Red-Light And Blue-Light Biohacking Tips, Can Coffee Raise Cholesterol, The Ultimate Guide To Stretching & More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, Red Light and Blue Light Biohacking Tips. The ultimate guide to stretching. Should you stop taking supplements before a blood test? Can coffee raise cholesterol? How to reset your sleep cycle, how to beat insomnia, and much more.

Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete athlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

What's happening Ben?

Tired? I got up early this morning at about 45 to build a gym in my basement. I've got about £600 of bumper plates, barbell, squat rack, a battle rope and a bunch of like kettlebell training equipment that has finally arrived that I built up in my home gym so now I can get strong like bull.

Yes, that sounds awesome, but shouldn't you be like swimming or cycling or doing something triathlon related?

Perhaps I should. I probably should not be lifting weights right now.

Yeah, that's not the most important thing you should be doing right now. Leading up to Ironman Kona with no.

Training for people who don't know, I just got the word like two days ago that Timex who I race for wants me to race Kona. And the problem is that I have not really been training for Ironman and have barely been swimming biking at all for the past year. So it's going to be really interesting and could be quite disastrous. But if you want to follow that journey, probably the best place to follow that whole Ironman Kona thing is go to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Facebook page@facebook.com BG Fitness where you can witness me putting the hurt on my body. You can guess my finishing time for amazing prizes from Timex and who knows what other sway will will materialize for you out of this. But it should be, should be interesting.

It'll be something that's for certain. And I'll be in Kona doing other things while you're, while you're racing. But I'll do my best to keep an eye on your times and do some, do some tweeting and some Facebooking and stuff during the race too. So people want to check in.

That's right.

I'll get some gory pictures of the.

Finish line and next week we'll have a special Ironman post Ironman podcast. Since Brock and I are staying in the same condo. He'll. He'll yank out the microphone and shove it in my face while sitting in a bucket of ice at some point on Sunday Post race, prior to me diving into my cold margaritas. One other thing. Speaking of epic adventures, as everyone who listens into this podcast knows, I have a full face beard and very easily can grow body hair like a matted freaking ape. So really, no, I'm being facetious. I have smooth skin like a baby. But regardless, this podcast is actually sponsored by Harry's Shaving, which we'll tell you more about later. But for now, you can visit Harry's.com and use the promo code BEN to save $5 off some really sexy shaving gear.

News flashes.

Even while you're ignoring your Ironman training, you're tweeting stuff out, Facebooking stuff out, and Google plusing all kinds of interesting articles all over the place. And right now, we're going to highlight.

A few of those. That's right. We're going to talk about sleep and biohacking sleep. And I actually was just at the Bulletproof biohacking conference.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

I forgot.

I was over at primalcon. You were over at the biohacking conference in the same state, but not at the same conference.

That's right. One of the things that I actually spoke about at that conference was biohacking Lite. Although it turned out to be a really interesting presentation because The Spartan Race CEO Joe DeSena and myself were scheduled to speak. We were like the closing speeches, and we were on two different. Different stages in two different rooms.

Oh, so not at the same time.

So we called. Well, yeah, Joe and I called an audible, and we actually gave our presentations together. And it turned out to be like this kind of Flintstones versus Jetsons. You know, him talking about flipping tires, me talking about biohacking. And we put it all together and it was actually kind of. Kind of fun. So anyways, though, I had to address. So I tweeted out that there's a cool new reason to use those little sunrise alarm clocks. And I actually have my children now that they're getting up a little bit earlier for school using these sunrise alarm clocks. And what a sunrise alarm clock is. For those who don't know, it's an alarm clock that you set when you want to wake up, and it gradually begins to release light over, like, 20 to 30 minutes as you gradually wake. And so it's the same as if, like, the sun were rising in your room and they Actually did a study called the effects of dawn simulation.

And honestly, I think dawn, like dawn.

I think that's a much more marketable term than sunrise alarm clock. I like the. How about the dawn simulation? Yeah, I like that device.

Sounds soothing.

Yes. Effects of dawn simulation on markers of sleep inertia and post waking performance. And what they found was that light exposure during the last 30 minutes of habitual sleep can increase your alertness and your cognitive performance and even your physical performance after waking. And this study was exactly what it sounds like. They compared a group who got light in the morning via one of these gradual dawn simulators versus folks who didn't. Now, even if you don't have a sunrise alarm clock, another way that you can do this is with what's called blue light boxing. Boxing, which is where? On your desk or even on your table at breakfast. If you live in like a darker area like say Seattle or Portland, and I'm sorry if that's the case, you set one of these up and you just have it running for 20 to 30 minutes as you're eating breakfast or sitting at your desk in the morning. And that also would be dawn simulation. If you can't get out into the sun. One of the things that I have, I actually, I actually spent this morning as I was building my gym bathed in sunlight because I use this special form of light bulb in my house called the awake and alert light bulb. It's in my office and it's in my gym. Two areas where I actually want simulated sunlight. And what it is is you've heard of blue light reducing bulbs. This is just the opposite. These are bulbs that actually have a bunch of blue light in them to simulate the sun. And so they light up the room and you feel as though you're standing in sunlight. And it has that same dawn simulation effect. So that's another option. You could go with the light bulb effect. And the one that I use is the awake and alert bulb by a company called Lighting Science. They are expensive bulbs. You wouldn't want one in every room of your house. But in the areas where you want enhanced cognitive or physical performance like your gym or your, like a home office, it's perfect. Or you could simply have a room in the house where you turn it on. I mean even, let's say. This is going to sound weird, but let's say you go to the bathroom in the morning, right? So you, you have the bathroom in your house that you go to the bathroom in in the morning with one of these awaken alert bulbs. And whereas you wouldn't want that thing flipped on if you got up to go to the bathroom at midnight, you know, if you habitually, you know, go use the restroom in the same restroom every morning, why not have, you know, the sunlight shining on you as you poo? So there's that.

So I'm assuming those light bulbs don't have any UV radiation associated with them. It's just the blue light.

