Q&A 422: Colostrum & Melatonin For COVID, 14 Ways To Find Balance In Your Life, Is Nut Oil & Fish Oil Oxidized, Rancid Or Bad For You? Is Sunlight Beneficial In The Winter? & Much More.

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast, Colostrum and melatonin for Covid. 14 ways to find more balance in your life. Is nut oil and fish oil oxidized, rancid, or bad for you? How do you get sunlight for vitamin D in the winter? And much, much more. Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. Jay. I kind of feel like. I feel like a hypocrite. The best way I can describe it this morning. Huh.

Interesting. I feel like that at least like five to ten times a day. So I'm interested to hear about yours.

Yeah, well, the. The reason is I'm supposed to announce that we have a fasting challenge going on over at Kion, yet I just finished devouring my glasses morning pumpkin pie smoothie that I'm basically hooked on right now.

That is quite hypocritical, but that sounds amazing.

It's pretty hypocritical. And I figure at this point, I should probably fill people in on the fasting challenge, but then maybe also on the pumpkin pie smoothie, which in my opinion is even more important and joyful than a fasting challenge.

Nobody's gonna want to fast.

Yeah. Well, I mean, not only have I been devouring my pumpkin pie smoothie, but I was also getting some ribs ready. I'm trying a new recipe. I've been doing all these food fun new recipes just being trapped indoors. Cause it's frigid outside right now. So I pulled out the pressure cooker and the sous vide wand and the crock pot. I'm doing all sorts of crazy stuff. But what I'm gonna try today. Tell me if this is a harebrained idea. I'm gonna get out the Traeger and I'm gonna smoke these wonderful, beautiful beef short ribs that I got from our friends at Bel Campo. And I'm gonna smoke them for a couple hours. And then normally after you smoke ribs to melt in your mouth, falling off the bone. Good is you'll wrap them with either aluminum foil. If you want a healthier alternative to that. These cedar wraps that you can get just like off Amazon.

I thought you were gonna say bacon.

Bacon would be good too. And then you. It would be hard to make a giant bacon bowl big enough to hold the wraps, though. And you gotta make this big enough to hold the wraps. And then you pour. I usually use equal parts red wine bone broth and apple cider vinegar. And then any spices of choice over top of the ribs and Then continue to grill them usually for about three to four hours till I get about like 165 or so for the internal temp. And obviously that takes a while. So what I'm gonna try tonight is I'm gonna do the same thing I usually do. I'm smoke them and I've been marinating them all morning. I got up early this morning at 5 and made a wonderful marinade that I will that they're literally up in the fridge right now sitting in. Then I'll pull them around 4:30pm tonight and smoke them for a couple hours. But then I'm gonna transfer them to this new magical, lovely thing I've been using in the called my pressure cooker. I found it. I found it in a deep, dark corner of the pantry.

Yeah.

And I was overjoyed because I just didn't even know we owned the pressure cooker. And it makes, I mean, everything from sushi rice to spaghetti squash to ribs. I've done a bit giant pork loin in there. I've done a bunch of stew meat and like a London broil, like traditionally tougher cuts and just made them super tender. And it's so easy. Like literally what I'll do is pull these ribs off the smoker and. And then all I do is pressure cook them for 20 minutes and that's it. Like stuff like it's like eight minute abs. I mean stuff just cooks super duper fast. It's like cheating.

That doesn't sound that crazy to me. My. My parents have. It's called an insta pot. Have you ever heard of those before? So it's, it's kind of. Yeah, like a pressure cooker, I think. I don't know too much about them, but they do some London broil in that thing and it is to die for. It is so freaking good. So doesn't sound too crazy for me, but it also sounds a little bit more like an infomercial of how to break a fast and not not fasting.

Instant pot does make a pressure cooker. The other one that I'm interested in looking into is an air fryer, but I haven't gotten into that yet. I'll report back on how this works, but it's going to be a smoke pressure cooker one two combo. All right, well, this is part of the show where we talk about news flashes and I think all of our news flashes. And if you guys want these when they're hot off the press, you can go to twitter.com BenGreenfield that's where I tweet a lot of stuff because I haven't been banned from Twitter yet for tweeting stuff like I'm about to talk about right now. Because everybody. I don't know if you're concerned, Jay. I'm concerned. They're at least concerned. Interested in this whole idea of a vaccination for code.

Oh yeah, yeah.

This MRNA vaccine, which I think actually looks. Looks like a pretty cool, simple, elegant vaccine. Right? You. Yeah, you get the.

So you're more concerned of us having it or not having it?

No, I mean like, like the MRNA that expresses the spike protein that you would then produce an antibody against. I mean, theoretically, it sounds great. If that just goes to say, like lung tissue or vasculature expresses the protein and then your, your body mounts an antibody defense against that and then in the future when it sees again, it's able to deal with it, that's great. I just don't like the whole fast track part of it. Like I'm not going to be the first one in line and I'm definitely not going to appreciate it if I'm required to get it anytime. You coveted passport. It's my choice. My body, baby. I thought that was how America worked. So anyways, anyways. Yeah, not really. But you know, we could talk about the vaccine and the potential safety or lack thereof of it for ever to. What's the word? Long on the tooth. We get long.

I think that's the one you use a fair amount.

Yeah, yeah. But anyways, instead I thought we'd focus on the bright side of things. So I've been looking into ways that we can help not only to prevent the flu, but other viral issues without, say, getting vaccinated. And I've had a few studies come across my radar lately. And one was a combination of two different compounds that they found was far more effective than a vaccination for prevention of flu episodes. And these were called immunomodulating compounds. And it was very, very simple. So they took two different so called immunomodulators in this study, which was just released a few weeks ago. And one was bifiver. Bifiver. Bifiver is. It's a probiotic. It's like five different strains of probiotic mixed with a prebiotic fiber. It's commonly known probiotic compounds. I don't know if it's only made by a pharmaceutical company, but, but you can just google Bifiver and see the different probiotic strains that they use in it and pretty much find those just about anywhere. Like it's usually used to reinforce the gut membrane and to help activate the immune system. That's specifically what that probiotic blend is designed for. But it's B, I, F, I, V I R, they use that and they combined it with colostrum, which is very simple to get massively available on the supplement market. You can get it from goats, you can get it from, from cows. They put those two together and they found that it worked better than a vaccination at preventing flu episodes. So that was, that was pretty interesting. But then there was another study that came out after that one that also looked into flu prevention. And what they did with this group was they didn't combine colostrum with probiotics, they just used colostrum by itself. They found it was three times more effective than a vaccination to prevent the flu, which is crazy. And, you know, especially considering that you don't have to get all the adjuvants, you don't have to worry about the potential for sparking the, you know, the innate immune response without, you know, kind of gradually getting the adaptive or humoral immune response, which is where a lot of people get concerned about potential autoimmune issues later in life. And again, like, I'm not an anti vaxxer. You know, I was vaccinated, my kids were vaccinated. Like, like if a vaccine is, is proven to be safe and effective in long term human studies. I'm not against the concept of vaccination. I don't like a lot of the adjuvants. I don't like anything that simply targets innate immunity without allowing for adaptive humoral immunity. But I also appreciate natural alternatives when I can find them. And this idea of colostrum or colostrum plus probiotics I find intriguing. And then kind of to back that up, this whole idea, because this is the way that colostrum works, is called passive immunity by immunoglobulin transfer. You're getting, getting these immunoglobulins from something like colostrum, from cow's milk or from goat's milk. And what happens is you get what's called passive immunity. So the immunological activity against infections gets passed into humans upon the consumption of those specific immunoglobulins from something like colostrum. And so what they also did in this very recent study was they looked at whether drinking raw milk which had the colostrum along with it, could actually provide short term protection against Covid. And I'll link to this one in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 422 and what they found was that if they took raw milk and colostrum collected from cows that had been vaccinated against Covid, that actually allowed for humans to be protected against Covid. And it worked very similarly to a vaccine. But the cow gets the vaccination. Right. The human doesn't, and then the human just consumes raw cow's milk and colostrum from the cow that was vaccinated. And it's called passive immunity by immunoglobulin transfer, which is kind of a cool concept.

