Brock Says Goodbye (& We Reveal The New Podcast Host), The Best Smart Drug Stacks For Creativity, Ben's Experience With Transcendental Meditation & More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness show, the best smart drug stacks for creativity. Ben's experience with transcendental meditation, rebounding versus running, should you eat placentas? And more.

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.

Brock, I've got my big box of Kleenex out. And it's not because we're going to be talking about eating cute little innocent placentas.

It's because we're going to be chopping onions.

No, it's. It's due to the. The strange invader that you, the listener, may have heard introducing us on this show and the fact that that that strange invader is going to be replacing you. Brock, you heard sad clown noises here.

Sad clown noises. I'm not sure what those are, but.

Yes, better than a scary clown.

It is. But yes, it's true. You have a brand new Ben Greenfield fitness podcast sidekick by the name of Rachel Brown.

Da, da, da, da.

Actually, it's a man living in his mother's basement named Bill, but we have adjusted his vocal cords to make him a sexy female Australian. Hey. Hey, Bill.

Hi.

Hi, guys.

So, first of all, before we delve into Rachel, who is obviously right here with us and who is indeed the new podcast show host, Brock, what's going on, dude?

Well, you know, I've been doing this show. It's going to be. Can you believe it? It's going to be five. No, four years next month.

Four incredibly long freaking.

Yeah, like, it's like working in freaking salt mine, seriously kind of thing here. And some opportunities came along, not gonna lie, some. Some lucrative and some. Some fun experience, interesting new endeavor kind of stuff coming along. And not that I didn't love all my time here, but in terms of sort of longevity of my career and also longevity of this podcast and people not getting super duper sick of the same kind of stuff over and over again, it just seemed like the, like the prudent thing to do to move along, make room for a new sidekick, make room for a new audio technician as well. I think the show's going to benefit from it and going to be a good time. And people can. Can ping me separately if you want to know more about what's going on. But basically, I'm. I'm moving on to other things.

And now you can take up your dream to become a professional. Professional Zamboni driver up on the.

You promise?

I know you've always, always fantasized about that, and now all your wildest dreams are coming true.

The only job you can do while stinking drunk.

Just wear a helmet, dude. Wear a helmet. So, Rachel, Rachel, welcome to the show. Obviously, you and I have known each other for a while, and honestly, I know you through your. Is he your boyfriend or fiance now?

He's actually now my husband.

Oh.

What?

Well, crap. Yeah, that just shows that my relationship with Rachel and my level of communication with her is rock bottom. Because last wasn't the last time you were over where you guys. You guys were engaged, right?

No, we were actually officially married then as well. Yeah.

Oh, really?

Sorry, Ben.

How did that totally, like, fly under my radar?

Well, we kind of were under pressure to do it fairly quickly because I was going to have to leave the country, so.

Ah, it's a green card marriage.

We'll eventually have a big, elaborate ceremony that you will hear about, I'm sure.

Cool. Well, anyway, so I know you through Jacob, and who is your husband? Clear that up right away. But I think maybe what we should do, Brock, is what do you think? Should we give Rachel, like, two minutes to let our listeners know who she is?

That sounds good.

Okay, two minutes. No pressure, Rachel.

No more, no less.

In three, two, one. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Okay, you've got 10 seconds up.

I'm. I'm from a small town called the Sunshine coast in Australia, and I know you have a lot of Australian listeners, so I hope they're super psyched to hear an Aussie on the podcast. I've been living in America a couple of years. I'm a yoga teacher and student, and I love all things to do with meditation and mindfulness. And I'm super psyched to hear about your transcendental meditation experience. What else? Oh, I work in a homeless women's shelter. Um, and I'm not an endurance athlete. I love the idea of it, but I would say I'm a recreational runner. Um, but, yeah, I love learning about health and wellness. I love the podcast, and I'm super excited to be filling the ginormous shoes of Brock.

All right, I'm going to add in a couple of things here. First of all, Brock does not have big feet, because, you know, they're only.

Size 13 big feet.

He's just a Zamboni driver. Second of all, she did not say yogurt, my friend. She said yoga.

That's true. I have to clear that up all.

The time just so you can get used to the Australian accent. And then third, Rachel is somebody who kind of has been working behind the scenes at Ben Greenfield Fitness for a while. She's done some social media stuff and some work with Facebook, so she is intimately familiar with all things Ben Greenfield Fitness, which makes her a logical person to be one of the. One of the new podcast hosts.

When I first started being the sidekick, I didn't know anything. Rachel is infinitely more qualified than I was four years ago when I walked in and was like, hey, everybody.

Yeah. All right. Well, that being said, now that we've got just a few listeners left, mostly our Australian ones and couple Zamboni drivers, what do you think? Should we delve into today's news flashes?

Let's do it.

News flashes.

So while preparing for all this new excitement on the podcast, Ben has been busy tweeting things out@twitter.com beng Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Slow down. Shouldn't. Shouldn't. Shouldn't Rachel be taking over the reins here?

Yeah, old horses, new tricks.

Rachel, you introduce the news flashes. No pressure. Go.

If you want to stay up to date with all the latest from Ben, make sure you're following him on twitter.com BenGreenfield and for more information on the juicy things that you learn in the show, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 331 isn't it?

Bravo.

Bravo.

It's just a slash that if you put the wrong slash in, it directs to your heart.

That's right. And they do everything upside down in Australia anyways, so. All right, well, all right, so we'll work. We'll work on the slash. So just bear with us, listener, as Rachel learns the ropes about which way things go on the Internet. But there's three W's, Rachel. It's not ww, it's www. So I'm gonna be giving you a hard time all day long. Love it. So, yeah. So, well, here's. Here's where we'll start. Not to kick this horse to death, but as I've mentioned on the past couple of episodes, I have a squeaky clean colon because I got a colonoscopy and they stuck a tube up my butt.

I highly doubt it stayed clean this long.