Yeah, it's just the blue light. And I'll. I'll put a link to them in the show notes for this episode@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 295 if you want to check them out. And the other thing that I tweeted out was there's also a good reason to consider only having red light wave spectrums in your bedroom or perhaps like in your master bathroom, right. Where you might get up during the night to use the restroom. And the reason for that is a second study. And I'll put both these studies in the show notes. But the second study was called Millisecond Flashes of Light Phase Delay, the human circadian clock during sleep. What that means is that they took a group of folks who were sleeping and compared them to a control group that didn't get this treatment. And the group that got the treatment was actually subjected to a series of light flashes during the night from about hours two to three after they went to bed. And what this did was it shifted and actually disrupted their circadian rhythm. Just these brief exposures to light while they were asleep. Which kind of should make you think about if you're trying to get the best sleep possible or if you're trying to optimize your circadian rhythm in the best way possible, or you're trying to, say, ensure that your sleep phase during the night doesn't get shifted forward. Right. So you're sleeping in longer and longer because somehow you sent a message to your body during the night that it was daytime. You should consider limiting light in every possible respect in your bedroom. Um, and one of the. The ways that I've started doing this is, number one, I make sure that when I use the bathroom at night, if I need to get up and go to the bathroom, I pretty much just try to do it without the light. So so far, my big, my big toes have survived. There's. There's been no stubbing, but. Nope.

How about puddles?

No. Well, actually, yeah, my wife did shout at me once because I. I learned that you need to sit down rather than stand up.

Yeah, you can't beam in the dark.

I pretty much drenched the toilet one night. So, yeah, you do have to be.

That's not surprising.

Careful with that. The sink. Oops. Not the toilet. So there's that. But the other thing is that the other form of light bulb that this same company makes, this lighting science company make, they make a good night bulb. And it's exactly what you would expect. It's a bulb where they take all the blue light out of it. It's only the red light wave spectrum and it filters the blue light. That would get in the way of melatonin, that would disrupt your sleep cycle in this way. And then just make sure if there's something like flashing in your room, like, you know, like a, whatever, a wifi router or even like your phone, if you have your phone and you're using like a white noise app or something like that, like flip it upside down so the light isn't getting released from it. Like anything you can find in the bedroom that's releasing even little blips of light. It's pretty significant or well, I should say insignificant, the amount of light they use in this study, like, we're talking about really, like low wave light flashes. So basically the takeaway message here is control the lighting in your environment in both the morning and in the evening.

So the takeaway message for me is we're all screwed. Seriously. Like living anywhere. Like, I live pretty close to downtown and we've got curtains and stuff, but man, it is really hard to eliminate all the light.

Yeah, well, I mean, you could use the sleep mask too. I mean, that's, that's a really good way to go. And I. I sleep with a big old sleep mask. So the other thing, in addition to my full face beard, of course, the other thing is, of course, when I was at the Bulletproof Biohacking conference, they unveiled their. Their big new supplement called Unfair Advantage.

Oh, yeah, the PQQ stuff.

Yeah, it's called pqq. It's a supplement that contains pqq. And I think a lot of people are confused about what PQQ actually is. So I found a really, really good article that kind of explains what it does. But PQQ is an abbreviation for a molecule that I'm not going to embarrass myself by attempting to pronounce on today's show. Come on. So a few of the things that PQQ does is it's a key regulator in energy metabolism because it upregulates the expression of this enzyme in the cell that's responsible for increasing glucose uptake into the cell and improving the delivery of energy into a cell during both, like strength training, endurance training, et cetera. Another thing that it's been shown to do is to be involved with the actual. It's called a Krebs signaling protein or a CAMP response element binding protein. And the basic idea behind that is it helps to activate skeletal muscle tissue. And because of the way that it interacts with that particular protein, it may actually have an anti carcinogenic effect too. And then the other thing that it does is it prevents cell death by interacting with this cell signaling protein that helps to combat oxidative stress or free radical damage. Now what I just went into was like the basic kind of like layman's term almost description of pqq. But if you want to delve into the science, the website biohacks blog@BioHacksBlog.com did a really good series on PQQ and everything you need to know about it. Just delving deep into the science of how it works, what it is, you know, why it's the new darling supplement, you know, why there's this new unfair advantage supplement that uses it, and why it kind of beats the pants off of a lot of these things we hear about, like coenzyme Q10 and other mitochondrial support supplements. So well worth checking out. And the one last thing I should mention when I'm talking about the biohacks blog is I think, and we've kind of kept this under wraps for a while because I wasn't sure I really wanted to let folks know, but I actually am kind of in charge of that blog.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, I own it.

And that's why it's so darn good.

That's why it's so darn nerdy. It's, it's my. It's like my outlet for the. For the true propeller hat type of stuff. Yeah.

So, ladies and gentlemen, there is more nerdy stuff in Ben's head than he lets out here.

Believe it or not, the reason I bring it up is because that blog is just like a totally free blog. But I really, in order to keep that blog going, the biohacks blog, I need some advertisers who want to actually get on there. And we may actually be looking for writers too for that blog as well. So anyways, if you're interested in the whole biohacking thing and you want to get involved, then come on board and help that website, thebiohacksblog.com or even interested in writing? Then just email me personally. Email Ben greenfieldfitness.com and I will help you take part in the nerdiness. Check it out.

Listener Q and A.

Hey, Ben and Brock Brandon from East Troy, Wisconsin. So what do you know about stretching? Seems like there's some advocates of doing very fast stretching, very quick impulses for the neurological effect, and some talk about stretching for long periods of time to get to the deep fascia. So what do you think? And love the intro music makes me want to bust a move. But I only stretch first.

I like this. I think we've talked many, many times about how stretching before for some sort of thing like playing a football game or playing a hockey game or something. Doing, like static stretching is not a good idea. But it is a good idea when you're doing other things.

It's stupid, you know? Yeah. It does not warm up the muscle. It decreases force production. Blah, blah, blah.

All the stuff that you make, injury proof and all that stuff we all.

Kind of know about these days. But there's actually four different types of stretching. Four, count them. There is this ballistic stretching, and that's the rapid bouncy stretches, where you're using momentum to think, theoretically, stretch a muscle to a maximum. But that's not the way that muscles really work. You can't actually stretch a muscle to the maximum by bouncing.

That's why we got the Golgi tendon for.