Fascinating.

Yeah. So you don't have to fuss around with the needles or the adjuvants or anything else, you know, the poor cow does, but then you just drink the cow's milk and, you know, you're theoretically good to go, which I found very interesting. And then, I mean, to take this even one step further, there was yet another study that recently appeared because a lot of people, you know, just throwing everything in the kitchen sink at coronavirus. So this one also looked at colostrum and specifically what's called the lactoferrinin colostrum, which is something that's capable of binding to iron. And theoretically it's. If you absorb iron from the environment, a lactoferrin protein could prevent viral pathogenic activity. And so what they did was they took colostrum and they attempted to use it to treat Covid. And they actually found that you were able to get a little bit of a response in terms of antiviral activity from the. Particularly the antiviral lactoferrin compounds within the colostrum. So I've personally used this natural protein in colostrum for a long time as part of my own personal protocol. But the lactoferrin in it, that's the part that seems to have some really, really potent antiviral activity. And you can also get lactoferrin just kind of packaged on its own. I like the idea of getting all the growth factors and kind of the gut supporting compounds that come along with the colostrum. But it's very interesting how many studies have shown either this immunoglobulin transfer from cows that have been vaccinated against Covid, you know, and then consuming their colostrum or their raw milk, combining colostrum with probiotics as another way to go for. For not just Covid, but for flu or just consuming colostrum all by itself. So it's really interesting. Yeah, yeah.

To say that. To say the Least, I mean, my guess is that the CDC is not going to approve the, the drinking of, you know, micro filtered raw immune milk from cows as, as a way to be vaccinated. However, if they did, I mean, that'd be a super fascinating thing because, I mean, just to be honest with you, I have had kind of a level of skepticism with the vaccine just because of the fast rollout, not because of really many other reasons, but just because I'm very conscientious of what goes in my body. And so a fast rollout is just a little bit kind of. I'm apprehensive, I'm a little scared with that. But this to me does not sound nearly as, as, as scary because of all the adjuvants being removed. Like you said, we just giving those to the cows. You write screw the cows. Ye, well, we don't really care. But you know, it's fascinating because I could see myself going for more of this option over an actual, you know, injectable vaccine.

So.

Yeah, fascinating research.

Yeah. And you are correct. The US Food and Drug Administration has already issued two different warning letters to two different supplement companies, both of which produce Colostrum, both of which had, you know, colostrum associated with COVID on their website. So they're already kind of cracking down, but it doesn't keep me from consuming Colostrum myself.

Right. Those are the benefits too.

Yeah. Yeah. But there was one other really, really big, big study in which. Well, basically what they did was analyzed a bunch of patient data from Cleveland Clinic's COVID 19 registry. And then they, they use what's called a network medicine strategy to predict disease manifestations. So they looked at everything from malignant cancer, autoimmune cardiovascular, metabolic, neur pulmonary diseases, and kind of looked at the cross reactivity between those and Covid and increased susceptibility, et cetera. And then they took a whole bunch of different drugs and medicines and compounds and tested the potential effectiveness of them in that type of scenario. Okay. So it was essentially almost like a network model to look at all the different things that might be able to affect coronavirus or some of the coexisting pathologies that might increased susceptibility to dying from coronavirus. And of every last thing that they actually looked at in terms of drugs or compounds that would support a lower susceptibility to dying from COVID especially with like, comorbidities, you know, the number one thing that they found was no. Was that melatonin. Melatonin usage was associated with a 28 reduced likelihood of a positive laboratory test for SARS COV2. Crazy. Yeah. And, and this, this was, you know, it kind of varied from population to population, but in, in every single population that they tried it with, I mean it, it actually was shown to be efficacious, which is really interesting, you know, considering the fact.

Just a correlation.

Yeah.

You're saying this was not just a correlation of melatonin usage, but they actually like studied it experimentally?

Well, what they did was they looked at, it's called a network medicine approach. And so what they did was they looked at melatonin usage. So they weren't actually taking like a group and doing a double blinded human clinical research study on this group got melatonin, this group didn't. It was more like who's using melatonin? And they found that in the groups that were using melatonin they had a 28% reduced likelihood of a positive lab test for SARS CoV2. And then they used what's called a PS matching user active comparator design, which is the statistical design to determine that melatonin usage was associated with reduced likelihood of a SARS CoV2 positive test result compared to the use of like, like an angiotensin, what's it called, an angiotensin II receptor blocker or the angiotensin enzyme inhibitors which are commonly used to treat Covid. And they found a 52% reduced likelihood of a positive laboratory test for SARS CoV2 in African Americans who were using melatonin. Now of course, dosages are going to widely vary. In many cases, melatonin is anywhere from 0.3 all the way up to 10 milligrams. Some people, like Dr. John Lawrence who I interviewed, who has those suppositories for melatonin, you know, he's using like 100 to 300 milligrams of melatonin. But ultimately it appears that it actually does have some kind of an effect. And I guess the, the proposed mechanism of action is it somehow acting on these angiotensin receptors. And also we know melatonin is a pretty potent anti inflammatory, so it might be affecting the cytokine response. Not quite sure, but I guess, you know, colostrum by day, melatonin by night could be a good idea if you don't want to get vaccinated.

Super interesting. Yeah, so it sounds like melatonin was. So it was a correlation, but it sounds like they're identifying melatonin as a moderating variable. So it is kind of Demonstrating like as an influencer, which is super interesting to me and I'd love to hear just, I think so much is gonna unfold after we get through all of this. Just all the different studies that are running right now and all the things that will come in the future. And so yeah, we'll probably figure all of this thing out, you know, in about 10 years or so when it's hopefully gone or at least. Yeah, just not as bad.

