Ben & Jessa Greenfield's "What's Working Now" Show: A Sneak Peek Inside The BenGreenfieldFitness Inner Circle.

Hey, welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show. Last week, you may have noticed that we didn't have our usual Q and A episode because I was off getting a tube stuck up my butt. That's right, I was getting a colonoscopy last week. I'll be sure to bring you all the nitty gritty details on that and more about preventive gut health in a Future article@BenGreenfieldFitness.com but guess what? This week we don't have an official Q and A either, because I'm off in the Colorado wilderness hunting elk and. And it's hard to carry a microphone and a bow simultaneously. So what I'm bringing to you this week is an insider interview straight from the Ben Greenfield Fitness Inner Circle. And this is not just any old interview. This is a show that my wife, Jessa and I sit down and record each month for all of the members of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Inner Circle. We call it the Ben and Jessa Random Show. And basically it's us talking about all the little hacks and tips and fools and exercises and everything else that we've discovered over the past month. So you get to sit in on a special episode of that this week.

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.

Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is, for you, that's the natural movement. Get out there. When you look at all the studies.

Done, studies that have shown the greatest.

Efficacy.

All the information you need in one place, right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

So welcome, the Summer 2015 Inner Circle webinar. Now, I'm going to start things off with my usual. As you may have read in the recent Wine post, this is my nightly recovery drink.

A very inflammatory recovery drink.

No, it's anti inflammatory. I take a latte frother like this.

Okay, don't get it on my couch. It's beige.

I won't get it on your couch. We're sitting on the couch in our living room and what you do is you just kind of put the frother in. My apologies, by the way, to all of our Mormon and our, I guess what, Seventh Day Adventist viewers for whom this is a completely useless tactic. And also those of you who are of Asian descent and choose not to drink due to an alcohol dehydrogenase deficiency. Any of you these 30 seconds of your life, you're never going to get back because this is completely useless for you, for everyone else. Cool trick. You know, when it's frothing like this. That it is. It's going to be ready. Okay, so I go about 30 seconds or so. Of course, you got to clean your latte frother and set that aside.

It's very disinfectant.

That's right. So the way that our Inner circle webinars go, aside from us both drinking giant glasses of wine, are that we go over things that we have found interesting. Interesting since the last webinar. Random things, things that have asked, things that may even be offensive, like the Mormon alcohol joke. And basically, it's also a chance for you to ask your questions live. You should have a Q and a box there in front of you. And occasionally, as we go through tonight, Jess and I will pop into that Q and A box. And the way that we'll do things tonight is I will start off by going over my kind of latest thing that I've been getting into. Jess will go over hers, we'll answer a question, and then we'll keep going into the. The next big thing that we're going to talk about. So, that being said, the first thing that I want to get into is I get a lot of questions about my. My recovery toolbox. And I'm into this new thing now, and I'm working on designing this into an actual workout. But it's. It's a combination of a mobility workout, an actual workout routine. It involves breath restriction, mobility work, and exercise. Jessa watched me doing this for 45 minutes out on the porch in my underwear.

That's why I'm really busy doing my work at that point.

I'm doing this about once or twice a week in the morning. So it is a way for you to be able to hack into all of the mobility techniques that are in my. My favorite book, actually. Must have Slide that wine just so I don't spill it while I do some demos here. Thanks. So what I have is I keep in the living room a giant box. I'll show it to you here. The reason I keep it in the.

Living room, the only reason it's in a box is because I put it.

In a box so that it's top of mind. Oh. And yes, I'm in my underwear. Sorry, I forgot about that. Okay, so this is what the box looks like. This box sits in the corner of the living room, and it is my go to for my mobility work. So the first Thing that's in it. And I recommend that any of you who are trying to kind of stay put together for life and want to, like, be in the game in terms of reducing joint pain, et cetera, for a long time, especially those of you doing. You can't even see my face. Spartan races, triathlons, stuff like that. Stuff that beats up the body, Stuff that takes your body what we may call above and beyond the call of duty, that you try out some of these things. So, first of all, I keep my cookbook in here. Becoming a Supple Leper. Okay? So anytime I have an ache or a pain in a specific body part, I simply flip to the section of the book that addresses that body part, and I pretty much do just about everything in that section until the pain goes away. Usually it takes, like, three or four rounds, three or four kind of, like, workouts, mobility workouts, for that pain to go away. Okay. A few of the things that I keep in here, and I will tell you after I demonstrate some of these things, how I actually do the workout and make it a workout workout, not just laying around on a foam roller. Yeah. So I talked about this on a recent podcast.

It sounds like something out of Star Wars.

It's kind of cool because it's like a bunch of little rollerblade wheels, but it's extremely hard and really digs into fascia and muscle tissue. And it sits on this that I can. I can roll with it. Okay. So this one's called a battle Star. I don't think you can get it on Amazon. I think Rogue Fitness carries them. Kelly Starratt's website, Mobility1 probably has them. Roma roller. Okay. So it's like a roller with the ridges on it. I keep this in there. Okay. A vibrating foam roller. You probably saw me demonstrate this recently on the YouTube channel, but it's literally just a foam roller that vibrates if you can catch that vibration on the screen there. This is not necessary. Honestly. It's kind of a toy. Full disclosure, they sent it to me. I don't know if I would spend, whatever it is, 100 bucks on a foam roller, but there you go. I don't know why Dave Asprey's sleep induction mat is in here.

