, are the berries that you talk about. There's, there's some others like dark chocolate and green tea and capers and even like the tannins and wine and stuff like that. But that's really interesting. So you're doing a wide variety of berries as part of like a morning.

Smoothie, morning and afternoon. And you need to have a very strong mixer because the berry seeds are very tough and hard and so. Yeah, very, very strong mixture which can certainly break them because 40% of the nutrients of the berries are in the seeds.

Yeah, that's something a lot of people don't realize. Even like an avocado, right. Which is kind of like a big, a big fruit, a big berry has a ton of antioxidants in the seed. And I have this video on YouTube of, of me using a powerful blender. I don't remember if it's like the Blendtec or the Vitamix or whatever, but you can even blend avocado pits, avocado seeds and get a host of antioxidants you wouldn't get from the avocado. Avocado fruit itself.

Uh huh. Okay, I didn't know that.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting. Now what else do you, do you eat that you would say is like a staple in your diet?

Well, I don't eat any grains except oats. Oats has been found to be the best with by their fiber quality. And I sometimes I eat oats porridge, what you would call oatmeal. But we have our own organic oats flakes, what we get from our own farm. And then we have on lunch I eat huge amounts of organic vegetables and sauerkraut plus a little bit of protein. In the afternoon comes this smoothie again. And then for dinner I have Again, quite a lot of vegetables and some protein, a lot of fish. I don't eat any red meat except game. So I hunt elks by ourselves. And the elk meat is so much more healthy than beef. But we eat some chicken, a little bit of. Quite a lot of fish, actually.

Interesting about the elk. How is the hunting scene over there in Finland? Are you hunting elk with bow, with firearm? Is it well regulated over there or how does that work?

It's very well regulated. So I have my elk hunting party by myself. We have a certain area plus some neighbors. We are 10 people in that, a couple of women, the rest are men. And then we have dogs and they chase the elks in front of the riflemen and then we shoot down. And so our hunting for this autumn is over. So we got one mother and two calves and that's, that's all our license could do.

That's very interesting. I've never heard of hunting elk with, with dogs before. Out here, typically the animal that you'd hunt with dogs would be the mountain lion. Some people will hunt bears with dogs, but typically with elk here, you hunt them a lot of times with two people, you have one person calling with a bugle or a diaphragm call and then one person who is hunting kind of in front of the collar. And this would be for me when I'm bow hunting. And so you're calling in the male elk or the female elk and then you're basically firing as they come in. Yeah, but it's fantastic meat. You're right. So you do, you do lean meat, you do berries. I mean, it sounds a little bit almost like paleo esque, with the exception of like the oats and the grains. What about like milks and dairies, do you do those?

I take sometimes organic yogurt, plain organic yogurt, one glass. I mix a lot of seeds and other fiber in it. And then I sometimes collect also organic milk from a neighboring farm. So without pasteurizing, without homogenizing, I make a hot chocolate of that. Actually that's one of my favorite evening bedtime drink. So this organic milk with raw chocolate powder. And when I take that, my tryptophan level shoots up and it's so easy to sleep after that.

Okay, got it. Now, what about supplements? Do you use any type of nutritional supplements?

Quite a lot. Quite a lot. So I eat about 30 different kind of supplements.

Oh, wow. That's another thing that I found quite interesting about a lot of the folks that I talk to who are kind of dialed into the anti aging thing is you'll get some people who say, oh, you can get everything that you need from food. And then you'll get most of the folks, everybody from myself to Dave Asprey's and the Tim Ferrisses and guys like you and older gentlemen who I've interviewed who are doing, you know, 15, 20, 30 different capsules or tinctures or oils each morning to kind of like tap into better living through science. I find that more often than not, as inconvenient as it is, it seems to be kind of like the necessity when fighting an uphill battle against living in a relatively toxic post industrial world. But what would you say are some of your go to supplements when it comes to your routine?

Well, I take some supplements for my eyes. I'm 65 now. I haven't gone to the eye surgery. I drive car, I play tennis, so I don't need glasses for anything. And this is quite exceptional. And then I of course take some supplements for my cardio health, the regular antioxidants. And then also I take some supplements for my joints. I've become also famous in Finland as a man who, who healed osteoarthritis from himself.

Really?

So yeah.

How'd you do that?

I improved some of the supplements and some routines and so I got rid of the osteoarthritis.