Exactly. And as, as with any of these, you know, essentially they're, they're looking at repurposable drugs for SARS. COV2 There's a lot of limitations. Like they're integrating data from a whole bunch of different sources to build what they call a human interactome and a drug target network which is common in the pharmaceutical industry. But there's still a lot of correlative data that's, that's not directly studied. But you know, they can then take that data and actually do like a double blinded human clinical research study on the use of melatonin on the dosage, etc. You know, it's kind of like a, you know, when you're doing a nutrition study, there's a difference between a questionnaire that people are filling out about their diet versus actually putting them on said diet and monitoring that very closely, which would be kind of the next step with something like melatonin. But anyways, I'm getting sleepy talking about melatonin. So anyways, I hope this has been helpful for all you anti vaxxers out there and I'm sure we'll get lots of, lots of supported comments, supportive comments from, from the vaccination enthusiasts. So. Hi Ben, it's Grace from Australia. I've been hearing a lot about the dangers of polyunsaturated fats lately, particularly in regards to how they oxidize easily which could create cellular damage. Does this mean I should avoid regular consumption of nuts and fatty fish? I know that in nuts the antioxidant properties of vitamin E could offset this oxidative damage. But vitamin E is also susceptible to light and heat. I'd love to hear your take on this. Well, didn't we recently tackle pretty comprehensively? I think in the last two episodes both 420 and 421, we talked about omega 3 fatty acids, we talked about omega 6 fatty acids, we talked about fish oil. But there, there are some things that we should probably clear up here when it comes to some of these questions about, you know, like do I just need to totally stop eating Nuts, you know, or you know, or you know, what kind of cellular damage could occur from the consumption of, say, like, PUFAs from fish oil or from. Or from nuts, for that matter. So just the basic overview for those of you who may have missed podcast 420 or 421. I'm not going to insult people's intelligence by telling you that vegetable oil is bad for you, although it is. Basically, the idea is that when you look at polyunsaturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, you know, which you're going to find vastly concentrated in Crisco and soybean oil and corn oil and canola oil and vegetable oil and margarine. But what you'll also find, admittedly, in things like, you know, that healthy bag of, you know, raw almonds or your fish oil, they're very vulnerable, these PUFAs, polyunsaturated fatty acids, to damage from heat and light and oxygen specifically. It's just the way that those types of fats are structured makes them chemically unstable. And if you consume them after they've been oxidized, say if they're used as a frying oil over and over again, or they're left out in a clear bottle on the shelf for months in a supermarket, you know, which you'll find with many fish oils, for example, then get oxidized. And when they get oxidized outside of the human body, that's dangerous because that induces an inflammatory reaction, you know, say, like oxidized soybean oil. You know, there's one study where they oxidize soybean oil by heating it up a few times, which is very common in the restaurant industry. Then they fed it to rodent models, instantly cause inflammation, high blood pressure, slash hypertension, liver damage, type 2 diabetes. Not in rodent models, but in children. They found oxidized PUFAs caused that in human children. And so we know that it's an issue. We also know that in the US alone, consumption of PUFAs has increased from like, 3% of our total calories 100 years ago to, I think it's coming up close to like, 10 to 12% right now of our total calorie consumption comes from PUFAs. And in most cases, they're oxidized PUFAs, you know, like you'd get from the soybean oils, from the canola oil, from the vegetable oil, etc. But there's two main types of PUFAs, okay? You have the Omega 3 PUFAs and the Omega 6 PUFAs. Okay, so for simplicity's sake, you got two main types. So the Omega 3s are the ones you'd find in fish, fish oil, seafood, some plant sources like algal oils, etc. The Omega 6s you'll find in, in nuts and in industrial oils like corn oil and vegetable oil and peanut oil and soy oil. And the problem isn't just too much PUFAs. It is too much PUFAs along with way too many omega 6 fatty acids, along with a deficiency of omega 3 fatty acids. Right? So a lot of ancestral diets, which we kind of evolved to live on, Those are like a 4 to 1 to 1 to 1 ratio of omega 6 to omega 3s. And now modern diets are a ratio of like 10 to 1, all the way up to. I've seen numbers as high as 50 to 1. And so way to go, America. Yeah, that' sthat's why it's an issue. And I covered this pretty extensively in my podcast with the Harris's as well, where we talked about how not only is the omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acid ratio important, but so is the actual concentration of DHA and EPA in your bloodstream, which, if you get tested using a test like omegaquant, should be at about 8%. And most people I see tested, they're at like 2 to 3%. So not only do they not have enough EPA and DHA, but their Omega 6 is just off the charts. So, you know, and I'll link to that article or that podcast with the Harris's, you know, those doctors who I interviewed about all this in the show notes. The other two resources that'd be really good for you are. Kate Shanahan has two books, one called Deep Nutrition and one called the Fat Fix. And that also really help you wrap your head around this issue with oxidized omega 6 fatty acids. But there's a few kind of subtle nuances here that I've been asked about. First of all, a lot of people will say, well, if these oxidized PUFAs are bad for you, and it's so easy for fish oil to be oxidized, then doesn't that mean that we're inducing inflammation by consuming, say, a fish oil? And that's kind of the issue that you need to be aware of because there's very important terms. So there's peroxidation, okay? That's the oxidative degradation of lipids in which free radicals in your body steal electrons from the lipids and cell membranes, and that results in cell damage, okay? And then there's oxidation. Oxidation is just a natural transfer of electrons that occurs all the time within normal human metabolism. In order for an omega 3 fatty acids that you consume to actually have the effect it's supposed to have, meaning inducing a normalized inflammatory response, it has to be oxidized. That's what produces free radicals that act as signaling mechanisms. But if it's peroxidation, which is what you're gonna get if it's damaged by heat or by light or by exposure to oxygen before you consume it, that's where you get an issue with damage to the cell membranes. Okay? So. So that's one very important thing to consider is the difference between oxidized fish oil or oxidized any other pufa and peroxidized oils, okay? So that's one important thing to be aware of is the peroxidation is what actually cause causes the cell membrane damage. Now, the. The other thing is that when it comes to what you need to be careful of, when we're particularly talking about omega 6 fatty acids, is a big, big part of this is what's called linoleic acid. Okay? Linoleic acid is what you're going to find in seed oils, not necessarily in fish oil, but in seed oils, which is relevant to the question here about the nuts. Okay, so at the root of all this peroxidative damage is linoleic acid. It's an 18 carbon omega 6 fatty acid. It's the primary fatty acid that you're gonna find. It's like 80% of the fatty acid composition of vegetable oils, seed oils, nuts, et cetera. Okay? So this linoleic acid, when it oxidizes, it develops what are called lipid hydroperoxides, and these degenerate into oxidized linoleic acid metabolites. That's where the issue is, because there's a term for this called ox lambs. Oxidized linoleic acid metabolites. And ox lambs we know from multiple studies, are cytotoxic, genotoxic, they're mutagenic, they're carcinogenic, they're atherogenic, they're thrombogenic. Even the two doctors who I interviewed about fish oil in that podcast I did on fish oil, they weren't even aware of this. You know, they weren't aware of the idea of oxidized linoleic acid metabolites. And they were saying, you know, eat as many nuts as you want, Linoleic acid is good for you. That's simply not the case. I was flabbergasted. I didn't want to like start a big argument with them on the spot. But, you know, the atherosclerotic and the thrombogenic actions of these oxlams and the metabolic dysfunction that occurs afterwards is through the roof because it leads to accumulation of these PUFAs in your cell membranes and that causes a host of peroxidation reactions. So we're not talking about consuming a fish oil and then having it naturally oxidized, right? Like transfer of electrons causing a natural free radical response that acts as a signaling mechanism for normal inflammatory response. We're talking about actual damage to cell membranes for days and days and even weeks on end following exposure to oxidized linoleic acid metabolite. Okay, so that's the big, big issue. And this is why you should completely avoid soy, canola, corn, safflower, peanut, all of these oils. I mean, even, you know, even olive oil. And you know, a lot of people don't realize this olive oil is a source of omega 6 linoleic acid. Another thing that happens is that those ox lambs, they interact with iron in the body. So if you have pretty good iron status or high iron, it's gonna be an even bigger issue because you'll get even more of this peroxidative damage. So, you know, it is an issue. Very simple. To know how much linoleic acid you're eating, you can go to Cronometer, which is one of my favorite food logging platforms. It's C R O N O meter. And@cronometer.com you can just add in your food for a week and you'll automatically be shown how much linoleic acid that you're actually consuming. And if you have a lot of seeds and nuts and vegetable oils in your diet, you likely are going to see higher numbers than what you would actually want for linoleic acid. Now the, the other thing here is, you know, fish itself and you know, whether, whether or not fish is an issue. And it turns out that if you look at something like salmon, for example, and there's a really interesting study on this that I'll link to in the show notes. If you look at salmon after a variety of different cooking methods, you can actually cause peroxidative damage even to your fish. So it's not just fish oil you need to worry about, but any marine based food like fatty fish or seafood. When you cook that, prior to consuming it, you get a lot of these similar peroxidative type of compounds and these ox lambs. And one study looked at different cooking methods for salmon and they found that if you, if you're like pan frying or baking salmon, for example, which is very common, you know, I'll often throw salmon on a cast iron skillet and virgin olive oil and fry that up well, you actually see a pretty significant elevation of concentration of peroxides in the salmon. And so because of this, I think it's actually because the study looked at other cooking methods, like steaming or like boiling, for example, and they found that the level of lipid peroxidation was remarkably lower with those lower heat cooking methods. And so I've actually shifted to, especially after all this research I was doing on the fish oil, I've shifted to either doing the pan frying but having it be at a super low temperature, which takes a longer period of time. You don't get quite as crispy of a skin, but that's just, you know, it is what it is. And then the other thing that works really well is sous vide. And sous vide, you just get this wonderful, wonderful cook on the fish. Again, you don't get a super crispy skin, which I kind of miss. But the level of peroxidative damage is far lower when you look at something like steaming or sous videing compared to frying or baking or roasting. So it's just something to think about if you are being careful. Now, if you're like, well, I don't want to live to be 120 if I can never have the crispy skin on a nice fried fish. I get it. And I actually talk in an article that I published on fish oil, and this is all based on research by Dr. James Nicolantonio, that there are certain things you can consume that will help to get rid of some of that peroxidative damage. Probably the top two would be glycine. You could have a nice big cup of bone broth with your fried fish. And then spirulina, you know, which is basically like an algae that you can find in powder form and tablet form. You can just, just consume some of that after you have, say, like, you know, every week you want to have a nice piece of fried salmon filet. And it's just your treat to yourself. You can use a few hacks to actually limit some of the proxy of damage. So, you know, it's.

