Ben Greenfield's Indispensable Daily Habits, Favorite Books, Top Quotes, Best Biohacking Tips & Much, Much More!

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, There is a God and you, you will hear him if you make a concerted effort to just go out in the still small silence and listen, and then also to speak and ask to be spoken to. Ben Greenfield is a bold, curious and adventurous soul with a passion for exploring, savoring, and celebrating all of God's creation. I did research that, to tell you the truth, they're stem cells. They're my own stem cells injected into my own body of my own volition. So, just saying, Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. Oh, one last thing before we jump in. After recording this podcast episode for you, I decided to place a little addendum, shall we say. I don't even know if that's the right word. I decided to tack a little extra onto the end. Let's just put it that way. So towards the end of this podcast, if you hear me wrapping up, Podcast Ain't over, I actually have something really important that I want to tell you that I actually think is very important. It has to do with the times we are living in, if that makes sense. So at the end of this podcast, I'm going to tell you some very important things that I think you may appreciate or it may piss you off, I don't know. Either way, stay tuned for the end of this episode, because it ain't over till it's over. So here we go. Well, howdy, howdy ho. It's Ben Greenfield here. But you probably knew that if you downloaded this podcast, you'll likely press play and you know which podcast you're listening to. It's mine. Mine and yours. I suppose, since you're a participant, an active listening participant. I was recently interviewed by a magazine, or at least they sent me over a bunch of interviewee questions. And they're really good questions. I enjoyed them quite a bit. As a matter of fact, I thought that it would be kind of nice to share some of my replies to that interview with you and kind of a long form audio presentation, a solo sode, if you will, as I'm prone to call these episodes where I slam a microphone in front of my face and just talk out into the ether and hope somebody other than my mom might be listening. This magazine is called the Biohackers Update. And what I'm gonna do is I'll put more information about the magazine, pretty much everything I talk about on today's show. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness, dot com magazineinterview that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com magazineinterview Now, the questions ranged from everything about my favorite quote, my favorite book, who I look up to and why, advice for a pandemic stricken world, and many, many other questions, including those about my updated daily routine. I thought that this would be a really good chance to share with you many of those answers in hopes that you might get some value out of what I have to say. So I suppose that the best way to go about doing this is to just do it. So I'm gonna do it. As they say in Brooklyn. I don't know if I'm Brooklyn or New Jersey or Boston, whatever, I'm just gonna do it. So the first question might as well jump right into the serious stuff, huh? First question is, what is my ultimate mission in life? What is my ultimate mission in life? Well, here's the thing. I don't think I've even told anybody this outside of my internal team, which I'd be completely up the creek without a paddle. Without that. We're actually doing a full rebrand of BenGreenfieldFitness.com and as part of that rebrand, there is a mission statement. And I'd like to actually share that mission statement with you so that you might know the direction that my website, my podcast, and me as an individual are kind of headed. So allow me to tell you what the mission statement, what my mission in life right now is. And I'm going to read this in the third person, which sounds kind of, or seems kind of narcissistic, and I'm fully self aware, and when I talk about myself, I don't know, I feel like I'm talking about myself. But I think this will be useful for you. I think everybody should have a mission statement for their podcast or their life or their blog or their books or, you know, whatever they do. A mission statement is very helpful in the same way that a purpose statement is very helpful. As a matter of fact, even my family, the Greenfield family, we have a mission statement. We have an entire playbook for our Greenfield family. We have everything from the routines and rituals that we do when our children are 8 and 12 and 16 and 18 and 25 to what we do for Thanksgiving, what we do for Easter, what we do for Christmas. We have our family logo, we. We have our family symbols, we're even designing a family crest right now that will hang above the fireplace. And in the same way that a business creates an entire playbook for that business. We actually have a playbook for the Greenfield family in a way that I think really lends itself to building legacy and also for the children in the family, really passing on to them something meaningful where they actually know what the family stands for and they actually have written down somewhere, what do we do when Christmas rolls around? What does the Greenfield family do? When do we open presents? Who opens the first present? Where do the ornaments go? What do we have for dinner? What do we do on a Tuesday night? Do we play family tennis once a week? Or is that just kind of a random thing? Or is that actually woven into the Greenfield family tradition? What's my wife's spirit animal and favorite color and symbol? What are my son's spirit animals and colors and symbols? You could see how deep you could go on this and perhaps someday I'll do a podcast about those type of family missions statements. But back to the to the Ben Greenfield mission statement and this might inspire you. This might impassion you to develop your own mission statement. But allow me to share, if you will, what the mission statement for Ben Greenfield Fitness, which drumroll please. Isn't going to be Ben Greenfield Fitness much longer. It's going to be Ben Greenfield Life. But anyways, I might be putting the cart ahead of the horse here, so let me tell you the mission statement. Here we go. You ready? All right, in the third person, Ben Greenfield is a bold, curious and adventurous soul with a passion for exploring, savoring and celebrating all of God's creation, then sharing with and teaching to the world the unique new ideas and discoveries he unearths through his own personal journey and exploration of both ancient wisdom and modern science. Ben embodies a peculiar blend of hardworking stoic fitness and healthy Epicurean hedonism, refined intelligence with quirky casual humor and nerdy geeked out science with mystical spirituality rooted in his strong Christian beliefs. Rather than finding, creating and delivering conventional thoughts and orthodox approaches to solving problems, Ben instead thinks outside the box and authentically and unapologetically educates and empowers people. That's you through his rapidly growing platform how to experience what it truly means to be a complete, fulfilled, purposeful and vibrant human being. Ben has a passion and distinctive talent for learning at a rapid pace, an ability to be able to uniquely and effectively teach and disseminate the information he has gathered, and a confident, powerful voice combined with an edgy and fierce delivery method that impassions and inspires his followers as a speaker, orator, podcast author, teacher, mentor, coach, and energetic head turning media personality. Yep, that sounds narcissistic, but I'm gonna stick with it. When Ben finds a new, interesting, compelling or life changing discovery that he's passionate about, his calling in life is to share that with others in a way that positive positively changes their life too. Whether that be some taste bud, enchanting recipe, a thrilling new book, a fascinating scientist or great thinker, an intriguing advance in human science, or most importantly, a way of connecting more deeply to God, purpose, love and making maximum impact with one's life on this planet. Because Ben is a supremely curious Renaissance man, constantly driven to discover new ideas and live life to the fullest while exploring every nook and cranny of God's creation, the the new Ben Greenfield Life ventures far beyond Ben's history of focusing purely on health, fitness, nutrition, biohacking and hard human science. While his current passions and interests in the realms of health and human optimization will remain deep seated for life, and he'll still be passionate about topics like performance recovery, fat loss, sleep, cognitive enhancement, biohacking, aesthetics, hormone balance, longevity and beyond, still be creating compelling nutritional formulations and functional foods for his supplements company Kion, and still continue to invest in and advise for not novel and compelling new companies in the health industry. He'll no longer be pigeonholing himself solely into these avenues. Instead, as he grows in maturity and continues to delve into all the other fascinating aspects of life he finds intriguing, he's now branching out into exploring topics like psychology, religion and spirituality, plant medicine, nature, immersion, survival and sustainability, family and parenting, life hacking, economics, politics, and all the other aspects of living a fulfilled life that he discovers and is passionate about. As Ben expands and grows his platform beyond fitness, he'll continue to gather knowledge via immersion in books, interviews, research conferences and other forms of education, and marry this journey of discovery with compelling and interesting podcast guests. Outside the domains of pure health and fitness, his stage presence and speaking platform will expand to focus on delivering impassioned and inspiring messages that reach beyond the realm of simply looking good or eating well, instead blending hardcore inspirational fitness with cutting edge intelligence and deeply inspirational and faith based spirituality. Yet Ben's core message and primary audience takeaways from his articles, books, podcasts, interviews and speeches. Whether the