How Musicians Stay Fit, Why Meditation Is Crucial, Should You Try To Live Forever, Shroomies & More With Mike D Of The Beastie Boys.

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness Podcast, People don't realize when you're a band or artist or writer, whatever. Like, people think you actually have the solitary thing and you do it, but it's actually, no. You've got to mobilize a small army, sort of.

I think that that is the same type of fear of death that created a lot of the problems that we ran into during the pandemic. Nobody is allowed to die.

Being a punk rock kid, you look different than other kids, and that meant that other kids would chase you. They catch you, they're gonna beat you. And so I became good at run.

Performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. All right, you guys, today I got for you Mikey D of the Beastie Boys. Michael Louis diamond, better known as Mikey D. He's an American rapper. He's the founding member of the hip hop group Beastie Boys. He's a guy who was introduced to me by my friend Rick Rubin. And it turns out that Mikey's actually super dialed in to health, to fitness, to caring for his body, to longevity, to fringe supplements and superfood smoothies. And some of the stuff we get into on today's show. And I think you're really going to enjoy it. It's not often that I interview a musician versus a scientist or a physiologist or an athlet or someone like that, but I always, always enjoy talking to folks from different backgrounds, and Mike definitely falls into that category. So show notes for everything we talk about is going to be@BenGreenfieldFitness.com MikeyD that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com M I K E D Enjoy the show.

You know, it's funny, I've never soda open first on my podcast. We generally, unless we're doing music, we don't do headphones. So this is.

Oh, no kidding. I didn't even know you had a podcast.

Yeah, well, it's more of a music show. It's on Apple Music. I'll send you a link every other Sunday. I have a very wide range of guests from actors like Seth Rogen, John C. Reilly, and truthfully, a lot of people are either friends or good acquaintances, and a lot of musicians, people I've worked with. But down to visual arts, like, it's pretty, pretty eclectic, the mix. It's. It's interesting because I. The whole thing is, it's sort of like I. We do a back and forth playlist where I have them pick 10 songs, and I pick 10 songs.

You're merging music in with it.

Yeah, and it. And it. So it's. It's really music focused and music driven. But. But what is interesting about it is that, especially with. With guests that I have on that have, you know, they're out promoting something that they're doing, and they're doing a lot of shows, music is like this entry. It's kind of like where we were just doing, say, an exit. We were just doing these Tibetan longevity exercises together. Right. But that is this thing where we've come into this common experience together, and it sets a totally different tone for what we're going to do right now. And music, I feel, is like this similar thing where it activates. You know, you're in this experiential realm. And so, especially with these guests who had to talk a lot, it takes them out of, like, this sort of professional talking mode and into a more.

Turns into a more multisensory and personal experience. That's interesting. I'm going to have to start doing it. What I'm going to do is just annoy people and just play random tracks at certain intervals during the Ben Greenfield show and see if that works out. By the way, the Tibetan longevity exercises, which we just. Well, we actually didn't do the Tibetan rites, which we'll explain first. First you did the hape nasal spray.

Yeah.

What did you think of that stuff, the Zen spray?

It was intense for me. In a good way. I mean, I did. You saw. I did. Right nostril first. I don't know if I did it out of. Is there.

No. As long as, like. Yeah. Anytime you're using, like, an essential oil inhaler or even doing, like, left, right, alternate nostril breath work, you want to make sure that you balance out which nostril you're breathing through or breathing a substance into, so that you balance your nervous system. With a few exceptions, like with alternate nostril breathing, I think, and I may be remembering this incorrectly, I believe breathing in through your left nose and out through your right nose is more activating for the parasympathetic system. And then through your right nose, out through your left nostril, not your left nose. We only have one nose. Through your left nostril would activate the sympathetic. And therefore, if you were too wired up, you could do alternate nostril breathing and just breathe in through your left and out through your right and kind of do it asymmetrically. But usually when you, like, use some kind of an inhaler or anything like that.

You want to hit both nostrils or. Like I said, when I did it with you, right away I felt it sort of in the back of the top, back of my ears. And then when I went to the second nostril, it was like the whole dome of my head lit up with sensation. So it was really interesting.

It's a real opener. That's why it's so commonly used prior to either meditation or breath work or plant medicine. But I think you said when we were doing the Tibetan longevity exercises after that, you felt like your body was a lot warmer than usual. And I've found that to be the case too. And because of that, because I like to do breath work in the sauna, but I really like to sweat in the sauna and feel like I'm super hot. I'll use that before, like a sauna breath work session too, just to amplify my body heat even more.

Oh, wow.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had, had you done like hoppe before that?

Yeah. So I. I've only. My. My experience with hoppe before was in a much more extreme form. I had a shaman blowing it.

Oh, yeah, with that. With the caripe.

Yeah.

Or. No, the caripe is a self.

I forget what they call. It was some kind of. Basically some kind of shamanistic straw.

Yeah, basically it was shaman. It had feathers hanging off. It must have been shamanistic.

So anyways, you blew it up quite forcefully. It was like. I almost kind of almost go blind for a second because it's just such. It makes such an impact on your nervous system right away.

Yeah.

You know, I guess. I guess that's part of the thing of going in nasally. It's just you're immediately like.

There's another one that goes in through your eyes called Sananga, does the same thing, but it's in your eye. I have some in the mini fridge over there. That, that, that's like what you did up the nose times 10, though. Like you feel like your eyeballs are burning out for a good two or three minutes. And then there's another two or three minutes where you feel like you're blind and you can't see anything. And then after that you have extreme clarity. Heightened sensory perception, visual awareness, you know, the head clearing effect. But it's definitely a more hefty and uncomfortable experience than the hopping nostrils.

Yeah. So anyway, I did before I was blowing up one and then I was like. But it was. It was a full liftoff.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, out of body ob as the Professionals call it out of body. Yeah, Experience. You know, I very quickly, you know, it was like one nostril, then the other. And then he was like, okay, now again another round. I was like, okay, I know they hit you again and again and then, and then it was like, then it was like a third round. I was like, no, no, I'm like. And he's like, yeah, you have to do the. And then after that third round, it was kind of dmt like in that it was like, then I was full out of body and I, all of a sudden I was sort of like, when I came back into my body, I was actually sitting in the backyard here at the house and I just kind of like felt the grass underneath me and my body went into such like a fast sweating. Talk about heat getting heated. Like my T shirt immediately was soaked. Yeah, I was just.

I've had the same thing happen just doing the actual powdered hoppe from the Amazon.

But.

But use the caripe where you're, you're doing what the shaman did to you, but blowing through one tube straight into your nostril, the way that it's shaped.