That'll be my route.

Kind of sort of like having your cake and eating it too. For anybody who hasn't tried sous vide, it actually is a really, really great cooking method for, for salmon.

I haven't tried that via salmon does. So I the thing I love about pan seared salmon is indeed that like really buttery, crispy, like skin. And so with suv, everything I have tried with SUV tends not to be, you know, like that, I guess you could call it like almost that charred type flavor. So what does it do to the actual skin? Is it like floppy?

Yeah, it's, it's, you know, just like chewy skin. Like it's, it's not, it's not that great but you know, it's just like, you know, a nice, you know, like I was talking about, like the smoked rib eyes, if I were to grill those heavily afterwards, are going to get that nice crusty, crispy outer coating. The same thing with the steak that you might sear after you sous vide it to lock in the flavor and get kind of that texture on the external part of the meat. Or a salmon with the skin like you, there is a trade off in terms of carcinogenicity and lipid peroxidation. And you just have to ask yourself, okay, well, you know, is it worth the trade off? And what could I consume at the same time, like spirulina or glycine or even like fish oil, like omega 3 fatty acids, things that would help to limit some of that lipid peroxidation. And so for me, I like to live right. I like to go climb mountains, swing kettlebells and have a nice ribeye steak on the grill and all sorts of things that are probably going to strip a few seconds off my life. And you have to strike a balance between living a little and then also taking care of your body. So that's where a lot of these little hacks come in. So go read the article that I did and I'll link to it in the show. Notes about omega 3 fatty acids, omega 6 fatty acids, protecting yourself against lipid peroxidation, and a whole host of other considerations when it comes to that over at. I'll link to it. BenGreenfieldFitness.com422 and then the last thing that Grace was asking was about vitamin D. And it turns out that everything I've said about fish oil, keeping it cool, keeping it like out of out of light, keeping it from being exposed to oxygen, all of that holds true for your vitamin D supplements too. Oxidative destruction of vitamin D can happen. And there have actually been studies that have shown that when vitamin D is exposed to oxygen for example, you actually see this same type of peroxidative damage upon consumption of vitamin D3 supplements. So, you know, in the same way that you want your fish oil kept cool out of the heat, out of the sunlight, or any other form of light, and, you know, packaged in a way that limits the amount of oxygen it's exposed to, all of that could be said also for any vitamin D supplement that you're taking. So, speaking of vitamin D, we got a question from Taylor. Hi Ben. I wanted to start by saying your.

Podcast is absolutely incredible and it has changed the way that I view health and longevity.

My question for you today is regarding sunlight. I live in the Midwest and typically.

In late October is when the UVB starts to decline.

However, I was wondering if there is still benefit to getting out in the light even without a shirt on.

I know that sounds crazy in the.

November and December months in the winter. Let me know what your thoughts are on this. And thank you so much. Yeah, this is something I've actually thought about a little bit, Jay. You know, if I'm going for a walk in the winter, am I getting any appreciable amount of vitamin D? You know, is sunlight exposure in the winter enough to avoid wintertime vitamin D deficiency?

And it'll be quite different for you actually than it will be for me because I'm way closer to the equator than you are. You're up there near them Canadians. You get no vitamin D. You don't get much, do you? In the winter?

