Nutrition Tips For Burning Man, The Science Of Human Touch, Blood Donation Biohacks & More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness show, nutrition tips for burning man, blood donation, biohacks, the benefits of human touch, the best natural remedies for toenail fungus, and much more.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

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Brock, I'm feeling like an old, old man right now.

You kind of sound like an old man. I wasn't, I wasn't gonna say anything, but.

No, actually it's, it's because I'm wearing my old man socks. And the reason I'm wearing my old man compression socks. Not that I don't just wear compression socks everywhere all the time because I like to look like a crossfit, to look like a dork, a fit dork. I wear neon socks everywhere. Along with. What else is a stereotypical fitness faux pas? Not really a fashion. Not really fashion faux pas as much as a fashion must. You gotta have your must compression socks, your knee high compression socks. If you want to look fit, you gotta have like about, I don't know, if you're a dude, some kind of board shorts you gotta have these days, like a V neck T shirt. You have to have some kind of a tattoo showing somewhere, preferably tribal, like a shoulder pattern and. Yeah, I don't know.

Or go back or the M dot on your, on your cap.

I think the M dot. It's like triathletes and crossfitters around the world. Wear the compression socks. The reason I'm wearing compression socks is I just got back from Colorado last night.

Oh, cool.

And I was competing in the Train to hunt competition out there, which was gnarly. That thing was hard.

How did it go?

Well, it started off with a 3D shoot. And they make the shooting very, very much like you might experience while hunting. You are not able to use a range finder, so you must kind of know your distance. Everything from point blank shots at bears all the way out to 100 yard shots at elk targets. And, you know, they threw some weird stuff at us. Like you'd shoot two shots in 10 seconds. Wanted a, you know, a doe 20 yards off. Wanted a buck 40 yards off or go from like a lying down position in the long grass to sitting up quickly and taking a shot from that seated position to all, all sorts of really gnarly scenarios.

So did they make you chug a beer?

Chug a beer sitting in a five.

Hours shoot a bear? Actually what I really want to know is did they have a 3D rendering of Cecil the Lion? No, although I've set too soon.

You know, they didn't have a 3D rendering of Cecil the Lion. And I'm going to be totally honest with you, like I have not been watching the news, reading the news. I've been either out in the, in the forest at this Train to hunt thing or else I've been. I finished up at 4 Fort Carson Military Base where I spoke to the army there.

Oh cool.

Anyways though, the, the Train to Hunt thing, after you do that 3D shoot, then they have what's called the meat pack and you put £100 in your pack and just race. And this was in this one, we raced about two and a half miles or so. And then you, you recover and then you come back the next day and you do what they call the challenge course, which is basically like an obstacle course that's a mix of like barbed wire crawl and we had like 80 pound sandbag get ups and 100 pound sandbag shuttle runs up the side of the mountain and you combine all that with shooting while you're tired. So it's, it's a tough event. It's fun. Fun as heck, but tough. And then the next morning woke up and with an army Ranger and special forces guy did these incline steps at what they call Garden of the Gods in Colorado.

So. Sounds delightful.

Second, I are up in nosebleed country and that's, that's why I'm wearing the old man socks. Is those.

Oh yeah. That's where we started this whole conversation.

Those damn stairs. And then spent the rest of the day over at Fort Carson Military base. Or I didn't know this, but a bunch of the battalions over there are actually using my book Beyond Training as part of their training manual. So if we.

Very cool.

We get our butt kicked by any other military. It's, it's my fault.

It's your fault country.

We've got soldiers wearing training masks and doing ice baths. So. Yeah. Anyways though, that's, that's what I've been up to.

Well, you know why I'm wearing old man socks?

Because you're an old man.

Because I'm an old man. I turned 44 two days ago, so ouch.

News flashes.

Aside from feeling super old, I'm also feeling super tired. But I hear that over@twitter.com BenGreenfield you actually released some interesting stuff about insomnia.

I can't use your words, Brock.

I'm sleepy.

You're sleepy and old.

Sleepy and old.

Well, yes, as usual, I've been releasing news flashes all week. Over at twitter.com BenGreenfield we'll link to all of these different studies I'm about to fill you in on over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 3327 we're going to give you three, as we usually do, three of the faves. So this first one, just to I guess continue on last week's infatuation with sleep is about sleep. And I thought this was a really, really cool article at the Washington Post. The article goes into the fact that we, and we've talked about this before on the podcast how it is highly unlikely that our ancestors would have slept in convenient eight hour blocks. And, and instead there is a great deal of evidence out there to show that in most cases in an ancestral environment void of artificial light, that folks slept in two different sleep phases, right? Like two different four hour ish sleep phases with a wake period at some point during the night. And they actually did a study where they looked into this. They had folks in a sleep research study get cut off from artificial light. And I believe this was for about a third, three, I don't want to say three month ish period of time. And anyways they, they weren't using everything from laptop screens to bright lights in their homes to E readers to anything else. And what began to happen, it was very interesting because they tracked their brain waves and they tracked their sleep cycles. They would naturally wake at some point in the middle of the night and when they woke they showed brainwave production very, very similar to what like a meditating yogi might show really. And they would wake up in the dark and then eventually fall back asleep and have these completely natural sleep cycles. And in an era where we are exposed to artificial light, especially at night, what happens is we dig ourselves into this hole where we require our biologies to need an, you know, like a consistent eight hours or so. When in fact if you are say like camping or if you begin to turn off the lights in your home and limit yourself to say like red light only, which is doable via either a, you know, you could do everything from like use infrared red, you know, like heat lamps like you would buy off Amazon. Or you could get like there's a company called Lighting Science that makes these, these night bulbs that are void of blue light. Anyways, you figure out a way to hack your environment so you're cut off from artificial light at night. And that inconveniently includes not using iPhones and E readers and stuff like that too much at night. What happens is you may find that after sleeping from say whatever, 10pm until 2am that you wake up sometime between 2am 2 and 3am and you can do anything as long as it doesn't involve artificial light, yoga, meditation, sex, reading. But reading using something like candlelight or some other form of non blue light, non artificial light. And then you fall back asleep. And it turns out that this is completely natural and that, that insomnia, the way that, that we sometimes define insomnia, like I woke up and I couldn't get back to sleep, may not in fact be insomnia, but may just be us doing what we're naturally tuned to do. With the problem being that a lot of times when people do wake up, what do they do? They flip open the computer, right? And they, they grab Facebook or email, or they open up their, their phone and surf on their phone for a little while. But the fact is, if you just lay there and use that as a, as a time to do whatever deep tissue work or foam rolling or meditation or yoga or lovemaking or anything else, it turns out that this is entirely natural. So it's a really interesting article.