So the muscle produces an inhibition reflex that will actually keep it from lengthening as you're bouncing to keep the muscle from tearing. So ballistic stretching, there's really no place for ballistic stretching. All muscles do is respond to that type of stretching by contracting to prevent themselves from overextending, by panicking. Panicking like, oh, crap, oh, crap, oh, crap. Dynamic stretching.

That's what my muscles say.

Dynamic stretching is where you're walking, moving, lunging, twisting, and oftentimes swinging a muscle through a range of motion. And this type of stretching is not effective because it lengthens the muscle. It's effective because it increases blood flow to the muscle and it begins to neurologically wake up the muscle to go through certain movement patterns. Now, it can, when it increases the blood flow, prevent arterial stiffness. It can help to produce synovial fluid, which lubricates the joints that are surrounded by the muscles, which can help you to basically feel a lot better during exercise, if you tend to get joint pain during exercise. And it can also assist with balance and posture and coordination during exercise. There is no evidence, though, that it's actually going to increase flexibility or elongate muscle tissue or make you able to even move through a much, much greater range of motion. Okay, so really dynamic stretching is basically just exercising. It's a fancy term for, you know, exercising. It's, it's like a dynamic stretch. Technically, if I were going to do a squat, would be doing 20 body weight squats, right? So dynamic stretching does work, but it doesn't work because it increases flexibility. Now there's also another type of stretching called PNF stretching. That would be the third type of stretching. And PNF stands for proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching. And when I was a personal trainer, I always thought it was very, very impressive when I would take my clients and I would tell them we're going to do some proprioceptive neuromuscular facilit stretching.

And they would look, they'd be all.

Like, where are you? Oh my God, I want to pay you extra for this. But what it involved was, or what it involves is you have a partner who will, they'll resist you contracting a muscle, say like your hamstrings, as you're lying on your back, pushing your hamstrings down against that partner who is resisting it. And then you relax and they push you through an even greater range of motion. And then you relax again, they push you through a greater range of motion. The idea behind it is that when you contract a muscle and then you relax, releases some of that inhibition, that Golgi tendon organ you mentioned, the inhibition from that. And the muscle's able to basically, or the joint specifically, is able to move through a little bit greater range of motion. But it also has no evidence showing that it increases flexibility or makes a muscle stretchier. All that it really does is temporarily, in that moment, allow a muscle to move through a slightly greater range of mot. But once you're done with it, there's no evidence of increased flexibility. So. And then finally, the fourth type of stretching is static stretching. And static stretching is where you stretch and hold a muscle. And there is actually some evidence to show that this can increase flexibility. But it's not by making the muscle longer, it's not by elongating the muscle fibers. It's because it increases your tolerance to the physical discomfort with that stretch. Isn't that interesting? So it's all neuro, it's all neurological? Yeah, it's all neurological when you're, when you're reaching, touch your toes and every day you can go a little bit farther. It's not because your hamstrings are getting longer per se. It's simply because you have a greater neurological tolerance to the discomfort produced by that stretch.

So it's like you're resetting your. What do they call it? The central governor for stretching.

Right, exactly. So when you look at someone who may need a very great range of motion, say like a gymnast or a skater or a dancer or someone like that, static stretching for very long periods of time, we're literally talking about holding stretches for 20 minutes. I mean, you know, doing hamsters for 20 minutes, etc. It can definitely increase flexibility. But again, don't get the impression that they're getting super stretchy long muscle fibers. That's not what's happening. What's happening is they're getting less inhibition of moving through that range of motion. Okay? So that's what's happening when you're doing those long static stretches. So it's really interesting, you know, and hopefully the way that I've described that helps to dispel some of the, some of the myths that are out there about stretching.

But when I think you just ruined thousands of years of yogi.

Well, no, I've written a really comprehensive article on yoga. And the fact is that yoga can decrease blood pressure, it can decrease stress, it can decrease cortisol. So can Tai Chi. And Tai chi, by the way, for those of you who've done it, you'll know it doesn't involve much stretching. The relationship between yoga and Tai chi is awareness, focus, breathing. And it's those things that decrease blood pressure and that give you those cardiovascular benefits or those hormone stabilizing benefits. It's not the elongation of the muscle fibers because a muscle fiber is not like a rubber band like many of us has been, have been led to believe. A muscle fiber, if you look at it. And I've dissected a lot of cadavers. I spent three years in college dissecting cadavers and muscle fibers. Oh yeah, baby. Actually, before one of our first dates, I was in the anatomy lab dissecting cadavers and I actually spilled a bunch of formaldehyde and human fat all over my feet. And I remember sitting at the movie theater and I could just smell the formaldehyde coming off my feet. And I was just hoping, keeping my fingers crossed inside, that she could not smell the dying tissue preservative coming off.

That's really nice, but really stinks.

He smells dead. So anyways, muscle is more like a giant tight T shirt that covers your body or like you know, the combination of muscle and fashion, everything. And it's like you can kind of pull on that T shirt a little bit and you can move with it a little bit and you can adjust it, but you can't stretch it that well. So. And actually my kids can stretch their T shirts really far. So maybe that's a crappy analogy because my kids. It depends on what the shirt is made of. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But the idea is I should say rope. Right? Muscle is a little more like rope than it is like rubber band. There. That was more concise.

I do really like said things like your, your Achilles tendon is more like, like the telephone wires that you see going across the city. Yeah, that. That inflex or that in stretchable.

Yep, exactly. Now I do really like this book and I'll put a link to it in the show notes. It's called stretching your boundaries. Flexibility training for extreme calisthenic strength. A really interesting take on stretching. And what the author of that book does go into are certain ranges of motion that all healthy, able bodied people should be able to perform. And I actually do, I do like his approach to this. And I'll tell you what those positions are. One is you should be able to get into a deep squat position with both of your heels flat on the floor and your calves and hamstrings touching each other. Okay. Dump in the woods position. Right. Everybody should be able to move through that range of motion of the dump in the woods position. Yeah. And don't get me wrong, this is a reflection of mobility and range of motion more than it is, you know, stretchy, stretchy muscles. Another one is to be able to bend over and touch your toes with your knees close to being locked. And that also is a great range of motion test. It's not necessarily meaning that your hamstrings are super duper stretchy. What it does mean though is that you've got good pelvic mobility. Right. And a mobile low back and thoracic spine to be able to bend down and touch your toes. Another one is that you should be able to lie flat on your back with your legs straight and your lower body in contact with the ground. What's called a hollow spine position. And when you're in that position lying down, you should be able to reach your arms overhead and put both of your wrists flat on the floor behind you. That's an indicator that you have good thoracic spine. People who work on computers all day, they can't do this stretch.