And, no, I'm pretty sure it's still clean? Pretty sure, squeaky clean. All right. Anyways, though, during the time that I was doing my special oh so tasty and pleasant colonoscopy prep, which is where you drink a bunch of solution that's like, what do you call it? Like a laxative slash diuretic solution that just basically makes everything come out all at once. Like a fire hose, except it's like a 30 minute long fire hose I had to follow. Basically like a liquid diet. So I was making up all these new recipes and I found a recipe that I not only enjoyed, but that I've now been repeating, like in the afternoons or the evenings or any other time when I want a slightly lower calorie snack. And I tweeted it. It's pretty simple. Here's how it goes. I get out my blender and I put ice in it. Then I add some coconut water. And you could use coconut milk as well if you wanted to, or any other beverage. You could even use bone broth, I guess. Anything that's got like electrolytes, aminos, stuff like that in it. I put a little bit of dark chocolate stevia in there, some sea salt.

Not with the bone broth version, not.

With a bone broth version. And then you can throw a little bit of banana in there if you want even more creaminess. If you're doing the low carb thing, then you could leave that out, I suppose, and then gelatin and that's it. And then I blend that at high speed for about 60 seconds and it actually makes this like surprisingly flavorful, almost like ice cream, like texture that's creamy and delicious. And that, according to my high tech calculations, contains maybe like 100 calories in a huge giant mug of the stuff. So it's really, really tasty. Sounds good. Yeah. So I tweeted out that recipe, but I'll also put it in the show notes for folks I've been using anything from like gelatin to these primal peptides that I talked about last week, which are basically like rich in collagen. They're this collagen protein booster made by a company called Natural Force. But what they do, I really honestly don't give a crap in this case about the level of amino acids as much as the fact that when you blend them for 60 seconds with ice, they almost make your little ice cream smoothie thing chewy. So it's kind of cool. Yeah.

Chewy. Why do they go chewy?

I don't know, but it's really, really good. And I recommend that if you are a listener and you want a little low calorie beverage to add in, you try this one out. It's the next best thing to chocolate ice cream or to that chocolate avocado pudding stuff I make. So. So yeah, another cool thing that I've discovered is over at Reddit, I recently had a guy over to my house and we were walking around my land doing some plant identification and I mentioned that I'll occasionally use this app that I've talked about before on the show. It's an app called Flower Checker. Whether you guys use this before, I haven't, no.

I would love to though.

I live in a city.

You know what they say, Brock. There's even wilderness growing in the blade of grass that comes up through the sidewalk.

Is it edible, though?

I don't know who said that. Probably Confucius. Anyways, though, what Flowerchecker does is you take a picture of a plant, you send it off, or you upload it, and a team of live botanists on the other end identifies the plant and sends you back a Wikipedia page, Google links, et cetera, to the best resources for that plant so you can go learn more about it.

So an actual human looks at it.

An actual real, live human being. Those exist on the Internet. However, I've discovered another way that you can do this that this fellow mentioned to me when we were walking around my land. And it's simply a Reddit called what's this Plant? So for those of you who really want to delve into this whole idea of being able to identify things that you could use as an edible, or whether you could put something in a smoothie or the particular vitamins that might be in some random weed, frankly, that's growing in your backyard. You basically go to this Reddit page and I'll link to it in the show notes and you upload the photo. And then all sorts of folks on Reddit, obviously they're not trained botanists, so proceed with that.

Slightly concerning.

Yeah, could be concerning. Yeah, you could eat that. I eat that all the time. So all these people living in their mom's basements can let you know what plant it is that you have uploaded as a photo. So anyways, though it actually is. I looked through it and it appeared that people were relatively knowledgeable. I vetted it before, before I mention it on the podcast, so we don't have a bunch of listeners getting explosive diarrhea from eating some thorny poisonous plant that they were told was edible dandelion. But ultimately it's. It's the Reddit. What is this plant page? So will they be able to tell.

You the difference between the Sativa and.

The Indica strain of marijuana?

I. Maybe. Maybe something else.

I have no clue. I don't know. I haven't uploaded that yet, but I would imagine they probably could. Brock.

Damn.

Yeah, that'll help you out with your Zamboni adventures. The last thing that I wanted to mention is about electrostimulations. This is a research study that came out in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research and whole body electrostimulation is something that I've toyed around with for a while. And by toyed around with, I mean attached electrodes to various parts of my body to see what happens when you shock those muscles into submission. And I've talked before about the effects on blood flow, the fact that it can cause things like muscle hypertrophy and even localized fat loss when you shock the heck out of a muscle. And it's not necessarily pleasant. It's not necessarily like the made for TV versions where somebody's sitting there with electrodes attached to their six pack abs, watching TV and eating Twinkies while they shock themselves into hard chiseled stomach form. But it is a cool way to exercise. And it's a cool way to kind of like biohack your exercise, for example, you know, hook up a bunch of electrodes and do like quads and hamstrings workout while you're simultaneously lifting free weights for your upper body. And yeah, maybe you're doing that in a, in a sauna wearing an elevation training mask, but ultimately electrostim is kind of cool. I like to have a unit around at all times just in case.

Yeah. Don't you even do it in the car? Sometimes I do, yeah.

I've done it on airplanes as well.

I'm surprised they let you on the plane with that.