Yeah, that's really cool. I actually, when I wake up, well, I woke up in the middle of the night like three nights in a row now, which is why I'm having trouble using my words. But I've been reading on my iPad, but I actually have the Kobo app turned to have a black background. So it's a black background with the, with the gray text brightness turned all the way down. And then I put my blue blocker glasses on because they're just sitting like basically right on top of the iPad. And I, I feel like I'm not destroying my sleep more that way.

Aren't you cute?

What do you think, old man?

Biohacker? Yeah, I mean that what I would like to do, and we talked about this in a podcast that we do with Jack Cruz at some point last year, is he wine bottles that you can somehow drop like a wick into and light and use as like torch light in your home. And I think that that's kind of like the the ultimate cool little way to, to light things up at night and I'd like to start doing more of that more natural firelight in the home.

That would be cool. Just cuz it's cool and very old timey.

Old timey?

Dude, you're just like some kind of pioneer.

Put on, put on the, the records and read by candlelight. Anyways though, another, another thing related to sleep and fatigue, I guess a little bit, was an article over at Chris Kresser's website that I thought was quite compelling. It was called five causes of fatigue your doctor may not be looking for. And while it admitted the fact that things like poor diet and lack of sleep and chronic stress are the most common causes of fatigue, there are five lesser known causes of fatigue that you may want to rule out. If you're doing everything right, you know, like sleep and exercising the right way, et cetera, but you're still feeling tired. So some of the things listed and I'll link to the article if you really want to delve into the nitty gritty details. One was chronic infections. A lot of people have things like underlying Epstein Barr virus or human herpes virus, or Lyme disease or what's called mycoplasma. And it turns out, you know, as I think most people know, these things can cause chronic fatigue. But a lot more people than we think actually are walking around with these issues, you know, such as, as Lyme, for example, or such as like a mycoplasma infection. And you can get, you know, you can get a variety of different blood tests rule these out. But that's one thing that it mentions as a possible cause of fatigue. Another is what's called biotoxin illness. Now, biotoxin is a poisonous substance that's produced by a living organism. And that could be like fungus, like a mycotoxin, that could be a plant biotoxin, it could be an animal biotoxin. And this would be something like mold in a home or something like a biotoxin in the water that you're consuming because you don't have a good water filter in your home. But ultimately that's another reason that you can be walking around fatigued. It can be something as simple as a biologically produced toxin that you're exposed to. The next one kind of scary, kind of scary next one is methylation. This one's interesting because some people have what's called impaired methylation, methylation being a biochemical process in which you are able to use what are called methyl groups to produce energy and if you have what's called impaired methylation, which is just basically a genetic. Not really a genetic defect, but just a genetic trait that a lot of people are born with, you can have low levels of the active forms of folate and vitamin B12. And it's a case where if you actually get tested and you find out that you are a poor methylator or you have some kind of impaired methylation, you can supplement with things like methyl tetrahydrofolate or B12 in a vitamin and banish some of these chronic fatigue issues. So that's. Another one is impaired methylation. Another one.

I learned that from a lot of. Not older women, but sort of like aging women actually get the B12 injections in their. Like in their hip.

Yeah.

Because they can't actually ingest it, even if they're taking the vitamins, it doesn't actually get ingested.

Right, exactly. So that can be a methylation issue. Another one is mitochondrial dysfunction. So mitochondria, of course, are the. The powerhouses of the cell that take in nutrients and break them down to produce ATP. And mitochondrial dysfunction, or mitochondrial disease, was once thought to be pretty rare, but it turns out a lot of people do have mitochondrial dysfunction related to everything from, like, inflammation to a poor diet for many years to, you know, environmental factors like, you know, toxins again, for example, and that can cause mutations in what's called your mitochondrial DNA. And this is another thing that. That he goes into in the article that you can have tested and looked at and in many cases use, like, mitochondrial support compounds, things like PQQ or oxaloacetate, or any of these supplements that can help to support your mitochondria. And that's another one to kind of play around with if you have chronic fatigue and you just don't know why. And then the last one is gut dysfunction. Everything from small intestine bacterial overgrowth to parasites to a lot of these things that I think people would probably hazard a guess. You know, if you got a bunch of nice little parasite eggs in your intestine, that could cause some fatigue. But ultimately that's the last one that they go into is, you know, for example, one study found that patients with chronic fatigue had abnormally elevated levels of candida albic hands or slight gluten intolerances, or even, you know, more common than you might think, infection with parasite giardia, which can persist for five years after you've actually treated the infection. So if you have. If you've ever gone on vacation in Mexico or gone on a nice, nice cruise down there along the border and you've come back with Montezuma's Revenge. And it was many, many years ago. That could still be affecting you even if you got rid of the explosive diarrhea part of it.

Blarg.

Interesting article over on Chris Kresser's website. So we'll link to that one.

Chris Kresser, he's a clever fella.