How is it the boys were in here?

I don't use it that much, but sometimes after mobility workout or when you want to relax, it is nice to lay this thing down on the ground.

Our boys like to wear that. Like a Jeep.

Bunch of spikes that kind of spike into you when you lay down on It. Okay. Some of the other things. I've got a variety of different muscle sticks, and I have, like, every muscle stick on the face of the planet because they can all be used for a variety of different purposes. Okay. This looks like some kind of a sadomasochistic, like, dominatrix box, but basically, especially the beads. Basically, you know, for the knees, the back. Different areas of the body will get hit differently by these different sticks. And, you know, I just kind of have added to the repertoire of muscle tools that sit in this box over the. Over the years. If you're any of the athletes who I coach, you know that I'm constantly, like, sending you links to, like, pick up this one, pick up that one. For different injuries that you may get because they're good for specific issues, like for thoracic mobility. I've got one of these, right. For just going up and down the low back. So a couple of other things that are kind of crucial, in my opinion, to have. Have it in your toolbox. Some kind of a ball. This is a spiky ball because it. I got it from the same people that do the Rumble Roller, and they're obsessed with, like, spikes and ridges. I forget what this one's called. If I had to name it, I would call it Spiky Ball. Spiky Ball.

Star Stardust, Star of Death.

Anyways, though, it's good for, like, digging into your hips, underneath your armpits, stuff like that. Okay. A few other things that I keep. I have an electrical muscle stimulation device. I actually have both the Mark Pro and the Compex in here. But, I mean, you know, Mark Pro is better for injuries. Honestly, Compex is more for something like, doing a workout. This is something that I would hook up to my body when I'm, like, working during the day, etc. Aside from that, there's just, like, a few random ace bandages and stuff like that in here. But ultimately, that is what the. What the toolbox looks like.

You pick three, the top three you could have. What would they be?

The Rumble roller, a muscle stick, and a ball. Right. Like, those are the only three that you really need. And I would say I would throw the book in there. But honestly, if you really want to, you could probably, like, hunt most of this stuff down on YouTube. Okay, so what do I do with all that? That's the question. Because I know that, honestly, it'll be like, you know, whatever. A bunch of random recommendations from me for a shopping list. Oh, and this. I keep a training mask in there that this leads into what I actually do with this. So here's what I do.

Goes really well with the, with the Death Star. What is it? Because then you sound like Darth Vader and then you have the.

So I put on a mask to restrict oxygen. Okay? This just makes anything that would normally be easy harder. Okay? So I put on the mask to restrict oxygen. And then what I do is I start with my feet and my ankles, roll my feet, my ankles, all the way up to my calves, and then I stand up and I either do 10 burpees or 100 jumping jacks or 10 high knees or something to get the heart rate up. Okay? Then that's 30 to 60 seconds of exercise. Pick your poison, whatever it is, sometimes it will be exercise that focuses on that specific body part, right? So if I've just rolled out my IT bands, I will do like 20 leg swings side to side to improve mobility in the IT bands and to get my heart rate up after I've rolled them out. But anyways, I start with the lower leg and do the calves and then exercise, and then I do from the knees up to the hamstrings and then exercise, and then I do the hips and then exercise, then the front of the quads, then exercise, then the IT bands, then exercise the adductors, then exercise the low back and then exercise the thoracic spine, then exercise the shoulders underneath the armpits and then exercise and then finally the neck. That and I just put on a podcast or an audiobook. It's about a 30 to 45 minute routine. I guarantee if you start doing this routine, I'm working on riding it out for our inner circle members too. Like, if you pay attention to the workouts that I upload each week into the inner circle, you'll start to see this one appear. But basically, when you finish, not only have you worked on your heart rate and your heart rate recovery, but you've also worked on your. On your breath work and your diaphragm, right? If you wear one of these. And then you've also pretty much hit every single part of your body, with fascia being important for everything from like, releasing neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin to getting rid of your propensity for injuries, especially in specific body parts. But literally, like, that is what has kept me, A, from spending hundreds of dollars at the massage therapist every month. And B, just staying put together because you're working on breathwork, focus, fascial adhesions, all this stuff all at the same time. Of all the things that I wanted to show, this is my latest thing, because I figured out, well, hey, I can stay fit. I can get my heart rate up, I can do breath work, and I can do mobility work all at the same time. And it's incredibly effective. And literally, it takes 30 to 45 minutes. It's not just hitting the foam roller for 10 minutes, but I feel like a new man every week when I do this. And, like, on a race week or an important week, I'll do it twice a week. So I will shut up now while Jessa talks about her favorite. If you have a question about anything I just talked about, leave it in the Q and A box if you're watching live, and we'll address it. And while Jessa talks, I'm gonna put on another recovery tool that I talk about. I'll talk about in a second, but in the meantime, I'll let Jessa take it away. I gotta have a glass of wine because now my throat's dry while I'm talking. Okay, go ahead.