I don't get very much at all. And I live on a north facing slope where there's like sunshine during the winter from like 11:00am to 2:00pm so it's very, very slight. And it turns out that they actually looked into this and of course it's going to vary based on the amount of melanin in your skin too. If you're South Asian or African American or something like that, it could be an even bigger issue in terms of you having low vitamin D in the winter. But they did look at folks in the UK a couple of years ago. They did a big study to see if sunlight exposure during the winter was enough to avoid vitamin D deficiency in population in the UK. And they did indeed find that 95% of white adults in the UK were able to actually get adequate amounts of vitamin D just from going out in the wintertime. And they range from like 20 to 60 minutes in exposure and their skin was exposed right. Like as much of the body as possible. You know, roll up the sleeves, even if you're wearing gloves. You can roll up the sleeves, you can roll up the pant legs a little bit, keep the face exposed, and you can actually get appreciable amounts of vitamin D from sunlight in the winter. And based on this study, you know, the people that were getting out in the sunshine on a regular basis, they were able to achieve, you know, according to this study, vitamin D status that was adequate. Of course, a lot of these studies, they're using like, you know, 10 to 20 to determine whether or not you're adequate in terms of nanomoles per liter. But this particular study, they actually use 50, you know, 50 nanomoles per liter as a metric. And they found that a very large proportion of people were able to go above deficiency status when they just got exposure during the winter months. Now, they found a lot lower percentages in the folks who were South Asian. They called it skin type V. And they actually were not getting that great of an amount of vitamin D in response to exposure to sunlight during the winter. So part of this could be based on the amount of melanin that you produce as well. So there's a lot of other factors in addition to skin color. It's the amount of skin that's exposed, the time of day, like, it's best in the middle of the day, not that great at the beginning or the end of the day. You know, cloudy days are going to lower the UVB levels, so you're not going to get as much, you know, on a cloudy day. But ultimately, the cool thing is there's an app. It's called D Minder. D Minder. And what the app does is it calculates your UVB exposure depending on where you're at in the world, and then tells you approximately how much sunshine you need to get. You know, and the location and the time of day is fed into the app, I think, based on location services. And then you're able to go out and get sunlight based on the advice that you get from the app. So that's one way that you can kind of know a little bit more about when you actually need to be getting out into the sunlight. And so that's useful, but it appears.

It'S a really great app. I actually use it pretty frequently. Not as much anymore, but it will actually give you, like, a current estimate of your nanograms per milliliter, depending on how long you're in the sun. And then. Yeah, the biggest thing, too is, is that you can know when are the optimal times to go get vitamin D, because they're you know, the windows in the winter, depending on where you are, can either be longer or shorter. For me it's gonna be again longer than what it's gonna be for you. But then like someone who's in, you know, Florida or in Miami is gonna have a much wider window than either of us. So cool.

Little app free too, right? And then the other thing that you should bear in mind is there's this vitamin D lamp, it's called Asperti S P E R T I last I checked you could get them on Amazon. And it actually, you know, unlike say like a joov light like we were talking about earlier, which doesn't produce UVA and uvb, just red light, this will actually allow for UVB exposure which could also theoretically be a way to simulate sunlight in the winter. It's important though to realize that no matter when you're getting out in the sun, you know, there are a lot of other sun dependent pathways, you know, that that are dependent on UV radiation that are pretty significant. And I'll link to a few studies in the show notes. But you know, for example, we know that there is increased activity of T regulatory cells when you get exposed to sunlight, which can directly assist with almost like this immunosuppressive effect through upregulation of cytokines. And that may also help with things like, you know, autoimmune disorders. In addition to just helping the immune system during the winter. We know that melanocytes and what are called keratinocytes in the skin release something called alpha melanocyte stimulating hormone. And that's been implicated in immunological tolerance and limitation of oxidative DNA damage. And so that's also something that you know, paradoxically could help protect you from skin cancer. Which is probably why we see people who say like do hefty amounts of tanning or sunbathing on the weekend have higher rates of skin cancer than people such as outdoor workers who are out in the sunlight frequently throughout the week. It's that upregulation of alpha MSH that's actually protective against skin cancer. You see a release of a special neuropeptide, it's called calcitonin gene related peptide that also is associated with a stronger immune system. And that's also something that is associated with management of autoimmune. Which is why, you know, autoimmune based skin disorders, you know, something like psoriasis for example, can actually be assisted by exposure to sunlight. We know that when you get exposed to the sun, you get A release of this stuff called neuropeptide substance P. And neuropeptide substance P is also something that can increase lymphocyte proliferation and cause a healthier immune system. And then you also get the endorphin response, same as you get from say a sauna. Right. It's a natural opiate that you get released in response to sunlight exposure. And so all of those sun dependent pathways for ramping up the immune system, making you feel good, helping to manage a normal inflammatory response, all of those occur in response to sunlight, vitamin D aside. So I think that it's just smart to get out in the sun in the winter regardless of whether you're, it's allowing you to get adequate vitamin D, regardless of whether you still need to say, like supplement with vitamin D, you know, consume mushrooms, eat, you know, fatty cuts of meat that are higher in vitamin D. You know, it's just a good idea to get out in the sunlight, period.

Yeah. You know, for me, I kind of view it this way, especially in the wintertime, is that I'll go out, I'll walk in the sunlight, I'll wear minimal clothing as much as is appropriate around my office building, throw a podcast in for a walk, and I'm killing so many birds with one stone. And I think that that's just an effective way of kind of looking at it. I mean, I'm getting kind of like the cold thermo, I'm getting my walk and exercise in, I'm learning with my podcasting. And then I'm also getting some vitamin D. Right.

And circadian rhythmicity. I mean, we didn't even touch on that. But towards that, sunlight early in the day is one of the best things you can do for natural melatonin and serotonin response later on in the day. So, you know, those wintertime walks in the sun, they're fabulous for you. Roll up your sleeves, roll up your pant legs, expose as much skin as possible. And it appears that if you are Caucasian, for example, you're still going to get adequate vitamin D. There are some genetic factors, actually. Some people, like me, for example, do not possess the gene that allows for appreciable amounts of vitamin D produced in response to sunlight. So, you know, I can go out in the sunlight all summer long and my vitamin D won't get much higher than about 30. So I still have to supplement with vitamin D or get vitamin D in in my diet in higher amounts, et cetera. That's just something I'll have to do. My whole life. But man, I I love all the benefits of sunlight regardless of that. And so if you guys really want to geek out on sunlight, there's one study called Biological Effects of Sunlight Ultraviolet Radiation, Visible Light, Infrared Radiation and Vitamin D for Health. And then another study titled Is Sunlight Exposure Enough to Avoid Wintertime Vitamin D Deficiency in United Kingdom Population Groups? And then another study called Benefits of Sunlight A Bright Spot for Human Health. And I will link to all of those along with the dminder app and that sper t Vitamin D lamp in the shownotes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com422 hey Ben, my name is Jake and I was just wondering how you find balance.

I personally struggle trying to find balance in my financial, physical, mental and spiritual health. How do you find the time?

Oh geez. Jake is assuming I have balance in my life. I'm not sure that I do.

Yeah, 24 hours working all day long.