So you're blowing your mouth. Yeah, self administering.

So you do one nostril, the other nostril, repack it, do it again, repack it and do it again. And I did this before meditation session and, and you know, like five minutes into the session was literally just drenched in sweat and you know, an incredible experience in terms of the head clearing effect. But the body heat increase was almost distracting. The other thing that, that, and we could even do this after the podcast. If you wanted to try it, Try round two is you do. You do that spray and then you do just one round of WIM hof. You only need one round. And as you hold the exhale, like the experience in terms of the, the DMT response and the tingliness and the light sensations and everything is just vastly amplified by that.

For everyone listening. You said there's. There's some essential oil sort of mixed in this tincture?

Yes, made by, made by Dr. John Laurence, who's been on the podcast show before. It's a, it's called Zen spray and he has one that's like peppermint and rosemary and all these cognitively enhancing essential oils with like some terpenes just for clearing out the nasal passages. And he's into like killing mold and mycotoxins and biofilms and stuff too. So there's like some helpful agents in there for that. Just for clearing out the nasal passages. So the other mix that he has though is that same thing plus the Amazonian herb, the hoppe in it. And that's what we did was the hoppe with the oils and then we did the Tibetan rights.

Yeah, yeah. Can we talk about that a bit? Just because A, it was my first time doing it and like I mentioned, my girlfriend had something she had talked about before. So I was, I was already open and curious to do it. And like we just talked about, there were a few things I loved about it. I love that for each asana or posture you're setting an intention or a.

Pairing of, there's a very, very brief mantra associated with each of the five movements of the five Tibetan rites. Although, like I was telling you it we were doing them, there's six. But the sixth rite is actually designed for a lot of the monks or the so called lamas where this practice came from to enhance their ability to be celibate or chaste because it draws all the energy up from the sexual organs and the root chakra. And I don't do that one much because I have no desire to be celibate. But the five Rites, we are householders, Ben.

We need. We need to activate our wangs.

We are responsible. We must take that responsibility, not only to protect and to provide, but also to procreate. That's an important p. The Five Rites, though, so they come from this. It's an old book and I forget the name of it, written by an English army colonel who went and discovered these monks and lived with them. And they had incredible vitality into old age. And they had these five movements that they did each morning, 21 repetitions of each and the movements. And we just did them and I've been doing them in the morning now I'm kind of on this, what do you call it, a gong of these Tibetan rights each morning. And so the first is called the Whirling dervish, where you have your arms out to the side, you spin from left to right 21 times. And it's from left to right because ideally you're moving in the direction that supposedly the actual cells spin in when tuned to a higher frequency, clockwise. So you are turning counterclockwise from left to right counterclockwise 21 times. And you're a little dizzy when you finish that one. And then the second is you're down on the ground almost doing kind of like a leg lift. And there's a mantra associated with each. And also one is associated with water, with earth, with wood, with fire, etcetera and for example, the third one, the bridge where you're bridging your hips up towards the sky, that's the earth one. And so your mantra is, I'm strong and balanced as you do that one. And then the fourth is. It's the one where we're kneeling. Back bend.

Oh, yeah, it's almost. Well, I would open. It's almost like a camel. Like a modified camel.

Right.

In a way, you're not. You're not touching your hands to your heels, but to the back of your hamstrings and then down to the knee crease.

Exactly, exactly. And then the last one is. Is just like that basic down dog chaturanga type of series. And 21 repetitions of each. And it's designed to open up all your chakras, to move energy through your body, to activate digestive fire, to initiate a bowel movement. You know, there's all these downstream effects both.

Not to be too graphic, but it checked all those boxes for me.

Yeah, you did actually go disappear into the bathroom, I think, right before I.

Had to start recording. Make that happen before we started recording.

Yeah, of course. We also had a giant superfood smoothie.

Yes.

I did not blow out your blender this time, which.

Yeah, it was fine. It recovered last time, so don't worry. You're not able to take the vitamins.

Smoke in the kitchen.

Last time it took a day or two for the smoke to dissipate, but the Vitamix came back.

The Vitamixes aren't. They're like the Volvo of blenders.

They are truly remarkably invincible.

Yeah, not the new ones. The old ones.

Yeah. No, the one I have here is the one that you almost put into the grave is one of the old ones. I literally think I have it. It goes back to the days when I was married to Tamara, and it literally. It predates my kids. I mean, I have that. You know, Davis is 18 years old. The lender, I think, is over 20 years old.

They don't make them like they used to because I've got two Vitamixes and both have kicked the can after a couple of months. And these are like $450 if we tag Vitamix. I know.

Please.

Somebody's got to invent a completely.

You need to make an OG model vitamins.

Well, what we need to do is a green filled blender where. Because all of my. There's a dog attacking us. All of my smoothies I make so thick that they're like an ice cream texture. And you could eat them with a spoon. But that's also kind of hard on the blender because you're blending it so much more thick. So we need to develop a blender that can be like an acai bowl style blender instead of a smoothie blender. So you're obviously, as we've already alluded to, into fitness and health. Although most people would probably associate you with your background in music and probably unhealthful living.

Yeah, possibly a lot of ways.

Exactly. Yeah. You don't associate the Beastie Boys with your spa massage, yoga session necessarily, or your superfood smoothie. But I know that you kind of grew up as a punk rock kid, but eventually, at some point along the lines, you got into taking care of your body and arguably also your spirit, your mind.

Spirit and mind, yeah.

So what happened? How'd that evolve for you?

Well, I think it's like, it's like anything. It's not just one or two events and it's not just there are some light switch or light bulb moments, but it's a trajectory. Right. So as you alluded to, I grew up sort of like an angry punk rock kid in New York City, and really in Manhattan. And especially at that time, New York City was kind of a tough world. Like you couldn't be soft in any way.

I get contextualize this for you. You're talking to someone grew up with the most, like boring, plain Jane, you know, Christian, homeschooled, safe kid in north Idaho. So we come from quite different backgrounds.

Right?

Yeah.

So, you know, I'm lucky. I came from like economic privilege, but, you know, my dad had died and I was sort of just like angry about that. And I had two older brothers, but they were both out of the house. So it was just my mom and I. And just New York in that time was a rough place where, you know, being a punk rock kid, you look different than other kids. And that meant that other kids would chase you and if they catch you, they're going to beat you. And so I became good at running and then I.

So that was where you started.

That was one of my first. That was really where cardio really entered my functional fitness. It was. That was my functional medicine.

Right, right. Actually survival. Running from the lion.

Yeah, yeah, I got. Yeah, exactly.