Well, mine's. I feel, like, very different than Ben's. I think it is usually very different from Ben's, because, honestly, this year, I feel like I've held back more on the working out genre of life. And mainly that's just because I wanted to see how that would affect my body, because I have dealt with, for a majority of my life with migraines. And then recently, my hair was falling out for a long period of time. Not like it was growing back, but it was coming out, and it worried me a little bit. So one of the things I started cutting back on is stressful workout, like, where I felt like my body was really overstressed or just it didn't feel good, like, competing. If it was stressing me out, then I kind of stepped back from that a little bit. And honestly, to report, I have not dealt with a migraine headache in the last three months, and my hair has not fallen out for a while now. And so I've actually had some really positive. And I wanted to ask Ben exactly why that might happen.

I haven't heard any of this. This is all new to me. I mean, I knew that you weren't working out as much. I thought it was because you were doing way more, like, gardening.

Well, it's that too. But I'm not just saying I don't want people to think that I just, like, stop doing anything physical. I still do very physical things. Like, last week, I was hauling up, you know, cinder blocks In a wheelbarrow, up a hill. You know, it's not that I'm like, totally, like, I'm done with physical activity. No, I just, for me, I'm more working. Sorry, our dog just walked in. Let's and go. I'm more focusing on movement, I guess, with a purpose, with a goal in the end. So like some people, you are building a brick wall or something like that, and they're hauling the bricks up the hill by hand and building a wall at the same time while achieving a workout and that kind of stuff. So my workouts have been more workouts with purpose, I guess, with an actual physical. Like, I received something at the end. Does that make sense?

One of the primary causes of migraine headaches is vasoconstriction. That's related to inflammation. Sometimes the inflammation, and this doesn't have to be just for migraine headaches. This can be headaches in general. Sometimes the inflammation is due to food allergies, what are known as tyramines, histamine, such as you would find in packaged food. Sometimes the inflammation is due to blood sugar swings and high blood glucose. Constantly high blood glucose levels from a high carb intake. Sometimes the inflammation is environmental. EMFs, water, stuff like that. But also, this is an observation, and I'm not saying this to throw you under the bus or anything like that, but sometimes the inflammation is due to exercise. And specifically it's due to exercise that is not accompanied by a lot of the stuff that I just eat out on.

Right.

You've got all these adhesions because, like, I watch you work out and you work out really hard, but you don't do any of the stuff that I just talked about. And I don't. And I see this over and over again in my clients who neglect their injury prevention workouts because they just like the part about getting fit. Or, you know, fellow athletes who drop off the face of the map for a couple months because they're injured with it, band friction syndrome or whatever. They're not doing the kind of stuff that just like, keeps you in the game. I mean, like right now, I mean, like, here, I'll show you what I just did. And this was not something I was going to talk about, but it's just do it like I'm wearing giant, you know, moon boots now as I sit here, just again, because, you know, it's. It's one of those things where a lot of times, like, you just have to figure out here and there where to. Where to squeeze in the recovery. But that's why a lot of people will get things like headaches and not feel good once they start to exercise. It's all just inflammation, so.

Yes, but sometimes I feel like it's after I do, like, very jarring workouts, like where if I did a HIIT class or something like that, where I feel like maybe it's more like alignment.

That's the other thing. You read my mind. Okay. Cervical alignment and jaw alignment are two things that if you deal with headaches, right. And you've already kind of looked into, like, tyramines, histamines, inflammation, you know, blood sugar stabilization, and you're solid on all those fronts, then you start to delve into cervical alignment and jaw alignment. And again, the actual alignment of those tissues affects vasoconstriction, like vascular flow to the head.

I've been wondering a lot about that because I've had massive work done in my mouth. I've had braces, and I've done all of that.

Yeah, so that would be a deal. Where you see either a holistic dentist or.

So you don't think it's exercise related.

To pyro or both? I think that it is likely due to a combination of the alignment issue that we just talked about, inadequate recovery with you because you eat a really good diet. I doubt that. It's histamine, tyramine, blood sugar, I've kind of ruled out.

For a long while, I thought my headaches were from wine, but I realized that I could drink wine and be totally fine. But then there were days where I could drink wine and it would just affect me differently. It wasn't like the wine. It was just like that day or something. Well, sorry, no, it was kind of a question and like, something that I have been experimenting a little bit with. And also it is because I've been doing a lot more of farming stuff. Yeah, gardening. It's been its own trial. And I will call it.

They call it crop fit.

Or farm fit.