Yeah, I can't do that.

Yeah. And the best way to get yourself to be able to have that thoracic spine mobility for doing that is to just do that position, but put a foam roller under your back so that you're increasing or even a couple of lacrosse balls taped together and that helps to increase the thoracic mobility necessary to achieve that position. Okay. Another one is that when you're standing up, you should be able to pick up one of your legs and basically do like that cross legged chair position while you're standing up by putting that leg up on like a table, a raised surface, even like sitting down into a cross legged chair position with your foot that is off the ground on top of your supporting knee. So basically you should be able to sit down in a chair as if you're sitting cross down, cross legged in a chair without the chair.

Okay. Like the figure four.

Yeah, exactly. Figure four. Exactly the figure. Sorry, I forgot Canadians only speak in numbers. Yes, yes. The figure 4 position. And then the last one. People always love this one. You'll be able to reach one arm from above your back, one arm from below your back, and touch the tips of your fingers together. You know what I'm talking about? That one where you respect, mind you. Yep. People should be able to do that. If you can do those five things, you're good to go. Like, you've got good mobility.

That's.

That's a pretty good benchmark. I will put a link in the show notes to his book if you really want to delve into this even, even more.

But making me feel bad about myself.

Are you trying it right now?

Yes. Yeah, I'm nowhere near. I'm like, my shoulder and maybe my, my scapula.

Maybe you need to shave.

Perhaps the beard is holding me back. Nope, Can't.

No. Hi, Ben. I'd like to get a real assessment of my naturally occurring nutrient levels. How long should I wait to take a blood test after having stopped my vitamin D supplement? Thank you very much.

Yeah, I guess you don't necessarily want a whole bunch of supplemental vitamin D boosting up your, your levels.

I don't know.

Unless you're planning on taking them forever.

Yeah, I mean, like when I go.

In for a blood test though, I like to just like open the refrigerator and just like take everything and see what kind of chemical soup shows up in my bloodstream.

You baffle the doctor.

Like to roll. Yes, yes. Vitamins loaded with everything off the charts. You have fish oil, globules in your cholesterols and your white blood Cells are filled with adaptogenic herbs.

That's a good thing, Right?

Anyways, though. Yes. If you want to wash out. Well, first of all, let's talk about this. What type of supplements are going to affect a lab test in a way that might skew the results? Right.

Yeah, I guess some things have a really short half life, and they'd be out of your body really quickly anyway.

Yeah. So let's say you're going to get screened for riboflavin. And riboflavin deficiencies, or B vitamin deficiencies are something that a lot of people have. If you're going to get tested for those, you would want to avoid anything that has a B vitamin in it. But you would also, if you're just going to get a urine test that's looking.

Using the color of your urine on.

A dipstick to indicate, like, acidity, et cetera, stuff like that. If you're taking a B12, then that also, if you're taking any vitamin B supplement, that can also interfere with, like, a urine test that's being done for color. So that's one that you'd want to avoid. Folic acid would be another. Or anything that contains a form of folate. If you're being tested for a vitamin B deficiency and you take, like, methyltetrahydrofolate or folic acid or something like that, then it can mask a vitamin B12 deficiency. So basically, what I'm getting down to is anything that's got vitamin B in it, wash that out prior to going in for a test.

Now, would that include, like, foods that are really high in vitamin D or vitamin B?

No. I mean, unless they're. Well, let's put it this way. I mean, like, if you're. If you're gonna test, first of all, you're gonna be overnight fasted. Right. And second of all, you're gonna probably be eating a normal staple diet comprised of the things you normally eat. So, you know, and that's where my. My beef with the underlying assumption behind Braden's question might lie. And that is that if you're going to be taking supplements anyways, why would you want to test your blood to see what it looks like in the absence of those? Well, I guess. No, you know, I take that back. It does make sense. What are you saying?

I think the supplement side makes sense, but the food side doesn't? My question doesn't make sense, but we're.

Going down a deep, deep wormhole now.

Yeah.

Damn it, Brock. Okay, so a few other things. Calcium. Calcium. If you're taking calcium supplement, you're getting a bone density scan. Actually, calcium can give an artificially high reading on a bone density scan. So using any like Cal Mag supplement or multivitamin that has calcium in it, you actually wouldn't want to do that prior to a bone scan like a DEXA scan. Then there are supplements that have blood thinning properties. Okay. Like fish oil and ginkgo and ginger and garlic and a lot of things that you're going to find like anti inflammatories, etc. There are some tests that measure things like prothrombin and what's called a blood clotting ratio. And if your test is going to look at any clotting factors, you would not want to take these type of blood thinning supplements prior to that. So that's another one too, to kind of avoid. Those would be most of the biggies as far as things that are going to directly mess up a lab test. So that was the long answer to Braden's question. Here's the short answer to Braden's question. In almost every study that's done on supplements, and especially supplements that are done looking at populations when they're on a supplement, doing a certain activity, like say a workout, and then off that same supplement and then coming back to the same workout, what they generally use is a 10 day washout period. Okay. That means that for 10 days you don't take it. So that's generally what's used in research. And I would say that based off of that, Braden, that's about what you'd be looking at for stopping. Taking a supplement prior to getting a blood test would be a 10 day washout period.

So is the washout period, does that actually entail any washing out like drinking a bunch of water or.

No, no, it's just the term that they use in literature. Although you could try to swallow a bunch of soap, just make sure it's good edible.

So just like make sure you swish it around lots.

Doctor, before your rinse, do you know Dr. Bronner is going to come on our podcast?

No. Yeah, I didn't know it was a real person.

There really is. I didn't know this either until he wrote me. And so There is a Dr. Bronner and he's going to be on the podcast talking about soap and GMO and personal care products and all sorts of cool stuff. So I'm actually interviewing him next month, so.

And then we'll have Dr. Scholz on.

He's a real person, just like Colonel Sanders.