But, you know, this is something I've kind of wondered about. Musicians in general, especially performing musicians, Although they may not have come from a background in fitness, it seems as though somewhere along the line you would have had to have developed a great deal of especially cardiovascular fitness. For. I mean, tell me about how that actually was in terms of the physically demanding nature of performance.

Sure. Well, here. So I'll fast forward. So I was like that. That punk rock kid. And then before I knew it, we kind of shifted gears in terms of our passion. Along with Adam and Adam, my bandmates, and Kate, who was in the band at the time, like, we. We really shifted of like all sudden rap music was just taking over New York City. And it was the most exciting, rebellious thing that we'd ever heard. And we had to be involved in.

What year would that have been?

So this is in. See around when I was like finishing high school, like 1983.

Okay.

1984. And then we. And then by 1986, our first album, end of 1986, our first album, which we made with Rick Rubin, who, you know, called License to Ill, that came out in the fall of 1986. And we put out some singles before that. And we just. Leading up to that, we had really the good fortune of like, we were working with Rick and Rick at that time. You know, the Rick we knew was very, very radically different.

And by the way, just so you guys know, Rick and I told this whole story, I interviewed Rick Rubin. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Mike D M I K E D I'll have all the show notes for everything that Mikey D and I talk about. But I'll include the interview with Rick because, yeah, he also kind of caught the health bug later in life, the music scene.

Absolutely. And I think it's. I'll get into it, but I think. I think it's something you see with almost every musician that lives through this process. It's an inevitable thing to happen. Because I think part of what happens with us as musicians is first off, you know, we're basically kids, right. So we don't. We're going out to clubs with Rick writing lyrics on napkins, then going back to the studio from the club at three in the morning, recording vocals until five in the morning, going to sleep at six, waking up at noon and hitting repeat. Right.

But you had blue light blocking glasses.

Right.

So you were good.

I was going to say our awareness of circadian rhythms was zero.

Right.

That was a term that had never surfaced for any of us, Rick or any of the three of us. Then here we are, you know, licensed comes out. It's this huge, hugely successful or commercially successful record. And we're on tour all the time. And, you know, very quickly you get. And I think this is for absolutely Any group that goes on tour with any degree of success, you get burnt out really traveling all the time. You know. Now I have like this vocabulary to discuss it but at the time I'm what I'm 20 years old. I don't have the vocabulary and I certainly don't have any of the tools to mitigate. We're getting on airplanes every other day. Getting right. Getting exposed to whatever. I mean this is even pre. Pre. Wi fi. Pre pre probably had you only go.

Outside in your bare feet at least.

Right, right. But yeah, we had no idea of grounding. No concepts of grounding. And you're just constantly like airplane torpedo. The cliches are real. And you're. You're sleeping in a bed that's not yours. You don't know where you are. You're waking up in the middle of the night not knowing where you are. You know, you're. You were talking about the on ramp to this was you asked about like this cardio thing. You're, you're, you know, you're running around on stage for an. Whatever it is. So an hour and a half let's say every night. I mean as our time went on our shows we get even a bit longer. But you're. Let's say you're running around literally for an hour and a half and you get off a stage and you know, you're drenched in sweat and it truly is cardio. Right. Because you're literally yelling while yeah jumping around.

Jumping around like wearables on you guys see what the step count and then.

Think about just the, the. The adrenaline every night. Because I mean the best way I have to explain after you know, having done it for decades of touring and again then later on we'll get to that. I would get to the point where I could really see clearly it's just this energy exchange. You know, you're. But you're putting out a massive amount of energy and to make it a truly special or really, you know, like a really good show, you also have to be willing to just sort of go into it open hearted and take on the energy that's out in this room of sometimes tens of thousands of people.

Right.

You know, and so you also have to sort of get. Nobody gives you. It's not like when you start going on tour and you're 20 years old, anyone gives you a roadmap or say a Tibetan book of longevity practices, you're just thrown out there and then you get home from being on tour and then it's a real sort of mind, right? Because you're not, you're, you're not having this adrenaline source every night. You're not getting the energy exchange. You're not having like all thousands of people giving you their energy every night while you're putting your energy out. And I think that's where a lot of musicians lose it and that's where a lot of like chemicals. That's where so much chemical dependency and alcoholism and where it comes about of just like. Of course, of course, yeah, you're going to end up self medicating because it's like, like how do you possibly balance this one extreme. And again, you know, you're totally adrenalized. Nobody's.

Yeah. Highly dopaminergic event that when you step out of it, you know, back into your home cave all of a sudden with the absence of that huge flood of neurotransmitters that you're used to getting every single night. I would imagine that some type of chemical assistance would help with that. And then the other thing is.

And ritual too, right? You get on the tour bus and you're with everybody else and you, you've got, I mean, I look back and I was like, whatever it is like that point, it was putting a VHS tape in the.

Right.

And watching it on the bus. It's like you, you had to have the ritualistic sort of cool down. And you know, I think a lot of, for a lot of times for people that's maybe an unhealthier off ramp than others, you know, and so we, we didn't have the awareness of like this idea of, okay, well, there's a parasympathetic nervous system and there's a sympathetic nerf system. The other thing, I think that even now it's hard. Like if I stay up with my kids, if you hear any music in the background right now the studio's next door. Working in the studio next door. But even when I stay up, you know, till whatever, all of 11pm if I'm working on something with them now, I know I have the tools of like, okay, I've got like glasses that are blocking out the blue light also then in terms I know maybe, okay, I've got to do some melatonin because I got to get my body into.

Or things that deprivation stay, like creatine or nad. Probably two of the better ones for sleep deprivation. The other thing that a lot of people don't realize is that based on this kind of myth that stress makes you sick is the idea that epinephrine and this constant release of adrenaline and these excitatory neurotransmitters actually enhance the activity of the immune system.

System.

And so what happens is, you know, you, you're probably getting all that flood of adrenaline and epinephrine while you were touring. What happens is it's not during that period of time that most people get sick. It's when all the excitement subsides and then the immune system's like, oh, I get sick now.

Right. Well, and it's, it's also not during obviously touring's funny life. And in that sense. So it's where I think there's a commonality with all performers, you know, athletes with pro athletes who are in a game, they're in a game for 90 minutes and then they've got to calm down after again after being in a totally adrenalized state and then get on a plane, check into a hotel in some other city and then hit repeat, show up, practice in the afternoon and play a game the next night on their road trip. You know, it's the same thing. And so I think it's what would get, what gets you sick in touring is just this, the thing of not sleeping. You know, it's pretty basic of not sleeping, not eating properly, not balancing, not not having practices, you know, later on. That's why I discovered yoga. And I immediately had this profound reaction. Slash, attachment or discovery of.

