Krill Oil vs. Fish Oil, Yoga vs. Swimming and Athletes vs. Their Immune System!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, Krill oil versus Fish oil, yoga versus swimming, how to reverse the damage caused by antidepressants, open water swimming 101, and much more.

Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain and hormone optimization. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you just want to shed a few pound, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Well, happy New Year, Ben.

Happy New Year. Hey, let's get this podcast out of the way so I can go drink copious amounts of alcohol this morning.

I've already started.

I heard you went to a hockey game last night. I did.

I went to an Oilers Oilers Kings game and the Oilers won for the first time in, like, years, which is kind of cool. But I. I partook of some, some of the festivities in that I had a couple of really crappy beers out of really crappy little plastic cups.

Yeah.

And so if I'm not quite as smart and quick as I normally am, I blame the crappy beer. I just, I hate the way I didn't get drunk. Like, two beers isn't enough to get me drunk, but I'm just foggy.

Ah.

Yeah.

I've actually been abstaining from alcohol for the past week. Pat myself on the back for that. Oh, well, over the holidays, honestly, when there's like a party every freaking night, that's. That's quite a. Quite a feat. But this whole blog post that we're doing right now on the 30 days no alcohol challenge, where the guy, he did the blood testing and then we went 30 days and he just sent me all of his results from 30 days being off alcohol. And I'm like, holy cow. I'm actually releasing the article this Monday@bengreenfieldfitness.com But I mean, it's like the guy has gone from an unhealthy wine swigging, about to die of a heart attack type of scenario. Sorry, Jason. Yeah. To now the angels are singing everywhere he goes. So it's pretty amazing. Really?

It's that significant for that?

Yeah, it's pretty significant.

Crazy.

I've got before and after photos and all that jazz. It's amazing what happens in just 30 days. So I figure a week isn't gonna hurt me. But yeah, like I said, let's get this thing done so I can go pop open a bottle of bubbly and bring sounds. Good news flashes.

Well, 2014 was riddled with awesome studies, news flashes, posts, and all kinds of stuff. And this week is no different.

That's right. And we were speaking of popping open a bottle of bubbly. I guess we might as well talk about some other ways to make your baby stupid.

This was actually. Don't feed the baby bubbly.

Yeah. Or yourself when you have the baby inside of you. This was actually a study on prenatal exposure to common household chemicals. And as I do over@twitter.com BenGreenfeld I'm always tweeting the latest and greatest things I find, and this one was really interesting. What they found was that children who are exposed during pregnancy to high levels of two different chemicals that you're gonna find in most homes, especially in the U.S. but elsewhere also, one called dianbutyl phthalate and another one called diisobutyl phthalates. This also just goes by.

I have that under my sink.

Yeah. The general term phthalates had an IQ score that was, on average, more than 6 points lower than children who are exposed to lower levels of those chemicals in their homes. And so the recommendation from this study was to do things like not microwave food in plastics, to avoid scented products as much as possible that would even include scented shampoos and soaps and stuff like that. To be really careful with air fresheners in the car, to be careful with dryer sheets. And also, as we've talked about before on this show, when you look at the plastics that you're using, especially if you're pregnant. But I would just say, in general, anything that's got a three or a six or a seven on it, you generally would want to stay far away from those. So the magnitude of the IQ differences, though, is pretty significant. And so if you've got air fresheners and dryer sheets that you're hanging around the house, and especially if you got a little one growing inside you, you may want to think twice.

So I think the hockey arena beer dropped my IQ by six points, too.

Yeah. Considering it was probably drank out of a small, cheap microwave plastic glass. Yeah.

Microwave the beer.

Exactly. So another thing, and this also, I guess, is somehow related, and it has to do with your New Year's resolutions and the munchies and those extra pounds that you might get. And this was a study that I found in a magazine I was reading just a few days ago, and it was about marijuana and the fact that new research shows that people who are avid marijuana smokers, despite consuming more calories, often an extra 600 calories per day had significantly smaller waists and lower body mass index and less insulin resistance, meaning less difficulty absorbing glucose from the bloodstream compared to non smokers. Really? Yeah. Isn't that crazy? So they suspect that there is some way in which marijuana. They don't know really how yet, but somehow it's working to improve insulin control and regulate body weight despite a greater number of calories being consumed in the folks who are taking marijuana. The title of the study is called the impact of Marijuana use on Glucose, Insulin and insulin resistance among U.S. adults. And it was published in the American Journal of Medicine.

I'm actually choking, not just pretending, that's an actual choke.

Just for the record.

Wanna get high?

So anyways, I thought that was interesting. Take it for what it's worth. But it turns out that there may be something to marijuana use and insulin control. What I'm interested in is whether or not the cannabidiols in marijuana, which are the non psychoactive components, which are for example, in the US completely leg all 50 states that you can get. And you can consume it sublingually by spraying the CBD oil under the tongue. You can get it in a liquid dropper form. And I'm actually shooting a video about this right now, I'll put up on YouTube pretty soon because I've been experimenting with this. You can put it in one of these E cigarettes. And when an e cigarette, when you're not burning nicotine in an E cigarette, it's basically just propylene glycol and then any added ingredients, including cannabidiols or cbd. Again, completely, completely non psychoactive, but you still get a lot of the relaxing and possibly now the insulin controlling benefits of some of these extracts. And it's not hard, it's not hard on your lungs, it's just essentially it's vaporizing. Right. It's just the same as like if you're breathing steam coming off of, you know, a steaming water pot on your stove. So.