Question from Bob in the inner circle. And by the way, if you're ever unable to make it to one of our webinars and you just want to leave a question beforehand whenever you get that email that says, hey, hey, here's our next webinar. You can log in and ask a question. So Bob says, hey, Ben, I know you get asked to try a lot of new supplements and you discuss several on an ongoing basis in your weekly podcast. Can you tell us what you are taking currently and what your basis is for making a change in what you take? You know, I get this question a lot because I'll talk about like a supplement or like somebody will ask about whatever. I'm getting a shoulder labrum surgery or I get headaches frequently or I've got eczema or whatever. I will recommend some kind of natural remedy or essential oil or a supplement and people will automatically assume I take it. That's not the deal because I've mentioned probably in the past month 50 different natural remedies or oils or whatever. The fact is, it's not the fact that I use all that stuff. What do I use? I use a multivitamin total shotgun approach just to cover the bases. I use the Exos multivitamin three in the morning, three in the evening. There are two things I take that I cycle. I will take them typically in the four weeks leading up to a high priority race. Those two things are a an herbal testosterone support blend I use Aggressive Strength by Mike Mailer and Colostrum. Those two are at some points during the year I take them. It's something I load with leading up to an event. What else do I take? On days where I don't eat fish and I don't have good omega 3 fatty acid intake, I will take either some fish oil or some krill oil. Again, that's not a daily. All this depends on what my diet is going to look like that day. If I have a big steak that night, I'm getting boatloads of omega 3 fatty acids from grass fed beef. I'm not going to take fish oil that day. I have tested my gut and because of the amount of stress my body goes through from exercise, I have low enzyme production. I don't take a digestive enzyme. Totally don't want to gross you out here. I wind up with pieces of food in my crap because my body does not produce adequate digestive enzymes to support the number of calories that I must eat to support the unnaturally high levels of physical activity that I do to prepare for the sports that I'm competing in. Before almost every meal I take a digestive enzyme. What else? If I am injured, I will take the Nature Flex stuff. But again, that's not every day. If I'm injured, I'll take 12 capsules of that a day until I'm pain free. Just a boatload of the nature flex which is like turmeric, curcumin, etc. Anything else? Occasionally, as I mentioned before on podcast, on a very, very cognitively demanding day, I will take a smart drug. Anything from like Siltep to Alpha Brain to neurotropic infused coffee. Honestly, I don't have a system. I will use whatever I happen to kind of want to play around with that day. And then for sleep I will use. Actually have. So now I use this stuff. Now, nature cbd, it's cannabidiol. I take three capsules before bed to help with sleep because it has a bunch of things that help to calm you if you take less than that. Like if you take one, it just helps with focus. It stacks well with smart drugs, that's another thing. And that is about it. If I'm traveling and I'm not eating a lot of the nice fermented foods that we have here, like kimchi or kombucha, I will use a probiotic, I'll travel with a heat stable probiotic, and that's it. So again, like a daily, like every single day that I take year round would be a multivitamin. Oh, and then one other creatine. Right. So those are two I just take every day, year round. Multivitamin and creatine. So that's it. So when you swing open my refrigerator and you see like 20 different bottles, you will. Yeah, I don't take those every day. Like some bottles are gonna be in there a year and a half because that's how long it takes me to go through them because it's only on occasion that I would take something. So you always want to supplement intelligently, preferably in the presence of testing. Right? Like blood testing. Let's say you do DNA testing and you wind up having the MTHFR gene and being like heterozygous for that gene. Well, maybe you'd have to take a boatload of methyltetrahydrofolate because you don't adequately produce folate from food sources. Or let's say you don't get a lot of sun and just because of where you live, you can't get a lot of sun. And you test and you're low in vitamin D. You take a blend of vitamin D and of course vitamin K and magnesium to assist with the vitamin D absorption. But again, it's not like an everyday thing, or not an everyday thing in every person thing. Okay, So I do recommend a blood test, a gut test and DNA test to customize what it is. It's a good question. What is another thing that I wanted to talk about. I made a little list here of things. Okay. All right, so I've got another one kind of workout based that I recommend. Now I understand that this is like an Expense. Just like some of the other stuff that I talked about earlier, like the recovery box. Right. That's an expense. But I recently purchased an incline treadmill.

I tried it for the first time yesterday.

A Nordic track incline trainer. This is different than a gym treadmill, which will go up to 15% incline. This goes from 20 up to 40%. Why did I do that? First of all, there are a boatload of mountains that I must climb in these spartan races. Just steep, ungodly steep inclines that you're literally like inching up. But the other reason is that when you are walking on a 20 or 30 or 40% incline, you are engaged in very, very low joint impact with extremely high heart rate and cardiovascular stimulus. So for me, as I age, as my knees and my hips and my ankles become less and less able to take a pounding, it's quite beneficial for me to say, instead of going on a 45 minute run, to instead walk on an incline, a very, very steep incline for that same period of time. Why wouldn't I go outside and climb in a mountain in my backyard? Because what goes up must come down. Unless you're on a treadmill. So if I were to go and do that outside and just say, okay, I'm going to go on a steep walk. Yeah, I go on a steep walk, but I still have to pound my knees going back down. So this incline trainer has literally changed the efficiency with which I can massively improve my VO2 max, my lactate threshold, etc. But without the impact. And there are a ton of things you can do with it. Like you could wear one of those elevation training masks. You could wear a weighted vest. I'll sometimes carry a sandbag over one shoulder and see if I can walk for 15 minutes. Right? Just like shifting the sandbag from shoulder to shoulder. Again, if you go look in the inner circle at our workouts that I post every week, you'll see some of the workouts that I'm doing on it. But ultimately, you could buy one new from NordicTrack. They have a payment plan, right? They have like some kind of a 0% interest for 12 months. So honestly, if you just want to let go, go buy one and have it be easy on cash flow. You could, you can find them on ebay, you can find them on Craigslist. That's one of the best ways to get exercise equipment is rich people on Craigslist literally pay you to take away things they bought that they never used. And then treadmills are way up there. Just make sure It'll actually go at 20 to 40%. But an incline treadmill, that's one of my latest things I've been using. I mean, I'm literally on that almost every day.

