The "Softer Side" of Biohacking, Parenting Strategies, How Ben Stays in Top Shape While Traveling & More with Reconditioned Podcast Host Lauren Vaknine.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, wellness is loving yourself, loving other people, loving God, fully in the rain, you know, somewhat chilly out recording. And I'm one of those guys who just. I'd rather be outside in nature dancing in the rain than sitting inside running from the weather. All that stuff adds up. So I always ask myself, if I lived this same day over and over again, what would it look like at the end of my life?

If your sons could take one thing from what you teach, what would you want it to be?

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

Well, hello, Lauren. Hello.

Okay, so we are. I'm with Ben Greenfield, and we are walking through Regents park, which is not something you say every day.

I like walking and recording, though. It's so, like, especially if we're a health podcast or for health podcasters, it feels so much more like on brand.

Absolutely.

And I've. I occasionally will get some people, like when I'll record when I'm walking. People like, why are you walking? We heard wind, we heard birds. I'm like, who cares? We're supposed to be out. It's the same information. It's just. It's just recorded well in the fresh air, in the sunshine.

Yeah. Living a natural life, always going to be a little bit of wind. We're in London, I think. I feel like people will be able to feel the energy just so much nicer sitting in a studio.

Oh, yeah. The sound of children playing and. And birds singing and squirrels screaming and falling from trees. So everything. Yeah. Nature.

Amazing. Okay, so we're off the back of the health optimization summit. Yeah. And you did the most amazing talk.

Oh, thanks.

Well, two of them, which was pretty incredible. And there was so much I took away from it just based on. Okay, so let's start here. So what I took from you the most, obviously, you're into health optimization, fitness, biohacking, etc. Etc. But the thing that got me was when you were talking about parenting.

Oh.

But not just the parenting. It was kind of like being life optimization, because I feel like in this world of health optimization, of biohacking, there can come a bit of arrogance sometimes, and everything can be about the tracking and the numbers, the statistics, and you kind of brought it back. It's a bit of that feminine energy. And so I'd love you to just go into what you were speaking about there.

Well, allow me to claim it for the masculine among us, too. I think I get what you're saying when you say feminine energy. It's like a lot of this biohacking health optimization. Eat, move, be healthy. It can be very yang. And then when you look at kind of what might be considered the softer side of life optimization, such as love and relationships and as you mentioned, parenting and family and legacy and really the reason that we do all this in the first place, you know, to be more impactful with whatever purpose that God has blessed us with in life. Yeah, I could certainly see that being a little bit more of like a, you know, like a feminine kind of yin type of approach. But these are the things that, you know, aren't necessarily quantifiable. They're not necessarily the things that you directly feel via some kind of a blood pump or a nootropic or smart drug hit to the brain or, you know, or, or an injection or anything like that. These are the things that, that feed your soul, that feed your spirit, you know. So, you know, we talk about things like the spiritual disciplines, you know, meditation or silence or solitude or worship or prayer or devotions and the like, you know, fantastic authors such as, such as Donald Whitney and Dallas Willard have written wonderful books about caring for yourself spiritually using a disciplinary approach similar what you, to what you'd use for physical or mental training. And then you've also got, of course the, and I think I even said this during my talk, you know, that the 110 year old, let's turn this way, I guess your listeners will be able to hear us weaving through the park. The 110 year old, you know, gin chugging, cigarette smoking grandma in Sardinia, Italy, you know, who's a centenarian despite her lifestyle because she's full of love and relationships and family and perhaps even in that societal setting, you know, a more matriarchal role might be bestowed upon that grandmotherly like figure. So that there actually is kind of a life extension component of being useful as you age. And so yeah, I, you know, everything that I used to do to optimize my body at one time in my life was really like either look at me, look at me, look at me, right? So, you know, I'm doing these cool things and do the iron man or the Spartan race or bodybuilding or whatever, or it was, it was, it was really based on self optimization just for the sake of the, of the endorphin rush and the mild addictive nature of exercising and eating healthy that accompanies that, that dopaminergic endorphin like rush that you get when you're taking care of your body. But now I've kind of changed my perspective. The only reason I really want to be healthy and fit and have a good lifespan and a good health span is twofold. A. I want to be able to maximize my ability to live out my life's impact, to be able to. To do what it is that I've been called to do with all of my might each day. And I know I can't do that unless I take care of my body, or at least I can't do that as effectively as I'd like, feeling as good as I like if I don't take care of my body. And then in addition to wanting to be impactful, I also think that a big part of living on this beautiful planet is just kind of like savoring all of God's creation, like hiking and running and swimming and enjoying nature and, you know, throwing a football with the kids or I guess we're in England, so kicking a football with the kids and, and, you know, and bow hunting and doing all these things that involve just adventuring. And really, I mean, if you take care of your body, you're also able to really just savor all elements of this wonderful planet that we live on far more, far more expansively, you know?