Clever fella. And then the last one is about bitter melon extract and the fact that bitter melon extract I've talked about before on the show how this stuff is just about as powerful as the diabetic drug metformin in terms of ingesting what's called your post prandial blood glucose levels, like your, your blood glucose response to a carbohydrate intensive meal. Now, I take personally two capsules of bitter melon extract almost every day before I do like my evening carbohydrate loading. And the reason for that is because it basically enhances your ability to shove glucose into muscle tissue, to partition nutrients into muscle tissue so that that glucose doesn't remain floating around in your bloodstream for long periods of time, getting converted into fat or causing the inflammation that high levels of blood glucose can cause. So bitter melon extract, I'll link to this article, but it goes into how bitter melon extract works and how very, very similar to exercise. It activates amp K in muscle, which mediates the movement of glucose transporters in muscle to the cell surface and allows the muscles to actually uptake glucose and carbohydrates into muscle tissue. Bitter melon enhances this effect. The thing is, one thing you do need to be careful with is a supplement like this is not necessarily a supplement that you just take at any given time. For example, I don't take bitter melon extract and I would stay very, very far away from it before exercise. Because what can happen is if you take a bunch before exercise, then you go exercise. You could actually get a hypoglycemic response or abnormally low blood glucose during an exercise session. So as with anything, you need to time this supplement properly. But the article is quite interesting in terms of how powerful this stuff is for controlling a lot of the things that can cause everything from type 2 diabetes to just gaining weight from carbohydrates. And it is one of the supplements that I take any time that I load with carbs, especially in the evening, just because it's basically a way to biohack your way to better glucose partitioning without Getting your blood glucose frequently elevated. So bitter melon extract. The stuff I use is called MPX100. I take two capsules. You can do it like 30 minutes before a carbohydrate intensive meal and up to 30 minutes after and still get the effects. But handy dandy little supplement. And we'll link to that article in the show notes as well. I suppose you could probably figure out a way to grow bitter melon on your back porch. Not quite sure how that works, but I just.

I have a feeling you'd have to grow a lot of them.

I just take the capsule.

Listener Q and A.

Hey, Ben, this is Preston. So I just went to the blood bank to donate some blood because I'm O negative and I'm CMV negative, which means adolescents and babies can take my blood because I have a specific antibody inside my blood. I like to go frequently and donate blood. Is there any way for me to hack my next visit to donate blood? Can I get some blood and take it to LabCorp? Since I'm already getting some blood taken out, Is there any other creative ways I can get more use out of donating blood next time I go? Thanks for your thought, Brock. Hi. And keep up the awesome content.

Thank you. Who sits around and thinks of this crap?

Well, a fellow named Preston.

Our listeners are either bored or just so on the cutting edge of things that they think of things like this. Well, first of all, Preston, good on you for donating your blood, man. Good on.

Yeah, yeah, it's almost. If you've got O negative and CMV negative, then you, you really, it's your. It's your duty to donate as often as possible, I'd say.

That's right. And there are some.

I've got like, stupid blood that nobody wants.

Yeah, me too, so. Me too. Yeah. Anyways, though, the. The deal with donating blood, first of all, you should know that if you're doing these big blood donations because, and we talked about this on a podcast at some point last year, it does Significantly decrease your VO2 max, and it can do so for up to three to four weeks. So the first thing is make sure you're not signed up for some super duper important competition. Especially not a super duper important competition at altitude where you want as much EPO and red blood cell as you can get your hands on. Because even when you're say, like giving blood for, like a blood test, like a wellness FX blood test, you want to give yourself a good week or two weeks of recovery from something as simple as that because even though it's just about a quarter of what you might give when donating blood, what you see when donating blood is you can get a loss of up to about 6% of your VO2 max for a short period of time until you recover using the techniques that I'm about to give you. But you can see a decrease of anywhere from 1 to 2% when you give something like 15 to 20 of those little vials of blood when you're doing one of these little biohacking panels. So just know that you want to make sure that you time your blood donations properly. Now, as far as why you may want to donate blood, why you want to give blood, there are some reasons to do it that I think some people aren't aware of. So most of us are aware of the fact that there can be in many people, issues with high iron levels, of course, more common in men than in women. It's called hemochromatosis or iron overload. And it can actually be a longevity enhancing technique when you give blood. There are some biohackers out there. There's one named, one guy named Jolly, another guy named Josh White, and two guys I've spoken with at different events. And they both give blood regularly just as a means of increasing longevity and lowering their risk for hemochromatosis and iron overload, but also increasing the effectiveness of an anti aging protocol.

The question is, do they actually go to the blood bank or do they just use leeches?

I believe they use leeches and then drop the leeches off of the blood bank in a jar filled with blood. Yes, of course. So another advantage though, in addition to reducing your risk for hemochromatosis, is you get better blood flow. So what happens is everything from radio frequencies to electromagnetic fields to stress to anxiety to high cholesterol, to high uric acid levels, all of these make your blood what's called hypercoagulable. That means it's thick and slow moving and you get increased risk of having like a blood clot or a stroke or something like that. Any type of.

That's what they worry about when you're taking the hormone testosterone.

Yeah, exactly.

Gets all goopy and you have heart problems.

So especially if you're getting testosterone shot into your right butt cheek. Another reason to give blood. Anyways, though, repeated blood donations can help blood to flow better, which can help to limit damage to the lining of your blood vessels, which can result in lower risk for arterial blockages. Interestingly, did you know another way that you can make blood less hypercoagulable or less likely to clot is grounding or earthing using these grounding mats or earthing mats or a biomat or something like that. That actually increases blood flow as well. So kind of an interesting little way to go about things if you don't want to give blood. So one other quick thing on the iron issue is that there are ways, if you didn't get a blood test for iron, to know if you're high in iron, if you are at risk for hemochromatosis. One is if you do a lot of cooking in pots and pans like, like cast iron, that's healthy. But you also should know that you will have increased risk for blood iron levels and that it may behoove you to give blood if you are like a cast iron cooking person, especially if you cook acidic foods in those types of pots and pans, you know, and that could include something as simple as like lemon juice and alcohol and things along those lines. If you eat processed foods like cereals or breads that are fortified with iron, that also can increase your risk for hemochromatosis or increase the amount of blood iron that you have or excess iron, another one. And this is actually why this Friday I'm going into Quest Labs and doing a wellness FX panel that includes iron is because, well, water can be high in iron. And even though I have a really good iron precipitator, iron water filter, I recently turned on my sprinklers and the, the sprinklers overloaded the iron filter. And so for a good couple of weeks, I was drinking some really, really sulfurous irony water. So I want to go test and see how high my blood actually is in iron. And then the last reason would be if you take a lot of supplements. A lot of supplements do have trace levels of iron in them, even a lot of multivitamins. And it's a good idea to check every now and again, even if it's just like twice a year, check your iron levels because again, hemochromatosis is one of those things that is, it's one of those things that flies in the face of longevity and anti aging. So if you're one of those people who's doing a bunch of stuff to stay healthy, make sure that you pay attention. So every time you donate a unit of blood, by the way, you lose about a quarter of a gram of iron, which is a pretty significant amount of iron.