They do. They do that. Once you convince them that it's not a bomb that is just designed to shock yourself while you're on the plane, they're fine with it. So anyways though, what this study looked into was the effect of electrostimulation on red blood cell deformability. And if you're not familiar with the term red blood cell deformability, all that refers to is the fact that red blood cells can actually change shape and size. And, and by deforming in that way, they can actually more or less weasel their way deeper into capillaries, tissue, et cetera, and thus improve oxygen supply to working tissue. Now what this study looked into was the effect of electrostimulation, particularly on red blood cell deformability. And so they were actually doing blood testing on athletes, on one group of athletes who, of course, used the electrostam and another group that didn't. And what they found was not only a significant increase in red blood cell deformability and oxygen supply to working tissue, but they also found a big boost in what's called red blood cell nitric oxide synthase. Now, nitric oxide synthase is the stuff that's like Viagra for your muscles. Right. It's a vasodilator. It's referred to as nos. It's the same thing that gets released when you do things like sauna or cold thermogenesis or. Or, heck, exercise, if anybody does that anymore these days. But frankly, I thought it was pretty cool. Not only the fact that electrostimulation can result in increases in red blood cell deformability, but when I looked at the study in detail, because I subscribed to this particular journal, so I can see what products they used. For example, they use something called a body tech. I'd never heard of this before, but it's actually an electrostimulation vest that you can wear that extends as far down as, like, your quads, your thighs, and your hamstrings. So you can literally, rather than, say, attaching electrodes to your skin, which can be kind of annoying, and you have to know the proper anatomical placement, et cetera. You literally just put on this electrostim clothing and go through a series of workouts. Holy cow.

I'm actually just on the website right now just watching the video. That is so cool.

Yeah. And of course, it's only available in Germany. Of course.

Of course.

Damn Germans always get things first. But I'll link to it in the show notes if anybody wants to check out either the study or this body tech vest. So there you have it.

It looks like it comes with shorts, too.

Yeah, like I mentioned, it's got the ability to stimulate your quads and your hamstrings, too. So Rachel can grab one and use it while she's doing her yogurt.

That sounds lovely. I would love to.

Listener q and a.

Hi, Ben, this is Jackie in Japan, and I wanted to get your thoughts on using placenta for skin issues. This is probably a pig placenta. It's pretty commonly found as a supplement in the corner drugstores here in Japan, and I wonder if you know or have heard anything about its efficacy. Again, it's probably used More for anti aging qualities more than anything. But have you heard of any other benefits or controversial things about its nutritional efficacy? Thanks much and as always, keep up the great work.

Wow, we're starting this show off with a bang.

That's actually, you know, I've done a lot of things to my body. I've put a lot of things in my body on both ends, but I have never eaten placentas. I must at least not. At least not consciously. Maybe kind of like Rachel accidentally ate chicken. At some point in my life, I have accidentally eaten a placenta.

I'm sure when you, when you're rude to the waiters at certain restaurants, you probably get all kinds of stuff you don't know.

Yeah. By the way, Rachel, are you vegetarian or vegan?

I'm vegetarian.

Okay, so you do eggs and what about dairy? What are your feelings on dairy?

I love dairy, but I don't drink milk. I only drink almond.

And what are your feelings on placenta?

You know, I'm open. No, it is quite a popular supplement. I mean, even in the northern parts of Australia. It's. You'll find it in some shops up there for sure. So I'm interested to hear what you have to say, Ben.

Yeah. So it is interesting that unlike the fact that humans are the only animal that drink the milk of other animals, which I'll try to say as many times as possible on today's show because of our vegetarian show host, most mammals eat their placenta after giving birth. And humans are actually one of the few mammals, aside from the folks who are now engaged in placental encapsulation, who really seem to have fallen off that bandwagon. But the idea is that not just the carnivores will do it. The herbivores, like you see cows eating placentas as well. And that's one of the few times that you'll actually see a cow eating animal flesh. So it's really interesting. And one of the things that you'll see folks talking about when it comes to placenta and what's called placento faggi or placentophagy, you know, similar to the eating of insects called. What's it called? How would you pronounce it?

Entrophagy.

Entophagy, probably entophagy. So placento faggy. I've actually added that word to my vernacular. I'll try and use that at my next cocktail party. But basically there, there are a few different things that happen in terms of eating the placenta. So apparently it's very rich in Iron and iron deficiency may be a possible cause of postpartum depression. So it could be a good way for mammals to get iron when they would be in an iron deprived state, you know, after having bled and given birth, et cetera. The placenta may actually provide for higher levels of iron. The other thing that it may affect. And there was an interesting study done on this on placenta ingestion by rats, enhancing what's called delta and kappa opioid antinociception. What that means is that the consumption of the components in a placenta may affect pain suppression, particularly by triggering opioid receptors, endogenous opioid receptors. So it may help to shut down pain as well. There are a few studies that have been done on placenta. And for example, one study was done way back in the 50s, and they found that 86% of new mothers, in this case human mothers, who were given a placenta or placental extract experienced a boost in milk production and flow. And they actually used a placebo. In this case, they used a placebo of beef. So they compared placenta to, of all things, beef. Apparently, that's the perfect. I guess the perfect placebo when you're giving someone a placenta is a beef pill. And those mothers had just a 33% increase in milk production. So it turns out that placental intake may increase the ability to lactate in milk production and milk flow. Most of the studies have actually been done in animals, in rodents, et cetera, but the biggies appear to be iron painkilling and the increase in milk production. Now, as far as immune factors, some people say that placental eating may improve the mother's immune response to the presence of a fetus in later pregnancy. Pregnancy by preventing the formation of fetal tissue antibodies. So what that means is that you eat the placenta and because if you're going to have another baby, the tissue in that placenta resembles the same type of tissue that's going to be present in your body again when you have that next baby. It may keep you from producing antibodies that could potentially harm that baby. That is all totally blue sky. It's totally theoretical and nothing's actually been proven when it comes to that. So placental encapsulation, though, is something that people are doing. And there are actual. And I can link to this. There's a DIY Placental encapsulation book on Amazon. Yeah. That teaches you how to take a placenta and encapsulate it. And there's also a DIY placental encapsulation kit. I don't know if they're made by the same person, but it's possible. And that also is sold on Amazon. Now, as far as the nutrients and the benefits of consuming placenta for people who are not new mothers, for say, like the random 20 year old male college student who is perusing the aisles at Whole Foods and decides he wants to get an encapsulated placenta, most of the benefits you're going to get from it in terms of fat soluble vitamins, in terms of iron, in terms of immune factors, et cetera, you could also get from organ meats the consumption of things like liver or a desiccated liver powder, or the consumption of anything from heart to kidney to all these things that are traditionally consumed as organ meats. And so it's kind of six of one, half a dozen or the other when it comes to that. So ultimately that's the deal with encapsulation. There is no evidence that placental, that what you would find in a placenta is going to hurt you, that it's going to cause any type of allergies or something like that. So the only thing you have to worry about, of course, is where they got that placenta in the first place. That's the thing that I would, I would look into. I, since I personally don't supplement with placenta, I'm not quite sure of the sources of the placenta that they're using for these like placental encapsulations. But I, I would say that because most mammals seem to intuitively eat their placenta. If I could go back and have river and Terran again, or more specifically, if I could go back and have my wife have river and Taren again, I wouldn't be closed to the idea of saving the placenta, encapsulating it and having her supplement with that for something like improving milk production or replacing the iron lost during childbirth or in this case during the C section. And what I should throw out there anecdotally is I know many people who are functional medicine practitioners and specifically like alternative medical practitioners who I respect, and almost all of them, when I've spoken to them since they've had children, have used placental encapsulation for the mom after they've had the baby. So there's that.