content is an interview with a great religious leader about their personal spiritual routine, an article about the latest biohacking technology, or a speech on the importance of gratitude will all still be focused through the lens of a balanced mind, body and spirit health, the two primary avatars Ben is targeting with his all encompassing message of boundless energy and a fulfilled life are a a spiritually minded audience, including the large Christian community who already follows him, who need to learn how to better optimize their health, fitness and diet while simultaneously caring for God's great planet and be health seekers, biohackers, exercise enthusiasts, athletes and adventurers who crave deeper meaning, purpose, fulfillment and a filling of that eternal hole in their soul via creative outlets that go beyond mere fitness and diet along with union with God and even salvation through Christ. Ben's desire for his life and personal platform is to, with pure integrity and authenticity, write fresh, intelligent, stimulating and meaningful articles and books full of content that goes beyond health and fitness and delves into true and lasting happiness and fulfillment to become a dynamic, inspiring, fiery and fascinating speaker who can rock stages in both a didactic and motivational manner to feature on his podcast. Yeah, the one you're listening to right now. Supremely interesting guests who go beyond scientists, physicians, physiologists and athletes, including world leaders, presidents, great thinkers, philosophers, politicians, economists and inventors. Think of figures like Ray Dalio, Jordan Peterson, Naval Ravikant, Richard Branson, Oprah, Tony Robbins, Ray Kurzweil, Elon Musk, Deepak Chopra, the Dalai Lama, Joel Osteen or John Piper and beyond. And ultimately to shout the message of hope and salvation in Christ from the rooftops while retaining a strong and unique flavor of healthy Christian hedonism that encourages his followers to go out and enjoy, savor and celebrate every magical and meaningful aspect of Go God's entire creation, knowing that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. He desires to mentor and coach others not only in health, fitness, nutrition, life goals and business, but also in developing spiritual strength, purpose, passion, love for life, meaning and impact that goes far beyond any physical and mental pursuits. Don't worry, I'm almost done. Ultimately, the new Ben Greenfield life will be a destination for those who, like Ben, desire to live life to the fullest, experience deep meaning, purpose, happiness, fulfillment and connection, explore and enjoy every nook and cranny of God's great creation and discover how to achieve full optimization of mind, body and spirit with boundless energy that equips them to go and conquer every mountain they've been called to climb, along with a supportive community of fellow lovers of life who, like Ben, have a deep desire to make maximum impact with their life while loving others fully and savoring and enjoying every step of the journey with passionate authenticity and energetic curiosity. So there you have it. That's my mission statement. That's where I'm going with this whole thing. So that was the first question, my ultimate mission in life. And then we kind of, we kind of get a little nerdy. What is my history with biohacking? After all, this was an interview for a biohacking magazine. Well, let's start here. You know, I was homeschooled K through 12 and I was super duper intellectual. I loved to study. My happy place was the library. I dug books probably almost more than people, which might have been a little bit of a personality fault, but no regrets, only gratefulness for the job journey that I've been on. But because of my intellectual drive, always. When I was attending University of Idaho, for example, where I got my master's degree in exercise physiology and in biomechanics, I was always a geek. I was that guy who was fit, but though I didn't wear glasses, you would expect me to have glasses on and a pocket protector. Is that what you call it? A pocket protector? I think so. In terms of my intellectual drive, I was pre med, I took the MCATs, I got accepted to a bunch of medical schools. I was considered to be a smarty pants, like, like a, like a personal trainer who was also very, very interested in the hardcore human science. All through college I, I, I actually trained people, you know, I, I would go every semester appeal to the, the I guess would, would be the dean or the educational institution to take 30 plus credits. I was working four to five different jobs, you know, as a nutritionist, as a personal trainer, kids sports camps just all over the place. But everything was based around deep human science. That's what I always prided myself on. Let's not just do bicep curls, let's figure out every last nook and cranny of optimizing the human body. And so I was very, very intellectually driven. And as a result, because biohacking is one of those categories that you kind of take deep dark rabbit holy dives down to just figure out how you can really milk the most out of the human body using a combination of technology and, and efficiency. Wound up really falling in love with that particular, I guess, avenue before it was even really recognized as biohacking per se. When I was a senior at University of Idaho, I got talked by one of my buddies into bodybuilding and entering into it like a bodybuilding show, which I was pretty stoked about at the time. And so I delved into bodybuilding. And for those of you not familiar with bodybuilding, I mean we're talking about deep dark rabbit Hole dives down into, you know, forums and magazines and books and chats with other bodybuilders about everything from supplements to stacks to different forms of training. You know, way back before blood flow restriction, training was a thing. We'd wrap tourniquets with towels around our arms and legs, you know, and just, just delve into every last exercise known to humankind. You know, when do you do your pre workouts and what do you put in them? What are your post workout supplements? And I was kind of poor, you know, for me it was mostly tuna fish and whey protein and creatine and lean dry chicken with some broccoli and the occasional serving of white rice. But you know, I managed to really weave together a lot of science to stack about 35 pounds of muscle on what you would consider to be like a lean gainer, skinny physique, and wound up competing in a bodybuilding show and actually developed what I would consider to be a pretty good physique at about 3% body fat. Well, taking all of that knowledge, I then turned and began to compete in what I would consider to be another sport that is quite conducive to deep forays into science because it's a sport of attrition and I'm referring to triathlon, meaning it's a sport of swimming, cycling, running, but then also like nutrition and recovery and all the little things that you need, especially at the level of like ironman triathlon to really get a lot out of the body. Very similar to bodybuilding. Now during that time that I was competing in triathlon, I wound up partnering with a physician in my local community and we launched a one stop shop for sports medicine where I served as the sports medicine or the sports performance director. And again, it was a geeked out personal training studio. I mean this would have been 2005 to 2010 or so, equipped with high speed video cameras and indirect calorimetry equipment to analyze carb and fat and protein burning. We had like old school PRP machines to take out people's blood and spin it and inject it back into joints. We had a Cairo on staff, massage therapists, physical therapists, sports medicine docs, and I loved it. I would just geek out on science all day long, turn around and use that science to train the people that I was working with. Everything from, from athletes to, I don't know if this is even a PC term anymore, soccer moms, right? I wanted to look good in bikinis like they did when they were 16. Anyways though I wound up really learning A lot. That was about the time I started a podcast as well. This podcast, you should just be me talking about studies, which I still do sometimes from scientific journals that I was reading everything from jama, the Journal of the American Medical association, which I had access to since I had a bunch of docs in the facility, to the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research, to nutrition journals, and I would just sit and share. I wouldn't even interview people. You know, if you go find the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast, which I think started back in, gosh, it would have been about 2008 or so, you know, I've been podcasting for. What's the math on that? About, oh, 14 years. You know, it's all just like nerdy little Ben geeking out on the science, which I still love to do. And so that, of course, also led me again into deep forays into how can you get the most out of the human body and the human brain. Brain, particularly with a real bent on performance. Now, once the realm of self quantification began to emerge, the idea that you could go and get blood tests and saliva tests and stool tests, poop in a hot dog tray and get yeast and parasites and fungus, analyze and find out testosterone and thyroid hormones from blood, and do even genetic analysis way early on in the day of salivary analysis, I just began to take a real, real interest in self quantification and tested my body. Every single new test that came up, I would order it or I would get a doctor to order it for me. I would sit there, I'd watch tons of videos and dive into research and interview scientists about to how to interpret the results. I began to run the same type of tests on my clients and share with them what I'd seen on their lab results and what I'd learned about biomarkers and internal markers to again discover a lot about the human body and little adjustments, little tweaks that could be made to increase fat loss or muscle gain or performance or anything of the like. And the majority of my clients were actually endurance athletes and triathletes, swimmers, cyclists, runners and the like, simply because that was really the avenue I was