Tell me the specifics. You can't just skim over this. I want to know exactly how you dealt with the osteoarthritis because there's a lot of people that have joint pain who I bet would be curious to hear about it.

Okay. In early 2000, my insurance company wanted to see the X rays from my knees. And once they saw them, they said no way, you are not going to get any insurance on these knees. And then I realized that my cartilage really is getting very thin and so on and so on. So I looked for right kind of supplements. Nowadays I do electric acupuncture on my knees once in a while. I do also electromagnetic treatment. Couple of times a month I took these supplements and I'm very, very careful not to keep my legs in 90 degree, my knees in 90 degree angle anymore and I try to revive them a few times a day. Also one very important thing, I also eliminated the earth radiation from my bedroom.

What do you mean?

There is a phenomena called that you have this, how do you say, radio magnetic radiation.

Yeah, like electromagnetic pollution.

It's partly man made, it's partly natural, but it reflects from the ground so that it builds up in certain places and so on. And I have seen a lot of sad cases that people have not learned their lesson, and they have kept their bed in the same time in the same place. And so now I have learned to be quite a specialist about detecting where this earth radiation sits. And it's actually quite easy to ground it away from the bedroom.

So are you talking about the natural magnetic field, the Schumann resonance frequency that the Earth naturally emits that people would use for, like, grounding or earthing for the positive benefits? You're trying to avoid that, or is it something different?

It's different. It's different. So this electromagnetic world is so complex. How would I put it shortly? I know the guy who has been preparing like, 15, 20 years the PhD thesis about this phenomena that I'm talking about. But those old guys on the countryside who can look up the well for you, they find where to dig to find water. They are very well aware of this phenomena, and they can tell you where not to put your bed.

Okay, yeah, like a well witcher. I actually had one of those guys come up to my house when I was. Prior to building my house, one of the stipulations for the land that I bought on the contract that I signed on the land was that we had to be able to find water on the land. So I had a well witcher up with one of these rods, these metal rods that kind of like rotates ever so slightly when you're standing over a spot where there is water in the ground, because the magnetism of the ground changes in that section. And I remember he tapped his foot in one specific location. He said, drill here. You'll get water. And sure enough, I mean, we had water. I don't remember how many feet we went down, but that's what I drink now every day, is that well water. And it sounds to me like what you're saying. There are pockets of higher amounts of electromagnetic pollution that could be coming from the actual surface of the earth itself, and you're shielding yourself from that in your bedroom somehow.

That's right. And I've also tested all the workstations in my company. But nobody is sitting in this strong radiation field. So you should avoid long stays in these kind of strong fields because that's very bad for your health, especially bad for your joints.

Can you send me this paper that you're referring to or maybe like, a link to some of the research that you're referring to, because I'm familiar with installing, like, kill switches in your bedroom or turning your wi fi Router off at night or you're not using too many Bluetooth based appliances in your home. But I don't think I've heard before of a method of limiting the amount of high magnetism from planet Earth in your bedroom. That's a new one for me. So I'd be curious if you have anything you could send me on that. I could put it in the show notes for people to go. Read more perhaps.

Okay. Look up something in English.

Cool. I'm very curious. So your osteoarthritis. Sorry to interrupt. You did acupuncture, you changed your sitting style so that you weren't sitting with 90 degrees. You said pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. Is that what you did?

Yeah.

Okay, so P, E, M, F. And then you ate a lot of berries and a lot of antioxidants. Obviously you're very active. You shield yourself from dirty electricity. And are those the primary strategies that you used for osteoarthritis?

Yeah, plus I eat some of the natural supplements which also build cartilage and, and also increase the circulation in the cartilage.

What type of supplements would those be?

There are different kinds. So there is something from the shock, something from the blue shells.

Okay, so things similar to like glucosamine, chondroitin.

Yeah, there is about half, half a dozen different things.

Okay, interesting. Fascinating protocol for osteoarthritis. And by the way, if you're listening in and you have questions, just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Sally that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com S A L L I and I'll have the show notes over there. I'm also curious about your spiritual practice or your lifestyle based routines. Do you have routines in which you're meditating, doing yoga? Do you have a gratitude practice? What do you do from a spirituality or a lifestyle standpoint in addition to the exercise and the nutrition and the.