Hey, Ben and Brock, Nathan here would love to get your thoughts on cafestol content in coffee and whether it can actually affect cholesterol in a negative fashion. My understanding is that there is more cafestol and arabica coffee, which is more commonly used over robusta these days, but that the cafestol content can also be minimized with a paper filter when making drip coffee. Does the purported negative effect of cafestol and cholesterol levels have more to do with pop culture's misconception about cholesterol in general? Or should I actually be concerned about the type and preparation of my coffee? Thanks for your time and for an absolutely wonderful show.

Now this. Okay. All right, coffee drinkers, set down that mug of coffee that you've heard is so healthy for you because. Because. No, Nathan is right. Coffee can raise your cholesterol.

There's a.

There is actually a. A compound in coffee called cafestol that can elevate your cholesterol. It's really interesting how it does this too. It hijacks this receptor in your intestinal pathway way and in particular where it acts upon is your liver. And what it can do. And they've actually investigated the biochemical background of how cafestol actually works, is it inhibits bile acid synthesis. Bile acid synthesis being what helps you to break down cholesterols, break down fats, et cetera. Which is why some people, if they have coffee and then have a really fatty filled breakfast like eggs with feta cheese and bacon and stuff like that, they can't digest it that well. That's because bile acid is inhibited, which is why shut down. Yeah. And so it's really, really interesting. It's probably also why people who do the bulletproof coffee thing, even though bulletproof coffee has a lot of cool effects, tend to have higher levels of LDL and triglycerides if they're not careful with the way that they prepare that coffee. Because believe it or not, you can get rid of these cholesterol elevating cafestols. So it is possible to hack your coffee and then hack it again by making it bulletproof.

This sounds really complicated.

I know.

Coffee.

Okay, So I will make this simple for you. So cafestol and kahyol are fat soluble compounds that you find in coffee known as diterpenes. Okay. They're present in the oil that are derived from coffee beans. Now, now these diterpenes can raise your cholesterol and they can raise your cholesterol not just by the fact that they are basically fat soluble compounds themselves, but they can also raise your cholesterol via their inhibition of that bile acid synthesis, the bile acid synthesis that I talked about. So you will find in arabica beans, which are generally what I recommend anyways because they are lower in fungus and mycotoxins and they're generally healthier grown in higher, drier climates, etc. Those contain both cafestol and kauiol and the other type of beans, the robusta. Robusta beans. Depending on what part of the world you're in. How do you say it in Canada?

I think it's really boring. Robusta.

You know how we say it in Washington state? I make love to you all night long, then I make your omelette and give you some robusta. Okay, so robusta beans contain about half as much of that cafestol and cafestol actually does raise your cholesterol much more potently than cow oil does. So technically, even though the arabica beans, I know this is getting confusing, are lower in mycotoxins and fungus and all that jazz, they do have higher levels of this potential cholesterol increasing compound. Now here is the cool thing though. Both of these type of compounds, the cafestol and the kaoliol, they are extracted by hot water but they are retained by a paper filter. Okay, so this means that boiled coffee, Turkish coffee, French press coffee, sorry, French press lovers, these actually contain relatively high amounts of cafestol. And especially if you're like a bulletproof coffee person or someone who's doing like a high fat breakfast, you really wouldn't want coffee that was not prepared with some type of a paper filter method, Filtered coffee, percolated coffee, anything like that that you're using a filter for or like the, what's it called, the Aeropress. That's the one that I use.

Oh yeah, that crazy squeezy thing.

Uh huh.

That filters out most of these cafestals and lowers that diterpene concentration so.

BPA into it.

Espresso does have actually pretty high levels of the diterpenes like the cafestol and stuff. But even though espresso is a lot smaller serving size, either way you're gonna get some with espresso. So anytime there's not a really like some kind of like a paper filter involved, you're generally going to have higher levels of these potentially cholesterol increasing compounds in coffee. So basically you may want to change up your brewing method and use something that contains paper filters which remove those specific coffee oils. Now you want to hear something that's even more confusing and may really spin your brain kinda when you drink bulletproof coffee. Like one of the things that you're doing when you're like putting MCT oil and butter and stuff like that into coffee is you're enhancing the ability of these fat soluble compounds, the diterpenes to cross the blood brain barrier and cause some of that cognitive performance enhancing effect that that bulletproof coffee can cause. And so you kind of have this paradox between raising levels of cholesterol significantly and suppressing bile acid synthesis and your ability to digest fats and increasing your cognitive performance. So it's a real catch 20 too. Yeah. So ultimately I think the best way to go is that you use something with a paper filter or if you don't want to wash out those terpenes because you want some of those cognitive performance enhancing effects, you take them and everything. But maybe you do a little less butter or a little less MCT oil in your coffee or don't have that coffee with a fatty breakfast or even I guess the other way you could hack this is you could like take all that stuff and then you could take like a bile supplement like a lot of digestive enzymes contain like bile extract supplements like ox bile extract and stuff like that. Like the one that I recommend a lot, the Thorn FX digestive enzyme that has like a bile extract in it. So you can, you could also, if you really want to have the best of both worlds, have your cafestals and your cognitive performance enhancing effects and also get your cholesterols would be to take a, take a digestive enzyme with your coffee. So there you go. Nathan, I bet you didn't know you were going to create so much confusion for so many people.

So much confusion. And really this is like the he asked right at the end there about it being a misunderstanding of cholesterol. And this is really not because it raises cholesterol, like quote unquote cholesterol. It's because of the.

Yeah, it keeps it from getting broken. Keeps it from getting broken down basically. So yeah, I mean it could potentially create issues with, with high levels of circulating cholesterol or in my opinion even more concerning issue, inhibition of breaking down fat. So that can just create some digestive upset later on some diaper time. Diaper time. Diaper time.