playing in at the time. And, you know, I was writing for a lot of triathlon magazines and traveling all over the world. You know, I would lead people on adventures in Thailand and Florida and Hawaii and teach triathlon camps in Austin. We used to go there every year and bring a bunch of guys into a house and eat street tacos and swim and bike and run all day long. And that was what I love to do. I love to coach, and I love to learn, and I love to teach, and I love to compete, and I love to feed a lot of what I learned about everything from technology and tools and toys and supplements and nutritional adjustments, investments into that whole career. And, you know, and obviously biohacking has become quite popular and more accessible to many people of late. But for me, it just began with my keen interest in the intellectual aspects of human science combined with kind of boots on the streets, time in the trenches spent performing for myself and with others. And so that's kind of my history with, with biohacking. It's a great, great question. All right, so the next question is this. What is my approach to healing and how is it different from a traditional approach? And by traditional, I'm assuming that the question is referring to like a, you know, modern allopathic approach of band aiding some type of disease or health issue with a pharmaceutical or a surgery or an overpriced implant or something like that. Well, you know, I possibly overuse this phrase sometimes, but it's kind of a blending of what I would deem ancient wisdom with modern science. And I'll give you a few examples. There's a guy interviewed. I'll put the link to that interview in the show notes if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com MagazineInterview. This guy's name was Sire G. Is Sire G. He's not dead. It is Sire G. And he wrote a really great book called Regenerate. And this is just one example, the few that I'll share of kind of like my take on healing. Now, Regenerate is a book that kind of gets into the body's own capacity to be able to heal and recover when placed in the right healing environment, both emotionally and physically. So a few things that I really focus upon. First of all, there is an enormous, enormous importance in terms of the gut, the gut microbiome and the overall health of the gastrointestinal tract when it comes to the gut, brain axis and the immune system and the multitude of effects that a healthy or an unhealthy gut has on the capacity of the human body to heal and recover. So, you know, I've personally struggled with gut issues nearly my entire life. And, you know, it's a pain in the ass, literally and figuratively. But as a result of kind of having to solve my own issues, I feel like I've really, as a blessing, become a real expert in digestive health. And many of my clients, and also for myself, we Begin to a very great extent by looking at the gut. You know, this whole, like, microbiome era medicine is something that I think is really important when it comes to healing. So that's one component. Another component would be the idea that your genes are not your desk, right? There's this idea of epigenetics and our DNA's response to the environment. So when you're getting salivary tests or you're finding out what your risks might be, remember that your genes are simply indicating that you might be holding a stick of dynamite. That predisposes you to something like colon cancer or type 2 diabetes or something like that. But that empowers you to be able to tweak and adjust everything from your nutrition to your supplementation to your exercise, to be able to make customized changes to what you're doing based on your DNA. So I take DNA and the customization of someone's exercise plan and nutrition plan into account when it comes to healing. The next thing that I think about quite a bit is water. A lot of people really don't focus on the fact that roughly two thirds of the human body is made up of water. And water has been thought of in the past as some type of mechanical interface. But we know, primarily based on the research of fellows like Dr. Gerald Pollock, who has been a previous podcast guest of mine, that the capabilities of water and the consideration of water in terms of the importance of healing is profound. There's this idea of a fourth phase of water. And so I'm very into everything from harnessing biophotons of light to drinking water that is clean and pure and mineral enhanced and structured. And that would be another component that I really focus on that might be a little bit unique. I am also very, very much into marrying the neurobiology and intelligence of plants into healing the body, whether that would be plant based medicines or a wide variety of plants and herbs and spices. I think that, as you probably know, if you're listening, you know, the majority of our pharmaceuticals are really derived from plant matter. And I am convinced that we have barely even tapped into, as a human species, the enormous healing potential of the wide variety of created plant matter that surrounds us. And I'm constantly looking into how plants show memory and learning and adaptation and a lot of other traits that can be harnessed to help to heal us. Very, very similar to sunlight and photobiomodulation and the use of red light and then the fact that the human body is a battery, as you can read about in books like Jerry Tennant's, book, I think it's called Healing is Voltage or Robert Becker's book the Body Electric. I'm constantly looking at the human body as a battery and how water and electrolytes and earthing and grounding and sunlight and heat and cold and the like help to charge up that battery. And I think that that's a very, very important and oft neglected component of recovery and healing that goes far beyond modern medicine, you know, fitness and just eating a healthy diet. So that's another thing that, that, that I weave in is the importance of sunlight. Another thing that, that that Syer G. Talks about in his book Regenerate that I'm also fully on board with is, you know, the new quantum mechanics of biology. The idea that everything from photons that might not be able to be measured but yet have a profound impact on the human body are something that we really haven't learned about. And there are books like the Quantum Doctor, for example, that just get into the power of things like emotions and thoughts and beliefs and electromagnetic fields and photons to be able to be something that affects the human body either for good or for illness. So quantum biology is something that I also take a great take into account from probably early, early on in the days when I began to follow the writings of guys like Jack Cruz and have just been steeped in considering quantum biology as well when it comes to enhancing the body or enhancing the mind. So that book Regenerate would be one perfect example of my take on healing overall. The subtitle of that book is Unlocking your body's radical resilience through the new biology. I'm also a big fan of stacking a lot of modalities when it comes to healing. I'm not a physician. I don't want any of this to be misconstrued as medical advice. But people ask me, for example, about something like cancer and I'll of course give them many resources like the Moss Reports website, which has a host of comprehensive downloadable reports on alternative remedies for a wide variety of cancers. Very helpful site. Books written by a doctor named Dr. Nasha Winters and also Dr. Thomas Cowan. I found both of those authors to be incredibly helpful when it comes to tackling cancer. Books like Nasha Winters, the Metabolic approach to Cancer or the Cancer Revolution. Both wonderful, wonderful resources. Dr. Thomas Seyfried and the Care Oncology website, which weaves together stacks of kind of like pharmaceuticals that are used for purposes that they might not have originally been intended for, but that when stacked together, can have a profound impact on halting the development of cancer, helping the bodies to do better with something like chemotherapy. And then people ask me like what would I do if I wanted to tackle cancer from an alternative health standpoint or using my type of approach. Well, it would be everything from, from daily frequent consumption of hydrogen rich water and deuterium depleted water and hypertonic water solutions to the use of plants and mushrooms with specific medicinal properties that are anti carcinogenic like chaga or ashitaba or turmeric or burdock or mistletoe or melatonin or many of the things that I've Talked about with Dr. Thomas Cowan when I've interviewed him. Probably one of the guys who I also really really respect when it comes to healing. Daily use of oral or IV NR or NAD or nmn, which is just wonderful for supporting the mitochondria in a scenario such as cancer. Frequent high dose vitamin ic, the consideration of even things like ozone plasmapheresis or ozone blood replacement, IV therapies, frequent use of rife therapy or PMF therapy and hyperthermia using what would be called European biological medicine, which really hasn't, it really hasn't penetrated into the US quite as much. But I've taken people over to for example the Swiss Mountain Clinic across the border from Italy up in the Swiss Mountains as the name implies, and they have a lot of these rife machines and PEMF and hyperthermia. Hyperbaric oxygen would be another example. Infrared sauna would be another example. Coffee enemas, elimination of non native EMF like WiFi and Bluetooth and significant smartphone usage, high definition dose T cell therapy in places like Mexico or speaking with a guy like Dr. Matthew Cook about things like that. Emotional detoxification focused on gratitude and prayer and meditation and relationships. And de stressing the use of mixed tocopherol and tocotrienol, which appears to be an effective strategy for multiple types of cancer. As I've discussed in my podcast interview with Dr. Barry Tan. The list goes on and on. But that's just an example. In a very, very similar manner, as Dr. Dale Bredesen talks about in his comprehensive book the End of Alzheimer's, about stacking multiple modalities from fish oil to a ketogenic diet to infrared light for the head and all sorts of things for Alzheimer's