And what about, is there a difference between eating like a sheep's placenta and your own placenta?

I would imagine that theoretically the only difference would be the fact that you're consuming something that may help you with that antibody factor. Right. It's something that came out of you. So it may help you with future pregnancies perhaps. But other than that, I'm, I'm not sure that there's really going to be much of a difference between a sheep placenta, human placenta. I would say that maybe a dolphin placenta. You, you would probably draw the line. I would definitely draw the line at dolphin placenta.

I don't think it would be that bad.

Ben, I've never heard a question asked about creativity stacks for promoting creativity. You mentioned that you use THC to help put you in a creative mood. What else? Well, like I mentioned, my smart drug stack of choice this morning is coffee grounds in my teeth that I'm still digging out or the gift that keeps on giving.

I've had two cups of coffee and some alpha brain. How about you, Rachel?

I meditated. Does that count?

Totally. You're meditated?

Yeah, I suppose.

It's not really a mantra actually. We'll talk about that later. It actually is a little bit of a smart drug. Now Jory mentioned THC and I guess we could use that as a jumping off point because THC is certainly something that is well known among musicians, artists, et cetera for enhancing creativity. So of course that's the more psychoactive component of cannabis most people are familiar with. And I've been talking quite a bit lately about cannabidiol, the non psychoactive component that has more of the anti inflammatory and a little bit more of the peaceful relaxation inducing properties of the cannabis plant. Although when taken in smaller quantities like under 10 milligrams, I found that it also increases focus quite a bit and there's some research done on its ability similar to like the the alpha brain that you took Brock, for its ability to help produce alpha brainwaves. So I have an entire article about mixing a bunch of smart drugs and we've certainly talked quite a bit about that before on other podcasts. I'll link to that that article that I wrote on how to make your own smart drugs in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 331But there are a few things that I wanted to mention that I've been using of late and that I would also recommend for creativity and also some differentiations between some of the more popular smart drug stacks or smart drugs that are out there and kind of making their rounds right now. So first of all, when you look at something like alpha brain, since you mentioned it, Brock, I'll talk about it and you can get it at a discount by the way@onnait.com BenGreenfield I believe is our discount link for that. So I have found Alpha brain to be most useful when you need verbal fluency or word recall. So for something like writing and creativity or making music, I don't necessarily think that's the best choice for something like say podcasting or speaking on stage or debating or arguing or even in my case, let's say like doing health or fitness consults with people, that type of thing. I've found that two to three alpha brain, anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes prior to those activities can come in quite handy. And one of the other things that alpha brain is handy for, and I especially find this to be the case when it's combined with cbd, is lucid dreaming. So you can take, I've found about a three to one ratio to work well. So three capsules of alpha brain with one capsule of this cannabidiol is not only good for enhancing the alpha brainwave producing effects of alpha brain when you take it early in the day, but also enhancing the lucid dreaming effects of alpha brain when taken later in the day. However, I don't think that that's the best stack for creativity. Another thing that you see making the rounds quite a bit is Aniracetam. And I recently had a guy named Jesse Lollard on the show, the guy from the show Smart Drug Smarts. And he's involved with this new company called Axon Labs. And one of the things that they make is this thing called Nexus. And Nexus is based on, it's got cdp, choline and phosphatidylserine and some of these things in it that get turned over at a faster rate when you're using any of these racetams like Piracetam or aniracetam or whatever. But what I've found is that any of these racetams like aniracetam or Piracetam, some of you may have heard of, like Modafinil or the limitless drug, which is the, the pill that, you know, that shoves your, your productivity through the roof. It's like, you know, legal crack cocaine. Just teaching Provigil as well. Yeah, Provigil is another version of that. Now what I've found is that aniracetam or Piracetam, they're kind of like a baby version of that. They aren't going to keep you up for 24 to 48 hours, you know, vacuuming your floor, writing a novel and you know, making a five star chef meal. But they they can really enhance your ability to just like, produce all day, all day long. Not necessarily produce creatively, but just get stuff done. I mean, I've used something like Aniracetam, and I've actually used Nexus particularly for this. Like on a weekend where you wake up and you've got the to do list that's like 20 things long. From clean the garage to, you know, plant new seeds in the garden, to walk the dog, to run 8 billion errands. Aniracetam seems really useful for that type of thing, although I've found that because it causes you to almost jump around so much, engage in so many different activities, that if you do want to do something like play music or write that, that's not really the best choice for a smart drug or a neurotropic or whatever you want to call it. However, for productivity, that's the one that I would recommend for something like that. I've just found that it kind of makes your brain bounce around a little bit, though, as well. So. And Nexus is the one that I mentioned for that is kind of like the newer form of Aniracetam that's mixed with some of the things that if you don't mix them with Aniracetam can leave you feeling depleted after just a couple of hours. So I know I haven't yet gotten to the creativity component.