So the mechanism might actually be in the, in the, in the cannabinoids.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

It's really interesting. I'll release a video pretty soon of me showing exactly how you do this drug paraphernalia video.

Do you have an E cigarette?

I do, I do. I hate that it smells like, I hate the title cigarette just because people associate it with nicotine and benzenes and a lot of these carcinogens. But the fact is that I've been able to use that for CBD oil extract and also been able to use it, as I'll show in this video, with melatonin, L theanine and passion flower extract and actually been able to vaporize those prior to bed rather than using say like a supplement. And it's amazing. Really cool stuff. So give me a few days to get this video out, but I'll put it up over@YouTube.com BenGreenfieldFitness and if you stay tuned to the Twitter channel, I'll talk about it there.

I'm on the edge of my seat. That sounds really good.

And then the last thing that I thought was really interesting was an article about how hard charging athletes, or just like exercise enthusiasts in general, can keep their immune system strong. And this was an article that appeared at Supversity. And what the article was premised on was the fact that consuming what are called immuno nutrients or immune system supports it goes well beyond just warding off the common cold. And that many of these things that are used as immuno nutrients that feed the immune system can induce performance improvements, generally strengthen the immune system, but also shorten the exercise recovery period. And then the article went on to talk about some of the more investigated vitamins and minerals and nutrients that can protect your immune system, especially when you're in a state of hard charging performance. So one thing that they looked at was antioxidants. The two most popular, of course, would be vitamin C and vitamin E. And while they didn't really find any effect from high dose vitamin E supplementation, they did highlight some studies that showed 1,000 milligrams or greater of vitamin C could give you a little bit of an immune boosting effect and possibly cause fewer reports of upper respiratory tract infections. But as we've noted before in this podcast, with high dose vitamin C and high dose vitamin E in their isolated synthetic forms, there's possibly some evidence that it might blunt the response to exercise. Now, I have my reservations about the studies that show this because frankly, the people that they studied high dose vitamin C and high dose vitamin E in, they weren't exercising that hard. So I'm curious if you compare an Ironman triathlete to somebody say riding a bike for 60 minutes four times a week, if there would be a difference, if you kind of reach that state at which you do need that extra help from antioxidants. But vitamin C and vitamin E, not really the biggest wins in this one. Vitamin D, on the other hand, did have a lot of good evidence behind it as having a really good protective effect against respiratory tract infections and against a lot of the acute inflammation that can occur in athletes, especially when their immune systems get suppressed after exercise. So vitamin D definitely gets a thumbs up. And then the article also goes into some other things that tend to fly under the radar when it it comes to helping out with your immune system. Glutamine is one. And while you can buy glutamine in its supplemental form and the dosage that they recommend is up to 20 grams per day, which is pretty high considering that a lot of capsules are just one gram of glutamine, you'd probably want to get a glutamine powder that's getting expensive. But bone broth is an excellent source of glutamine. It's one of the reasons that you feel so good when you consume bone broth and why it does such a great why it has such great benefit for the immune system. So I'm a bigger fan of getting glutamine from bone broth and that's what we do is just make a big pot of bone broth once a week. Another one is arginine, which is a precursor to nitric oxide. So it has a performance enhancing effect, but it turns out to have a little bit of an immune system supporting effect as well. Now arginine, just like glutamine, is also an amino acid. So if you're eating a good range of amino acids, you're already getting some arginine anyways. But the use of arginine to support your immune system was one that I don't think is talked about too much, but it does have an immune system supporting effect. And then the last thing that the article talked about a little bit was lactoferrin. And lactoferrin is actually a component of colostrum. One of the things that I personally use for my immune system and also to improve my gut health when I'm competing. But lactoferrin is another one that has some really good antimicrobial activity and can protect athletes from infections. So really interesting article. I just kind of scratched the surface of some of the details of why some of these things work. But vitamin D, glutamine or bone broth, lactoferrin or colostrum and then arginine, which you'd actually have to take in its supplemental form or else just eat a lot of protein rich foods all seem to do a pretty good job keeping you from getting the sniffles and the snots. Love it. Listener Q and A Ben and Brock Randy from LA here. My question Krill oil Or fish oil. Break it down for me.

Krill oil versus fish oil. The smackdown.

I don't eat krill. Cause they are cute little crustaceans. Fish are just ugly, ugly creatures. But krill, they're so cute. Their little black eyes popping out of their head and their. They're tiny, tiny little legs. So here's the deal. So like I said, krill are these little crustaceans. And whales eat them, and small fish eat them, and seabirds eat them. And they've gotten really, really popular lately for a few reasons. The oil specifically. So hot right now. So hot. Krill.

So hot.

That krill's so hot right now.

So hot right now.

It has astaxanthin in it. And astaxanthin. I almost said that.

Protect your skin from the sun.

I almost said that like I was from Michigan. Astaxanthin.

Astaxanthin.