What happens when you go to races and you have the descent? Does it, like, hurt more, or are you just kind of like.

What I've been doing is it's a different muscle group. Once a week, I've been practicing a workout where I descend. Okay.

I was gonna say, because you have to work the quads.

You do. You do, yeah. Or you just have to be really sore after the race. So once a week, I do a workout. That's. That's a.

But if you're gonna be running down a hill, you have to stop.

I agree. Like, that eccentric lengthening, that breaking of the muscle.

You do have to work.

All right, your turn, babe.

Okay, so what was it? About a month ago, we got our rainbow vacuum.

A rainbow vacuum. Yes. I actually have.

This is my new household gadget.

That. And real quick, just so you know.

Have you already spoken about this?

No, I haven't, but I do have a podcast coming out about the dangers of conventional vacuum cleaners, so I will go into this more in depth science and detail.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, I'm just gonna tell you. So the rainbow vacuum basically uses a water system which traps dust and hair and whatever in the water so that it doesn't get kicked back up into the air, is how I understand it. I think that's right.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So, but some things that I've noticed with it as, instead of sweeping, which kicks around, we have a dog, God bless him, he sheds. But when I sweep, you know, you get a good portion of it, but a lot of it gets kicked up back up in the air and, you know, settles somewhere else. And so you're not really totally getting everything clean. And part of me is okay with that. I'm like, you know, that's just life. But since getting the rain, this rainbow vacuum, it's really actually lessened the amount of time I've had to dust, just kind of wipe things down. And, you know, because it basically is taking what's on the floor and trapping it inside the machine. And so that's really kind of a cool new. And we're in new construction, and so new construction, I mean, has a lot of dust. We are working and putting it on board and stuff like that. And so there's all kinds of stuff, sand and dirt coming in on my kids, on the dogs, or just through the windows. And so it's something that I've really had to struggle with over the past year is because we've just had all this bare ground around us and so a lot of dirt coming in and so. But I'm happy to report that the dusting is less, the wiping off the mantles and other things is less, and I don't notice the dog hair is much.

I have. I personally have a complaint about the vacuum. What I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would spend. Okay, brace yourselves here. It sounds stupid, and it sounds like something like stupid, like wealthy people would do or something. I don't throw money around. $2,000.

It is expensive.

Here's what it has a HEPA filter. It diffuses essential oils all day long. It cleans mold, it cleans fungi, and it's got like some kind of an ungodly warranty on it. 20 years. Yeah, 20 years. So, I mean, I'm never gonna buy another vacuum, so I figured I'll get this one. But I'm doing a podcast on it to talk more about. Just like it's not. My podcast is not just about vacuum cleaners. It's about mold and fungi and dust in general. But yeah, I mean, it was. I would say that should belong in our inner circle workshop because it was probably the most money that we've spent on a household object in the past year.

Yeah, I will say. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I kind of forgot. I didn't forget.

Was not cheap and it really hurt to write a check for that. But listen to the podcast and I'll tell you guys more about rainbow vacuum jazz, because there's more to it than that. But yeah, that's interesting.

I know there's more.

Okay, let's.

That's my new household life.

Hey, question.

You got your boots, I got my vacuum.

Freaking expensive household item. Okay. David says you seem to always be up to date on the latest studies coming out about exercise, fitness, health and nutrition. In a world with so much information overload, how do you find the best and most reliable information out there? Do you have specific journals you subscribe to or sources you recommend? This is a great question.

This is a good question because it's super valid.