Yeah, I'm self actualized. I just work all day and I'm super happy. No, I'll I'll admit like I do love what I do. You know, writing, podcasting, speaking, researching, you know, consulting with people on the phone. Like if I wasn't married and have kids because I do this when my wife's out of town with the boys, like I'll just work like 18 hour days and I'm super happy with that. I will literally get up at like 5am, take a few breaks to, you know, play guitar, make a meal, whatever, but I'll just work all day. I love what I do. And that might not be great work, life balance. But you know, the fact is like, you know, who was I talking to? James Altucher, I think was another guy I recently did a podcast with. And, and I think we even talked about this on the podcast how I think it was he who mentioned that he feels guilty because all he likes to do is just like podcast and invest and read and he feels like he should be doing more, but that's just what he likes to do. So he just does that. And so I think that there's something to be said for that. There's also something to be said just from a longevity and you know, a neuroplasticity standpoint of getting out and doing things that are mildly uncomfortable, comfortable for you, they might not want to do, you know, in terms of learning new things or not working based on something that is rote practice and repetitive natural activity for you and actually doing some things that, you know, make smoke come out your ears and are brand new just because we know that's something that helps to keep you young and keep you happy. And it's a way to spark creativity and a better enjoyment for all of the wonderful, wonderful things that we're surrounded with on this planet. But at the same time, like, I wouldn't beat yourself up if you, if you love what you do and you have trouble stopping work because you just love it so much. And you know, especially if you've identified that it's not, say, escapism, right, or.

Or listen to the cues from others because, you know, you may absolutely love work, but your friends are like, but you never make time to kind of hang out with us or your family doesn't. And, and that's where it becomes problematic. So you have to. That's balance though, right?

Exactly. But there are, there are certain things, you know, I was, I was pondering this question from Jake and I guess, like, I don't know if these are related to balance, but there are definitely things that I do that allow me to free up a lot of time, despite producing a lot of content and working a lot that I think allow me to have things like, you know, my guitar time and time to cook and time to play games with the family and time to snowboard and time to bow hunt and time to do a lot of these things that I do and I can share with you. I actually made a list of 14 things, 14 things that I do that I think feed into my productivity cycle or allow me to achieve better balance in life. So I can go through those. If you want to hear my 14. All right, number one is I eat the frog first thing in the day, meaning I will take whatever the thing is that I most dread doing that day. Sometimes it's writing an article, sometimes it's a kettlebell workout, sometimes it is prepping dinner because it's like some new recipe that I just got to wrap my head around. So I'm fumbling around the kitchen at 5:00am Just thinking, okay, I got to get out of this, out of the way before decision making fatigue and before my willpower begins to fade towards the end of the day. But I will choose whatever is it is that appears to be the hardest thing that I need to do for that day. And as soon as I finish my morning self care routine, right, which is, you know, typically some breath work, some journaling, you know, reading my Bible, you know, writing down what I'm grateful for, usually a quick devotional with the family, I move on. The very first thing I do is whatever it is that I know deep down inside I will tend to procrastinate or that I kind of don't want to do. I eat the frog first thing. And again, sometimes that's not a hard workout. Sometimes a hard workout. I love to do that at the end of the day to just blow off some steam. But I always start by eating the frog. So if you're not yet, you know, it just makes the rest of the day easier too. When you start off with that hard thing, a lot of people are aware of that. So that's.

That's the first thing accomplished as well.

Yep, I eat the frog first. Next is. And I. I realize that I'm missing out on some things in life because of this, but I don't watch TV, period. I rarely watch videos. That includes YouTube videos, Spotify videos, you name it, or documentaries. I rarely, rarely, rarely look at a screen, period, to do anything other than produce material. If I am looking at a screen, I am putting something on that screen that makes the world better, not sucking things off that screen. So I created like thousands of percentage points over what I actually consume. Because I find that parking oneself in front of a screen is one of the best ways to lose a lot of precious minutes during the day. That means that if someone tells me I need to watch said documentary or I must see this or see that lecture, I use my YouTube to MP3 converter app. I convert it to audio. I listen to listen to it while I'm out on a hike or while I'm shooting my bow, or while I'm preparing a meal or anything other than parking myself in front of a screen. So I rarely watch any videos, documentaries, tv. I average about one movie every two months or so. And it has to be the best of the best. Like it has to be on Rotten Tomatoes, for example. It's got to be above 90%, both the audience rating and the Rotten Tomatoes rating for me to even think about watching a movie. And again, some people like, well, you're missing out a lot of pop culture and entertainment, whatever. I'm just telling you that's unproductive, is I'm rarely in front of a screen, period. Consuming in front of a screen. What I mean by that, yeah, similar to that is, and this surprises a lot of people, I don't scroll feeds at all. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever. The only thing I do with any of my social media apps is produce content on them. I don't even know how to actually go and scroll through and use these apps to do Anything other than produce content. I don't look at feeds, period. And so there have been a couple of times usually that involve, like after having smoked a joint, that someone will show me some like, comedy person on Instagram and I'll watch a few videos and feel like I'll never get those minutes of my life back, you know, and that that might be a total of 10 minutes over the past year that I've done something like that. But it is like 99.9% of the time I don't scroll feeds, period, because I don't want information pushed to me that I never would have thought about watching until it was finally pushed in front of my face. So kind of, kind of correlates to that idea of whenever I'm looking at a screen, it is to produce, not to consume.

Yeah, there's, you know, one of the most enlightening things for me in regards to screen time and for my wife as well is that when Apple on our iPhone started producing kind of the, the screen time application to where you could look at how much time you're actually spending on your phone and scrolling and using different applications, it was enlightening because I was spending like almost three hours a day on my phone. And so my goal now is to spend not more than an hour, like actually on my phone. I do emails and some things like that on it, but I try to do everything, like on my computer if I can. And I actually have a widget on my front screen. And when I pretty much, when I see it go over an hour, like my phone, I don't turn it off because I don't want to miss like, you know, any important messages or calls from people that I need to respond to. But I pretty much just put it in a bag and keep it on.