It was, was this like in the 90s?

Yeah. So this is, this would have been early 90s. Yeah, early 90s was all sudden now I had something that created some semblance of balance in this chaotic touring lifestyle. And then the tools kind of could build from there. All of a sudden then it was like whatever room I was in, I could have a series of postures that I would feel a little more regular.

Tell me how that happened.

The discovery of yoga that I'd have to credit my first wife, I have to credit Tamara Davis, who I was married to. She introduced me to yoga practice. And it's kind of like you and I have talked about this before. The same way that I didn't come from any kind of gym practice other than running away from people and running around on stage and running around on stage. I didn't have anything that led me towards flexibility at all. Everything was tight, My postural muscles were non existent, my posture was horrible. I still could use a lot of improvement even in my thoroughly middle aged state.

I see you working on that with your current fitness program, which we'll get to, but it sounds like Yoga is what started that. Slippery slope.

Yeah, yeah, well. Or yeah, slippery slope or yeah, good. Slippery slope. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe a little bit of both.

And what was the particular form of yoga that you really got into?

We were living in New York at the time and Tamara took me to a place was on Second Avenue in the East Village at the time called Jivamukti. It was a lot more active than. It wasn't this yoga that I had sort of stereotypically thought of in my mind that was very slow and kind of like taught at your local YMCA with like 70 year old people in leotards. It was this. All of a sudden I walk into it and it was, it was really. It was like an East Village freak show. Like everybody is completely tattooed up and pierced and everybody seems to be able to do everything really well except for me. And everyone's that I'm like in there and I'm sweating profusely and you know, barely able to sort of do it. Anything.

Everyone's first experience with the yoga class is that. That overwhelming sensation that everyone is looking at you and you're doing something wrong. Yeah, Whereas. Whereas in most cases nobody sees you at all. But I think that's one of the places we tend to be the.

Unless you smell really bad.

The harshest judge of ourselves. Yes, unless you smell really bad. Unless you're that person who perhaps ate some, what do you call it, resistant starch prior to yoga. That can also be a situation if.

You had some bad oils.

Right, right. Don't be that person that are hard.

For your body to process. That kid.

But obviously, as you know now, unless you're doing well, I mean, like the old yoga where it was more. I was recently conversing with a podcast guest on Breathwork named Niraj Naik about this. And the original yoga involved a lot of minimal breathing in long exhales and extremely long isometric holds of each position for like three to five minutes. So similar to blood flow restriction band training, there was a lot of lactic acid that accumulated in the muscles. It was from a strength and stability standpoint, perhaps more physically demanding than some of the forms of yoga that are practiced now. But painting with a broad brush, yoga is not the only thing that you need to stay in shape if you want to kind of check off all the physiological boxes. So did you realize at a certain point that you wanted to do more than yoga or did you move on to. Because I see you now, you like kettlebells and you got a trainer out here doing you know, a lot of mobility exercises, a lot more functional strength exercises. So. So when did all that begin to develop for you?

So that. Well, well, first to give yoga its due. I mean yoga was great for me because it was also a transportable practice. Right. So I'm on tour and I don't, I don't have infrastructure, I don't have.

Right.

So any hotel room. And I think, you know, now when I think about it, in hindsight, what's interesting in, in the vast yoga lineages there are as you and I now, we're both really interested in, in pranayama and breath work. I mean that is something that really resets me and it's something that I, I find now that I'm own up to being thoroughly middle aged in at least in terms of where my body is at. Pranayama or breath work is a tool that really is so completely dependable in terms of providing, setting the tone for that day. I really can, if I need to be up, I can do a pranayama series that's going to lend itself more to that if I need to. Oh God, I'm gonna have a really insane day. And it needs, I need to do more alternate nostril breathing because I need to just go into it in a very.

You use your breath like a gas pedal and a brake pedal, just like we were talk about with alternate nostril breathing or like we were talking about at dinner last night. That ability to be able to control your psychological state via something as simple and free as your breath should be woven into the core curriculum of every young human being on the face of this planet. And it's nuts that people think I can't get to sleep tonight. I'm going to take NyQuil, Ovalium, Melatonin, CBD, whatever. And perhaps their parents never just put them to bed at night with breath work like that should just be a thing that, you know.

Or even at school, teenagers are showing up, they're, they're, you know, their circadian rhythms are that they're going to be waking up later in the day, but they're having to wake up. Well, like what if they started their day right? Why couldn't you start PE class with.

Wim Hof and end with 4, 8 breath work. Right?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And, or, or think about, you know, they, they talk about kids and their attention span and, and all and how prevalent attention deficit disorders are in kids and how, how greatly that would be affected by just throwing in the toolbox in the middle of the day. Or later coming into the afternoon where kids are all over the place in terms of attention span. I mean I find it myself as an adult. One of the most powerful tools I have is just taking a 20 minute break and doing a 20 minute break meditation in the afternoon. And then that just sets me up to deal with whatever I have to deal with for the end of the day. I can go into another round of emails with this like total clarity and answer back and get on calls. Or do you do whatever I have to do and then go into the fun stuff of having dinner or sauna and ice with my, with my boys and being totally present for them and giving me what I credit sitting meditation with a lot of things. But one of the things is it just gives me this patience but like this elasticity to the span of patience I have.

I absolutely agree. Although I'll sometimes use this strategy if I know that my wife and I want some time alone in the evening and we want to kind of get the kids to bed a little earlier. I do sauna and breath work with the boys before dinner, right. I take them through a 20 to 25 minute routine. I bring them into the ice bath afterwards, do sauna, we do ice and they're like their lights out by like 8:30pm and that's my strategy if I just want the kids to fall asleep early. So you talk about like ADD or adhd, especially in boys. You do some sauna, some breath, work some ice. It's not that I would endorse this in children, but it's literally like your kid just smoked a joint and they're ready to hit the scene.

Well look, you've seen how our household functions. I mean I thankfully have kids that complete freak of nature household where I have two teenage boys who are very focused on music and their lights out at 8:39pm they're not, they're not interested really in seeing up the other. And they're also, if they could live every day of their lives, being able to do sauna and ice into dinner into dinner cooked by themselves with the ingredients they can control, they'll, they would be completely happy.