Mom, can I have some more astaxanthin? It's what gives the bright red pigment to krill oil. And they say that the oil from krill has a higher concentration of EPA in it. And it also has this antioxidant astaxanthin in it. Now, the thing with that is that when you look at the antioxidant astaxanthin, that's pretty easy to actually add to fish oil. Like the fish oil that I use, the stuff called Super Essentials that has astaxanthin added to it after the fish oil is made. But it makes up about 0.2% of krill oil, which is more than what it makes up in fish oil, however, that rapidly decomposes in about two to three hours. So it is true that krill oil has this antioxidant astaxanthin in it, but you can pretty easily add astaxanthin to fish oil as well, if you wanted to. Like the super essential stuff that I take, that has astaxanthin in it. It's a fish oil, not a krill oil. But they just add astaxanthin to the fish oil afterwards, which is just fine to do, because if you actually look at krill oil, when you harvest krill oil, that astaxanthin that's in it pretty rapidly decomposes. It decomposes in, like, two to three hours. So unless they're getting that into a packaged state right away, in terms of the processing, you don't have a ton of astaxanthin by the time the krill oil actually gets to you. Now, the astaxanthin component though, it's a really pretty small part of the whole idea behind krill oil. Because what they really try and sell you on when it comes to krill oil is the fact that they say that the EPA in it is more completely absorbed that you get more of those omega 3 fatty acids in krill oil. And this was actually recent study that was funded by a company called nko, which is the leading supplier of krill oil. And what they showed was that when you take 120 milligrams of krill oil, it increases the omega 3 index, which is kind of the standard for omega 3 effectiveness, from about 5.9 to 6.7. And then they compared this to a fish oil and the fish oil increased it only from 5.1 to 5.8. And this was the study that was used to promote a lot of the superiority of krill oil versus fish oil.

But there's a about the same ratio of improvement.

It's not the same ratio of improvement. It is a significant difference from a research standpoint. But an increase of the omega 3 index in the human body from 5.9 to 6.7% is not going to really result in much of a functional effect. You don't even get much benefit from using Omega 3s, whether they're from fish oil or krill oil, until that index reaches about 8%. And you really start to notice a dramatic difference once it gets up to about 12%. So when you're just using 120 milligrams of fish oil or krill oil, either way you look at it, it's not enough to make much of a difference anyways. But the reason that they only used 120 milligrams in the study, and this is the part that a lot of people don't realize, is that krill oil is about 15 to 20 times more expensive to make than fish oil. So if they'd actually used enough of a dose of krill oil to dramatically increase the omega 3 index in the human body and get all the anti inflammatory and the joint protective and even the potentially cognitive performance enhancing effects of something like an oil, they would have had to use a krill oil amount that would have cost you several hundred dollars per month of krill oil to actually get that effect. The other thing you got to realize is in that study they compared it to a fish oil that was in what's called its ethyl ester form. And we've talked about this before on podcast. When you're buying a fish oil, you have to Buy fish oil in what's called its triglyceride based form. It's more expensive to repackage the fish oil and reconvert it into its triglyceride based form after it's been extracted from the fish. But unless you get very, very poor absorption. So that's why I only use triglyceride based fish oils and I only use fish oils that have been packaged with things that keep them from oxidation, including for example, astaxanthin. So the fact is that yes, if you take equivalent amounts of krill oil and fish oil, the krill oil is going to Increase your omega 3 index a little bit more, but you're also going to pay 15 to 20 times more for the krill oil. And I say why not just get fish oil like a good triglyceride based fish oil, Save yourself a ton of money and just take a little bit extra of the fish oil, right? So like I take, right. I kind of bounce back and forth between fish oil sometimes if I'm, if I'm ordering my multivitamin from Thorne FX and a lot of people think I don't actually buy multivitamin. I do, like I'm, I'm on Thorn Effect's board of advisors, but I don't get free multivitamins. I actually have to buy them. So if I'm buying my Thorn FX multivitamin, I'll buy the EPA fish oil from Thorne just to save on shipping. So that's the one that, it's a good triglyceride based fish oil. Really, really high EPA content. It's a great fish oil. I like that they ensure traceability on that oil and they ensure that sustainable fishing practices are in place. So you get a fish oil that's free of heavy metals and free of toxins. So I'll use that one. The other one that I happen to be using right now because it's another one that I'll use if I don't happen to be making an order from Thorn is the Super Essentials fish oil. It's this really dark black fish oil. It looks like krill oil because they've added so freaking much astaxanthin to it. And I like that because it has skin protective properties. But the Thorn, if you, for example, if you go to greenfieldfitnessystems.com the only two fish oils that I have over there are the Thorn fx, epa, DHA Fish oil and then the Super Essentials fish oil. And I don't have a krill oil just because it's It'd be so freaking expensive to take enough of it to make a difference that I just don't. I don't see it as a, as a real logical choice at this point.

Hi, Ben. Really enjoyed episode 301 and particularly enjoyed how you answered the question of how to fix damage from birth control pills. I was also on Yasmin and I was wondering what you think of using Vitex, also known as chaste berry. It's an herb that is supposed to help kick start a woman's menstrual cycle and help boost fertility. What are your thoughts on using that in order to help fix or. Or kind of regulate a woman's cycle? After being on yad, I have not been able to get my period since being on the birth control and was wondering if this is something that would also contribute to helping me get back on track. Thank you so much.

Chasteberry sounds delicious. Chaste berry, actually, that sounds like a. Some sort of fruity cereal for kids to me.

It always sounds like something that makes you. To make you chaste. Isn't Chase. Like, isn't Chase basically being absent or something like that?

Yeah, it's the root of chastity.

Yeah, chastity. Yeah, that's what I meant. Like chastity belts and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's what I think of when I think of chaste berry, which actually.

Kind of makes sense when you're talking about the menstrual cycle in some strange way.