It's coming, folks.

It's coming because Jory mentioned thc. Now, there is a website that I use when I am researching particularly strains of marijuana. Earmuffs, kids, anybody under 18, anybody living in areas where this is illegal. I do not endorse it. If it's not legal, you don't want the cops busting down your door and taking away your Ben Greenfield podcast and your weed.

Don't break the law, folks.

But if you go to Leafly, that's L, E, A, F, L Y. They have a really good phone app. They also have a good website. And what they do is they allow you to explore different strains of marijuana based on your goals, whether those goals be, say, creativity, fighting cramps, treating arthritis, treating anxiety, motivating yourself, staying productive, getting a good night's sleep, exercising, et cetera. So it's really interesting. And one of the strains that they have on there, one of the areas that they have on there is an area devoted to creativity and a list of 30 different strains that are different hybrids, like mixes of indica and sativa forms of the plant, and then also sativa strains, indica strains, et cetera. Now, one of the things that I do is I will occasionally, especially when I have a really big bout of writing or I'm like learning a new song in the guitar, I will use some THC because it does improve creativity quite a bit. And what I will do is I will take the edge off of that, meaning the inability to focus or the paranoia or any extreme psychoactivity by combining it with CBD. So I'll take 1 to 2 capsules or 10 to 20 milligrams of CBD and then I will take the form of THC. Now what I've been using lately is this machine. It's called a magical butter machine. Have you seen this before?

I have seen that for using, for herb extract butter, like making fancy oregano butter and basil butter and stuff.

Yeah, it works for infusing any type of butter or say like coconut oil or. In my case, what I've been using is ghee, which is just clarification clarified butter with some of the dairy proteins and things like that removed. And what you do is you simply decarboxylate whatever strain that you've purchased. So in the case of marijuana, all that means is that you are removing a carboxyl group by putting it in the oven for a certain period of time and then you dump it into this magical butter machine, which is just like the cheesiest name on the face of the planet. But. But it works. And then you put in your butter or your mix of choice. So like I mentioned, I use ghee. And then you mix it and it just mixes for four hours or eight hours or however long it needs to go, and then you pour it out. And in my case, I pour it into molds and I put in a little bit of chocolate, just like an alkali free dark chocolate powder, and then some sea salt. And in my case, I use, in case anyone wants to replicate my recipe, I use chocolate and sea salt. And then this strain called Blue Dream, which is a very popular form of THC originating in California, that is known for inducing what's called cerebral invigoration. And so it can definitely enhance creativity. It's not something you would want to take before you go to a party because you'll be kind of, I find, quiet, introverted, but very creative. And. And then I'll just use that along with the cbd. I know that that particular stack for creativity is not necessarily legal in many states, but I just keep it in the freezer, these little chocolates, and I'll eat one of those. One has about 10 milligrams or so of THC from this blue dream and then some CBD added to it. As far as things that would be legal for creativity and not comprise of marijuana, I would say right now my favorite is this Kamara coffee stuff that I talked about earlier. I'm not just saying that because they sponsor the podcast. I'm saying that caffeine can spark creativity all by its little own self. And when you combine it with the Alpha GPC and the choline and some of these other derivatives in something like this chimera stuff, it's actually very, very nice for creativity. I guess my one complaint about it is that because I do most of my writing in the evenings and most of my playing of music and things like that in the evenings, I'm not a big fan of using something like that in the evenings, which is why I instead opt for the combination of THC and cbd. But one thing I can tell you is that if you mix high amounts of theanine and kimera coffee already has some theanine in it. But if you take some extra theanine along with caffeine, it can reduce the wakefulness enhancing properties of caffeine and allow you to sleep later on, even if you've had caffeine later in the day. So you could, for example, get yourself some theanine capsules and take some theanine along with something like this camera coffee, and that'd be a pretty good stack for creativity. And I'm really feeling like a druggie right now going into all this.

You should.

Hi, Ben. I have been practicing Transcendental meditation Since October of 1974, and my question is.

How did your initiation go?

Did you transcend from weed to meditation?

Yeah, this is the hippie show and there's a vegetarian on the show, man.

Is everybody wearing their tie dye, by the way?

Absolutely.

Okay, good. Just checking. Now, Rachel, you've done. We'll just refer to it as TM from now on, just to shorten things up. But you've done a TM course, haven't you?

I actually haven't, no. I've signed up for one. I haven't done it yet.

So what form of meditation? Like you said, you did meditation this morning, what form of meditation do you currently do?

I do a classical meditation, just kind of focusing on breath. I use breath as my anchor and that works really well for me. It's definitely been a journey to getting to the point where I'm at, where I actually enjoy it. But yeah, just focusing on breath.

Okay, Gotcha. And Brock have You ever experimented much with meditation?

Actually, not much until last year's Unbeatable Mind Retreat when we talked about it so much and Commander Divine was such a believer in it. I started doing a lot of breath related meditation as well. And I tried to do it almost every day for about 20 minutes now. I love it.