And the supplements, My meditation, when I want to rest my brain and so on, I go to garden work or then I go to the forest to do something simple, mechanically simple. But then I let my brain be like free. Or then I start riding with my horse. Also cross country, not sport riding. I like. And I need this kind of very quiet, peaceful, peaceful time for myself. I do meditate. I'm a Christian guy, so I need some peaceful time with myself and find a bigger picture where I'm living in.

Yeah, interesting. I'm also Christian and so that's a big part of my morning routine is I typically have about 15 minutes in bed where I do like I read the Bible and then I do gratitude journaling and write notes about what I read. And then I actually, this is kind of funky, but I do a cold water swim every morning and during my cold water swim, when I come up for air, that's when I pray. So I think about things I want to pray about while I'm underneath in the water, swimming back and forth and then I come up and I say my prayers and it's kind of this interesting. I don't know if it's because my vagus nerve is highly activated when I'm in the water or what, but I almost have this intense spiritual connection with God when I'm. When I'm praying and combining it with the rigors of underwater cold water swimming. So it's worked for me so far, I guess.

Yeah. My most typical place to pray is when I'm in the village in the. Doing my swim exercises and when I'm sitting in the sauna because usually I'm the last or one of the last guests over there. There is nobody else. So I'm sitting in the village swimming pool sauna by myself. And. And that's a very inspiring environment for spiritual meditation as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Now we have some people who are actually listening who will be attending along with me the Biohackers Summit in Helsinki, Finland. And I believe possibly some of us might be actually making it over to your. What is it like a ranch or a farm that you have over there?

Yes, it's about 2,500 acre farm.

Wow. And what do you farm?

Well, mainly forestry. I'm an expert in forestry and development forestry and putting the latest science into the. Into the growing trees and so on. So forests are very important to me economically and also mentally and as an environment. So I love forestry.

Do you have some pictures of your forest, of your ranch or your farm? There's.

Yeah.

When you go to the farm website, Sahalankartano fee.

Oh, I totally did not pick that up. You might have to send that URL to me, but I'll link to it in the show notes if people want to take a look at your farm. And also if any of you are listening in and you plan on going to the Biohacker Summit in Finland, you might get a chance to meet Vessi over there. Really, as you can tell, very fascinating guy. And I'll put a link in the show notes as well to the November 18th, I believe it's November 18th through the 20th Biohacker Summit in Helsinki and There's a discount code in the show notes that you can use on that as well as on any of this furniture that Vessi designs. And Vessi, if you send it over to me, the information about the magnetic pollution and also the information or the link to your farm over there, I'll put links to those in the show notes as well if people want to explore that stuff. But finally, I want to thank you for coming on the show today and sharing this stuff with us. You're a really fascinating gentleman.

Thank you so much. But I'm looking forward to myself what the life will bring us because I have line of different seating applications coming up in front of me and I'm also nowadays in development of the bed because the bed and sleeping has not been thought over at all. And so I have taken it my business to do that. Like probably the first guy.

Well, there is one company, I mean I sleep on a bed called an Essentia or a mattress called an Essentia that is basically built over organic wood produced by a company called. Well, it's Eric Organic is the name of the company. But then there's another company, I believe it's called Sramana, something like this. They've been all over the place in the US they were at the PaleoFX conference and the Bulletproof conference and they actually design bedding. I need to remember the name of it because you might be familiar with it. And it's like a bunch of wooden slats that kind of adjust when you get on the bed and adjust to your body similar to a waterbed would but with an actual firm foundation. Are you familiar with this company, Samana S A M I N A Samana Beds?

No, I'm not. But my, my goal is much, much further than that. So nowadays I'm aware that elderly people like me often have the aching shoulders and so on. They don't need any pressure of the shoulders. Then there are a lot of people who can't move at all. So you need so much workforce to turn them during the, during the nights and the daytime. And then they get these bed wounds and the circulation doesn't work. So my new invention is going to put an end to all of that so that all these people will get good circulation without any risk or without any effort.

Okay, cool. Well, you'll have to keep me posted about that as well. And again folks, if you're listening and you have questions about any of this stuff, just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Sally S A L L I and I'll put links to everything we talked about from, from Sally's stand up furniture to the biohacking conference in Finland to red light therapy for your balls and a lot of other goodies. So check that out. And Vessy, thank you for coming on the show today and sharing all this stuff with us.

It was very, very pleasant and very nice to be with you.

And I'll put the video in the show notes as well for those of you who want to see Vessi giving us a little tour of his office. All right. Well, until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Vessi from Finland signing out. Have a healthy week.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Sam.