Oh, is it doesn't sound like very much.

250 milligrams of iron. So it's actually pretty significant. And because of that, if you don't have hemochromatosis, and I know this can be confusing because it's like, well, if you do have hemochromatosis, you donate blood to get rid of the excess iron and you're good to go. But if you don't have hemochromatosis and you donate blood, one of the ways that you can recover more quickly from donating blood is to actually take an iron supplement and preferably what's called a ferritin supplement post blood donation. So the top three things that you can do to recover as quickly as possible, especially if you're an athlete, after donating blood or after doing one of these big blood panels, number one would be to take an iron supplement. I am a fan of a non constipating form of iron. There's, there's one form of iron. No, seriously, most iron.

Oh, I know, I'm just laughing because I'm being a fan of not getting constipated. I think it's universal.

Yeah. And oh, and by the way, when, when my, when my wells, when my wells iron filter pooped out, pun intended, I was seriously constipated for like a week. And, and you know, when I'd poo, it was kind of like reddish orange. So I, I know that I, I consumed a great deal of iron, which is again why I'm testing. Anyways, give blood then Iron bis glycinate. Iron bis glycinate. I'll link to this in the show notes. There's a company called Exos that makes a form of iron bis glycinate, which is an extremely well absorbed form of iron that does not include what's called ferrous sulfate, which is the form of iron that is not only poorly absorbed but also can cause constipation. So that's number one. The second thing that I would take is a very important iron storage protein. It's in the form of ferritin pyrophosphate. Your body uses a ferritin protein to help to store iron and there is a supplement. You can get it off Amazon. I'll link to this one in the show notes as well for you. It's called Floridex and it's again like a, like a healthy, non constipating way to increase your ability to store iron. And that 1, 2 combo of iron biscuits, glycinate and then ferritin pyrophosphate from this Fluoridex supplement is a Very, very good way to recover from something like donating blood. And you could Simply use these two supplements for about 10 to 14 days after your blood donation. That's about as long as you need to do it. And then the last one would be really, really good electrolyte intake. And as a matter of fact, just because it's so closely it matches the electrolyte concentration of human plasma. I love to use that word, by the way.

Plasma.

Plasma. Say it like Dr. Evil Liquid. Megma plasma. Coconut water. Coconut water is actually a great little electrolyte replacement supplement. And typically, like after a big race or something like that, or oftentimes the day before a big race, just to top off my electrolyte levels, I do a little bit of coconut water. Actually a crapload of coconut water. I'll typically take about 16 to 32 ounces. So coconut water is another one. Yes, it does have sugar in it. It's, you know, like juice. You get some more concentrated sugars anytime you drink the juice, but it's not too bad, and it's chock full of electrolytes. So I would do a 1, 2, 3 combo of iron, bisglycinate, ferritin, pyrophosphate, and coconut water after you give blood to help you to bounce back faster and to help you to mitigate some of the VO2 decreasing effects of giving blood. And the last thing that you can do, and this is a little bit spendier, it's a little bit more of a. More of an inconvenience, but you can do, like, these Myers cocktails, right, where you get IVs full of vitamins. If you've never. If you're listening and you've never gotten like a. Like a Myers cocktail, and you can hunt down, like, a wellness facility in your area that will give you a Myers cocktail IV with, like, some extra vitamin C and some extra glutathione. Man, if you want to feel like Superman, that or Superwoman, those IVs are magical.

So especially if you're hungover.

Yes, exactly. The amount of fluid that they give you in those IVs actually do exceed World Anti Doping association regulation. So if you're competing in, like, an, you know, an Ironman triathlon or anything else that is sanctioned by, by the World Anti Doping Association, I would not do that. But if you're just, you know, if you just want to feel good and get it, get an iv. They're quite, quite useful in making you feel like a million bucks. Anyways, though, I know I haven't really answered Preston's question, which is if he can do anything while donating blood to get an added benefit. And Preston, while I hope the information that I've just given you is helpful in allowing you to recover more quickly from donating blood, I do not think that they will give you your blood or extra blood that you could, for example, put in a little Nelgene water bottle and traipse over to your local quest or LabCorp and give it to them to run a thyroid panel on or something like that. I also don't know of any way, any substance you could take that would perhaps like detox you while you're giving blood or something like that. I really am not aware of any blood donation biohacks, so to speak, aside from the ones that I've just given you, which are primarily focused on either recovering more quickly from a blood donation or else are reasons to give blood if you consider yourself to be at risk for hemochromatosis. So ultimately though, I think everybody should give a little blood every now and again. And the only exception to that would be if you're one of those people that frequently tests your blood using these fancy blood panels. You're probably losing enough blood through those that really the only reason for you to donate blood would just to be out of the goodness of your heart to give your fellow men, women and children a little bit of extra blood. So ultimately, there you have it. Those are my tips and tricks for donating blood.

Jack Cruz mentioned something about the exchange of electrons during a massage, and he valued at as positive. My question is what happened during a massage and what kind of positive effects to have this exchange of electrodes? Thanks, Ben.

Next time I book a massage, I'm going to just book an exchange of electrons. Yeah, hello, I'd like to book an exchange of electrons, please.

Hello. Do you do that service along with a deep tissue exchange of electrons? Or maybe the next time that you're making sweet love to your loved one, you can whisper in his or her ear, really feeling your electrons.

I love your electrons, baby.