Like the Groundhog Day of happiness for us as a, as a family is typically something very much like that evening family tennis or walk or sauna and ice with breathwork family dinner where everybody's pitching in, helping to prepare family prayer and gratitude, then eating story time songs of the guitar and bed. And like we literally could do that 365 days a year.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I Think that's one of the things that, where we look to be sensitive to everybody out there. Everybody had different quarantine Covid experiences and were impacted differently. For us as a family, we really flourished in a lot of ways because we've. My kids have grown up their entire lives with me traveling and traveling either with me traveling or them traveling with me or them traveling with their mom because both of their, their parents have to travel for work. And so to all of a sudden have this thing in place to realize like, wow, we can really be really be happy in this lifestyle. And of course music is very, very integral in that as you've seen. There's always like, there's in that sauna at Ice type, there's always music leading right up to that in the studio that we have right here. And then it's like, then everybody kind of pitches in like what you described for dinner. And then it's usually a little bit more music afterwards. And usually there's. Given whatever the circumstances, one of us is going to be rolling out, doing some kind of sort of like that wind down decompression foam rolling thing. Yeah, there's some foam rolling going on with that last bit of music and then grateful and happy to go. Yeah.

Well, you're in bed earlier. Your house is somewhat like mine. There's like a bodywork tool or a theragun or a foam roller or a lacrosse ball littered about nearly every room. You mentioned meditation and I have noticed in staying here that you definitely have a meditation practice. I'm curious how that evolved and what that looks like now.

So actually after I'd been practicing yoga for quite some time and then some friends introduced me to Bob Roth at the David Lynch Foundation. David lynch foundation does an incredible job of sort of being intermediaries of introducing transcendental meditation practice to a lot of times people like myself in the entertainment world. But then also they've incredible programs going on in schools where they've had a lot of success and really spent energy being able to put data to that success. Because to basically get to allow kids to have time to meditate in school, you have to be able to have data on that. You can't just say, oh, we think it would be a good idea.

Pretty sure this works.

I enjoy doing it, so I think they would too. Anyway, so David lynch foundation has done a great job. So I had the good fortune of learning tm. But I'd say for that matter, anyone listening, anyone who has a tm, you can just look it up online. Anyone who has a TM center near them. And I think there are TM centers.

They're all over the place. As a matter of fact, Rick is who introduced me to tm. I wound up working with a TM practitioner and going through the whole series. And I am not as consistent at it as I think you are because it's technically twice a day for around 20 minutes.

20 minutes, yeah.

And is that what you currently stick to?

Yeah, that's what I try. That's my. If I can get that in, that's great. I always get my 20 minutes in in the morning, as you've seen sometimes when you're coming in and getting coffee or whatever, and sometimes in the afternoon. Depending on what my work CYC is and what my obligations are, sometimes it can be a little harder. But even then, if I can get just. If I can get five or 10 minutes in. I mean, even when I've gone through. Like a couple years ago when we were doing this show that became a movie, that when we were performing it on stage in New York City, you know, I would get it in either backstage or riding in a taxi from Manhattan to the theater. You know, you really decide. It's like a lot of things in life, you really decide you're going to do it. It.

Yep.

It's really interesting that, that, that, that time you can find, even if it's not 20 minutes, you can find. You can find some time, manifest the time.

If you set your subconscious upon actually knowing that that's expected.

And I think for me it's that then I had this similar experience with yoga. And then I'll circle back to what you're. You were asking about the evolution of, like, why, Why I started training. All these things I think I'm good at. I stick to them because I feel the effect. I really feel the effects. And like I said with. With meditation, I can't imagine. And actually I give. I have to shout out Rick Rubin because he was also increment. He was instrument incremental. He was instrumental in me starting tm. And actually that now I think back at it, he was the one who linked me with Bob Roth and the David Lynch Foundation. For me, it's such an incredible tool for being a parent. And just not even being a parent also just made me better. Like when we were doing those shows, people don't realize when you're a band or artist or writer, whatever. Like people think you actually have the solitary thing and you do it, but it's actually no, you've got to Mobilize a small army, sort of, you know, every night you're getting on stage, there's 30, 40 people. It made me so much better at managing people and managing that situation by having tool meditation. Because A, it gave me the patience and B, it also gave me. Well, I think TM combined with also a lot of therapy gave me the ability to be very comfortable being honest with people. In hindsight, like, I wished that I'd had that when we were a band. We were touring all through our 20s and 30s. But you're young and you don't, as you've alluded to.

We wish we'd have that when we were boys, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

We'd been taught that from birth. So for you, doing things like TM in the morning, some of the bodywork that I see you. What does your morning actually look like? Because I know you have a trainer come over and work with you, so I'm curious what the morning looks like and how the training has evolved.

Yeah. So mornings, the early part is very, very regular in that, you know, wake up, hot water, lemon, apple, cider vinegar, and then I do a little bit of movement. What I've been like, we talked about this earlier. I do a bit of these, a series of yoga postures before meditation. But now I'm actually really interested to.

Doing the Tibetan rights before the meditation.

Yeah. Which I think will be.

I really like those Tibetan rites before my own prayer and meditation in the morning. So I don't get up and do prayer and meditation first. Now I get up, I do a movement routine. I read my Bible and journal in bed. Then I get up, do the movement routine, and then do the prayer and meditation after the movement routine.

So for me, it's hot water, lemon, apple, cider vinegar, movement, sitting for 20 minutes. Then I am very much into the ritual of. Of caffeine. So we go to coffee, which I share and I thank you for. You actually introduced to my household the awareness of toxins or microtoxins in coffee. In coffee, which is. Yeah, no, it's actually something I wanted to ask you about on your show because I feel like I still am not like Keon. Like, you guys are the only people, I think, who bring that up. Like, are there other coffee brands? Like, how. How do you. If you walk into an Erewhon or any health food store that you have of. Not to sound like too hoity toity privilege. I feel bad. I said, I mean, Erewhon is for us, but whatever health food store you have near you or for that matter, you know, local coffee shop, how do you go in and know other than you're sort of checking in with yourself and getting a gut feeling of like, well I think these guys are, I think they've roasted their own beans and they've done it recently. So I think you feel good about.

How you generally for me it's three things a I think it was Dave Asprey and bulletproof proof coffee that probably were responsible for bringing a great deal of awareness to the coffee loving community about mold, mycotoxins and I think a lot of other coffee companies, including my own, have sprung up since then as other either organic or mold and mycotoxin free or pesticide and herbicide free offerings for coffee. It's not as though those are difficult to find though. I mean you can find certified organic or if you're actually going to the website of the company, you can find what you farms have been grown on and whether or not those are organic farms, where the coffee is sourced from, how it's grown, et cetera, and how it's shipped and packaged, whether it's nitrogen flush, packaging that might retain freshness and so on and so forth. It's not impossible to find. There's probably gosh like 40 different brands in the US that you can actually find.