Let me tell you. David. Yes, Here is what I follow. First of all, I use Feedly. So every morning when I wake up and I'm doing my reading, what Feedly allows me to do is view a preview of an article or like the first paragraph so I can decide. Okay, this is run of the mill crap. This is old news or this is something groundbreaking that people should know about. Then I go read it and I see whether or not it's based on peer reviewed research. So using Feedly, I subscribe to a variety of different, shall we say, like, synopses or reviews of research. Everything from Mark's Daily Apple to Chris Kresser to the Perfect Health Diet to Rob Wolf to Syer G's website. I forget the name of it. Some of these I've been subscribed to for so long I Forget the actual URLs, but bloggers like me who are out there doing what I do. But I figure if these other guys are also doing what I do, I can take as much firepower as I can from them and go through it and disseminate that for you. So ultimately you really only have to follow me because I'm going out and getting but you asked, so I'm telling you. So what else? I get the Examine research digest from examine.com I subscribe to Alan Argon's research review. I subscribe to the Stone Hearth newsletters. I subscribe to the National Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. I subscribe to. There's a couple more. Think hard, think hard, think hard. Gosh, there's one other big one that I'm totally blanking on. A lot of these are like PDFs that get delivered to you every month. This one, no, some of these are mail, but this one is email. It is blanking. It's Nutrition Products Insider. It's designed for the nutrition supplements industry, but it actually has a ton of really good information on the latest nutraceutical research, encapsulation technology, supplements, stuff like that. Oh, I remember the last one. It's an aches and pains website. It's a Canadian website. It's called Injury, Aches and Pains, something like that. That's another one. I subscribe to Alex Hutchinson's Sweat Science website and then podcasts. I also subscribe to Science Friday, TED Talks. The TED Talks help. What else From a podcasting standpoint for podcasting science, TED Talks, npr, Radiolab, which doesn't have a ton of science on it, but it's okay. The How Stuff Works podcast. Most of the pockets list door npr, right. This American Life. Whose Line not Whose Line is It anyway?

Prairie Home Companion.

No, not Praying Home Companion. Even though I like that. I forget what it's called Anyways, in the TED Talks, Freakonomics, Planet Money. I don't do a lot of like the health and fitness podcasts because honestly, it's Just like, yeah, it's like listening to my podcast, right? It's just like the same old stuff that I am already reading and talking about on my show. So I just. It's almost like too much. It feels like work when I'm doing that. So, yeah, those are some of my sources. Good question.

A lot of sources.

I read a lot. I'm constantly constant. And then books too, right? Like, anytime Victory Belt comes out with a book, I'll go read that because they publish a lot of good folks in the paleo health and fitness sector. Anytime a new book comes out, like in the Amazon health and fitness category, I read that just because I want to stay on top of what people are writing. And I just use a Kindle. I send stuff to my Kindle, I send the free samples to my Kindle. I look at the table of contents, I look at the first few chapters. If I read the first few chapters and I don't learn anything new, I delete the book. That's done. But if I read the first few chapters and find anything enchanting, intriguing, etc. My take on books is if I read an entire book, which will take me anywhere from an hour to three hours, and I come away with one nugget of advice that will help people, then that book was worth the $7.99 to $9.99 price that I spent on it to put it on my Kindle. Even if it's just one nugget. Ultimately, that's what I do. I go through books like they're going out of style on my Kindle. I'm a speed reader. I always have been a speed reader. I've never taken a speed reading course. Just from a very early age. I was a voracious reader and I read fast. And my tip I can give you for reading fast is I always read two chapters at a time. So it's like the Pomodoro technique. I never read more than two chapters at a time. If I've made it through two chapters, I'll take a two minute break, five minute break, whatever. So two chapters at a time. And then the other thing that I do is I forbid myself to flip back and read a page that I've already read. Okay? So as I'm reading. No, that's the thing is once you've set that rule for yourself, you have no choice but to get it. Okay? So I don't allow myself to flip. So if I'm reading a book on my Kindle or in a book, I'm not allowed to flip back. And by setting up that rule for myself, I force myself to grasp and digest what I'm reading. And I never get into that stage where I've read 10 pages, and all of a sudden I'm like, what did I just read? Like, it's when you're driving to work or to your home and you forget the last five minutes of driving, and you're like, wow, I can't believe I just drove from this street to that street. I didn't realize I was driving. It's kind of like that with books. Sometimes you can be turning pages but not digesting. So that's my rule now, is I'm not allowed to flip back a page and recheck it ever. So those are my tips for you. All right, cool. I think we've got time for one more. Probably one more tip each, so. Okay, I. Oh, crap. I didn't bring it over here. What? I wanted to show people the light thing that I've been using. I'll just explain it. Use your imagination as I explained.

The lighting in your ears.

Yeah, the light in the ears. So I wrote this article on this thing that I've been using because I have been traveling a lot. I've been using it a lot. It's not the same, it being video and me just talking. It's like. Right.

It's like earphones. It's sticking your ears.

Okay, I'll tell you what. I am almost done doing this boot thing anyway, so why don't you talk about your thing and I'll go get it so I can show it to people. Okay. Okay.

I hate it when you leave me here hanging, though.

You'll survive.

I know I will. I always do.

Okay, go ahead. Okay.