Loud so I can, I don't use those apps at all because I'm on my phone way more than three or four hours a day. But again, I'm not consuming, I'm producing. Right, right. So that's, that's the difference. So anytime on my phone I am making videos, making photos, making, making posts, editing things. And usually it's on a laptop when I'm doing that anyways. But yeah, so I don't limit my screen time at all. I just ensure that when I am on the screen, I am creating, not consuming. So related to that, pretty much all push notifications are off. All push notifications are off. And that still shocks me that most people still have not done that. But that's just, that's A non negotiable. For me there are very, very few times like there was like last year I wanted to get really good at my pelvic musculature strengthening and I had this app called the Kegel camp app which like popped up at 7am and noon every day to remind me to do like these three minutes of Kegel exercises. That's an example where I will occasionally turn a push notification on. But I mean as far as like text messages, apps, Facebook, Instagram, any of that, no push notifications period. Okay, so that's another big one. Next. I only have one. So I'm not an omad guy, meaning I don't fast all day, then just have one meal. But I only have one major sit down meal a day. So I work through breakfast and I work through lunch, meaning during breakfast I'm replying to emails, catching up on like little phone calls, going through my work for the day, reading research articles, Same thing during lunch I only have one meal a day. That's actually a sit down with people and eat meal. And the other meals are pretty much just like the same thing day in and day out. You know, usually a smoothie or some type of coffee or tea for breakfast, you know, quote breakfast unquote. And then lunchtime is typically. Well honestly these days it's like leftovers from meat of the night before with some bone broth and that. That's it. Like I don't focus on food at all until dinner. And so you know, if someone says want to do lunch, if somebody says want to do coffee, somebody says want to do breakfast, brunch, whatever, it's pretty much a no. Unless it's like a very special say like holiday Saturday or Sunday or something like that. So omad what one, one major meal a day, how would that be? OMM ad.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I related to meals and eating and this would be I guess number what six I, I do, I batch my meals. Meaning like when I make my ribs tonight, that will be enough for me for the next four meals. Or like we use a crock pot a lot or if I'm gonna do like, if I'm gonna sous vide salmon, also view like six salmons and then just have those for the rest of the week to eat on. If I fire up the grill, to smoke or to grill something, I will cook a lot in advance. So I batch cook and I find that just reduces the amount of time that I spend each day preparing meals. Don't get me wrong, I'm writing A cookbook right now. I love to cook, but as much as I possibly can, I batch. And my big ones for that lately have been the pressure cooker, the crock pot, the sous vide and the smoker. And I rarely will just make a meal for or make a dish for it to be just with that meal. So I'm always batching when I cook. Number seven is I take a nap pretty much every day. It's always 20 to 40 minutes max. I always use the New Calm to do it, the Nu Calm device. I've done multiple podcasts on that I put it on lulls me into a sleep like state and I am hyper productive when I wake up from that nap. I have compared my productivity on days where I do not take a nap nap and it gradually wanes from about 2pm forward and then my workout that later afternoon or evening is kind of crappy when I nap. I'm a powerhouse from 2:00pm on like all the way up through about 10:00pm so that, that's just key for me for, for getting stuff done. I know that's paradoxical. It's like, well, why meditate? I don't have time to meditate. I consider my nap to be a form of meditation. They've shown that New Calm device actually does all the same things for you that meditation does, but also does all the same things for you that sleep does. And so that's my go to is I'll usually these days my favorite function on there is the 30 minute reboot function. So I run that every single afternoon after lunch and that's it. So I split the day in two with a nap and I have a hyper productive second half of the day. So any phone calls, any, let's say documentaries I've converted to MP3 that I need to listen to any podcasts, any audiobooks, I do all that while I'm walking. So Ida, you know, being a former, you know, Iron man triathlete and Spartan racer, etc, you know, I was kind of proud of my level of endurance, my aerobic fitness, my fat burning capacity. It's still pretty high. But I just save any single thing that can be done for walking until the afternoon. And I, I walk, I walk every single day, usually for an hour to an hour and a half and catch up on gathering any information I need to gather. But I do as much of it as I can when I'm walking, which means that when I do hit the gym, I only need to hit the gym for like 20, 30 minutes, right? For the weight training or the high intensity interval training. Everything else is just walking. And granted, I'll do pomodoro breaks throughout the day, you know, swings and push ups. About the longest I'll go without doing a pomodoro break to exercise is during an interview like this or during a podcast, right? But yeah, I walk a ton, take pomodoro breaks here and there to do push ups or squats or whatever, and then do one brief high intensity interval training session usually each day. So walking a ton, especially to consume information or to do any phone calls. Like, you will never find me, just like standing by the kitchen table on the phone, like, I never take a phone call usually unless I'm walking.

So, yeah, same here.

Related to that. And this is kind of something, you know, related to like Warren Buffett, who would always have his nose in a book if you ask his kids. I am constantly reading and learning. I can be doing the hardest workout on the planet, listening to an audiobook. I do all my cooking, listening to podcasts, listening to audiobooks. I do everything with just like the old school iPhone, headphones in my ear. Usually everything's played at two to four times speed. And I am constantly reading and learning any book that can be consumed via audio, anything like a, I'm always, always, always listening, listening, listening and constant feed of information, you know, and granted, there are times when you want silence and stillness and time for prayer and meditation, but, you know, I do a lot of listening and a lot of reading. And so I always have, you know, Kindle on my phone, Kindle in my bag, you know, audiobook or a podcast at the ready. And like, if I'm standing in line at the grocery store and you see me on my phone, like looking at the screen, I'm like banging out a chapter in a book that I'm getting through. And that was how for years I was reading a book a day, just literally always reading, learning on the ski slope, on that chairlift, pull out the phone, read two more chapters, put it away, go hit the slopes, back down. While I'm hitting the slopes, I'm listening to the audiobook or podcast. I love the Kindle Whisper Sync feature, which allows me to listen and then read where I stopped listening and then start listening again. It picks it up where I stopped reading. I, I, I am constantly, constantly learning, which also means I miss out on some of what is out there from a music standpoint. But I just, you know, I've chosen that I want to consume information and teach it, and that's, that's part of fulfilling my purpose in life. I. I think. And this, this is a, you know, this is just basically an idea from Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work. He has this idea of working memory, right? You constantly, you never want stuff floating around in your brain. You want to keep your head as clear as possible. So I use a simple Evernote document that captures and organizes and clarifies any information, any notes, any reminders the entire day, leaving my brain completely free to execute. So I got Evernote on my phone, on my Kindle, and on my computer, both my computers. And anytime I have any little thing I want to jot down goes straight into Evernote, straight out of my head, straight into Evernote, and then later on, when it's time for me to calendar things, you know, decide when I'm going to do what, that's when it gets transferred in the calendar. But I constantly, you know, a lot of times, like, I'll be talking with somebody and I'll say, wait, stop, gotta write that down. Wait, stop. I gotta write that down. But it leaves my brain totally free to execute. And it's synced across all my devices, so I always, always, always am writing things down. And I use Evernote to do that. Synced across multiple devices. I, you know, it's one of the few things I pay for is my Evernote account, you know, like my, whatever you call it, a pro account or a primary account. Just because I want all the features of Evernote, you know, the searchability features, the archiving features, etc. So few more. I, I ruthlessly outsource everything. Everything. Mowing my lawn, putting, like, minerals into the hot tub, you know, fixing any, anything. Like, I outsource every last thing. You know, you read books like Tim, Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Work Week, you know, Ari Meisel's got a new book or a book called Art of Less Doing. A guy named Steve Glovisky has a new book called Time Rich, which is like a modern version of Four Hour Work Week. All of these productivity folks, like, they outsource ruthlessly, ruthlessly. Like, even the stuff that makes me feel like I'm not as much of a man because I'm not doing it, like, say, chopping wood or mowing my lawn or fixing a gutter. I outsource because, you know, life only lasts for so long. I want to spend it doing the things that I'm best equipped to do, which is basically, you know, reading, writing, teaching, podcasting, speaking, you know, and leading my family. And I outsource Everything. Everything. Like. Like any new task that comes up, I ask myself, could somebody else do this better than me? The answer is yes. Boom. It gets outsourced. So that's another one. Every Sunday night, I sit down, I use an app called busycal. Busycal. And busycal is just like Google Cal, except sell my desktop. I calendar out everything every Sunday night, meaning I know from Monday through Saturday when I wake up, exactly what my workout is for that day. I know exactly which calls I'm on for that day, which articles I need to write, but I don't calendar at that day. Like, every Sunday night, I sit down and I go through everything so that when I wake up every single weekday, I know exactly what is on my plate for that day. So I do have a team, you know, speaking of outsourcing, who will do things like arrange podcast interviews or arrange what I'm supposed to be working on, XYZ, piece of content, etc. So that's already all written on the calendar. I'm not doing the calendaring, but I'm sitting down, looking at the calendar. And then I'm also ensuring that during that Sunday night time, like, I'm writing all my workouts for the week, I am writing and filling in the blanks for any blank spots in the calendar for things that I can actually accomplish during those blank spots. But my day is highly regimented. Every single weekday, from waking all the way up till the time my head hits the pillow, is all mapped out on Sunday night of that week, right? So there is never any single hour my entire week when I don't know exactly what is supposed to be happening that hour. And that helps me out tremendously. So I'm never fiddling around and wondering, okay, what am I going to do right now? I got a free moment. It's always just calendar to the T and then. And then just a few. A few last ones. This is. This would be 12, 13, and 14. From a spiritual standpoint, there's a really great book about this called Practicing His Presence. It's about being in union with God and just like talking to God and feeling his presence all day long. And so, yeah, I have like a morning Bible reading, you know, when I first wake up. And I lead my family in meditation and prayer and devotions, both in the morning and then again in the evening right before bed. But I also am constantly in union with God, talking with God when I sit down, you know, anytime, you know, to check email, eat a meal, whatever. Deep breath in through the nose, out through the mouth. Thank you God. Or God I am here or Jesus Christ, have mercy on me or anything that keeps me in touch with God rather than me, like carving out 20 minutes here for a prayer session or 30 minutes here to read the Bible. I'm just constantly in touch with God throughout the entire day in the same way that I'm constantly taking breaks to do like pomodoro push ups and squats or kettlebell swings throughout the day. Like, you know, my relationship with God is almost like micro workouts, right? It's all day long that I'm in touch with God, which helps me achieve the spiritual balance of this whole work life balance thing. So that's a big one. The book Practical Practicing His Presence is really great regarding that. And then last couple things regarding work life balance is there are periods of time when you need to accept that you will go outside of your comfort zone. Like if I've decided that I want to publish a book by, because I'm working on three different books right now and I'm starting to get under the deadline for publishing a few of them, I will accept the fact that there are times when I am going to be working 18 hour work days when I'm going to be pulling all nighters. And don't get the impression, if you're listening, that all, all healthy people and healthy podcasters and all your favorite icons of the fitness industry, they have like these perfect like eight hour sleep nights, you know, eight hour work days, eight hours for hobbies and family and fun. Like it fluctuates a ton. And there are times when I'm working 18 hours a day, giving my wife and kids a kiss and having a quick meal with them at the end of the day, going to bed, getting up at 4am, sometimes 3:30 and literally just like banging out hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of work. And that's just something that will happen occasionally and accept the fact that, you know, even the, the best of the best, they don't always have balance. Like there are times when you just gotta get shit done and I certainly have times like that myself. However, that being said, and this is my last tip for you, and this just keeps me going all year long is I work my ass off six days a week, six days a week, I'm doing everything I just described to you and I have one day, Sabbath, the Sunday, my day of rest, you know, same as God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. I work my ass off for six days and then I have one day that is totally free, totally blank, totally just set aside for whatever happens. And man, that reboot at the end of every week is amazing. And it's not like a day where I shove all my calls forward to that day that I wasn't able to get to or catch up on workouts or whatever. It's total, total free day for anything that I want to do. And that's amazing to have that one day that Sunday. And so it's this concept of work hard, rest hard, right? So if I wake up on Saturday, yeah, I'll still work some Saturdays. Like I'll pull a 12 hour workday some Saturdays. So I don't have a weekend. I have a, I have a, I have that one day at the end of the week. So, you know, there's no, thank God, it's Friday for me. You know, nothing like that. But that one day, that Sunday, that's where I rest super hard. And then I get up Monday morning and get back at them. So those are, those are my tips and you know, I took those down and like noted them down. And I'll just leave them in the show notes for you@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 422 if you want to go through them, just scroll through them and take notes or whatever if that's helpful. But. But yeah, that's it. I'll link to some of those books too, like Time Rich or Art of Less Doing, you know, or Practicing His Presence, you know, everything I mentioned I'll link to as well@bedengradefieldfitness.com 422 so what do you think?