Yeah. I'll tell you in a second about what I think about chaste berry. But first of all, go back. If you're listening in, go back and listen to the episode we did on the pill and all the issues that come with the pill. It's at BenGreenfieldFitness.com 301 we talk about birth control, how to come off birth control. But yeah, you tend to, a lot of times have difficulty getting back on your natural cycle when you stop the pill. And there's a few reasons for that. I mean, birth control pills are designed to suppress the growth of your uterine lining. And because that's what gets basically expelled during menstruation, usually you'll have a lighter or shorter period. And a lot of times when you stop taking the pills, you will a lot of times just have irregular periods or stop your menstrual cycle altogether. Now, a lot of times this can go hand in hand with things like high levels of stress or chronic anxiety or changes in weight. There are a lot of other things that can stop you from having a normal menstrual cycle. But ultimately it's pretty common when you come off the pill for your period to stop. And one of the things that's recommended in natural medicine is the use of this chaste berry as one way to jumpstart your period and to get you back off of if you're experiencing any type of menstrual irregularity, whether it's related to the pill or anything else, Chaste berry is one of the things that's recommended for that. So chaste berry is this little brown berry. It's about as big as a peppercorn. It comes from this tree that's called the Vitex tree.

It's a good tree.

Yeah, it's a cool tree. So it suppresses the release of prolactin from the pituitary gland. Reason that it may work, the proposed mechanism of action is that when you have elevated prolactin levels, it can cause an irregular menstrual cycle or even the absence of periods. The other thing that chaste berry is is it's a natural source of progesterone. So it helps to normalize your ratio of progesterone to estrogen. A lot of women who have been on the pill or who have irregular periods, they're progesterone deficient, or what's also called estrogen dominant and insufficient progesterone or estrogen dominance can cause irregular menstrual cycles. It can cause increased levels of this prolactin that would technically cause an irregular menstrual cycle. And it can also even cause a loss of libido. And so by using chaste berry, ironically, it being a natural source of progesterone, it may actually suppress chastity and increase libido and also jumpstart a regular menstrual cycle. So some studies have shown that it may also help with the symptoms of perimenopause. So it definitely has some benefits, but it also has some side effects. The recommendations on chasteberry are that you shouldn't take it for more than six to eight months at a time. I'm not quite sure if that's because there aren't any long term studies on it and all the short term studies on it have only lasted for six to eight months. Or if some kind of nasty side effect like, I don't know, a giant, giant tree growing out of your crotch happens after you've taken the start to.

Get a Vitex tree growing out of your crotch.

That's right. So the other thing is that if you are taking dopamine related medications, which I think we're actually going to talk about a little later on in this podcast, like antipsychotic drugs and Parkinson's disease type of medications, Chaste berry affects the metabolism of some of those. And so if you're on something like an antidepressant, wouldn't necessarily be a dopamine related medication per se. Usually those are more serotonin related. But ultimately I would be careful combining chaste berry with neurotransmitter related supplements and drugs. But you can get it in a powder extract, you can get it in a liquid extract, you can get it in a tincture, you can get it in a capsule.

How about a jam?

Be able to find some yummy chaste berry jam to spread on your crumpet and have with your cup of Earl Grey tea each morning. Delightful. Yes. So chasteberry Tally ho.

Hi Ben, I think that you are amazing. Thank you for everything that you do. Your book beyond training was a game changer for my husband and I. He's an ironman, I'm a marathoner and we just love what you're doing. So keep it up. My question for you is this. I am a 250 marathoner and I tend to run high mileage, about 80 miles a week. My coach likes me to swim three times a week. I am burnt out on swimming and it's winter and I'm cold. I've gotten really into hot yoga. I love it, it feels great. Can I do hot yoga three times a week? Intense one hour flow classes instead of the three swims during the week? Let me know if I need to. Or if you recommend doing, you know, two yogas and one swim or if I can get away with. No, swimming is kind of what I'm looking for. Thank you, Ben. I appreciate it.

I hear you, Alice. Going to the pool in the middle of winter is kind of, kind of crappy.

Yeah.

Walk out with wet hair, your hair freezes. Riding your bike in the snow, it's terrible.

Okay, so I've been swimming in my 60 degree pool and the temp outside yesterday when I was in there was 24. So as soon as I got out of the pool, my hair froze, which was just crazy. And actually if you stand in the pool in between sets for too long breathing, you're like your nostrils and your hair start to freeze as you're standing in the pool.

Your eyelashes freeze together.

It's really cold. It's making me really tough. So anyways, Though I think we are going to actually talk about cold water swimming later on. But Alice is a pretty fast marathoner. I mean, 250 is nothing.

Yeah, way to go, Alice.

I'm a joke about. And she runs 80 miles a week. I'm guessing that her coach is giving her those swim workouts for the same reason that a lot of run coaches will give their athletes swim workouts. And that's because swimming can give you such a big cardiovascular engine. You know, when you look at somebody like Ironman triathlete Andy Potts, who was like an Olympic level swimmer, you know, he's also a great runner and he also has really good pain tolerance. He's probably also able to stare at boring black lines for very, very long.

Periods of time just because experience with.