or staving off dementia. I tend to when I look at healing, not just pick one thing, but I'll stack a lot of modalities when it comes to everything from joint pain to cancer to Alzheimer's dementia, you name it. And again, I'm not doctor. I. I just pass on advice to people about these type of things. And then the other thing to take into consideration is of course books like Bruce Lipton's the Biology of Belief or even the old. I think the best book when it comes to manifestation and the effects that our subconscious has on our biology. Books like Joseph Murphy's Power of the Subconscious Mind. He even has affirmations in there very similar to Dr. Dawson Church who also wrote a book and has a meditation protocol called Eco Meditation, all based around directing your mind to heal your body. Joseph Murphy even has a wonderful meditation for healing principles like in his book. There's one meditation I really like that you just repeat every day when you're in meditation or with your eyes closed. And it says, I will restore health unto thee and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord. The God in me has limitless possibilities. I know that all things are possible with God. I believe this unaccepted wholeheartedly now I know that the God power in me makes darkness light and crooked things straight. I am now lifted up in consciousness by contemplating that God indwells me. I speak the word now for the healing of mind, body and affairs. I know this principle within me response to my faith and trust. The Father does the works. I'm now in touch with life, love, truth and beauty within me. I align myself with the intimate principle of love and life within me. I know that harmony, health and peace are being expressed in my body. As I live, move and act in the assumption of my perfect health, it becomes actual. I now imagine and seal the reality of my perfect body. I'm filled with a sense of peace and well being. Thank you Father. Those are examples of affirmations, healing affirmations that you'll find in a book like Joseph Murphy's Power of the Subconscious Mind. So when you weave all this together, I guess ultimately I'm a fan of the idea that the body is is able to self heal when placed in the right environment and when considered as just like a giant battery that can be electrochemically charged. I'm a big fan of stacking multiple modalities and I'm a big fan of the emotion behind healing. So when I'm asked what my approach to healing is and how it might be different from a traditional approach, those are some of my thoughts regarding that. All right, the next question is what is my favorite quote and why? Well, I gotta tell you, my office is just littered with posters, quotes by Thomas Merton and Theodore Roosevelt, and tons of quotes everywhere. And my screensavers on my computers, whenever I have a new quote that I like, I'll add it to my screensaver and it'll pop up whenever my computer's just kind of doing its thing. And so I can see that. But I would say that my favorite quote, and this is the same quote that's emblazoned on a coffee mug, giant coffee mug that I drink from every morning, is probably the one by Theodore Roosevelt, the Man in the Arena. And many of you might be familiar with this inspirational and impassioned message that he delivered. I think it was in the early 1900s. It's one of the most widely quoted speeches of his career. And I believe it was in Paris that he gave this lecture and is now known as the man in the Arena. The quote from this lecture, but it goes like this. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who come short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. I suppose if he had a microphone, he would have dropped it right then. But I find this quote to be just enormously inspirational. And it just reminds me constantly to push myself and to dare and to not be afraid of failure and to just get in the trenches and then again mar my own face with dust and sweat and blood, and strive valiantly and spend time engaged in worthy causes, knowing the triumph of high achievement. And I just. I love that quote by Theodore Roosevelt. So I would say that that would probably be at the top of the list as far as quotes that really inspire and move me. Okay, so the next question is a fun one, of course, because I absolutely love to read. As many people know, I read, oh, gosh, typically anywhere from three to seven books a week. I've always read since it's a very early age. You know, like I said earlier, my happy place was the library. And I've developed the reading muscle and absolutely devour books. Books that are written by people who I plan to have on the podcast, books that are sent to me, books that I discover from book summary apps that I use, such as Thinker probably being my favorite. T H I N K R I don't think everyone needs to read. As a matter of fact, I read an interesting quote just this morning by General Jim Mattis, who said, we've been fighting on this planet for 10,000 years. It would be idiotic and unethical to not take advantage of such accumulated experiences. If you haven't read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate and you will be incompetent because your personal experiences alone aren't broad enough to sustain you. I'm not sure I agree with this, and you can always go over to the Show Notes for this podcast and leave your thoughts, but I know a lot of people who are dyslexic or just can't really read that efficiently and or don't like, like to listen to audiobooks who have a host of personal experiences that have filled them with deep experiential wisdom. So I don't necessarily think everybody needs to read as much as I do or really read much at all. But I personally am a bookworm, admittedly. My favorite book, of course, and I have an entire chapter in my last book, Fit Soul, about this is the Bible. But sometimes I know, I know people like Christians say this. They're like, well, my favorite book is the Bible, but I guess it's just because the Bible is a given. It's like, you know, who would you want to have at this dinner table with you right now? You know, I would probably say God, but that's kind of a given. So anyways, here's the three books that I think would be my favorite books. Because I couldn't just pick one. Right? That'd be ridiculous. But. But a few that fall into different categories. Fiction. Absolutely. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. tolkien. I don't really think I need to say much more, aside from the fact that I've, you know, I've read the entire series seven times, watch one of the movies, and decided I wanted to keep all of those characters inside my head the way that I liked them to be, rather than seeing how they were portrayed on a movie. So I, I only watched the first movie of Lord of the Rings, but I've read the series seven times and it's just still the. The original OG fantasy fiction fairy tale of all time. And considering that one of the things I like to do is write fiction, and that includes fantasy fiction. And also that's probably my. One of my favorite categories of fiction books is fantasy fiction. I would say Lord of the Rings with probably. Well, I realize this might sound like a cop out, but Harry Potter series being the, the runner up. But let me throw a couple more at you for those of you who don't like to read about princesses and elves and dragons and knights. Poor Charlie's Almanac. Poor Charlie's Almanac. So, you know, Ben Franklin back in 1700s, dispensed a whole bunch of useful and timeless advice through what he called Poor Richard's Almanac. You know, extolling virtues like, like thrift and duty and hard work and simplicity. And then two centuries later, I think a very similar title came out called Poor Charlie's Almanac, written by Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's business partner at. What's it called? Warren Buffett's investment firm, which I'm blanking on right now and you're probably screaming it out at me. I'm sorry. So anyways, it's all the wit and wisdom of this guy, but. But a really, really great insight similar to like Robert Gregory laws of power into human rational and irrational decision making. It was formative for me in terms of my understanding of people and how they operate. And I think it lends itself well to anyone in business, in education. Both of my sons have read the book and I think it's just fabulous. So Poor Charlie Zalmaniac, runner up to that would be a very similar title along the same lines, also filled with wisdom from Charlie Munger and many others. It's by Peter Bevelin. It's called Seeking Wisdom from Darwin to Munger. Seeking Wisdom from Darwin to Munger. And the third book, gosh, I mean, maybe this is because I was speaking with this particular individual about when I'm coming down to Austin to the Runga Retreat in Austin where I'm coming to teach in October. I'm gonna meet up with this fella and we're gonna record a podcast. And his name is Ryan Holiday. You may be familiar with Ryan, kind of a modern day author, philosopher, you know, one of those guys that'll follow for just, you know, interesting tidbits of wisdom, similar to like I might follow a Derek Sivers or Naval Ravikant or the like. So anyway, Stillness is the key, I think is Ryan's best book. That's what I think. And it just goes into the one quality that great leaders and makers and artists and Fighters have shared through all of time this idea of inner peace, or Ryan called stillness, the ability to be steady and focused and calm in a constantly busy world. And as Ryan is prone to do, uses history to teach some really great lessons about how crucial stillness is and how it can be cultivated in our lives. Very similar to folks like Winston Churchill or Oprah Winfrey are two people, people that he relies upon along with a lot of the stoics. And whether you're building a business or you're just looking for more happiness or peace or self direction, I think Stillness is the Key is a really, really good book to master discipline and focus that you'll need to succeed in a pretty competitive and noisy world. So Stillness is the Key would be one. And then if I could give you a runner up to Stillness is the Key, a book that I just finished, I didn't plan to give you six, but