So this summer has been full of a lot of changes here at our little Greenfield homestead. I've gardened for a while now, but this is a new environment for me. I haven't gardened in an alpine environment or a heavily shaded environment in a very wild environment. And so I have had to deal. I knew going into this year that it would be experimental and that I wasn't really sure how the garden would work out and that kind of thing. And we also have added goats, We've added chickens and anything else. Am I missing anything? A lizard. So with all of this change and all this new stuff, I've kind of just gone into this summer with, I guess, going in with a focus that I know it's going to be different. It might be hard. I might be. Have failures I might have successes. And so with that, I've had to really, like, kind of try to prepare myself. And I don't. People go through this with, like, jobs and that kind of stuff where they had to go and, like, prepare their mind and their emotion with the. The fact that there might be discomfort or, like I said, failures. And I have dealt with quite a few failures this summer in my garden. I feel like my garden is the worst it has ever been in my last four years of my life.

I posted a video of your garden. I know.

And I was not. I saw that.

Yeah, it sucked. Thanks. Horrible garden.

There are things that are working out, and there are a lot of things in our. We have rabbits and all kinds of critters that I've just never had to deal with. And so, you know, there's part of you where you feel like you can just like, okay, I'm gonna just deal with this. This is gonna happen, and I'm gonna deal with it. You try to, like, almost muscle your emotion through it and that, if that makes sense. I don't know. Anyways, I think Ben saw me last week with him, you know, where I had a massive breakdown.

Okay. So Jess and I both had breakdowns in the past week. Jessa had a breakdown because I was out of town for, like, two weeks, and she was getting over, like, the chicken goat gardening curve. And, yeah, she's had.

Chickens were like, the bane of my existence.

And then I had a breakdown, like, two days ago when I had, like. Basically I was just like. I had a bunch of combination of, like, business stuff and personal stuff that essentially resulted in me hemorrhaging cash. You know, like when you empty out your bank account and you're just like, oh, crap, I got a. Whatever, pay the bill. And I was just like, I was in stress coming from all directions, like, and, you know, you guys are our family in the inner circle, so I'm fine talking about this stuff, but just like, one of those deals where. So then we're watching my sister in law's dog, and the dog walks in and, like, I had and, like, starts to eat my food, and I flip out. I'm like, this stupid dog. Sister needs to come pick up her stupid dog. You're watching him like, I know. And then what else happened? Something else is dumb that just, like, I should. Oh, like, Jessa bought the wrong kind of wine. And I was just like, why did you spend, like, $15 on this bad wine? And you know, that happens. Yeah, we're drinking now. So anyways, Though, So we all have our breakdowns. And honestly, like, my. This is all of a sudden getting really woo woo.

No, but I was like, I feel for me personally, I'm like, we put on these videos that you're like, yes, we know what we're doing. This is, you know, great, you know, yeah, we know we're doing.

But there's perfect love.

Yeah. But I was like, there are definitely like moments where I'm trying new things or learning. I guess for me it's just being open to learning new things, open to drawing upon other people's wisdom. Because we don't, you know, have all the wisdom. You know, I'm like, you see us talking about things that we do know a lot about. And so people have this perception that you have all of this wisdom and all this knowledge, but there we have a learning curve just like everybody else, like, and so having, you know, draw upon other people's information, reading books on stuff, having failure, learning from failure is just. It was something that I felt like wanted to talk about because you have to be really like, open to that to grow as a person. And so I felt like I kind of failed a little bit last week when I was literally having almost a panic attack with the chickens because they don't listen to me.

She didn't kill them, though.

I threatened a lot of them.

Do you want to know what I do? We haven't talked too much about this. What I do when I have that breakdown, when I have that stress. So mine is a combination of woo woo and biological stuff. So a, I stop. No mp3 player, no music, no workout, no, like, catharsis. Right. A lot of people be like, I'm gonna go do deadlifts because I'm pissed.

I really did want a glass of wine.

Not a good strategy. Chemicals, whatever. Marijuana or weed or wine. Again, not the best fit. Sure. A glass of wine at the end of the day to calm you down, like we're doing right now. Fine.

But I'm not stressed.

Yeah, it's not because we're pissed or something. What I do is a. I find quiet. If it can be quiet in the presence of green, like plant phytochemicals that have been shown to decrease salivary cortisol. Being outside, whatever. Something quiet, somewhere where I can unplug or see something green. And I don't have a great deal of patience. Right. Three to five minutes is about how long I last doing this. But then I do box breathing. Okay. Four count in. Four count, hold. Four count out. Four count, hold and then after that, I find, as the song goes, somebody to love. Okay, the reason for this is that there's like a verse in the Bible that says love covers a multitude of sins, right? So you're pissed at somebody, you love them, you give them a hug, you are mad at yourself. Then you find someone to hold on to who you know, who you know loves you. A child loves them, whatever. Even a pet, you find a way to introduce love. Even a song that you love, right? Or something that stirs up feelings of love. Love or gratitude also works. That works really, really well for me. So box breathing somewhere outside in the quiet. And then love. Because love is so powerful, right? Like, it's just like the ultimate fix for just about everything is either expressing love or receiving love. So I know that sounds woo woo, but if you try it, it actually works, right? So if you're mad, even if you're just all alone, right, you call whatever your mom, hey, mom, just wanted to call you up and tell you I love you automatically. Just by doing something like that, you feel better. If you're religious, you can pray. You can just basically pray to God and like, hey, God, I love you. I feel your love. Thank you. Boom. Like, it doesn't have to be complex, but basically the idea is I use a combination of nature, breath and love. That's my fix for when I have a breakdown. So there you have it.