Nice, man.

What do you think, man?

Yeah, dude, I think that what's interesting is that I think you and I, we have some similarities to our personality. So a lot of the things that you mentioned are things that I integrate or maybe I just have integrated it because I listen to you too much. But you know, one of the things that, for me that's been really effective is that I'm kind of the same way. I like to work hard and rest hard and I choose the Sabbath as mine as well. One of the things that I try to do as well too, and I think that you integrate this in your life, so correct me if I'm wrong, is that like for me, I work hard and I play hard, but it's not just that I can, can only allow myself to play hard like on that Sunday, but I also see my family time as playing hard, whether it's sitting around the table and talking with my Wife and kids, us playing a game. My kids are really young, so we still play with Legos and blocks and stuff. And so those are times too, that are kind of, again, breaks from my day. And there's plenty of days where we'll put the kids down at 7 or 8 at night, and I have to stay up until, you know, 12 or 1, which I don't like doing because I'm much more of an early morning riser. But that break just to kind of engage in social relationship and love and play, it's something that re energizes me to be able to stay up and do those things. So that's the one thing that I make sure I'm very aware of as well, you know, especially with my kids being so young that I have to have that daily connection with them in order for me to feel kind of that sense of purpose and meaning throughout my day.

Yep. Yep. Cool. I love it, man. I love it.

Yeah.

I'm glad that you've. You've adopted my work life balance for osmosis. I try anyways, though. So we should, though we should give away a goodie before we end this podcast, which is getting long in the tooth. And so this is the part of the show when Jay will read a review. If you hear your review read, then I will ship to you a handy dandy Ben Greenfield fitness goody pack with a wonderful workout shirt, a BPA free water bottle, a cool little beanie which will come in handy this winter. And all you need to do is leave the show review on your favorite podcast player. And if you hear your review right on the show, all you need to do is email your t shirt size to gearngreenfieldfitness.com that's gearngreenfulfitness.com and we'll hook you up. So what do we got today, Jay?

Yeah, we got one from Mather7 that's M A T H E R7, who titled their review listen to this podcast to live a better, more holistic life. And Mather7 said, I started listening to Ben Greenfield's podcast during COVID and immediately saw my life improve for the better. The topics are on point, Ben is thorough in his answers, and then the show notes have everything you need after the episode. Thank you, Mather seven.

I like it. And we do work pretty hard in the show notes. That's true. So if. If you don't access the show notes, you're missing out. Those are@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 422 for today in the meantime, since we only have, what, three days left till the fasting challenge begins, I'm gonna go eat as many ribs as I can in the next three days and then get ready to. I don't know. I don't know which fast I'm gonna do yet. Still. Still pondering. Yeah, I'll let folks know on. On the. On the Instagram, probably said those who.

Are scrolling, unlike Ben Greenfield.

That's right. Don't scroll on my feed. My shot myself in the foot there. All right, folks, well, until next time, have an amazing, blessed, wonderful week. Happy New Year, by the way. Happy New Year. Plenty of New Year's goodie coming out for you@bengreedfulfitness.com but until then, Jay, Later. Later.

See you, dude.

See ya. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep, digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes, use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week. Sa.