I suppose I'm giving you six instead of three. Also, I think pretty much just as crucial as Stillness is the key for anybody who's trying to create meaning and beauty in a busy world. It's called the practice of groundedness, a transformative path to success that feeds, not crushes your soul. And that book's really new. That book just came out a couple of months ago, actually, I think came out last month. It's written by Brad Stolberg and it's all about being grounded, valuing presence over rote productivity. You know, accepting that progress is nonlinear and you want to prioritize long term values and fulfillment over short term gain. You know, kind of written through a stoic lens, I guess, with a little bit of Buddhism thrown in. Very, very similar to Ryan Holiday's writing. So it goes into everything from the critical importance of deep community to embracing vulnerability to using the lens lens of a wise observer to overcome delusion and resistance. Why patience is the key to getting to where you want to go faster in a world obsessed with speed and hacks. So great book. That's the practice of groundedness. And again, I'll link to all these. I'll keep really good show notes for you. So go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com magazine interview for my notes. In terms of what I'll add in. Well, I don't add them in. I have insider baseball. Open the kimono here. I have a team that listens to my podcast after I record them so I don't have to like take notes about what I want to add into the show notes later on. They're a crack team. They're amazing. That's why you need to leave this podcast to review. And they go in after I've recorded a podcast and they create all the links and all the show notes and all the timestamps. And so if you don't go to the show notes, you're probably missing out on a little bit of extra extra for the show. Next question. Who is someone you look up to and why? You know, sometimes I go with intuit, I go with my gut, I go with my heart for a response. And because I'm so deeply moved by music and increasingly have found music to stir my soul and inspire me and emote me in ways that go far beyond just using dubstep tracks to get through a tough kettlebell swing workout, I'm gonna go with one of the first musicians who I kind of ever knew of, listened to and grew up dancing to as a little five and six year old boy in my living room floor. Because my mom would pump this guy out every morning as we'd wake up. She'd pump out a lot of wonderful, uplifting spiritual music. But this pianist and singer and songwriter who hailed from New York was probably my favorite. He died tragically in a plane accident. I believe he was in his early 30s. He was one of the most popular contemporary Christian music artists in the 70s. And his name was Is, I suppose since he's still alive with the Lord in heaven. His name is Keith Green. Keith Green. And his songs are just wonderful. Everything from until your loved one broke through to this, you know, funny song about the sheep and the goats to oh lord, you're beautiful, to create me a clean heart. I still sing his songs on a regular basis, just strumming my guitar. And I suppose that the reason I look up to him is because I'm personally working a lot on producing more music that I use my writing to create lyrics to. Because what I've realized about myself is I love to write so much and I love, love music so much. And why am I not weaving the two together so much, doing more singing and songwriting? And so I am. And I'm working a lot of stuff. As a matter of fact, if you, if you go to SoundCloud and you, you look up Ben Greenfield on SoundCloud, you can hear a bunch of the tracks that I've been producing and, and yeah, I don't think I'm ever going to be on stage in front of tens of thousands of people, you know, wearing a cowboy hat and, and strumming my guitar. Although that would be amazing. Be a Nashville, you know, contemporary Christian country music artist. That'd be like my second Dre dream job, aside from what I'm doing now, and maybe a fiction author. Anyways, I feel like I'm talking about myself a lot. I want to give you good information. So Keith Green. If you haven't looked up Keith Green, oh my gosh, his music's just still so relevant and amazing. Check out on Spotify. That would be someone I look up to as, you know, a person who produces the type of meaningful, lyric, rich, moving music that I would love personally to be able to produce. Next question. If you could tell someone a simple method or element that they could add to their life that would change them for the better, what would it be and why? Well, I've of course recorded in the past about my own family's habit of our morning and evening meditation practice. And I am not going to belabor that because not only do I have an entire podcast about it that I'll link to in the show notes, but articles and videos about how we weave together gratitude and breath, breath, work and a spirit of service towards others by answering question in the morning, what am I grateful for? And who can I pray for or help or serve this day? And then we meditate as we're doing that. So we have about a 5 to 10 minute meditation in the morning. We do the same in the evening, five to ten minutes, playing our entire day like a movie in our mind in a process of what's called self examination, where we're asking ourselves, what good have I done this day? What could I have done better this day? And where was I most purpose filled on this day? And the fruits of that daily practice have just shown forth in myself and my wife and in my sons. And it's just an indispensable habit that we do every single day. However, I also have a habit that I've adopted recently that I have never talked about before on the podcast because it's new for me. It's in the past week and I've been doing it for eight solid days and getting up early in the morning, carving out time to make this happen. And, and it has been absolutely transformative. It has given me peace and love and joy and. And a newfound energy that just stays with me through the entire day, 45 to 60 minutes in the morning just excites me and fills me full of positive emotions and energy for the rest of the day. All right, I'll quit selling it. So anyways, here, here's. And it was introduced to me By. By a dear friend who just absolutely ripped. Radiates the love and peace and joy of the Holy Spirit, and is a wonderful Christian man in his own right. And he told me that when his wife went through an autoimmune condition a couple of years ago, he began to get on his knees and pray every morning. And that transformed into 30 to 60 minutes every morning, either walking or kneeling or sitting in a. In a special chair or a meditation room, basically just talking to God and listening to God in deep prayer, along with occasionally, like, song and breath work and things along those lines for 30 to 60 minutes. So I've been doing that for 30 to 60 minutes every morning. Deep, deep time, where I'll play some really uplifting musical tracks like the Hillsong Worship Station, get myself really, really excited, and then just start talking to God, pouring out my heart to God, asking what God would show to me that day. You know, asking. Asking God to give me wisdom and discernment to make the right choices for the day, asking for peace, that I would be able to be peaceful through times of stress for the day, asking for power and strength for anything from my workouts to leading my family to recording a podcast for you. And it's just been absolutely transformative and well worth the slight shorting of sleep that has occurred as a result, because I always take a little afternoon snooze, afternoon nap anyways. So, anyways, that. That would be it. That that would be something I've added to my life that I already know is gonna stick. And it's absolutely amazing. You could do it in the afternoon, you could do it in the evening. You know, just head out your door, go for a walk, 15 minutes out and 15 minutes back, and the whole time nothing but talking to God and listening to God and seeing what he would have to say for you. And no, you do not need to be a Christian to do this, okay? God exists and is listening to you and is watching you and is hearing you and cares about you whether you are a Christian or not, okay? So that's not what this is about. It's about going out and listening to God because He speaks to everyone. He speaks through everything. Creation, trees, grass, rocks, the asphalt, the sky. So God will speak to you, okay? And it doesn't matter who you are or what your history of religion is. There. There is a God, and you. You will hear him if you make a concerted effort to just go out in the still small silence and listen, and then also to speak and ask to be spoken to so that that would be it. The. The next question is take us through a typical day and what habits I always try to stick to. Well, this, of course, as many of you know, due to my elaborate routine and all the different biohacks I'm utilizing or trying throughout the day, could, could be a quite long response. But let, let me tell you a few indispensables, because this is what I'm asked often, all the stuff you do, Ben, what are the indispensables? Let me tell you a few of the indispensables, okay? Getting up in the morning. I really love an ayurvedic practice in the morning. This would mean everything from splashing the face with warm water, transitioning to cold water, tongue scraping, coconut oil, pulling dry skin, brushing, jumping up and down on a trampoline, watching the sunrise, doing specific movements like Tibetan longevity exercises or twists or rotations. You know, I'm typically the first 20 minutes of my day just waking up my body with what would arguably best be called an ayurvedic type of robot routine. I interviewed an ayurvedic physician about this entire practice, and I'll link to that podcast in the show Notes for this one@BenGreenfieldFitness.com MagazineInterview. And then that would be one indispensable for me whether I'm traveling or whether I am at home. Another would be that after I have done all of that, I'll go and then do the practice that I've just described to you, that time with with God, early in the morning. And then