Mine's chuffing.

This has been a moment. This has been a moment with Pastor Ben, alcoholic.

Wow, I was just gonna say that.

Okay, so let's see if we've had any questions come through. If not, we're going to start to wrap things up here. But of course, if you do have questions, we're always on the forum. Auto update. Let me see.

Wait, there was one at the very bottom.

I thought that's just from jk. Oh, okay.

Suzanne says I'm out looking out for you. Suzanne.

Suzanne says, where can I find notes, references?

Because you listed all those books and all those people.

Well, technically. Okay, so when I mentioned a bunch of stuff, kind of unlike the podcast, like these webinars are, in case you didn't notice, casual if you hanging out with us in our living room, right? So I don't have, like, PDFs and big notes and links. Maybe I should hire someone from the Greenfield Fitness team to, you know, to like, watch them take a bunch of notes and generate links or whatever. But honestly, like, most of the stuff I talked about you can find@greenfieldfitnesssystems.com or you can do a search for it at BenGreenfieldFitness.com or you can ask me in the forum and just say, hey, Ben, you talked about whatever that thing. Oh, I forgot to show you the thing I was going to show you. We'll end with that, but basically just ask and maybe eventually, if you would like it's helpful, let us know. Maybe we'll generate some kind of like a PDF bonus that we can give you with this stuff, with like some links to stuff that we talk. Honestly, the reason I'm not prone to do that is what I don't want it to be is like me coming up with an excuse to show you a bunch of stuff that you can buy or that I can sell you because I have to somehow create like a resource list, you know, So I want to be careful not to get in that whole like, link here. Things are like, here are my affiliate links that you can make money off of all the stuff I just talked about. So I, you know, I want to be careful with that. But anyways, I will work on some kind of a mechanism to give you guys references. But in the meantime, for this webinar, just ask in the forum and we'll hook you up. Okay?

So that being said, I smell sweet potatoes burning. So.

Okay, why don't you go, I'll show this. Sorry, do you want to say goodbye while I show this?

It'll just be a moment.

This is the human charger thing that I talked about because some people didn't understand how it works. But what I do is like, if I wake up super early, right? Like at 5am Because I've been traveling to the east coast and over on the east coast, whatever, I've been waking up at 7 or whatever. So back here, when I get back to the West Coast, I wake up way earlier. And it pisses me off because then I'm up early and then I am tired and cranky by noon. So it takes me about one to two days now to reset and shift my circadian rhythm forward. And the way that I do it is if I wake up early and I can't get back to sleep, I just get up and I start to do stuff. But I stay out of the sunshine and I stay out of the light and I keep the lights off, turn into a vampire, turn to a vampire. When the time of day rolls around at which I actually want to send my body the signal that it's morning, that it's time to get all that cortisol going, whatever, I take this guy And I flip this on and these little buds. See that? These go inside my ears. If I were to put them in right now, it'd be dumb because it's nighttime. I know I'll wake myself up. Yes. You literally feel like you've had a cup of coffee after you do this. It's like staring into the sun without the bright light of staring into the sun. It does a 12 minute countdown. So I sit there and I drink my coffee while this thing shines in my ears and it resets my sleep cycle. I can also do this, for example, if I go to the east coast and I got to go to a seminar or give a talk or something, and it's like 4 or 5pm I can shine this in my ears to wake myself up when I'm in a different time zone. Honestly, the main thing I've been using it for, though, is shifting my sleep clock forward. The other thing that a lot of international travelers will use it for is to begin to wake themselves up in a place they plan on going to. Right? So the way that people would theoretically use this is, for example, if you are in London and you're eight hours ahead of New York and it is, let's say, how would I put this? Let's say you're gonna get up in New York at 6am is gonna be your wake time for when you, when you go to New York. What you'll do is at 2pm London time, you would do a cycle of this to give your body no London.

Oh, you're talking about London time.

You do this for like three days before you go back to New York to tell your body that, oh, hey, so when that time of day happens back in New York, like you're, you're ready for it and it's, it's less like afternoon and more like morning. Hopefully. That makes sense. It makes sense logically if you think about it. But you just use it to hack your circadian rhythm. It's called the Human Charger. Read the article I wrote on it. Just go to BenGreenfulFitness.com and do a search for Human Charger. I think it's cool. Small, it's portable. It's again, one of those things that probably costs guessing. They probably make a lot of money on this thing because honestly, it's like lights in your ears, right? It's like 150 bucks or something like that.

But why couldn't you just take the lights?

You probably could shine flashlights in your ears. This is sexier. Anyways, so that's what we got. Leave your questions in the forum. Thank you for watching. Thank you for being a part of the inner circle family. Always be letting us know what you want to see how we can help you. Because our goal is to take what we do, teach it to you, help you live longer, be happier, have better skin, hair, nails, etc. All right, over and out. Thanks for watching.

Nights.

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

Sa.