Yeah, yeah. So TM is just a form of meditation. And I'll be straightforward with you. The reason that I initially began to look into TM was because of a research study that we talked about on the podcast last year in which they found that people who regularly practice TM were able to achieve similar levels of cognitive performance on five to six hours of sleep as people who were sleeping the traditional seven to nine hours per night. And I thought this was interesting because I do find myself in situations many times where I'm traveling, racing, et cetera, where I want to get by on less sleep. And there are certainly other ways that some people have done this. For example, probably one of the more popular ways that people get away with very, very brief power naps for recharging is via the use of binaural beats. So you'll put headphones on that play one frequency in one ear and one frequency in another ear, and then you'll simply lay there for 10 minutes or 20 minutes with your eyes closed. And often these beats are at a specific frequency designed to either elicit like alpha brainwave production or delta brainwave production or something else, whether your goal is to increase focus, to sleep better, etc. There are also machines now that are a combination of eyewear along with audio. Like there's one called the David. I think it's called the David Mind Alive device. I talk about a little bit in my Beyond Training book, but it flashes different colors of light that you look at on these glasses, whether with your eyes open or your eyes closed. And then that also comes with headwear that you. That plays music in your ears or sounds in your ears that are similar to binaural beats. So that's another thing that folks will use. And I've experimented with both of those. But I really wanted to see, because I've heard so much about tm, particularly for this goal, but also for a variety of other goals. I really wanted to try it out myself. And when I say other goals, the ones that I'm referring to specifically, there's a very, very big body of research on reduction of stress, reduction of anxiety. And for those of you who aren't such a big fan of the woo woo and want to delve more into the physiological. A significant decrease in salivary cortisol and blood cortisol levels in people who engage in tm. You also see, as I alluded to earlier, a reduction in insomnia and higher quality of sleep. It's been shown to lower blood pressure. It's been shown to decrease free radical production, which is very interesting because that's something that Wim Hof, who I recently had on a podcast episode, is able to consciously do via his form of breath work, as I believe he calls it, fire breathing. He's been shown in laboratory studies to decrease the levels of inflammatory cytokines that are produced through that particular form of breathwork meditation. And it turns out that TM can also achieve that same thing. Based on some studies that have been done on TM and production of free radicals. There's also been some studies that have been done on reduction in pain. So, like chronic pain, fibromyalgia, et cetera, when it comes to tm, we just talked about creativity. And there is probably one of the bigger bodies of research behind TM has been done on intelligence, creativity and learning ability. And most attractive to me is the fact that there is that study that's shown that it can enhance those even in the absence of what would be considered adequate amounts of sleep. So the research behind TM, which you can go check out@tm.org is pretty vast. Now, I am aware of all of the websites and all the arguments out there against tm, because I looked into it pretty heavily before I decided to take the leap and actually have an instructor, a TM instructor come to my home. And we've done five sessions now. And before I began to devote myself to trying out TM for myself. And when I say trying out TM for myself, I mean that for about the past. I think it's been over 30 days now, closer to 40 days. I've been doing 20 minutes of transcendental meditation nearly every day. Because when I jump into something, I really do want to give it a good go and try it out. There's a website called Suggestibility. I think it's suggestibility.org, i believe, is the name of the website. And it is a website put together by a former TM instructor who basically has laid out all of the arguments against tm. And, you know, I went through that entire website and against it and, you know, going into everything about how it can create severe psychological problems, cause headaches, about, about kind of the weirdness of the guys like David lynch, you know, who he compares To Tom Cruise. Like Tom Cruise believes that the, you know, 75 million years ago the evil galactic ruler Xenu, you know, attack the planet or whatever. Scientologist, yeah, he's a Scientologist. And then he compares that to David lynch who believes that you can actually do things like levitate from the ground when you're practicing something like tm. And I will totally admit that there, there is some kookiness out there around TM in terms of its power. And I do not believe in many of these, I would say more extreme claims that are made about what it can or cannot do. I would also agree that even though with TM you're given a specific mantra based on like ayurvedic practices, it's like a. I can't reveal what my mantra is because I actually am under. This is again going to sound woo woo, but I'm under oath, right? Like that is something I agreed to when I took up my instruction in tm, that I wouldn't reveal my mantra, that I wouldn't go too delve too deeply into this specific instruction that I was given because it's for me, it's my own special. So there you have it. But anyways, what I would say is that I have before everybody jumps in with the comments and tells me about all the science that is, or not necessarily the science, but all the arguments made against tm. I'm aware of them, okay? I looked into them quite heavily and I am also aware that you could say a word in your head over and over again for 20 minutes. Let's just say a word like I don't know, throw a word out at me, Rachel or Brock. Universe, Yogurt, universe. So you could sit there for 20 minutes every day and you could say universe, universe, universe over and over again, sitting quietly with your eyes closed and you would probably see some benefit, right? Like, and, and that's probably the biggest argument that I would see made against TM that probably has the most potential for showing that TM isn't necessarily something all that special is that, well, anybody's going to get better at managing anxiety or sleeping if they just take a friggin break to sit for 20 minutes during the day and just say something to themselves. But there are a lot of little things that you're taught when you learn tm, particularly regarding breath work, the way that you manage thoughts coming in and out of your head, the way that you recite your personal mantra to yourself as you are sitting quietly and doing it. And I won't Delve into all the things that I was instructed on my course because honestly, I've been through five hours so far. It would take forever. But I have noticed some pretty significant benefits when it comes to me being able to get by on less sleep, me being able to manage stress and anxiety much better, particularly during the day when I'm just, you know, when it's like the Matrix and you're dodging all these bullets and a million things are getting thrown at you. And I've also noticed that I have a better ability to be able to organize thoughts in my head, to be able to when something comes across my plate, put it into a specific category, stack it, and then later on put that down in an Evernote document or whatever. So almost like my, my short term memory and memory organization in my head seems to have improved. Those are some of the things that I've noticed just objectively since beginning this practice of sitting for 20 minutes every day quietly saying this specific mantra over and over and over again. And I certainly thought that some components of TM as I learned it were woo woo. And what I mean by that is like during my initial ceremony or whatever you call it, I had to, you know, bring a white handkerchief and like these special, like sweet fruits and freshly picked flowers and bring them in. And we had this special ceremony where we burnt the incense around the flowers and the fruits and like some of that stuff. Maybe it's just because I'm like this hardcore science guy I always have an eyebrow raised at, but I'm also very open minded. And, you know, if that is something that's traditionally done, I'm not necessarily going to scoff tradition just because it seems kind of weird to me and I'm fine with that. And I have not gotten headaches, I haven't gotten extreme psychoactivity. I haven't gotten any of these things that people will say will sometimes happen when you do tm. So at this point I would say I'll absolutely keep doing it. I definitely will give credence to a lot of the research that's been done on it. And so far it has done exactly what I have. What I wanted to do when I first started it, which was allow me to be more productive and to get by on less sleep. And that's really the main biggie for me. So there you go, I think.