Exchange exchanging all over me. And of course, it is true that humans are electric. Most of us know that we are full of electrons and we can conduct electrons. If you've ever grabbed an electric fence, you know that you can definitely conduct electrons and they can can jump from the surface to your skin in any number of amounts. And sometimes they can jump quite quickly and electrify you. And electrons can also be transferred from one person to another. And this electrification can occur not just from a small amount of electron flow. But charged ions can also flow like sodium and potassium and hydrogen and chloride. All of these are, are charged ions, and those can flow from human to human in the same way that electrons can flow from human to human. And it's one of the reasons that, you know, if you were to go get one of these forms of massage in which the person doesn't actually touch you, like Reiki is an example of that.

Oh, I've had that. It's so, it's so teasy.

Yeah, it's very teasy. Like, you can feel the person's. You feel like your hair stand up a little bit and you could feel the warmth of their hands getting, oh, so close to your skin, but they're not actually touching you. However, it's very interesting because someone will hover their hands above various parts of your body and you'll feel like warmth and blood flow going to that area of the body. And part of that is because of that electron exchange effect or that electron transfer. And it's, you know, it's the same way it happens when you're touching, for example, the planet Earth. If one person has a more negative charge or more electrons, they can transfer that, that excess negative charge to another body that they're touching. It's just, you know, a simple flow of currents. So ultimately, in, in an ideal scenario, we, we know, you know, despite the title, that negative electrons, negatively charged electrons, such as we might get when grounding or, you know, doing barefoot yoga in the backyard, those are the good type of electrons that tend to. Tend to result in, in the health effects that have been shown from something like grounding or earthing. Whereas positive ions, such as you might get from holding a cell phone up to your ear or typing on your computer all day long or being around a bunch of electrical equipment, those would be the type of ions that actually would. Would be potentially deleterious or inflammatory to your health. Or they would be the type of ions that would lower the electrochemical gradient. So the electrical chemical, the electrochemical gradient in your membrane is supposed to be about 70 to 80 millivolts. And by constant exposure to positive ions, you can walk around with a somewhat lowered electrochemical gradient and that can lower metabolic activity and basically hamper the ability of your cells to function as well as they should. You know, the very, very worst way to do that would be via frequent airline travel. I actually have a few, few notes on that I'm going to be talking about next week. A very, very interesting article that was just released about airline travel and Physiological effects of it. I was reading it.

That's cool.

We actually, ironically, on the airplane last night, I was reading it, which made me feel very guilty and I really wanted to get off the airplane while I was reading it, but I couldn't because we were well above the ground.

So that ironic or is that coincidental?

I was pounding. I was pounding on the window trying to get out. Anyways, though, the electron transfer thing, there, there is this concept in medicine called therapeutic touch or energy therapy. And what they say is that a practitioner of therapeutic touch can put their hands on or near their client or their patient, and they can detect and potentially even manipulate the energy field. And some people do, similar to Reiki, swear by this in terms of it being like an ancient healing practice that you walk out of feeling better potentially because you have had your, your electrons adjusted. And I suppose that if the person who was doing the touching of you was like barefoot grounded touching you, helping to transfer electrons, helping to move those around the body, combined with massage and the fact that that massage in and of itself can cause some pretty cool effects that you could get an electron transfer. But I personally think that there are benefits to massage that go far above and beyond the electron transfer. For example, when another human being touches you, when you feel the skin of another human being, your central nervous system detects that and responds with a surge of hormones. And one of those hormones is oxytocin, which is the same hormone that gets released in very high amounts after sexual intercourse. And oxytocin makes you feel fantastic. It's not only an anti aging hormone, but it's a potent anti inflammatory. So that's one hormone that gets released simply through touch, doesn't have a whole lot to do with electron flow and perhaps isn't as woo woo as Reiki or Reiki, however you want to pronounce it. But that happens there. Is there, or there are some other benefits to touch that or to human touch specifically that scientists have looked into. For example, neuroscientists have discovered that when human beings touch each other, there's activation of what's called the orbitofrontal cortex in the brain. And that is linked to feelings of reward and compassion and specifically activates the vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve, which we've talked about on the show before, when activated in a therapeutic way, can increase your heart rate variability or the interplay between your sympathetic and your parasympathetic nervous system. So not only do you get the release of oxytocin, but you also can increase your heart rate variability, which is a way to reduce stress and a way to enhance what's called your alpha brainwave production. So there's that as well. There's also some research that shows that infants who are touched a lot have stronger immune systems, like infants who get a lot of time with their mothers and and were touched by their fathers and their mothers have stronger immune systems, although they haven't done similar studies in adults. But it's possible that the hormonal or the electron exchange or the vagus nerve activation that's happening via that human touch is affecting not only the immune system of babies, but may also be helping the immune system of adults as well. And then the last interesting study that they found on touch is that people with Alzheimer's disease who get massage and consistent human interaction, skin to skin, can relax more, make better emotional connections with others, and have reduced symptoms of depression. So there are things that go above and beyond, just like, you know, making your IT band feel better or, you know, getting a few knots out of the shoulders when it comes to human touch. And those are some of them. So even if you think the electron flow thing is woo woo, there are other proven scientific benefits to human touch that I think make it important for you to go out of your way to touch some people. So next time you're on the subway or on a train or on an airplane, just walk around touching people and see what happens. It'll be great. I promise.

It'll be fine.

Now stick with your. Stick with your friends initially, your friends or someone you pay like a massage therapist.

Hi, Ben, this is Jimmy from Manchester United Kingdom, following you for a while. Love your podcast. Got a question about toenail fungus. Have you got any suggestions cures experience of people who have had any success with curing it? I've tried every natural or conventional medicine under the sun and haven't had any success. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you.

Toenail fungus can be one of those things that just does not want to go away.

I like a little toenail fungus every now and again, though. It's a great, comprehensive conversation piece. Gives you something to do when you're bored and you're barefoot.

It's really nice. You take a little grater, you can put like a little bit on your salad.