another indispensable for me is every morning I do red light therapy. I strip off all my clothes, I go in my office and I just bathe myself in red light. And I feel like a million bucks when I do it. I put on an infrared light helmet called a V light, which was developed for Alzheimer's and dementia and is also amazing just for acting like a cup of coffee for your entire brain. I have two of these joov lights. I flip both of them on so my body's kind of sandwiched in between a couple of juv lights. And I spend that time sipping a cup of coffee or mushroom tea or cacao tea or decaf cow. I'm not really married to any specific beverage in the morning aside from sipping a nice hot beverage. And then I'll just kind of check in for the first 20, 30 minutes of the day, check in on the team, check in on a few emails because I like to have a clear head before I Launch into my deep work work for the day and make sure there's no fires to be put out. I like that feeling in the back of my head that nobody needs me. Okay, now I can delve into my deep work. So I do that while I'm doing the red light and then drinking my coffee. And another indispensable for me, aside from, you know, the prayer time and the morning meditation routine that I talked about, every day I'm doing some element of heat and some element of cold. Either in the sauna, in the morning, in the evening, followed by a cold plunge, or I'm doing a workout that gets me hot and sweaty. I don't like to use 8ac. I don't like to drink water. I just prioritize. You know, basically that hormetic stressor of heat. It doesn't have to be a sauna, but I get nice and hot and then I always, you know, typically two to three times a day I'm jumping in a cold body of water or taking a cold shower and I utilize heat and cold nearly every single day of the year. That would be another indispensable for me, you know, my Clearlight sauna and my Morozco Forge, namely the hot sauna and the cold, cold tube. Another indispensable for me would be an afternoon siesta, which I've already alluded to. Every day I don't spend a ton of time eating lunch. I instead get through lunch and then use that lunchtime to, instead of just mowing my face for hours or meeting people for coffee, I slip downstairs into my basement or if I'm traveling into my hotel room or sometimes it's in the back of an Uber. Sometimes I'll literally, if I'm traveling, you know, after I've done a podcast with somebody, I'll like take out a sleep mask that I keep in my bag and ask them if there's a nice tree outside I could lay under or a desk I could climb under. And I take a 20 to 40 minute nap every single day after lunch. You know, and unless duty requires that, I just, just simply can't. Whatever, I have a medical appointment or something. But anyways, I, I slip into nucalm track. I use it every day. And you calm. I have a whole podcast with these folks too that describes how it works and how and how to use it properly. If you go to the show notes, I'll link to it. But I use my nucalm app, which has a power nap function and a relax function that'll last anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes and I just go deep into either a trance like state or a dream state or a sleep state. And there's a lot of evidence that shows even something as short as a 20 to 30 minute nap can simulate like a 90 minute sleep cycle. So that would be another indispensable the afternoon, afternoon nap. And although I feel like I could be forgetting a couple things, let me name a few more for you. I shameless plug. I every day use the entire suite of kion products because I created all those to scratch my own itch. So you know smoothie has the kion creatine and the kion colostrum and the kion aminos in it. Kion aminos pre or post workout. And before bed I make a nighttime sleep gelatin. I literally like heat up coconut water or regular water, add a whole bunch of Great Lakes gelatin to it, add several scoops of the mixed berries aminos to it and then I put that into the refrigerator, let it sit and have a giant cube of that jello instead of ice cream etc. Before bed at night. You know, I'll throw in the ice cream if I need a few more calories. But that gelatin is amazing for sleep, for recovery. It's chock full of amino acids and gelatin. So I haven't used I make can I amino acid jello. Maybe somebody should put the recipe in the show notes. Hey, I'll tell my editor get somebody to put that recipe in the show notes. It's a good recipe anyways though. So I make that and have that at night I do the kion coffee of course I sprinkle the frozen kion energy bars as a topping to my smoothie. I take the kion immune every single day, especially when I'm or every single day that I'm traveling or that that my immune system needs support. Same thing with the kion oregano. Use the kion skin serum every day. Like I pretty much use all of the products that I create every day and they're amazing. So that would be. People ask me what supplements do you take? I think pretty much all the kion products plus a little nad and then at night some CBD and some melatonin and. And that's it. Although we will at key on we'll have a sleep product soon. So I'll probably not even need to take the CBD and the melatonin at night. My goal is to just basically create every supplement that I personally use and find benefit from my daily life. But make the best version of that in the world. And that's basically what Kion is. So anyways, let's see. I was at the nap, then I backpedaled and told you about what supplements I take, because I get that question a lot. And then a few other indispensables for me would be I work out for 30 to 40 minutes a day. Not a whole lot, but compared to, especially compared to how much I used to work out when I was an Ironman triathlete and would work out like two hours a day. But I work out for 30 to 40 minutes a day. Typically kettlebells or full body high intensity interval training, just some type of a full body workout or a long sauna session or a bike ride around town or whatever. But I push myself, I push myself pretty good for 30 to 40 minutes a day. With one day that I don't do that, one day I just take completely off. And most of the time that's Sundays, although it varies when I travel and then the entire rest of the day, I make sure I walk 15,000 steps a day. I move all the time throughout the day. I have a standing workstation, standing treadmill desk. So I find as long as I'm moving all day long and just doing stuff all day long, I can get by just fine from a health and an aesthetic standpoint with 30 to 40 minutes of just some kind of a deeper, harder workout. But I'm very consistent. That's six days a week, you know, 52 weeks of the year, 56 weeks of the year, 57 weeks of the year. Gosh, how could I not know that? I think I was right with 52 anyways, so that, that would be another indispensable for me is 30 to 40 minutes of just a little bit of pain every day. And, and that doesn't count the sun and the cold. The sun and the cold would be like at a different time or, or, you know, before or after that, that 30 to 40 minutes, like pushing myself. And then I would say another indispensable would be our family dinners and family game nights. We do family dinners and family game nights pretty much every night of the week. One of my best investments is I take my sons to Barnes and Noble typically once a month, you know, and I spend 25 bucks on a brand new game and we go home and just play the hell out of that game for the next month. And it's about what, half the cost of taking the family to a movie once, and we just laugh and play and have these amazing glorious family dinners, play games. Then we go upstairs, we do our meditation, we play some songs, read a story and go to bed. And it's just wonderful. And that's indispensable. I'll give you one more for a nighttime shutdown routine. What I do is I have these chili pads called ulers and they circulate 55 degree cold water underneath my mattress. So I have that. And then I also have what's called a biobalance mat. I forget it's bio balance or body balance. Anyways, it's made by Dr. William Pollock and I'll put a link to it in the show notes, but I flipped that on to sleep mode runs 12 hours, so it'll stay on for the entire night and more. So I've got my uhler, I've got that, that it's called a PEMF mat and I'm just sleeping on that the entire night. And there's a sleep mode that kind of shifts you into a little bit more of like a delta brainwave zone. And then I, I put on a sleep mask. Typically I will cover up any background noise and ambient noise from the road or whatever with an app that I use called Sleep Stream. So I put sleep stream on and that plays just white noise into the room. Or technically it's pink noise. Pink noise is better for sleep than white noise, like white noise and brown noise or pink noise. But pink noise is the best. And so I put that on. I kind of play that in the background. I got my eye mask on so I'm kind of shut off to the world and then I go to sleep of late. I've also found that applying lavender oil to the soles of my feet and my chest and a little bit underneath my upper lip. I'll even sprinkle some on the pillow sometimes has also been quite, quite helpful for drifting off into a relaxing state. I will also put a link in the show notes to an article that I wrote about how I kind of like hack sleep, you know, and hack napping and meditation. All the little devices and tools that come in handy, like a few that I've just described. So anyways, there's actually one more question. One more question. What advice do you have for a pandemic stricken world? Another question that I like. This one's tough, right? Because for example, as you know, I recorded that podcast episode with Dr. Matthew Cook, which is@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Cook and which I'll also link to in the shownotes and we got deep into vaccines and Covid and it generated a lot of controversy and people still ask me getting vaccinated. And I'm still deep in research mode. I've got two more guests coming on to talk about this topic. At this point, I'm not comfortable getting vaccinated, but that's just me and I'm a very open minded guy when it comes to all this stuff. And I just, I don't feel like