Yeah, but I guess what's the language that I'm looking for?

I would look for organic, I would also look for nitrogen flush. So you've got a guarantee of freshness with a little less risk for mold and mycotoxins. And generally just because a lot of times I don't know if you go over to my suitcase over there in the corner of the bedroom, I just always have one box of the four Sigmatic Chaga and one box of the four Sigmatic Lion's Mane. And we just launched a ground coffee at Kion. So now I'm throwing that into if I'm at a hotel room or a place where I know I'll have a coffee coffee maker but I'll generally just do, you know, I'll go to a coffee shop and order, you know, 16 ouncer of hot water and a little packet of stevia and just like, you know, dump a couple packets of lion's mane, one chag and some stevia and stir that up. And so I always have a backup if I don't know and I want a hot beverage that's kind of a pick me up and I don't know if it's organic, that's generally what I'll do.

Now can I ask you about the adaptogenic mushrooms for a second? Because we've cycled through in this household of doing, doing lion's mane, doing cordyceps and mixing those in with our coffee. And then I got to a point where I was feeling like, you know, what am I getting any effect like.

Generally substances or whatever you set mushrooms that I use. So if it's immunity because I'm traveling or I know that cold or flu is going around or whatever, usually it's turkey tail or chaga. Right. Those are my biggies for the immune system if I'm going to do like red light therapy or long walk in the sun. Also chaga, because the melanin in chaga and acts kind of similar to methylene blue. It'll. It'll amplify ATP production by the mitochondria. Interesting.

Quick question with the chaga. Do you soak it over? Do you keep it soaking over?

Because I use the 4 cig stuff mostly and I have some of the other chaga chunks and those require like a 24 hour soak time. And then, you know, you boil them up after that. But the powder is, it's already in an alcohol and water extracted solution. So it's just good to go for hot water for relaxation. Reishi. Reishi is amazing. Just to kind of settle you down at the end of the day or for a meditation or nap session in the afternoon or something like that. And then for energy, either lion's mane for mental energy or cordyceps for physical energy. Right. Those are, you know, I'm not a huge student of medicinal mushrooms, but those are the ones that, you know. And you could arguably say that sometimes with the lion's mane there would be like a microdose of psilocybin, for example, which I would also consider to be a little bit of a medicinal mushroom. And that's how I use them.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, I say lion's mane. Interesting thing that I'll bring up was people at the farmer's market that Skyler and I get our, that we buy fresh lion's mane from, which is great. That we cook with all the time.

Yeah. With a little olive oil, a little salt.

You cook it up with ghee and ghee and a little bit of garlic and salt. Mind blowing.

Ghee. Yeah. But I'm adding it to my list.

Oh yeah, do it. It's really, really good. And you have to cook the mushrooms obviously before you cook your other vegetables and leave them in your cast iron skillet like in kind of a mound. Let them sort of cook down on their own, like almost like a meat. The way you don't touch it. It's like you want it to sort of just. Just sear a little bit in amount. Yeah. If you have access to fresh lion's mane, it's great.

But I don't end up in Washington, but I wish I did.

We haven't done it. You can get a kit to grow your own.

That's actually, it's. That's the Greenfield project this spring is we're starting to grow mushrooms on logs on our forest.

All right. I'm curious. Yeah, I want, I want to see. Check in. I should. I'll check in on your podcast. Let me know how that evolves.

What do you call it when you air. Air seal a bed egg of our homegrown mushrooms?

Post coffee. Then it's. It's either going to be for me training or surfing in an ideal world. And that's where training thing really I think evolved out of aging. I'd say, you know, like, well, it was really. And it was something I wanted to get into. Into on your podcast because I have a pet peeve about anti aging.

About anti aging.

I want to hear it. Well, just that we are all aging. The only two things that are inevitable with us in our trajectory is that we're all constantly aging and we're all going to die. And then I actually even looked up before doing this. I started looking up the meaning of the word of anti because I think maybe part of it is just how I perceive anti to be anti. Actually, if you look it up the root, it's not as negative as we use it.

And my take on this is I am not grasping at straws. I'm not trying to live until I'm, you know, one set number. 160, 170, 180. I realize that that perhaps discounts the. The power potentially of manifesting yourself to that age. But let's, let's set that aside for now. I feel as though probably the biggest advantage to into account in implementing many of the tactics such as say NAD or hyperbaric therapy or sauna and ice or any of these things that. That are coming out of the anti aging longevity community, even like stem cells or exosomes, et cetera, it would not be a transhumanistic esque effort to live forever to as many transhumanists might do, you know, freeze one's head at death and cryopreserve it so that that severed head can then be Attached to a new body and your, your brain, you know, where I don't think any of your consciousness would reside. Anyway, in that scenario could go, could go on to live forever almost as a form of technological reincarnation. I think that that is the same type of fear of death that created a lot of the problems that we run into during the pandemic. Nobody, nobody is allowed to die, period. Death is dishonorable and horrific. Therefore, let's do everything from locking our elders away to shutting down the economy, because God forbid anyone should die. So, you know, I think that the transhumanistic live forever movement is also one that's heavily flavored with the fear of death or a denial of the beauty and honor involved in the natural aging process. Yet at the same time, by engaging in efforts that would increase one's lifespan and health span simultaneously, efforts that are responsibly implemented so that you're not spending like maybe 40 of the years of extra life that you got in a hyperbaric chamber, cold libido less and starving because of all the things you're doing so that you age long. Less, but responsibly implemented and well balanced. Anti aging and longevity procedures, in my opinion, simply equip one to be more impactful with however many years they are on this planet.

Right.

If I'm 60 and I can function like the average 40 year old, I'm going to be a lot better. Speaker, writer, researcher, you know, whatever I'm doing when I'm 60 or playing with my grandkids. That's the reason that I engage in these efforts is so that I can simply, simply live life to the fullest and be as impactful as possible with the unique skill set God has given me to live on my purpose on this planet. So that, that's why I like a lot of these protocols. So I can, I can simply do more and do better.

Yeah, well, and I think for me, and I'm curious to hear ask you this question, but I found for me, having kids was greatest sort of wake up call to this, right? Because when you have kids, a bunch of things happen and a bunch of things change. But one of them that's super immediate is your relationship to time. Right. And time management. Because before, honestly, I look back at it like in my time when we were making records and touring endlessly before having kids, time was literally an endless supply. It didn't matter when I go, we would all just go, we'd keep recording until we just bleary eyed and it was just diminishing returns. And you go and go to sleep and then show up back the next day and hit repeat and just do that endlessly. And same with touring, but then with kids you realize, okay, that becomes your priority. And so this whole idea of structuring time and really having this responsibility to time.