That, his history as a swimmer. And you don't get so much sensory deprivation with yoga. You don't get quite as much cardiovascular or quite as much of a cardiovascular strain with yoga as you do with swimming. And generally there's a little bit less resistance with yoga. Now, there are exceptions to that. For example, if you do kind of a more like Tai Chi esque style of yoga or you're imagining that you're moving through clay or cement with your hands and producing your own isometric resistance by contracting your muscles as you move through each yoga pose. And I actually, I really like to do this form of yoga. Sometimes I'll do like sun salutations and you know, a lot of the different warrior poses from yoga. But I'll move very slowly and deliberately, almost like the old man in the park, you know, the old Chinese man in the park doing the Tai chi where you're like, he looks like he's moving against clay or water. You know, something like that. You can do that during your yoga and you'll feel a little bit like you've been swimming when you do it because you're just producing your own resistance. However, the cardiovascular strain isn't there. But that could potentially be amended as well. Don't laugh, but I use a training mask sometimes when I do my yoga. I'll use the elevation training mask. That restricts airflow. And so it makes yoga a little bit more of a cardiovascularly strenuous activity for me. And that's because it restricts airflow. If you really want to take things to the extreme. You're doing these, you say intense one hour flow classes. I don't know how intense those are though, compared to something that I actually tweeted about this recently. I've kind of Gotten on this yoga kick over the past two weeks and I'm working on an article at quickanddirtytips.com about this. I write for Quick and Dirty Tips each week about how to, how to do fitness yoga. But one of my inspirations for that has been Diamond Dallas Page yoga, which is actual yoga produced by this ex pro WWF wrestler. And it's just, oh, that's why I know that name. Crazy yoga where you're doing like the superstar and it's not the warrior, it's the road warrior. And then you'll, you know, you'll finish up, you'll finish up like a sun salutation series and then you'll go into his signature diamond cutter move and you know, rather than going into your, your relaxation pose in between, like your child's pose is called the safety zone. So anyways though, it's called Diamond Dallas Page Yoga. But it's actually really hard. And I've, I did it with going.

Into my safety zone right now.

I've done it with my elevation training mask on. And honestly it's tough. Like it's, it's a workout. So what I would say is, Alice, yoga is not going to give you what the cardiovascular strain that your coach prob probably want you to get that you'd be getting from swimming like that non impact form of lung busting activity. But you could potentially, I'd say you don't have to do Diamond Dallas Page Yoga. Your coach may actually laugh at you if you do that, but you may want to consider using an elevation training mask. And of course the problem there is that if these are not one hour flow classes that you're doing in the privacy of your own home, you may get some funny looks when you wander into your yoga class wearing your mask. The only advice that I can give you is dress up like Bane from Batman and then you'll just complete the look. Nobody's gonna know who you are anyways because you'll have the spiky shoulder pads, the mask. Shave your head. Shave your head and start fights and then you'll be good to go and everything will make sense to people.

Then you always have to talk like this.

Hi, Ben. Hi, Brock. Great podcast. Longtime. Listen, I do have a question for you. I was on antidepressants for almost 10 years. I was on a wide variety of combinations of medications, but for the last five years I was on heavy doses of Lexapro and Effexor. So every day I was taking that and it was effective for what it needed to do, but I'm feeling like I have side effects. So I've been off for a couple years, but my mental acuity is way down, sleep patterns are wreck, and I am wondering if there's any way to put together a program to detox from that or if there are doctors that I can see or if this is a thing. So you guys always take such good care of these sort of matters. I would love to hear your thoughts on it and it could be really, really helpful for me. So looking forward to hearing your response and keep up the good work. Really love the podcast. Bye.

Lexapro and Effexor, I think both of those are SSRI, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, they are SSRIs.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

I'm not a fan of them, probably no surprise there, but I'm not a fan of these SSRIs because they cause this short term flooding of the brain with serotonin. And then what happens is a lot of that serotonin is left hanging around in the little gap between your axons. It's called the synaptic cleft. And there's a very fast degrading or breaking down of that serotonin and it's flooded into the synaptic cleft. So what you get is more and more levels of serotonin are eventually required as your serotonin receptors eventually become desensitized to this constant flux of neurotransmitters that you're feeding in by being on this serotonin reuptake inhibitor. And so as that happens, your biology begins to rely upon external sources of serotonin. And when you actually are able to release your own serotonin, it winds up getting broken down way more quickly than it normally would if you hadn't been on an ssri. Because the enzymes in your synaptic cleft have been trained to rapidly break down serotonin. So what happens is you need these constantly increased dosage of your antidepressant. And then you also end up depleting up to 60% of the serotonin receptors in your brain brain now.

So they just start shutting them down because they don't need them.

Exactly. You don't need them anymore. And you also have a lot of people don't realize you have serotonin receptors in your liver, in your kidneys, in your colon. And so those can also become damaged by antidepressant use. That can affect things like constipation, it can affect things like processing of nutrients, bile production, for fat breakdown, blood pressure, regulation by the kidneys. It's a really kind of a vicious cycle. And when you look at a lot of the meta analyses that have been done on antidepressants, they've actually shown that SSRIs have absolutely no clinically meaningful advantage over a placebo. And there's very, very little evidence to show that antidepressants are effective, even in severe cases of depression. And so, ultimately, I'm not a big fan of SSRIs to regulate neurotransmitter issues. I think there are better ways to do this. And of course, if you're trying to detox off of antidepressants, one of the first things that you'll probably need to do is look into some type of neurotransmitter repletion therapy. Now, what I mean by that is that repletion, for example, one thing that I've recommended for people who struggle with insomnia, a lot of times you have imbalances in tyrosing and what's called htp. And so one of the things you can do is you can take like 3,000 milligrams of tyrosine combined with 300 milligrams of HTP. You split that into three daily doses, like a thousand of tyrosine and 100 of HTP at breakfast, at lunch, and at dinner. And that can help to rebalance a lot of the neurotransmitters that are imbalanced in relation to insomnia. That's just one version, very simple example of neurotransmitter repletion. And there are blends of tyrosine and five HTP that come in those exact ratios. Like there's one called Travicore by a company called Nutrascience. There's one called Neuro5HTP by a company called Biotics, and there's one called Crave Arrest by Designs for Health. But all Those are just Tyrosine 5 HTP blends, because it's a pretty proven ratio for things like neurotransmitter imbalances, specifically the type that cause insomnia. Other examples.