I have enough information yet to make as important a decision as putting something into my body like that. And yeah, I know there's those of you people who hear me say that and tell me, Ben, you injected stem cells into your dick. What are you afraid of? But I did research that, to tell you the truth. They're stem cells. They're my own stem cells injected into my own body of my own volition. So just saying. Anyways, though, I would say the advice that I have for a pandemic stricken world would be inspired by an author who's also been a recent podcast guest of mine who wrote a wonderful essay called A Temple of this Moving Beyond Redemptive Violence. It's by Charles Eisenstein and he's been writing just a wonderful series that are just an observation of the times that we are in. And basically he gets into in this essay about how one of the worst things that we can do is scapegoat the other side. No matter what side of this entire debate that we are on, to really be so tied to our beliefs that we become close minded in one way or another. You have for example, the pro vaccine cause and the anti vaccine cause. And if you ever find yourself putting hate or divisiveness in service of that cause, then that might be a suggestion, as Charles alludes to in his podcast, that your primary allegiance to your cause is just winning, is just being right. And that's not the type of person that I want to be. I want to be the type of person who listens to others, who, who loves others, who has both empathy and sympathy for others, and who acknowledges the fact that we are interdependent humans on this planet and at some point the tones of black and white, us and them, good and evil. That's a risky road to travel down. Don't get me wrong. I believe in absolute truth and I do believe in the existence of good and the existence of evil. But I think that sometimes we think in terms that paint the other side as such a scapegoat that we begin too close minded. We spread a lot of negative energy. And we really do not, as is the go to in my own home, cover everything with peace and love and forgiveness and assuming the best. Assuming the best about other people. I'm not saying they're acting the best, but I am saying that that should be the initial assumption and if they prove otherwise, then the fruits of their actions will show that. But I think that leading with trust and love and forgiveness towards your fellow human being, especially in the times that we are in, is a far, far better strategy than making assumptions, than scapegoating, or than trying to simply be right for the sake of egotistical winning for your side. All right. No matter what side you are on. So if you decided to stick around for the end of this podcast, as I told you, you may want to here's why. My friend who has been on this podcast before, Charles Eisenstein, and I will link in the podcast show Notes to my epic interview about him regarding his book Sacred Economics. Well, he has a wonderful series of essays he writes every week and I have up and to subscribe to his newsletter. And a lot of what he says is it's a good dose of modern wisdom, but he's also a very outside the box thinker and rubs some people the wrong way. But I just love his approach, especially regarding everything from COVID to the pandemic, if I can say that right, the pandemic, vaccines, et cetera. And Charles just wrote several hours ago a wonderful essay that was so wonderful that I reached out to him and asked him if I could share it with my listeners, with you. And he said yes. And so I want to finish today's show by reading to you what I think is quite a good essay by Charles Eisenstein. And this essay reflects really a lot of my current thoughts on Covid vaccination. So here we go. It's entitled Beyond Industrial Medicine by Charles Eisenstein. Let's say I'm addicted to prescription painkillers. You're my concerned friend, Charles. You say you've really got to get off this medication. It's ruining your health and someday you're likely to od. But I can't stop taking it. I'm in pain all the time. If I don't take it, I can't function at all. I have terrible back pain and my doctor says there's nothing I can do about it. Well, if you accept the premises of my response, you'll have little to say if we both accept that there is no other way to reduce the pain and that the cause of the Pain is incurable, then I'm right. I have to keep taking the painkiller. Now let's talk about glyphosate, the much maligned herbicide that Monsanto markets as Roundup critics make compelling points about its effects on human and ecological health. Defenders rebut those points, at least to the satisfaction of regulators. The debate has raged now for decades. One point that Roundup's defenders make is this. Look, Roundup is the most effective broad spectrum herbicide we have. If we stop using it, crop yields will fail. We would have to use other less effective herbicides that might even be more toxic to human beings and the environment. Roundup is the safest, most economical option available. Here again, if we accept these premises, we are nine tenths of the way to conceding the argument. By limiting the debate to Roundup itself, its relative harms and benefits. We implicitly accept as a given the entire system of agriculture of which Roundup is a part. If we take for granted an industrial system of monocrop agriculture, then Roundup's defenders may be correct. We need Roundup or something like it to run the current system. If we don't change it, then banning Roundup will just result in a switch to other herbicides, new chemicals, or genetic technologies that will have their own dangerous side effects. Most critics of glyphosate are not motivated by the desire to replace it with another herbicide. Rather, glyphosate is a focal point for a critique of the entire system of industrial agriculture. If we had a system of small scale, organic, regenerative, ecological, diversified local agriculture, glyphosate wouldn't be much of an issue because it would hardly be necessary. As I imply in my climate book, this form of agriculture can outperform industrial agriculture in terms of yield per unit of land, although it requires more labor, more gardeners, more small farmers. So do we need to keep glyphosate or not? Well, if we take the current system of agriculture for granted, then maybe yes. The conversation we need to be having is about the system itself. If we ignore that, the glyphosate debate is a distraction, one might still oppose it on on technical grounds. But the most powerful critique of it is not the chemical itself, but the system that requires it. The good folks at Monsanto probably take the system for granted and cannot understand how their diligent efforts to make it work a little better are so misunderstood by environmentalists who cast them as villains. The same pattern applies to what is called mental health. Thirteen years ago I wrote an essay Mutiny of the Soul, which described various mental conditions like like depression and anxiety as forms of rebellion against an insane world. By calling those conditions illnesses and treating them with psychiatric medications, we suppress the rebellion and adjust the individual to fit society as it is. If we accept society as it is, as right and good, then of course a maladjusted individual is a sick individual. If we also take as normal or fail to see conditions that make people unhappy, like social isolation, unresolved trauma, the standard American diet, nature destination deficit physical inactivity, or racial, economic or other forms of oppression, then again, we have little alternative but to adjust the individual. And if we exclude from consideration non pharmacological forms of adjustment, then we're left with drugs like SSRIs. Therefore, those who condemned that article and its sequel were perfectly correct within their frame of reference. These drugs, while perhaps overused, are powerful and necessary interventions that have rescued many people from depression and allowed the them to live normal lives. Leaving aside studies in which these drugs fail to outperform placebo, if we hold all of our variables constant, one could reasonably argue that they are a beneficial technology, just as glyphosate is in the context of industrial agriculture. In a similar vein, those who accept the basic goodness, rightness, or inalterability of the current system will see its critiques as psychologically infirm. Quite a few people have, with the kindest of intentions and often quite gently, question me again, meaning Charles, about whether my skepticism of vaccines and mainstream medical system merely plays out unresolved childhood wounds around authority. Am I rebelling against real injustice? Or is medical authority a proxy for my father who wouldn't let me stay up past bedtime to watch all in the Family, the old tyrant. I might be suffering from oppositional defiant disorder. To those who accept medical authority as basically good and right, it seems reasonable that my suspicion of it must come from some type of psychopathology. The examples of glyphosate and SSRIs illustrate how perfectly decent people can participate in harm simply through their acceptance of the systems and realities that immerse them. Malice is a poor explanation. This is one of the insights that launched my writing career. I spent 15 years holding a single question in what is the origin of wrongness? I found the aforementioned systems and realities to be products of ideology so deeply woven into the fabric of civilization as to be nearly inseparable from it. Did some evil genius concoct the concept of the discrete, separate self, marooned in an arbitrary universe of force, mass, atoms, and void? No. That mythology evolved organically reaching its culmination in our time. It is in fact overripe. Yet the fruit, the systems we inhabit and that inhabit us, has yet to fall from the tree. When it does, it will split open and the seed of a new kind of civilization will grow. Okay, on to Covid vaccines we could argue about their relative harms and benefits, but again, by thus narrowing the conversation, we take for granted the system in which they naturally fit. Full disclosure, My personal opinion is that even holding other variables