That's right. Yeah. You save a ton of money on blue cheese. So, yeah, a lot of reasons to let that toenail fungus hang around. But let's say you want to get rid of it. You've got a hot date or your foot Model, perhaps there are reasons to clear up toenail fungus. And really, I'm not going to beat around the bush here. There is one remedy that I have never found to fail when it comes to athlete's foot or toenail fungus.

Apple cider vinegar.

It is not apple cider vinegar. Even though apple cider vinegar is oh, so tasty, it is actually something.

It also goes well on your salad with your toenail fungus.

Even tastier than apple cider vinegar, it's oregano. So oregano has multiple. Not just carvacrol, which we've talked about before on the show, but also thymol, terpenes, something called naringen. It's got Rosmarinic acid, a ton of different trisophils, and it is a natural fungicide. You simply apply it two or three times daily, and it can knock out fungal infections within a couple of days, fingernails or toenails. And, you know, it's an antibiotic. It's an antifungal. I personally always have oregano around both in my medicine cabinet upstairs. I also have it in my refrigerator because I will use it when I get sick because of its antibacterial and antiviral activity. And I mean, really, I could go on and on here about, you know, natural remedies for toenail fungus, but really, it's. It's pretty simple. I haven't found anything to work as well as just a basic oregano essential oil. So a few things to know about. Oregano oil is a, what's called a dermal irritant, meaning it can cause skin burning, skin swelling, skin inflammation. Usually that's because it hasn't been diluted enough. So the oil of oregano that I use, that I recommend, it's diluted with almond oil and. Or olive oil. It has a very, very high what's called carvacryl content. So I get stuff that's harvested from Turkey. It is what's called wild Mediterranean oil of oregano. A lot of times the stuff that you buy from the grocery store is not oregano. It is thyme oil, which is far less potent and contains far fewer carbacrols. And, you know, full disclosure, like, I actually have oil of oregano bottled up, mixed with almond oil, harvested as wild Mediterranean oil of oregano. And we sell it at Greenfield Fitness Systems. And the reason we sell it is because I personally use it for so many things. When there's something I personally use a bunch, I have it over there as well because I know other people will probably want to get the same Benefits. So that's what I would use is just oil. Oregano. We'll put a link to it in the show notes, but just get yourself some. Ben Greenfield Fitness oil of oregano. It's mixed in a 7 to 1 ratio with Almond oil. You can use it orally, you can use it topically. You can put it in a water balloon and throw it at your friends for a fun summertime party.

That's just mean.

You can put it on pizza, you can put it with your toenail fungus and some apple cider vinegar on a salad. But oil of oregano, check, check it out.

So what would you do though? Would you like just put a few drops on like a cotton ball and then spread it around on your toenails or how would you apply it?

That is exactly what you would do. Oh, and if you want to skip the cotton ball or the Q tip, you can literally just like take out the dry. It comes in a little dropper bottle and you squeeze a few drops onto the toenail and you can just kind of like with your fingers, right, like massage and kind of rub it in. So yeah, a few different ways to skin that cat. But ultimately I would just throw yourself a little oil of oregano. Toenail fungus Funeral party.

Hey Ben, Brock, this is Gina. Question for you. I'm headed to Burning man this year. You probably heard about this week long event in the hot hot desert where there there is no electricity or fridge and cooking and eating healthily is going to be a challenge. So I'm curious what you would recommend I bring during that time. So far my ideas are quest bars and drinking coconut oil like it's going out of business since it's going to be hot enough on the playa. Even making protein shakes is not an option because I don't think I will have enough water to wash out the gunk out of the cup every time. So I'm just curious what you would recommend for a semi balanced menu for a week so far I was also thinking nuts, canned fish. Anything else? Thank you so much.

Bye. Have you ever been to Burning Man, Brock?

No.

Do you know what Burning man is?

I do, yes. I know people who go to Burning man all the time and they seem to have a really good time but they always come back just a little nuttier than when before they left.

A little nut. Well, Burning man started as just a bonfire ritual in San Francisco at a place called Baker beach in San Francisco where a few dudes burned a nine foot tall wooden man. And I believe they also burned a Small wooden dog. And they burnt it as what they called a spontaneous act of self expression and basically as a way to kind of, kind of stick it to the man, to burn the man, so to speak. And now they have this Burning man festival out in the desert, Nevada's Black Rock Desert. And basically they, they define it as a temporary metropolis, meaning like a small city that they build out there in the desert dedicated to community art, self expression and self reliance. And if you ask the insiders, also drugs and orgies. You basically stay there for a week and then you depart, leaving no trace whatsoever. And it's, it's a very, very popular event, especially among like progressive young folks. All those young folks out there. I get invited every year and I have yet to go. It is on my list of things to go to just because I would, I would love to, to check it out. You know, a lot of art, a lot of, a lot of philosophizing, a lot of use of recreational drugs to enhance creativity. And it's a very, very interesting festival out in the middle of the desert. So anyways though, what would I take if you held a gun to my head right now and said, ben, get in your hippie van and go to Burning Man? What would I take?

That's extreme.

That's extreme. Yes. Well, obviously there's a lot of different things that you could take to something like Burning man and Gina's got her bars and her nuts and her coconut oil. But let's say that you aren't going to bring a lot of camp stoving and electricity and water equipment. What would I take? Well, I'm going to give you five, five things that I personally would take to Burning man or any other event in which I really didn't want to make myself scrambled eggs, hot dogs and s' mores and just wanted like some good packaged food that I could rely on to fuel my drug taking and wild sex orgies. I would take, first of all, assuming that you are omnivorous or carnivorous, take a good natural, organic form of either pemmican or jerky. One thing that I travel quite a bit with when I'm camping or when I'm hunting or when I'm airplaning or whenever. I always have a little bit of pemmican or jerky. My favorite form of pemmican right now I get from, from US Wellness Meats. And pemmican is just rendered fat. One tube of that stuff will keep you full for like 6 hours. Get the stuff that's like Preserved with a little bit of salt. You can even get it with honey or berries if you'd like just a little bit of extra carbohydrates or flavor in it. But pemmican would be one. And if you get jerky, there are a variety of different jerkies out there, but the one I'm the biggest fan of right now is the Bison bar. It's called the.