Hey Vin and Brock, I have a question regarding biorhythms. I have always been a night owl and I find it very difficult to wake up early in the morning. I naturally fall asleep around 2am and usually wake up around 10am whenever I am forced to wake up early, I experience a lot of negative symptoms like muscle fatigue, absent mindedness, insulin resistance, GI problems way far from optimal functioning. I tried going to bed earlier, used different sleep aids, turn off all the lights, stay away from the computer, etc. But nothing ever seems to really help. I end up just sitting, lying there in bed, just staring at the ceiling, fully awake. This is most problematic when I sign up for ultra races. For instance, I just ran a 50 miler today and it had a 6am start time. I started out fast, but after about five miles into the race, I quickly fatigued and fell back into, fell to the back of the pack. Then about like 10 or 11am, which is about my normal wake up time, my body seemed to turn on and my performance drastically improved. I moved way up in the pack and no one passed me for the rest of the race and I was actually running stronger as the race got longer. So what are your thoughts on how I can solve this issue? I feel like if I can run as well in the morning as I do in the afternoon and evening, then I could really kill it in these races. So I really appreciate your thoughts and thanks for everything you do and keep it up guys.

Will is like the complete opposite of me.

You mean you wake up early and then you get tired at night you go to bed?

Yeah, I fall asleep on the couch like before 10 or around 10 and then like 4 or 5am I wake up, I'm like ready to go.

Yeah. It's all based on your sleep rhythms. So the idea here is that there are like two. It's called a two process model of sleep regulation. And this was actually something that was developed in 1982 in the field of sleep research at the University of Zurich where there was this article in the Journal of Human Neurobiology where they described this two process model of sleep. And it really helps to understand why you might wake up at certain times or how you could reset that sleep rhythm or hack that sleep rhythm to actually either wake up earlier or wake up later, depending on what you want to do.

That sounds like what Will needs.

Yeah, just what Will needs. So Will, we're going to educate you. So this two process sleep rhythm thing is basically you've got process one, which is called sleep pressure. And what sleep pressure means is that from the moment you wake up in the morning, you get this pressure for sleep that mounts continuously until you sleep again. So that sleep pressure helps you fall asleep at night and it helps you stay asleep until the morning while you are asleep, sleep pressure decreases. And after a night of complete sleep, you start the next day with low sleep pressure. And if you are waking up really early, then you have low sleep pressure when you're waking up. And if you're sleeping in and you don't want to wake up earlier, but you're sleeping until like 9 or 10, that means your sleep pressure is like staying with you, you for a really long time into the morning. But then your sleep pressure isn't kicking in right until later on, like at 12am or 1am or 2am or whatever. So the second part is called wake drive. So you've got sleep pressure, then you've got wake drive. So wake drive is basically all the different parts of your brain that are responsible for wakefulness producing this alerting signal that increases in intensity to counteract any type of sleep pressure. So sleep pressure is going to build from the morning to the night, but wake drive will also build from the morning to the night. And your alertness is going to increase as that wake drive goes up. So we've got these two kind of yin and yang cycles working together. And ideally you've got wake drive that kicks in when you want it to kick in in the morning and it begins to turn off as sleep pressure mounts, you know, as night approaches. And then you fall asleep when that sleep pressure peaks and you go into your night rhythm. So the idea here is that you can tweak the sleep rhythm primarily with light. And the cool thing is that we already kind of talked about how you could do this. So let's say that you want to reset your sleep rhythm. And this works for when you're traveling, this works for. Or when you're like in Will's case, where you're just like, you've kind of set up this lifestyle where you were staying up awake late at night and then getting up early in the morning. The way that you would reset the sleep cycle is you're going to have to first of all, force yourself, set the alarm, whatever, blaring alarm clock, nine inch nails, whatever you got to do on your alarm clock to wake yourself up. Or perhaps nudge, nudge, wink, wink, one of those sunrise alarm clocks I talked about earlier, if that's able to get you up. Even though it may not. Like if your sleep rhythm is really off, you may actually mean like full on, like loud blaring alarm clock, the most annoying sound in the world.

I'd love to wake up to that. We should make a little sound clip for people, sell that.

That's Right. Anyways though, call it the most annoying sound in the world to wake you up. It can just be the one from Dumb and Dumber. Okay? Anyways, Will, sorry about that segue the way that you would do this. You force yourself to get up when you want to get up, okay? Force it, make it happen. 6am, 7am, whenever that time is. And as soon as that happens, blam. Bathe yourself in blue light, okay? Use one of those awaken alert bulbs I talked about. Get yourself a blue light box, get outside in the sun and you know, if you have time, like do, do some yoga in the sun or just like stand there bleary eyed wishing you could go back to bed. Just like staring at the sun in your backyard in your underwear.

Do not look clean to the sun.

Yeah, whatever you wear to bed at night, your underwear, your nightcap anyways though, your negligee, but you stand there staring at the sun or getting bathed in blue light. Expose yourself to blue light. Enhance that wake drive, right? So that's what we're trying to do, okay? Now what's going to happen is that first of all by jump starting that wake drive, you're automatically going to shift your sleep pressure back earlier in the day because you're just going to get more tired, right? Because you force yourself to stay awake. Now you can also use adrenergic supplements, you can use like caffeine or you know, you can even use smart drugs. I mean you can use piracetam, aniracetam, filter, siltep, you know, you name it. Yeah, anything you want to do to just basically put yourself in a hyper alert state in the morning, even when you don't want to be in that state. Now that's going to be a really uncomfortable first few days as you do this, I will admit. But then what you want to do is as soon as you are getting within about three to four hours of going to bed or when the sun is setting in whatever area of the world that you happen to be in. Freaking limit blue light to the extreme, okay? Blue light blocking glasses only. Red light in the areas that you're, that you're in. Putting flux on your computer or you know, screen dimming your phone, keeping the lights off as much as possible. I mean just do not tell your body or that it is constant daylight or anything like that as you're getting into the evening hours, okay? That's going to go to Vegas. Limiting tv, limiting computer use, limiting cell phone use. I know it sounds kind of extreme, but this is what it takes to reset that circadian rhythm. Okay. So you might have a few days where you're just gonna go to the library, get these paper things. They're called books. They don't have lights, they don't have flashing sounds. Yeah, just a book, like a paper book or some magazines. And I actually in the process of doing this right now because I've been traveling for 10 days, right. So like last night, perfect example, I turned on my little infrared light next to my bed and I curled up with three magazines. Okay. No computer, no phone, nothing. And that's a really, really good way to just like basically doze off to bed. And you just basically do that for several days in a row. And it can take a little bit to reset that circadian rhythm, but that's how you do it. I mean, it sounds simple and stupid, and it all kind of makes sense when you think about it, but that's how you reset a sleep cycle. And all you're doing is you're shifting that, that, that rhythm, right. You're shifting that. That two model to process model of sleep. Right. So makes sense. Yeah.