Have you meditated before this, Ben, as well? Have you tried other forms of meditation?

I have. I've done everything from holotropic breathwork to just basic, like Native American sit Spots. I've obviously done huge amounts of what I would call moving meditation, AKA Ironman, triathlon training, sitting for five hours on a bike. I've done alternate nostril breathing, box breathing. I've done quite a bit of the meditations that Mark Divine put us through when we were at the SEAL Fit Academy in Kokoro. And he did everything from going to your special, what he called your training shelter in your mind and you'd stay there for a specific period of time and paint all these pictures to finding your power animal to like fire breathing. So, yeah, I've done experimented with a lot of different forms.

Do you see anything different in tm? Have you experienced, you know, anything different from other forms of meditation that you've done?

Yeah, absolutely. The. The sleep component. Okay, for sure. That I talked about. So yeah, yeah. So. So there you have it. I mean, and, and I will tell you right now, it's expensive. Like if you go to tm.org and you, you buy your course and everything. And sure, they're making money off it, but, you know, like Brock and I talked about last week, like, if something is beneficial, I'm a capitalist. Like, if you've found something that changes people's lives and that's beneficial and they decide they want to buy it from you, more power to you, that's fine. So I'm also fine with them selling it for high amounts of money. But anyway, so that's the deal with Transcendental meditation can delve more deeply. And I'll probably mention a few more times on the podcast. I may even get the guy who's instructing me, Phil, who's from here or from close by in Idaho. I may even get him on a podcast sometime so we can geek out on it a little bit more. But at this point, that is my experience with transcendental meditation. Call me Woo woo. Call me crazy, but there you have it.

Hi, Ben and Brock, it's Natalie from Australia. Love the podcast. Tune in every time you release a new one. Just a question for you about rebounding. There's comments around saying that rebounding for 15 minutes is equivalent to running for an hour. Seems a little bit over exaggerated, but interested to hear what you think about rebounding. Also, please keep up the great work of the podcast. Absolutely love it and look forward to future episodes. You guys rock. Hope to see you in Australia sometime soon too. Bye.

I rebounded at my grandma's.

You did?

I will admit I did. Yeah. So my dad got into rebounding for a while and he like Had a couple of, like, fancy mini trampolines, and I thought it was the dumbest thing ever, honestly. And I go over to my grandma's down in Fort Lauderdale sometimes, and those mini trampolines are still there. And I rebound every morning when I'm at my grandma's. I actually feel pretty good.

So can one of you explain rebounding to me? I'm not sure I get it. So they're tiny little trampolines. Trampolines. And what do you do? You just bounce?

Yeah, basically.

That's it. Nothing fancy.

So what I do when I rebound is I will bounce up and down for a specific period of time, and then I'll bounce faster, I'll bounce slower. I'll bounce on one leg, I'll bounce on the other leg. I'll bounce and pull my knees to my chest. So I'll throw in all sorts of different moves. But there's no rule about how you're supposed to rebound necessarily. So they've actually looked at rebounding. The Journal of Applied Physiology, there's a study in that on rebounding. They've also looked. Another organization called the NCBI has looked at human lymphocyte activation with rebounding, and it's very similar. You could draw parallels to vibration platforms in terms of the effects and the benefits of rebounding. So back in the 80s is when it first gained popularity. And NASA was actually studying rebounding because they wanted to figure out a way to help astronauts regain their bone mass and their muscle mass after being in space. Because we all know that you're just like this giant sack of jello when you step off the space shuttle after being in space for a while because you're exposed to less gravity. And I don't know if I need to explain this to you guys.

Not me. I. I read Commander Hadfield's book, so I know all about it. And I recommend it to anyone who's.

Interested in space travel rebounding or Commander Hadfield's book.

Commander Hadfield's book.

Got it. Well, what they did was in this NASA study, they tested the athletes while running on a treadmill, or the astronauts, in this case, and they measured what was called the G force. They measured it at the ankle, they measured it at the back, and they measured it at the head. And what they found was that the G forces while on a trampoline were almost identical at the ankle and the back and the head. And so they were actually inducing similar forces in terms of what the joints experience during running, but with less pressure and less impact. Particularly in this case, to the feet and to the legs. And they also found that the work output and the oxygen uptake was actually slightly greater when trampolining than when running. Now, I think that this is all subjective because obviously a good runner and someone who's a seasoned runner is probably going to be able to get themselves up to a higher level of cardiovascular output than a novice runner when they're running versus when they're trampolaining. And of course, there are all sorts of other benefits that come from running, like the impact. One of the things that happens with impact and with bone jarring is an increase in red blood cell production and an increase in plasma volume and an increase in bone density and some of these other things that you may not get in quite as high a level when you're. When you're trampolining. But they did find that trampolining could avert a lot of the deconditioning that can occur during immobilization, such as might occur during bed rest or space flight or at my grandma's house. So, basically, there are benefits that have been proven. And the other thing that is completely kind of unrelated to athleticism or G forces is lymphocyte activity. Like I mentioned earlier, the lymph system, which transports your immune cells through your body, supports immune function. It's actually stimulated quite heavily via bouncing up and down. The same has been shown with the lymph system, lymph drainage, immune function with vibration. And that's very similar to what occurs during trampolining. Now, there are some other interesting anecdotal things that haven't been looked into too much in studies, but there are some hypotheses out there about how it may help improve digestion, like maybe even help you with your morning poo when you bounce for five minutes on the trampoline when you get out of bed. Me, I personally do jumping jacks, but you could do trampolining. There's some hypotheses that it may stimulate mitochondrial production, although I have yet to see any compelling studies on that maybe would help improve balance. I've definitely noticed when you're bouncing back and forth on one foot versus the other, that it seems like it's helping that. But again, there's no studies that have shown that it may help improve the effects of other exercise. And there was one study that found that people who rebounded between their weightlifting sets saw a 25% greater improvement in strength after 12 weeks of strength training than people who didn't rebound between their weightlifting sets. Interestingly, again, not to kick this horse to death, but the same has been shown with vibration platforms. So we see a lot of parallels in terms of the research when it comes to the benefits of rebounding and the benefits of vibration platforms. So, you know, I'm a big fan of doing it. If you're trying to rehab an injury, if you're trying to maintain fitness, you know, and you're a runner and you're injured, I like things like aqua jogging, like vibration platforms, like trampolines, to maintain fitness without necessarily producing the same amount of impact. So I have yet to go out and purchase a mini trampoline. I will certainly put a link to some of the better reviewed mini trampolines in the show notes if people are now basically foaming at the mouth wanting to go out and get themselves a mini trampoline. But basically, I would say that if you are a novice exerciser, you would probably get similar benefits between rebounding and running. If you're an advanced athlete, Ironman, triathlete, marathon, or someone like that, you're probably gonna still want to stick to running as your bread and butter. But rebounding, you know, throwing a mini trampoline in the. In the bedroom or whatever, you know, it, it's not only fun, but productive. So there you have it.