constant, the risks and harms far outweigh the benefits. Last time I said that in an essay, I got a lot of flack for not documenting that claim, even though I said it was an opinion and not a claim. I'm not going to claim it now either, nor try to document it, because many of the sources I would use are unacceptable to most of the people who disagree with me, and I would have to unfold a complex discussion of systemic bias in the information environment. Also because my opinion draws heavily from practitioners in my circles who are seeing damage firsthand and I can't cite them using publicly available documents. And most importantly, because right now I want to broaden the conversation to the system of industrial medicine, which bears close resemblance in many dimensions to the system of industrial agriculture. Also, since I'm not making false claims, the scrupulously logical social media sensors won't be able to take this essay down. Ha. If we accept as a given the current state of public health along with reigning paradigms of modern medicine, then the case for vaccination is at least arguable, just as is the case for glyphosate. In the context of industrial agriculture culture, we could debate about relative harm, study design, suppression of information by corporate interest, unlabeled ingredients underreporting to vars, and so on. But in engaging that particular debate, both sides implicitly agree not to talk about what lies outside its boundaries. What lies outside the debate about vaccine safety, effective natural and alternative treatments for Covid superiority of natural immunity to vaccine induced immunity, the terrain of infection, why some people experience serious illness and death and others do not the positive role viruses, even pathogenic ones, play in health and evolution, the decline of virulence over time, the sociological implications of handing body sovereignty over to government authorities. Basically, vaccines are a way to keep society as we know it functioning as usual. The idea is everybody get the jab and we can go back to normal. It's much like psychiatric medications taking for granted a society that makes vast numbers of people miserable. Maybe we need those drugs to to keep them happy or at least functioning. They can get back to normal, the life defined by society's norms. Yet that life is what may have made them miserable to begin with. Similarly, what we have known as normal includes the conditions that result in needing, arguably anyway, the jab in the first place. Normal has been a society where autoimmunity, addiction, diabetes, obesity and other chronic conditions are at epidemic levels. This epidemic is actually quite new. In the 1950s, the prevalence of diabetes in the United States was a tenth of what it is today. Obesity was a third. Autoimmune diseases were medical rarities, as most COVID deaths are in people with diabetes and other chronic conditions. The whole context of vaccine policy includes conditions that are historically aberrant. Normal has been the disempowerment of people to maintain their own health themselves and in community, making them dependent instead on experts to do things to them. The patient is passive, patiently enduring what the expert doctor does to her or him. Normal has been a ubiquitous death phobia that worships at the altar of safety and would sacrifice anything that promises security, even at the cost of civil liberties, personal freedom and community self determination. Normal has been the marginalization of holistic and natural healing modalities that offer effective treatments for Covid and most other conditions. Oops, that sentence will get this flagged as misinformation. Where's the data? Well, that is part of the problem. Society has not devoted the vast resources into researching and developing herbal, nutritional, vibrational and other unorthodox therapies that it has into pharmaceutical ones. They don't fit the funding system and they don't fit the paradigm. So evidence at the level of multiple large scale, double blinded, placebo controlled trials is scarce. Moreover, since many alternative therapies depend on unique relationships between therapist and patients, individualized treatments, or active work by the person being healed, they're inherently unsuitable for standardized trials. Standardized trials that produce the aforementioned data require the control of variables. They are part of what I've been calling industrial medicine. Industrial is all about standardization, control, quantification and scale. That's not to say that alternative and holistic treatments for Covid or any other disease lack evidence. Far from it. But to access their full power, one must venture into realms beyond industrial paradigms and proofs. I'd like to imagine then a different normal. It departs from industry's dream to remake the earth, life and the human being in its image. It is the normality of the age of ecology, the age of relationship, the age of community, the age of reunion. In that future, it is normal to see health as a matter of good relationships within the body and outside it. Society redeploys the hundreds of billions of billions it spends on sick care towards understanding and restoring these relationships. Every conceivable, holistic, herbal, homeopathic, nutritional, energetic, etc, therapy is pursued, tried, tested, improved and if effective, made available in that future. It also becomes normal to take responsibility for our own health and to receive support in doing that. Because personal willpower is not enough. We are social beings and need support. The support is economic, legal and infrastructural. I asked my wife, an extremely effective healer, what she thinks healthcare could become. She said, we recognize mind and body as a continuum. We don't see illness as a random misfortune. We know that resonant attention and the holding of space for emergent wholeness can heal and that anyone can do this. We can return medicine to the people. I see Stella help people. That's his wife, Stella. I see Stella help people heal from real medical conditions nearly every day. Sometimes they're conditions doctors say are incurable. The power of these techniques and so many others in the alternative world is real. And they can be taught and a new normal could be built upon them. Yes, we can return medicine to the people. The power to heal ourselves and each other has, like so much of modern life, been professionalized, turned into yet another set of goods and services. We can reclaim that power. The future of medicine is not high tech. Technology has its place, for example, in emergency medicine, but it has. It has usurped the place of other powers. The hand, the herb, the mind, the water, the soil, the sound and the light. Can we imagine a healthcare system that fulfilled the promise of medical alternatives that have touched millions of lives in the shadow of the conventional system? These alternatives should stop being the alternative. Come on, people. These actually work. They have gained momentum over the last half century, despite ridicule, marginalization, lack of funding and persecution from mainstream institutions. They work. Let's take them seriously. We know how to be healthy. We remake society around that knowledge. No authority during COVID has said people are sick. They need more time outdoors. People are sick. They need more touch. People are sick. They need healthy gut flora. People are sick. They need pure water. People are sick. They need less electromagnetic pollution. People are sick. They need less chemicals in food. People are sick. Let's put diabetes warnings on soda pop. People are sick. Let's encourage them to meditate and pray more. People are sick. Let's get them in the garden. People are sick. Let's make our cities walkable. People are sick. Let's clean the air. People are sick. Let's provide free mold remediation on all dwellings. People are sick. Let's promote education about local herbs. People are sick. Let's make the best supplements and practices of the biohackers and health gurus available to all. People are sick. Let's heal our agricultural soils. None of these are as hard as keeping every human being six feet apart from every other. So let's do these things. Let's remake society in their image with as much zeal as we remade society in the year of COVID Am I saying not to talk about vaccines and only focus on the bigger picture? No vaccine. Their dangers, their shortcomings and the measures needed to coerce the unwilling are the visible tip of an iceberg, showing us starkly the system they represent. They're a window into a future of technological dependency, where we put into our bodies whatever the authorities tell us to and wonder why the promise of health, freedom and a return to normal is always on the horizon but never here. Another future beckons. It won't be handed to us by the same authorities and systems that rule today. We have to claim it. We claim it through the choices it offers. Which future does your next step lead toward? Toward more normalization of the world under control, or towards the new normal that I've just described? The road has forked. It is time to choose. Well, amen. If Charles Eisenstein were here, would imagine he could drop the mic right there. And I also realize that may have opened up some ideas, some discussion, some comments from you which you can of course go leave in the show notes. I've already given you the URL for that and now I've forgotten it. It's at the show notes. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com search for Charles Eisenstein. Listen to my podcast with him. Go check out the link to this essay if you want to bookmark it or share it with anybody. It's called Beyond Industrial Medicine. You could probably Google or maybe not. DuckDuckGo perhaps Charles Eisenstein Beyond Industrial Medicine, you'd find it. He published it on Substack. His thoughts reflect mine. At this point in my life, his thoughts reflect mine. So I'm gonna leave you with that. Go to the Show Notes if you want to leave your own comments, questions, feedback. Thank you so much for listening. I love you all. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes. Use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.