Did you mention the use of any melatonin to just sort of. Of kick in that?

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, in the same way that you would use adrenergic stimulants in the morning, you could use melatonin. You could, if you don't get addicted to it or use it long term, you could even use like Phenibut, which is like a really powerful inhibitory neurotransmitter that doesn't leave you groggy the next morning. I've actually used that sometimes before races and stuff when I really need to get to sleep. But I don't want, you know, the, you know, like ambient Valium, all that stuff that can stay in your system system for like 48 hours and it can really inhibit muscle function. Not something you want before, like a triathlon or a race or something like that. But you could use melatonin, you could use Phenibut, you could use passion flower, you could use gamma aminobutyric acid. There's a variety of things that can do the trick when you need to get that evening relaxation. Hemp oil, like the cannabis extract that works really well, like CBD oil.

I haven't tried that. I want to give that a try one of these days.

Yeah. All sorts of ways to skin that cat. So. Yeah. But basically any. Any inhibitor in. In the evening along with the excitatory stuff in the morning. So I think that, that this is A perfect time to mention that we're going to do something special on this podcast episode.

That's exactly why I chose this question for today.

We're gonna sing you a song. No, Brock, joking or not, I know you're excited now, but. No, we're not. We're actually going to play you an excerpt from my book.

Shut those Big Bloodshot Eyes, Brock.

No, no, actually what we're going to do is we're going to play, folks, an excerpt from my book, the audio version audio version of Beyond Training. It's getting released chapter by chapter right now to every person who is a part of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Premium channel. That's a special channel where you pay $10 for the whole year? Yes, for the whole year. And what happens is you get access to every single past episode we've ever done and you get access to things like my audiobook, PDFs, videos, all sorts of cool little things. So anyways, we've got a thing coming.

Out on Friday, in fact.

That's right, we've got my entire Bulletproof Biohacking review. And I called the Bulletproof Biohacking Show. It's just like off the hook, entertaining. Slightly inappropriate. Slightly inappropriate.

I edited it last night. It. Yeah, it gets a little blue.

Yeah, I was kind of jacked up on smart drugs anyways, though, that's going to be part of the premium show. But either way, what we're going to play you now is a portion of the Beyond Training book from Chapter 10 called how to Fix Insomnia. And if you want to get more after you listen into what we're about to play you again, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com premium and Brock and I will be right back after you listen in to this excerpt on how to fix Insomnia.

Okay, so let's talk about insomnia. If you follow all the instructions that you just learned about about how to get better sleep, it's highly likely that you're not going to have to deal with insomnia again. Once you've done things like darkened your room, eliminated bright screens and electromagnetic frequencies, introduced smart sleep supplementation into your protocol, and given yourself the freedom to engage in free running sleep whenever possible, insomnia typically becomes a non issue. But let's say you've pulled every trick out of the closet, you're already using every imaginable sleep hack, and you still can't get to sleep. In other words, for some reason, you're still experiencing full blown insomnia. That's driving you nuts and ruining your sleep, your productivity, your relationships, and your life. Assuming all the other strategies that I just got done describing have been established as lifestyle and sleep time, there are five more strategies I've discovered which I recommend to my clients or athletes I work with who suffer from debilitating insomnia.

These strategies will either free up the.

Body'S energy flow in meridians which are keeping you from sleep, or eliminate hidden sleep stealers. Number one is to eliminate parasites.

Okay. Prepare to be grossed out.

Intestinal parasites, which you can pick up from water, dirty food or public toilets, can affect your central nervous system and block your body from performing its normal body routines during sleep. Parasites introduces toxins into your body that can cause restlessness and this shaky feeling, making it difficult to rest and sleep. And when you do finally get to sleep, a parasite can disrupt your body's natural ability to efficiently, efficiently detox via your liver. So when you combine this with the fact that most parasites are nocturnal and get very active at night in your gut, this makes normal deep sleep pretty difficult. Now, I've had parasitic infections before, both of which I think I picked up when racing triathlons overseas, swimming in nasty water. In both cases, about every two weeks, just like clockwork. When the parasites were hatching. Yes, hatching, I would have extremely restless nights of sleep. In both cases, I identified parasites using this at home poop test. I eliminated the parasites using an intestinal cleanse and I started sleeping like a baby again. So sorry about that unpleasant visual.

The lab test that I did was.

Called a GI effects test with parasitology. You could talk to your local natural.

Health care practitioner about it.

I've also got a link to it.

If you want to oversee that test.

Yourself over at Greenfield Fitness Systems. Number two is to get rid of overtraining. And as you learned back in chapter seven, having trouble getting to sleep at night, tossing and turning through the night, waking up much earlier than usual, and that happens in the early stages of overtraining, or waking up much later than usual, and that happens in the later stages of overtraining. These can all be signs of inadequate recovery or adrenal fatigue. Now, in the early stages of overtraining, this type of insomnia is usually accompanied by a daily tired but wired feeling in which you get really tired at night, but you just can't fall asleep because it feels like your mind and your body are both racing. In the later stages of overtraining, insomnia actually becomes a non issue as you tend to just fall asleep. Stay asleep, sleep late, but never be recovered no matter what you do, because.

Your body is depleted of the building.

Blocks necessary for nighttime repair. So the fix for this is pretty easy. Go back to chapter eight and listen to chapter eight, because I give you everything you need to know to get rid of oorTraining. Okay? Number three is to lower nighttime stress. And it's no secret that work and lifestyle stress can keep you awake at night. Earlier in this chapter, you learned a bunch of the stress control methods that can come in handy. And it may sound simple, but the very best insomnia beating nighttime stress control strategy that I found is to just have a hard stop 60 minutes before bed.

That's the point at which you stop.

Responding to emails, you stop thinking about work, you stop paying bills, you stop studying, you stop reading how to books or doing any mentally demanding or even mildly stressful tasks. And from this point until bedtime, you do things like read for pleasure, play an instrument, have sex, watch something funny, of course, with your blue light blocking glasses and screen dimmer turned on, of course.