I'm going to interrupt for a second. Ben is not a doctor, and this should not be taken as medical advice.

Well, that's what I was just about to get into. There is a doctor who specializes in neurotransmitter replacement therapy. His name is Dr. Daniel Kalish. I'll put a link to his website in the show notes. But if you visit the Kalish Institute website or if you read the Kalish method book or if you speak with one, if you his licensed Kalish practitioners prior to experimenting with any of this stuff. It'd be a really good idea if you want to delve into the science. One of the websites I really like is called neuroassist.com n e u r neurassist.com, ton of really good studies on neurotransmitter repletion. But yeah, you shouldn't rely on yours truly, a personal trainer and nutritionist, to walk you through something as complex as this. Like if I, if I was really concerned about my own neurotransmitter replacement, I would hop on the phone with Dr. Kalish or fly and see him or visit his website and find a local practitioner or someone.

Yes, tons of Kalisch practitioners around.

Yeah, and a lot of them can work with you remotely. And one of the things you'll find yourself doing in many cases is a test. There's a test, for example, called the Neuroadrenal Expanded test, and it tests for urinary neurotransmitters like epinephrine and norepinephrine and dopamine and serotonin and all these things, things that can tend to be imbalanced. And then once you've tested at that point you can engage in smart neurotransmitter repletion based on your specific deficits and excesses. So that's kind of, kind of the skinny on neurotransmitter repletion. But again, like a Kalish practitioner is who I would go to if I really wanted to make sure that I was doing everything right when it comes to this. There's also a really, really good book, by the way, if you're not convinced about what I said about SSRI eyes, I'll link to this book in the show notes. It's called Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs. Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs. You can check it out at BenGreenfieldFitness.com 303 and then there are other things. I talk about a lot of these things in my book, beyond training, that can help you with balancing your neurotransmitters or keep you from getting into a state where you need neurotransmitter repletion in the first place. And many of these are logical, like moderating stimulants or engaging in coffee cycles cycling. And that's where for every every month of caffeinated coffee that you drink, you take a week and you drink decaf to keep yourself from Overloading. Yeah. The adenosine receptors in your brain. I'm actually personally on my decaf cycle right now. I'm. This is. This is a week where I'm doing decaf. Yeah, that's why you sound so. No alcohol and decaf, dude. You can be really careful with. With mycotoxin exposure, meaning, like, use a HEPA air filter in your house. Be really careful with the stuff like moldy coffee, cologne, perfume, air fresheners, all those type of things that tend to have mycotoxins in them. Be really careful with sensory overload, like really loud music. A lot of time spent at clubs or under fluorescent lighting. I'm saying this a little bit hypocritically because I just spent two hours last night playing laser tag in a laser tag arena filled with technomusic and white lights. And I have to admit, my sleep was not stellar last night. Night. And it's because of that my brain was firing pretty hard after that experience. But the same could be said for a really loud, scary movie at night. Sometimes you do need to take time to breathe and let your neurotransmitters settle down a little bit. Yeah.

I was on Ciprolex, which is an ssri, for about three years, and the thing that helped me the absolute most when I came off of it was meditation and breathing practice. Just every day, making sure to do it twice a day, taking time, setting it aside, and just. Just doing it no matter what I felt like or what the day was like. It just made a huge difference in getting my brain back online.

Yeah. And there's even that new app called Muse that can walk you through this meditation. It's really cool you attach these things to your head, and I don't own one yet, but it's on my list of things to grab just because it guides you through meditation and relaxation. Pay attention to your gut. Remember that the majority of your neurotransmitters are made in your gut, and your gut usually uses a bunch of neurotransmitters. 95% of the body's serotonin is in the gut. So make sure that you're being careful with things like gluten, commercial dairy, things that your body might have a hard time digesting, like lectins and glutenins. And I would consider maybe even trying out a paleo autoimmune diet for four to eight weeks just to kind of hit the reboot button on your gut. So that'd be another thing that I would pay attention to to. Anyways, though those are some of the places that I would start would be neurotransmitter repletion and maybe looking at this Kalish Institute, taking care of your gut, taking care of sensory overload, moderating stimulants like caffeine and then being really careful with like mycotoxin and mold exposure. So that's where I would start and best of luck. Brian.

Hey Ben, how you doing? Just wanted to thank you for everything that you do. For all of us and the listeners of the show. I had a quick question. I like to get into some more open water swimming. I'm currently living in Raleigh, North Carolina where the temperature doesn't get too cold. However, we certainly do get our fair share of frosty nights and there's a local lake nearby that I would love to get in and checking the water temperature and it's kind of down in the low 50s. So my first couple questions, if you could talk about hypothermia for the body within cold water, specifically exercise and two, if I need to alleviate this by getting an open water swim training suit or a wetsuit to use when trying to go for these open water swims in a cooler lake. If you could recommend some good companies or something to go with for an open water swim suit. So thank you very much. Appreciate everything you do for people that want to be more fit and healthy for their lifestyle. Thanks Ben. Bye.

So you've really been swimming out there when it's cold enough to freeze your hair. You are the hormesis king.