Yeah, something, something in your life that gets shoved that high to the top of the priority list forces you into an intensity placed upon time management that never existed before. And what's interesting, I don't know what you think about this is, you know, the idea about anti aging longevity. I think you actually see less of an obsession with that, with people who do have children. Now of course, people, when they have children definitely are motivated to want to be with their grandkids. Kids, you know, see them hit a home run or throw the football around them in the backyard. So I think to a certain extent there is some bit of preservation that becomes something you're motivated to do when you have kids. But at the same time, if you look at this from an evolutionary or ancestral standpoint, right, Once you have replicated yourself, there's a little bit less of a need for you to be alive any longer now that you know that you're living on through these other pieces of biology, these other human organisms that are related to you, that you've brought into the world. And we even see things like men, when they become fathers, their testosterone declines. And I think that part of that is the implementation of a decreased wandering mechanism. So you're more likely to stick around and be with the family, be with your wife, because you're not out chasing tail all day. But I think part of that might also be he's replicated himself. And now, I don't want to sound morbid, he can slowly die or die a little faster now that, now that he's got the kids.

But that's where I feel so lucky in my, in my life of that. I kind of look at it like for my whole life I've kind of like at one point it was like in two year cycles of making records and whatever. Now it's all different projects, right. We did a book, then we did a stage show, then we did a film. But in each of these processes. That's not the plural of process, is it?

Process, I.

Process, process. I. I don't know.

In all of these, I think processes, actually I think that is the plural.

Yeah. So I guess the. What I've. What I've noticed in common in going through the process of process of each of these things is that every time I'm learning, I'm going through something. On the one hand I'm, I feel comfortable about who I am and what I'm doing. Especially now that that's one of the great things that maturity gives you or can give you, but that, that also I get to do something new each time I am out on a hunting mission. Right. I am. There is no roadmap, you know, what are the word. I'm trying to make some. We're trying to make something that has never been made before. Each time it really is this wide open, I'm, I'm out, you know, on the, on the plains, on like some planes that I've never been on before, trying to hunt in my process. So I feel like actually very. I, I'm the beneficiary. I'm really, really fucking lucky basically that I get to sort of have this testosterone active work life. And then I guess I would balance that of saying like, like you talk about why I do, why I have these different practices. I do them so that basically overly simplified example that I can surf every day with my kids and obviously they're going to surf circles around me because a. They've been doing it their whole lives and there's just their muscle. It's like, you know, I watch them, they every move they make. There's, there's no, no lag between processor.

Right. And unconscious competence.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. And now I am the middle aged surfer. Right. I'm. Everything is, I'm connecting between processes.

Conscious incompetence maybe. Yeah. So, you know, but I want to.

Be able to do that as long as I possibly enjoy it, as long as I possibly can with them. And, and mobility is a huge part of that. With aging, you know, myself, you, all of us are going to come up against muscle. It's going to be harder to keep muscle on and I want to just be able to keep doing these things to the ability that I can and enjoying them.

Yeah. And no, I see you doing that. I mean we were talking about. How were you saying that you're doing like blood flow restriction training.

Yeah.

Now.

Well, because I, yeah, recently I had to. I somehow just, just through sort of being a general maniac, I chipped off a little piece of bone on my right knee and thankfully orthopedics are very good these days and with just a, you know, a very non invasive surgery they're able to get, get that out with one robot arm with the camera.

And the other robot arm.

Yeah. That I just got PRP done They did it when they did the procedure and I just got PRP shot yesterday. So thankfully you can do these things and feel great and bounce back. But the BFR was game changing for me in terms of it was really interesting work I hadn't done. But doing that as part of the physical therapy process, it's amazing. Blood flowing out, having to obviously as you know, do heavy weight loads. But to really be able to push leg that you're trying, that you're trying to protect against atrophying, push it to failure in a protected way was incredible in the way. And you see, I mean me, it's actually really, really interesting to see how the effect would have on my nervous system. I mean there's days, there's sometimes some days when we do like the full on BFR. Like we're doing like pistol squats. Yeah, the BFR bands and doing the 30, 15, 15 classic Japanese set reps.

Yeah, 30, 15, 555.

Yeah. I mean I'm shot for hours.

It's great. I mean I've got them in my bag over there. That's kind of like you were saying about yoga. It's my go to hotel room routine. Now I know there's so much you wanted to cover, but in the interest of time, I know that we kind of partially into your morning routine and.

It sounds kind of like a billion.

Of other things we could get into in the morning routine.

But.

I want to make sure that we give the folks listening in some of what you would consider to be at this point. If you could just choose a few your non negotiables, spiritually, physically, mentally, relationship wise. What would be a few things that you having lived the life that you've lived and also kind of merged into a career in the arts, you know, also a keen interest in health and fitness and caring for one's body and one's spirit. What type of pieces of advice would you have for the audience as a few non negotiables that are part of your routine that you think have been helpful for you and maybe helpful for others?

Okay, it's a great question and I'm going to try to hone it down because that could be a whole nother 90 minutes.

Even lightning around it. Like read this book because XYZ do this every morning because XYZ.

Well, as I've mentioned already, for me meditation practice is a huge thing, a huge tool. And that's going to be, I think. But listen, there's all different forms of meditation and some people will say Oh, I need to be moving or I need to do a walking meditation, whatever it is. I'm not saying it has to be this method, but having a kind of practice, I'd say I try to every single day be as grateful or show as much gratitude as I can and that I have. Incredible.

Right. Do you write it down? You just naturally go through the day?

I go through it mentally. I don't, I don't, I don't journal it generally. Although maybe there would. Maybe that's something I should add on, you know, I should be open.

I write it down. I mean something happens mentally when I write it down.

Yeah. And something I think we actually as a family learn from you is just doing the prayer where we first give thanks for the food and all the energy that's gone into it and then we give thanks for the company and.

Then we give thanks for that blessing. You know, I was thinking about that last night. I kind of got to the table and everybody was already eating. So I tried to at least raise a glass and bring a toast in. But yeah, usually, you know, nine times out of ten I love to bring in dinner with something very ceremonial like that.

Yeah, yeah. And we just do that as standard operating procedure now. And it's so great, you know, and the kid like my kids, honestly, I almost feel a little teary eyed and great as a parent being able to say that. Here I have 16 year old and 18 year old boy and they wouldn't even think of eating dinner without doing that. Simple practice.

What a gift for them, you know.