Or you just chill.

Number four Is acupuncture Okay, this may not seem like poking fine needles into your body would somehow help you sleep better, but a 1999 study I'll link to over at BeyondTrainingBook.com Chapter 10 found that acupuncture improved sleep quality in normal people with insomnia. And there was another study in 2004 that found acupuncture helped increase evening melatonin production and total sleep time. And patients who got it in this study fell asleep faster, they were less aroused at night, and experienced less stress. And the researchers concluded that acupuncture treatment may be of value for some categories of anxious patients with insomnia. Another study found that acupuncture improves sleep quality in patients with hiv, which is actually a condition that can cause insomnia. This makes sense because an added benefit of acupuncture is relief from chronic pain, which can also be a contributor to sleeplessness. So back in chapter eight, the chapter on overtraining, I gave you a bunch of good information on acupuncture for recovery and finding an acupuncturist.

So go listen to that or read it.

Number five is to fix mineral imbalances. And I feel like I'm repeating myself here. But as you also Learned in Chapter 8, correcting mineral imbalances can be one good way to fight adrenal fatigue. So if you find your sleeplessness and insomnia is accompanied by this feeling of blood pounding in your ears as you Try to fall asleep at night or a rapid, annoying heart rate. This may be because your room is too hot, but it may also be because you're in an early stage of adrenal fatigue, you have a mineral imbalance, or you sweated out too many electrolytes in the day or the week of training. And I've found that on many sleepless nights, just getting out of bed and having one to two teaspoons, yes, that's three to six grams of an extremely mineral rich sea salt can help tremendously with this issue. So you can get a basic Himalayan sea salt from Amazon or the grocery store. Sometimes the source of those can be iffy and it's not as high quality as another couple options I'll give you. But in a pinch, pun intended, this stuff is actually pretty decent.

There's another company called Onnit, and they.

Make a Himalayan salt I'll link to over@BeyondTrainingBook.com Chapter 10. And the salt deposits from which this salt is mined were deposited long before.

The earth became polluted with heavy metals, pesticides, and PCBs.

So it's pretty pristine stuff. It's spendy, but it's a better choice if you're concerned about quality. And finally, if you don't mind spending.

A lot of money on salt, there's.

This stuff called Real Good Salt from Aztec. And it's naturally flavored, organically harvested, artisanal salt that's higher in minerals than either of the other salt sources that I listed. So it's the gold standard in salt. And although it's expensive, I personally keep at least one bag in my pantry at all times and use it sparingly. So you can mix any of these into a glass of water before bed at night or into a post workout glass of water. And fortunately, all of these salts are pretty dang delicious on food, too.

Wake up, Wake up. We're back.

We're back. Okay. You have such a lovely reading voice.

That's right. I spend a lot of time in a rocking chair, crocheting, reading aloud.

To yourself?

To myself. I spend a lot of time by myself. Anyway, well, let's. Yeah, let's do this week's itunes review.

Yeah.

So if you hear your review read on the show, then we send you a cool package of Ben Greenfield fitness swag. Water bottle, T shirt, beanie, all sorts of cool stuff. And the way that you get that is you go to itunes and you find the BenGreenfield Fitness podcast or you even go to the show notes for this episode. @BenGreenfieldFitness.com 295 and you just basically click the session that says, leave your review for a chance to win some. And then if you hear us read your review, just email ben greenfieldfitness.com Email ben greenfieldfitness.com with your mailing address and your T shirt size, and we'll get this right out to you. And it's not a big cotton T shirt. It's one of those cool tech T shirts that makes you look oh, so muscular.

Should they tell you they're second as.

Well for this particular one? It might be interesting. Yes.

Yeah. Sometimes the names do not indicate anything.

All right, well, why don't you read this next one?

I'm assuming this one's by Senor iTunes 22 or senior?

Yeah, sir.

Itunes, maybe. And the title is. Seriously, this podcast will change your life. Five stars.

Five stars, baby.

Yeah. Number one, Ben is awesomely hot. He is my dream man.

Yes. Don't worry, Jessa.

I know he's taken, but I hope there are more Ben Greenfields out there.

That's okay. My wife doesn't listen into the show. You can say stuff like that on itunes, and I won't get in the doghouse.

There isn't another Ben out there. But your. Is your brother single?

Zach?

Single? No.

He's not. No.

Because he's actually a hotter version of Ben.

Thank you.

Sorry. It's true. Anyway, number two, Brock may be hot. I have never seen him, but he is super chill. I've never heard myself described as super chill. That's great. And is great at making humorous side comments.

May I interject that Brock is funny and funny looking. He has a great voice for radio, but he is super chill.

And. And yeah, there's a reason why I'm not on television.

Boom.

I have a huge growth, and many of which go right over Ben's head. Referring to the humorous comments, number three.

So she's basically saying, I'm stupid but good looking. And you are not hot, but you do have many humorous side comments I can't understand. That's where. That's where we're at right now with this.

I think that's an accurate summary.

Let's. Let's keep this thing going.

So then, number three, I am a health care professional with expertise in nutrition and integrative medicine. I have learned more applicable information about current research, nutrition, and physiology from Ben in the past four months of listening and reading his book than I have in most of my classes.

Okay. Remind all of us not to go to whatever school you went to.

Yes, she's going to the school of Health Care and arc Welding number four. If you want optimal and superhuman health, this podcast and Ben's book are the Rosetta Stone to understanding, crafting your body and quality of life. Making quality of life the best it can be.

Thank you for the Rosetta Stone was for learning Spanish.

I think it's for learning any language in yeah, just or like the Babel fish you put in your ear. Thank you for your infinite education and entertainment on all my half marathons and long commutes. Ben, if you ever make a clone, please send him my way.

I did make a clone, but it's a sheep. So I hope you live in Montana.

Or New Zealand and awesomely hot sheep.

But that you could shave the sheep with your blades from Harry's sponsor for this podcast. So there's that. Not only sasquatches and kittens, but also sheep. Well, I think that wraps this up so you can leave your review in iTunes. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com295 for all the resources that we talk about in this show. Remember to email me if you're interested in the whole biohacksblog.com involvement. And stay tuned next week to find out if I died in the lava fields of Hawaii. Have a wonderful week everyone.

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