Not sure about putting it in the bedroom.

Well, you could use it for other activities as well. Oh, I gotcha. Break all the mirrors.

No more.

Yeah, I don't know how that would work, but Me neither. But I'm willing to try flips onto the bed. So have either of you guys, like, purchased a mini trampoline or do you have one laying around that you could go practice on? Give us some feedback next episode.

Well, Brock would be out for that because he's not going to be on the next episode.

Brock won't be. Thank you for reminding us, Rachel.

I could have told you so many wonderful tales of my rebounding exploits, but.

Sadly, yes, this podcast is beginning to drag on. So I guess we should probably move on to the very, very special part of the podcast, which is where we. I was going to say where we say goodbye to Brock, but it's actually where we read a review where you.

Give away a bunch of crap.

Where we give away a bunch of crap. Then we'll say goodbye to Brock and you too. If you would like to say goodbye to Brock, please go to the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 331 this is your last chance. Aside from perhaps doing it on an itunes review, where you can shove Brock under the bush, give him a hard time, wish him luck in his Zamboni travels, make fun of his Canadian accent, take digs at Kokanee and Patin, pretty much anything that you would like to do.

Now, the best part of Rachel taking over is her accent is even more ridiculous than mine.

So I'm not sure about that.

She has no idea what she's about to get into.

I don't know what I'm talking about.

Just hold on for dear life Rachel. And in the meantime, if you are listening in and you would like to leave this podcast, a review or say your thoughts about Rachel replacing Brock, you can do so over in itunes. And you just go to itunes, you do a search for the Ben Greenfield Fitness show and you can leave your review there. And if we read your review on the show and you email geergreenfieldfitnesssystems.com that's geergreenfieldfitnesssystemS.com then we will send you a handy dandy gear pack, chock full of cool Ben Greenfield fitness beanie, a PCB free water bottle that won't fill your plasma with plastic, and also a shirt. But not just any shirt. A tech T shirt that you can wear when you're at the gym automatically gives you a six pack. No electrostimulation required. So who wants to read this week's review?

Oh, let me do it just for. Just for old time's sake.

Old time sake. All right, so this review is from Kyle Moz. It's called the number one Fitness Slash Forward Slash Rachel Life podcast.

Does it refer to which way the slash is leaning? Is that the idea?

I guess so.

Just lean forward. That makes sense. All right, so Kyle Moss says in this podcast you have a ridiculous amount of information given to you. Ben doesn't just throw out numbers or pieces of info that he heard from a friend or from someone at the gym. The man does his research and tests out things himself. So you have a legitimate opinion that is based on facts, except when it comes to transcendental meditation. A perfect combination of nutrition, health, lifestyle and fitness all thrown into one podcast. Should be. Should be number one on iTunes for the rest of time.

That's right. Did you hear that? Did you hear that? This American Life. And what else? Radiolab and Serial. And what else? Mark Marone, Marin, however, you say that we should be number one on iTunes.

Yeah.

Get the hell out of the way, npr. That's right. Now I'm inspired to go out and seize the day. So, Kyle, thank you for that fantastic review. And in the meantime, not only Kyle's review, but everything else that we talked about in today's show, from the unbeatable mind retreat to my special recipe for the ice and coconut water with chocolate stevia to the Reddit. What's this plant, the full body electrostim, you name it. You can find all that@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 331 and Rachel, do you think that you could send me perhaps a headshot or a photo or something like that so people can. Can see what you look like, mustache and all?

I will do that.

Handlebar mustache and. All right, so we'll put a picture of Rachel, too, in the show notes. If you would like to go see who this is that you're going to be forced to listen to now in.

The future and make fun of.

Yeah, when I first took over, like four years ago, when I joined this show, there were some people who were really helpful and really constructive in their criticism, but there were some real dicks. And I just want, I implore you, don't be a dick. Like, if you, if you have something to say about Rachel, if you have something to, to contribute to the show, do so. That's always welcome. Ben is really open to that. I know Rachel is really open to that, but don't be a dick. These are humans.

Thanks. I was kind of a dick to Rachel for the past hour and 20 minutes.

Don't follow Ben's lead.

All right, well, that's all I have.

To say about that. And thanks, everybody for four awesome years. It's been a real pleasure, Ben, being your sidekick and, and all you fans out there. Thanks for being positive and being awesome and I'm getting a little choked up.

Okay, cut it off.

Cut it off before I cry.

Sounds like we're taking a poo and we're choked up.

Yeah.

All right, we'll end it there.

I say.

So.

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

Sam.