And I love cold water swimming. It's so good for you. And we've obviously, you know, like just a few days ago@BenGreenfieldFitness.com I released this big article about how you could do things, basically how to use cold to both build muscle and burn fat simultaneously. It was actually a really good article. I think I don't know how many people read it because it was released right around Christmas. But really good article actually for building muscle and burning fat, but it went into foods, workouts and also how you would combine cold thermogenesis with that. Anyways though, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and just surf through the last few articles there or we'll put a link to it@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 303 but yeah, getting into open water swimming, there are definitely some, some things that you want to bear in mind. Specifically what happens physiologically when your body gets immersed in cold water that you need to be prepared for because there are nervous system reflexes that are going to happen when you hit the water that eventually go away. But initially you just gotta get used to these. So, for example, when your body senses this intense cold, and it's very similar to the mammalian dive reflex that I spoke with the free diving journalist about in the podcast that I did with him a few weeks ago, this mammalian dive reflex, where when your body senses intense cold, it sends these signals to the brain, and that results in this gasp of breath in followed by hyperventilation and increased breathing rate and an increased heart rate, and that eventually begins to go away. And as a matter of fact, what a lot of cold water swimmers find is that when they enter cold water, they actually take this deep breath and their heart rate begins to slow. And they almost have learned to, to allow that to slow down the nervous system. Almost like when Han Solo gets put into the frozen ice chamber and sent to Jabba the Hutts. He's like, it slows down everything so he stays alive. Kind of similar to that. But initially your response is just like this, hyperventilation and gasp. And that's normal, but know that that goes away. Another one is, of course, shivering. And as your body produces more brown adipose tissue and it's able to generate heat and burn calories to generate heat heat, you'll shiver a little bit less. Another thing that happens is when you get the stress response to cold, your body releases this surge of catecholamines called adrenaline and noradrenaline. And this causes an increase in heart rate, and it causes an increase in blood pressure. And one of the things that happens when you get this increase in blood flow and pressure in your kidneys is you have to pee. That's normal. When you get into the cold water, until you're acclimatized, until you've been doing it for a few weeks, you really have to pee. Pee. When you get into cold weather and especially cold water, and that eventually goes away as your body, it begins to produce more and more of a hormone called aldosterone, which helps to regulate your blood levels and promote fluid retention in the body and keep you from having to pee quite as much when you get in cold water. But initially you're going to have that gasp, you're going to shiver, you're going to have the stress response, your heart rate's going to go up, you're going to feel like you have to pee. And it's really cool how you get this adaptation to where all of that eventually starts to go away and you start to get a lot of the benefits of cold water swimming like changes to your immune system. A lot of cold water swimmers report that they get sick less frequently. And it's because your immune system grows more stronger in response to frequent bouts of hormesis or mild stress from cold water. That totally flies.

In the face of everything that your mother has told you about going out in the, in the rain, you're kind.

Of yeah, yeah, well your mom was dumb. You heard it here first. Screw you, mom. Anyways though, you get better blood pressure regulation because of that effect of your kidneys and your ability to churn out more of this aldosterone. You get an increase in nitric oxide synthase, which allows your blood vessels to vasodilate and vasoconstrict a lot better. You get lower levels of cytokines, lower levels of a lot of the clotting factors that are related to blood stickiness. And of course you also get, as long as you don't engage in the often seen caloric hypercompensation response to cold swimming, meaning you finish cold swims and you just eat everything in sight. As long as you're able to keep that at bay. It has a good fat loss response too. But you do notice a lot of cold water swimmers are fat, frankly because they are training their body how to put a bunch of fat tissue on and eating a lot. But if you do cold water swimming and you don't eat a lot and you're able to regulate your appetite and engage in self control, it's a really, really good fat loss strategy. So as far as temperatures go, whether or not you need a wetsuit, you're going to see a few temperatures. So if you look at and we'll just use Fahrenheit for our examples. My apologies to people who go in.

To the rest of the world.

We can try doing it in Celsius too. So like 32 to 53, it's like 0 to 11 degrees ish. So that's freezing, right? And when you get into freezing water, it's really painful. These are like the cold water swims that a lot of people are going to do tomorrow morning. Like the New Year's cold water swim, the polar plunge. A lot of people do this around the world doing that just for like one to two minutes in the morning. Morning icy, icy cold exposure can make you feel really, really good the rest of the day. But you do get weak really fast. And once you're in there for more than two minutes, you can get skin burn and your skin gets this purplish orangish red color. So you want to be kind of careful with that. But then once you get into be about 12 to 16 degrees Celsius, 53 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, you're going to get into a temperature that's more conducive to longer periods of time. Cold water swimming, you acclimatize to that pretty well. If you're in a wetsuit, you can swim comfortably for a pretty long period of time at a 53 to 60 degrees. And even if you're not wearing a wetsuit, most open water athletes can operate for long periods of time at that temperature. And so that's a pretty good temp as well. And then once you get into warmer water, like 17 to 20 degrees, which would be be kind of in that like 63 to 68 degree range, that's a lot more comfortable for a lot of folks for longer periods of time. Some people still find that's cold because when you look at pools at like health clubs, those are kept at like 80 to 86 degrees. Yeah, they're like, yeah. Which is like, you know, 30 degrees Celsius. So these cooler temperatures are so cold for a lot of people who aren't used to cold temperatures. But ultimately you can, you know, once you get above about 12 degrees degrees Celsius, you know, or around 53 degrees Fahrenheit, you really don't have to wear a wetsuit. And your body will acclimate to that pretty well. And a lot of that discomfort that you experience at those cold temperatures will go away as far as a wetsuit. And my recommendations for wetsuit, like what, what I use is the, the blue 70 helix.

Me too.