Oh, the Warrior Bar.

The Warrior Bar, yes, the Warrior Bar from Onnit. I would get yourself some pemmican from US Wellness Meats and some of those bison bars from Onnit. Another company that does like bacon bars and like pork and bison and buffalo is Epic Bar. Epic Bar does some pretty good bars, too. But if you're not going to make jerky yourself, I'd say US Wellness meets for their pemmican on it. For their, their bison bars, which are kind of like a mix between pemmican and jerky because they have a lot of rendered fat in them. And then any of the Epic Jerky bars, I would recommend those. And we'll put, we'll put links in the show notes to these so that you can go check them out if you would like. But those are, that's what I would recommend from a meat standpoint for meals pretty much. You know, like, for example, I was on airplanes most of the day yesterday. I pretty much survive on a little Ziploc bag full of super greens. And super greens are a meal replacement blend. Meal replacement blend of a bunch of different things. It's got like barley, spinach, kale, carrots, spirulina, probiotics, digestive enzymes. It's kind of like this big mashup of a bunch of different nutrients all shoved into like a greens powder. So what I typically do is I'll travel and I'll stop at like Starbucks in the airport. I'll ask them for like a 16 ounce cup of water. I'm typically really, really nice, so I get it for free. I'm like, no ice, no lid, no straw. Just give me some water. And then as they're getting the water, when they've got their back turned, I grab a plastic spoon and like a huge handful of napkins and then take the water for free and walk away.

You're a badass.

I know. I stick it to the man. Starbucks, man. I'm such a badass. And then I take that super greens and I just store it into the water and I make myself a little slurry and I eat it with my free Plastic spoon from Starbucks and it really is like, it's. I'm serious. If you check out the label on this stuff, it is a blend of superfoods, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, probiotics, amino acids, herbs. You know, you hear guys like Tim Ferriss talk about like athletic greens and you'll hear other people talk about like greens capsules and greens powders. This stuff kicks the butt of anything I have every ever tried in terms of like appetite satiation, taste and hypoallergenic potential.

So that's been my go to fuel for race morning. Anytime I'm doing a race, that's what I have for breakfast. Just like a mess of that with some coconut water.

Yeah. Do you think that I should actually tell people what's in? Might take, it might take a little while, but yeah, very long list. Let me go through this for you super duper quick. I promise I'll make this quick. A non GMO brown rice and non GMO yellow pea protein barley grass leaf, whole raw chia seeds, organic spinach, organic kale, organic broccoli, organic carrot, organic beetroot, organic oat soluble beta glucan fiber, spirulina, organic sea vegetable blend of a bunch of different sea vegetables like dolce and kelp and stuff like that. A stabilized microencapsulated probiotic compound. Every digestive enzyme that you need from cellulase to all your amylases, your peptidases, your pepsases, your lipases, etc. From an herbal standpoint, organic marshmallow root, turmeric, ginger root, stragalus, dandelion root, milk thistle extract, ginkgo biloba, full spectrum of antioxidants, glutathione, coenzyme Q10, alpha lipoic acid, grapeseed, green tea, carcetin N, acetylcysteine, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin B, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K, all of your vitamins basically then all the minerals, potassium, calcium, magnesium, trace mineral complex of like 77 different minerals. Zinc, silica, magnesium, boron, chromium, selenium, vanadium. So it is everything. Granted you will get bored with it if you were to rely on this for every single meal that you eat. But I would definitely take this with you. So there's that next thing that I would take just because it mixes so well with pemmican, with jerky, with meal replacement powder and even with just a banana. Like a lot of times if all I have is this and a banana, I will just eat the banana on top of this. And that is a good gluten free, dairy free, organic dark chocolate. So look, look for the stuff that doesn't have soy in it either. So gluten free, dairy free, soy free, dark chocolate preferably, so it doesn't spike your blood Sugar at least 75% cacao is my recommendation. My number one top dark chocolate, if I had to choose one on the face of the planet, is the eating evolved dark chocolate.

Oh, that's so good.

They have one called Midnight coconut that is 100% cacao. So like almost zero sugar. I'll put a link to them in the show notes, but they call themselves Primal Chocolate and it's just fair trade certified cacao sourced from an organic farming cooperative in the Dominican Republic. It is gluten free, soy free, dairy free. And the small amounts of sugar that they have in it is from a really, really nutrient dense unrefined maple sugar stone ground crafted in small batches in New York. Good stuff. So I take some of that though.

Everybody like me who does not live in the US they do not ship.

Outside of the US But Burning man is in Nevada.

There you go.

So you could just get it.

So Gina's okay, but the rest of us are screwed.

That's right. Next thing would be chia seeds. I am a huge fan of chia seeds just because of their versatility. Just because similar to like bone broth, L, glutamine, colostrum is, et cetera, they're very, very therapeutic to the gut. Not that you will be consuming alcohol or doing anything else that might harm your gut. Oh, no, no. However, chia seeds are just like, they're, they're like the next best thing. They're like vegan bone broth. So you just take chia seeds and you can mix them with like the, the living fuel super greens that I was talking about. Or you can just like put them in water with a little bit of lemon juice and stevia and sea salt. You can just crunch on them and chew them like. They're incredibly versatile. They're incredibly filling. About 60 calories in a tablespoon. They've got amino acids, they've got fatty acids. They do have good amounts of omega 3 fatty acids like EPA and ALA in them. Yes. Unfortunately, to all you vegans and vegetarians out there, only about 2% of that is actually converted into brain beneficial DHA. But that doesn't matter because it does have a lot of other really, really incredible properties to it. So chia.

And it looks like weird fish eggs when you let it Soak up the water.

That's right. So that's another one that I almost always travel with in addition to pemmican jerky meal replacement powder and some healthy dark chocolate. And then the last thing I would take, even though the Super Greens already has spirulina in it, is I would take like spirulina or chlorella, just because it is the most nutrient dense thing that you can eat on the face of the planet, other than bacon and liver. Actually, spirulina and. Or chlorella, since the Super Greens already has spirulina in it. If I were you, I'd do chlorella. But there's this company called Energy Bits. They make this stuff called Energy Bitch, which is spirulina. But then they also make this stuff called Recovery Bits, which is.