So thank you for introducing that. So that is a non negotiable. I also say in terms of, of I'm very grateful for the, for my girlfriend, for the romantic relationship I have. But I think a non negotiable is I'm only interested in being in relationships where I'm willing to do the work and I'm partnered with somebody who else who's willing to do the work. And when I say do the work, it's really, really go in and dealing with. You know, we all just grow up with an incredible amount of various amounts of, of trauma and different things that we sort of keep closeted within us. It's going to come out, but if we don't deal with it, it's going to come out in ways that can really be damaging to other people or to relationships. And so I really only want to invest that time even in work when I'm working like intensely. One of the things I loved about when we were doing the Filmed version of our show Beastie Boys Story with Spike Jones and Adam Horvitz, who's, like, my oldest friend and bandmate, and Spike, who's basically our oldest collaborator. And so it felt so safe in that. And then Jonah Hill joined us. And Jonah was great because everybody was willing. Everybody. There was really willingness to go in there, and it was all about. I felt very safe. And I was fine pitching out an idea and having it completely ruthlessly torn down because, A, it's for this greater good, but, B, we're in this relationship where everybody's. We know we're all willing to kind of, like, own up to our own shit.

When the frequencies are that of love and peace and joy and there's. There's forgiveness in the room, it's far easier to progress not only to be creative, but I found in my relationship with my wife, the more open and transparent we are with each other. I mean, the more we get done, the more that we love our time with the boys. And, you know, probably the best book we went through ever was Love and Respect, this idea that, you know, painting with a generally broad brush, women need a whole lot of love and guys need a whole lot of respect. And once that light bulb on went up for us, and I could just, like, realize that, oh, like, she seems to be doing fine all day, but I should just give her a hug right now for, like, 90 seconds, bear hug, and just love on her. And then for her, you know, because we're super competitive with each other, and this is a hard pill for her to swallow for a while. Saying something to me during the day like, you're working really hard today, babe. Thanks for everything that. That you've just done all morning. I see that. Right. And then for me, like, my chest swells up and I'm proud, and I love that. That, like, respect and admiration I'm getting from her. So, yeah, the. The whole love and respect trade off for us has been really impactful.

Right. Right. And the thing is interesting, right? As men, I am only just so aware now, I'm needy in that department. I need the appreciation. I need. I. But I need to. I need to be recognized in that I'm making these efforts. Do I start to sort of shrink a bit?

Yeah.

And it's not good. But then to be able to sort of get into that dialogue, you know, in a really clear way. Yeah.

It's like my wife says to me, and this. This sounds funny, but I, like, I feel 10 times better if she says to me, you're amazing or you absolutely crush that, then I love you. Right. Like, I actually, I actually like the former better.

Yeah.

All right, so throw one more at me as we wrap things up. What would be your final?

At this stage of my life, it's connection with the outdoors. You know, even though I grew up as a complete city head and I still, I love some of the adrenalized excitement and stimulation of being in a city. For me, being able to be outside in the morning and get immediate exposure to sunlight, daylight, be able to be active outside, whether it's going for a walk, a mountain bike ride, going for a surf. I know this is, I'm very grateful for it. So I'm coming from a place of privilege, being able to do it every day pretty much. But you know, you want to talk about non negotiables. For me, that's something that I'm not ready to move to Paris or you know, and I love visiting my friends in Paris or whatever, but great there for a bit. But I don't in terms of where I'm gonna live, I need that out that outdoor access and be able to have that with and you know, and that's I guess for me a non negotiational is also connection to family, obviously. Like with my kids, you know, I have to be, I have to be okay with you there at this point where they're just all sudden now they're writing on other people's records and they're, you know, going to be there traveling to other people. You know, it's, it's sort of all starting now. Now they're starting to go to like other people's studios and working there and it's all kind of growing from there. So I have to like be okay with the distance that is going to inevitably happen. But that's okay. That's part of aging. And I have to just be grateful for what a great close connection we do have.

Empty nester before you know it.

Yeah. Well, I don't know what these guys, I think pretty darn happy.

I want to create a scenario where, yeah. Where my kids want to keep on coming back. Not as a don't let them grow up type of thing, but just a scenario where you have a magical place for your family to always be able to gather and connect. And I think that the benefits of that outweigh the digital nomadic lifestyle for sure. And I would much rather have a castle that the whole family comes to and gathers that frequently than know, living out of an airbnb or a condo and, and Being. Being free and flexible.

Right.

So. Yeah. Well, well.

And I would also draw one last thing. Wait, wait, wait. It was along that. Those lines. Wait, I'm just trying to think something.

Wants to get off his chest is gonna be good.

Now I've forgotten what you're. I think just really that. I think what. Oh, that's. That's what is for me. I'm trying to think how to best articulate it. It's this combination of maturity and immaturity. You know, I think I'm actually now I'm really loving some of the things that I experience in maturity. I mean, some things are a pain in the ass, right? My knee, you know, I chip off a piece of my knee. That can thankfully be remedied easily. But there's so much that I can see and experience now and. And not be as reactive to or not get as thrown off by or whatever. And I think that comes from maturity because when I'm going through those things, I'm hopefully a bit more secure in who I am. You know, I've dealt with a little.

More detachment, surrender, trust, release of control and flow.

But I think then immaturity is important, as my girlfriend and my kids will attest. I make a lot of bad. I fart. I make, you know, I'm an immature guy. But. No, but I. But I. Immaturity is underrated in the sense that I want to always. Like I said, I have the luck of doing it in my work, but just in life, I want to always strive to challenging myself with things that are new and not give up on that and not. Not be complacent on.

Novelty and joy are very much yoked to youthfulness and vigor with age. And so the motivation to maintain those, I think is pretty. Pretty admirable.

But it's doable. Look, I mean, this morning you taught me these Tibetan longevity practices. I never learned those before, and now I'm going to incorporate that. So it's so doable and enjoyable.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. I'll always be a curious, voraciously, intensely curious seeker of new things in life. I think it's a great way to live. I'm going to. For those of you listening in, I'm going to link to everything that Mikey D. And I talked about. If you go to BenGreenfulFitness.com MikeDee I'll listen to. Or I'll link to my other podcast with Rick Rubin. And also, I know that you guys have a book on the whole Beastie Boys experience I think shipped up to me. I'll link to that one too in the show notes because that was a fun book. Pretty, pretty jam packed with photos and cool stories and so Mike, thanks so much for coming on the show for hosting me at your house. I feel like we could easily have done a round two, so that may actually have to happen. In the meantime, folks, again, BenGreenfieldFitness.com miked leave your questions, leave your comments, leave your feedback. I'd love to hear from you guys. I read them all. Until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Mike D signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to too use the links in the show notes, use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.