I love that wetsuit. It is like the. It's got varying levels of thickness at the panels, like in the shoulders and in the legs. You could almost freaking like run in it. I was actually thinking about doing the tough mudder and the world, or the world's toughest mudder. Last year I didn't wind up doing it. It was this year, a couple months ago. Cause I ended up going to Israel. But I was gonna bring my blue 70 helix. And I was very comfortable with that just because you can like move in it so easily. So I like that wetsuit with it. You know, it's the Japanese Yamamoto style rubber, which is a really good kind of gold standard style of rubber. It's got good paneling. I'm a big fan of that. As far as a wetsuit brand goes, as far as learning how to swim properly in open Water. If you look at like the, one of the more popular forms of swimming, probably because guys like Tim Ferriss have talked a lot about this, the total immersion style swimming. I'm not as big of a fan of that for open water swimming. It teaches you how to swim really efficiently in a pool. But once you get into waves and water wakes and stuff like that, there's a book called the Swim Smooth Book and a website@swimsmooth.com and these guys specialize it's owned by open water swimmers. The book is written by open water swimmers. Then they basically coach triathletes and open water swimmers and they just know how to tackle waves, how to tackle wakes, how to swim in a style that allows you to cut through open water a lot more efficiently, higher stroke rate, less of a glide, that type of thing. So check out the book is called the Swim Smooth Book. And I recommend you at least grab that book, get yourself a blue 70 helix. And then as far as the hypothermia goes, unless you're swimming in really, really cold water, especially if you're wearing a wetsuit, you don't have to worry about that so much. I mean, your body will acclimate. And if you do start to notice some of the symptoms of hypothermia, like you start to get really tired, it gets very hard to, to move your muscles. A lot of times it feels like you have brain fog and you're having a hard time thinking, then that's a signal to get out of the water. But I mean, just stay close to the shore when you're swimming. Swim with a buddy if you can, and you'll be able to get out. The trick is to put yourself in a situation where you can get out of the water quickly if you need to. And then when you first get in.

The water perpendicular to the shore, so you don't have. Or parallel, sorry, parallel to the shore, so you're not going straight out into the lake or whatever you're at.

Yeah. And when you first get in the water, know that you know, if you, once you wait like 90 seconds, two minutes, it gets a lot more comfortable when you're first starting open water swimming. But Those first like 90 seconds or so can be really kind of uncomfortable. And I recommend that you, before you get in the water, you like pick like a rock or a tree that you're going to swim to and let that distract you from the fact that the water is really cold. And also when you get out of the water, strategically place a towel because there will be some significant shrinkage. So just beware of that, especially if there's anyone around for whom the size of crotch all regions is a concern. So.

And make sure to watch some old Tarzan movies for inspiration as well.

That's right.

If you really want to learn how to swim, watch Tarzan.

And speaking of Tarzan, that's, that's, it's actually that segue didn't make sense at all. Let's read our review for this week because if you're listening in and you leave us an itunes review and we got a one star last week, somebody hated on us. But we can reverse that damage if as many people as possible go over there. Leave us a five star review if you, if you enjoyed this episode, if you learned something from it. Because that's our goal, is to kind of teach you useful things that make your life better, make you a healthier.

That's not my goal. My goal is to be a jackass.

That's right. Brock's goal is to make me sound smart. So head over to itunes, leave us a review. And if you go to itunes and you leave a review and we read your review on the show, simply Write to Ben greenfieldfitness.com Let us know your T shirt size and we'll send you this sweet gear pack. That's a Ben Greenfield fitness water bottle, BPA free, of course. So you don't make your baby stupid tech T shirt for working out and making your muscles look big. All the muscles you're building by doing your diamond Dallas page yoga and then a really, really cool beanie that you could use when you get out of the cold water after open water swims or play strategically in crocodiles.

That's what I was gonna say. You don't mean on your head, do you?

So that being said, we have a review this week called taking dumps. Never sounded so professional until you. And it's a five star review by Dr. Hephalophagus.

Dr. Hephalufagus. I love it. It's a good name. All right, this is how it goes. He says or he or she says. Your book beyond training changed my life. I am a recent graduate of the of chiropractic college and I am continuing my master's in acupuncture right now. I trained hard throughout school even though I was constantly burnt out after I graduated the D.C. program, I knew I needed to change something. Something that was about the same time I got your book. I cannot even tell you how glad I am that it came into my life at such a perfect time. Because of your knowledge that you share through the book and your podcasts, I have completely changed my outlook on training and my life as well as gaining insight to share with my patients. Nice.

Wow.

Damn, dude.

Amazing. It's kind of like a book review more than a podcast review, but we'll take it kind of. Yeah.

Thanks so much for all you do. P.S. i appreciate that in your professional biohack lecture, you repeatedly said the phrase take a dump. It was exciting. Yeah, exciting.

Really? I don't really know if it was a professional lecture, but I do like to. I do like to use my dump phrase quite excessively. So, speaking of taking a dump, I'm going to segue again, and this one does make sense.

This is how you're going to end the podcast, is it?

But that's. Well, no. Heading off to the crappy Pop open a bottle of bubbly and bring in the New year. Yeah. For all of you listening in, Happy New Year. And as we go into 2015 and surge past the 303rd episode of the Ben Grateful Fitness Podcast, I can guarantee you that we have even more fireworks, happiness and wonderful knowledge on all things health, fitness, nutrition and dump related coming at you in 2015.

I'm just background music.

Check out the show notes BenGreenfulFitness.com 303 thanks for listening in. Have a great week.

Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

Sam.