Did you say Energy Bitch?

Energy Bitch. No, I said Energy.

It's a good name for a company, though.

I tend to slur, tend to slur as we get farther and farther into the podcast. But yes, it's Chlorella. The Recovery Bits that they make is 100% organic cracked cell wall chlorella. I talked on it a couple of episodes ago in detail in terms of all the different properties of chlorella. But as far as something very, very satiating, very nutrient dense, and also something that has a liver detoxification effect in terms of its ability to bind some of the things that have been detoxified by your liver and pass them out through your, through your stool there in the desert. That's another one is chlorella. So if you banish me to a desert island or to an airplane for a long period of time or to Burning man, those are the five things that I would take. I will put a discount codes or discount code links and all those goodies for those of you who access the show notes and just want a handy dandy list to get this stuff, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com327 and I'll put it there. But camping, hunting, Burning man, etc. That's, that's the direction I'd go if you limited me to five things and just had me take those things. And if I had. Well, how about this, Brock? If you had to throw in a sixth, not to put you on the spot, what would you throw in?

Oh man, that's a good question. I think I'd throw in some sort of dehydrated coffee just because I, I can't go without my, my morning cup of joe.

How about this dual extracted Mushroom coffee.

That would do.

From Four Sigma foods. They make a mushroom coffee that'll make your eyeballs pop out your head and it's got like detoxifying mushrooms and adaptogens and all sorts of stuff in it. So yeah, the Four Sigma mushroom coffee, that's a really, really good dehydrated coffee. So what the hell, we'll throw that one in too. So there you have it. Enjoy. I'll put all that stuff in the show. Notes. As with everything else that we talk about on today's show. So speaking of talking about stuff on today's show, let's talk about actually, if.

Anybody was wondering, energybitch.com is not taken.

Ooh, really?

It's still available if anybody wants to register it.

Not anymore. So anyways. Yeah. And tell us what you wind up putting up there if you do. We have a review. If you hear your review read on this show. And by the way, one of the best ways to support the show is you just go to itunes. Not hard. Here's how to do it. Go to itunes, do a search for Ben Greenfield. Step two, ignore anything that comes up except the one of me half naked, jumping over a wall, looking like I just stole something from the convenience store.

Just robbed the liquor store.

That's right. And click on that one. And then what you'll want to do is basically leave a star, actually five of them, and write your review. And if you hear us read your review on the show, we will send you a handy dandy gear pack with a Ben Greenfield fitness tech shirt, water bottle and a beanie or a toque, as Brock might say. And all you got to do is email gear greenfield fitness systems.com and when you email gearreenfieldfitnesssystems.com we will basically send all that straight to your front door. Whether you live in Colorado or Dubai. Doesn't matter. Or Finland or Helsinki. We'll send it to you.

Helsinki.

Helsinki. So we have a review from Tunnel Rat and Tunnel Rats. The title of the review, that which is a five star review is want to feel stupid. And as usual, so that I don't sound like I'm praising my own lips. Praising myself.

Tootin.

How do you say that? Praising myself with my own lips, Brock.

Well, don't you have to have removed.

I also do like to praise my lips. But don't raise your own lips. Brock will go ahead and take this one away. Brock.

I will. Do you think anybody keeps listening at this point?

Yes, they do, because they always know that we end with something highly entertaining and stupid. After we read the review. Okay, Stick around.

That's the promise of stupidity. All right, this. The review goes like this. This podcast has opened my eyes to a whole new world as a former Minion. Like those little animated guys.

Should we play the Disney song Whole New World? At this point?

Definitely not.

I will show you.

We don't want to do that to people.

People. My magic carpet. Go ahead.

Sorry to interrupt me stuck in my head for the rest of the week now. Damn it has a former Minion. I was going. I was going along, buying that. Buying all that my parents had before me, whether it be food, cookware, or vitamins.

That almost sounds biblical. My parents before me, my parents before.

Me, and my parents and their parents before them who begat Jehovah, who be had, begat. Oh, wait, you can't be cat Jehovah. Anyway, since listening to this, I have discovered a better way of living that will benefit my family moving forward and generations to come. When I begat job, where the hell was I? Oh, I think this word is weather, but it's not spelt either way that you spell weather. I am cooking for my family or preparing for my next next obstacle course race. There are beneficial tips for everyone in every episode. But caution, Nerdville is visited often.

I have visited it often. I have two thoughts on that. First of all, way to work in words like Minion and Nerdville. Just because those. Those are. Those are epic words that we should all use more often. And second, learn how to friggin spell. Geez, beneficial weather. I guess those are the only two.

That that he actually tunnel rat has an excessive amount of teas.

Three T's Got a little character tease there. Anyways though, that's a great review. Con, if you want to feel stupid, listen to our show because Nerdville is visited often now.

I'm actually going to Nerdville next week.

Really? Yeah.

Be there for like three or four days.

Nice. Nice. You can take some minions along with you.

Yep, absolutely.

Cool. Awesome.

Well, my goal is to make everybody there feel stooping.

Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com327 if you are still listening and have not fallen off the bandwagon yet. And there are all sorts of handy dandy links there, so if you like to clicky, visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com327 and click away. We will be back this weekend with a podcast episode. Brock, do you happen to recall what this weekend's podcast episode is? Because although I spent an hour and a half with the guest. I, for some reason can never remember what the weekend podcast is to bring, because usually I record them a week in advance and then forget who's up to bat, so to speak. Is it Tai Lopez?

I added the least? No, I think Ty's on the fifth.

Wait, it's. It's Ben Hewitt. It's called how a steady diet of standard education is Choking the creativity, health and fitness out of our kids and what you can do about it.

Holy crap.

Yeah, that's right. So how can you not listen? Anyways, though, stay tuned this weekend for that. In the meantime, have a healthy week and we'll talk to you later.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast list. Go to BenGreenfield Fitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Sam.