Absolutely. Yeah. And you spoke about impact there, which is something I was going to ask you, I guess. What do you feel your. Your impact is? What is your why? Why are you doing all it. Like, what set it off in the first place? And has that changed? Because I guess you said that you started because it was more about kind of the rush of being fit. But what is your why now?

Well, yeah, so. So your why your purpose statement, despite being important to have, doesn't have to be static and permanent throughout your life. It's very, very likely to fluctuate and change as your interests change, as you enter a new chapter of your existence, and as you get, you know, pulled in different directions or you feel called in different directions. One time, my purpose statement was empower. To empower as many people as possible to live an adventurous and joyful and fulfilling life. And that was the wonderful purpose and sent me on adventures all over the globe to inspire people and teach people and push my own body. And then I became more interested in things beyond just adventuring. So then my purpose statement for a while was to. Was to sing, speak, write, teach, compete, and create in full presence and selfless love to the glory of God. Right. And that was another example of just like A single succinct statement that was my reason for getting out of bed in the morning. Now my purpose statement has shifted to faith and to family. You know, I'm working on a parenting book right now. I'm finding a great deal of fulfillment and also purposeful activity and being with my family and raising my 14 year old twin sons during arguably a pretty formative time of their life when they need a strong father figure in their life. I'm also really feeling a call towards singing and songwriting and making music and also building myself spiritually and learning more about God and learning more about the holy scriptures and learning more about prayer. And so now, right now, my purpose statement is to love God through prayer and worship and to love my family through preparing and providing. Right. And so that's my current purpose statement in life. And you know, and your own purpose statement is going to vary. It might be, you know, things that you like to do when you're a little kid, things that put you in the flow now or you know, make, make time go by quickly. I think I even said during my talk, you know, do things that make you forget to eat and poop as an example of a way to start to think about what kind of things really feed your life's purpose. But yeah, that's, that's my purpose statement currently, that's what gets me out of bed in the morning is I want to prepare and provide for my, my family. And so that means like, you know, a solid 50% of my energy isn't in my business right now. It's, it's in my family. You know, being with my family and going places with them and being present with them. And then another large, large part of my life is focused on building myself into being a little bit more of a, like a spiritual warrior. And then a little bit of it is like business and accomplishments and my own personal adventures. But I put a lot of that in the back burner of late to focus more on, on faith and family.

I agree with that about purpose kind of changing. My spiritual teacher always says that your purpose will change as you go on. And like with everything we have to kind of be in this flow state, allow things to shift and to change and to expand like the universe is expanding. So I really agree with that. Your talk was set around a day in the life of Ben Greenfield.

I was, I was, I was, I was self aware of the, the narcissistic flavor of that talk. Here, look at me, what everything I'm doing. But, but it was used for teaching you know, absolutely.

But I think people want, like, that is what people want to know about you. If you hadn't have done that, the questions at the end would have been, what do you do when you wake up? And what time do you break the fast? And do you do your sauna? Right, so it was amazing and I'd love for you to kind of take us through that a little bit. One of the first questions. Well, the first question I usually ask on my podcast is, what have you done so far today to support your wellness? And with you, that's gonna be like massive, long winded answer. So maybe take us through a little bit of what a day in the life of Greenfield looks like in terms of biohacking, health optimization. Life optimization.

Yeah. Well, obviously, I mean, the talk took like two and a half hours, so there's no way I could do it justice, you know, on a walk. I'm sure people will be able to access the health optimization Summit lectures later on, but gosh, I mean, like, if I could, you know, you asked me, for example, because I'm traveling right now, about what I might do to optimize my body leading up to this point in the day. You know, 11am on a weekday morning, you know, especially being outside of my, my normal comfort zone scenario of home. Well, what I try to do as much as possible, whether it's my sleep habits or my eating habits or my supplementation habits or my spiritual habits, I like to take as much as possible with me kind of on the road simply because it allows my body to be in a little bit more of a parasympathetic state, allows me to kind of like create a somewhat familiar environment when I, when I travel. So I do a lot of what I do when I travel is the same as a lot of things that I do when I'm at home. So for example, I woke up this morning. I usually wake up to a really nice uplifting song, you know, this morning it was one called so Will I, which is like a Hillsong worship song. And so I love to wake with this just beautiful song to cut, you know, not emails and text messages and, and, or even just silence. I like, I like a nice song to start off the day. It just really gets, gets, gets my energy going in a really positive way. And so while the song is, is playing, you know, I get up and I, I do some, some, some oil pulling, you know, swish around oil in my mouth to take care of my mouth's biome. And you know, when I travel, I can Always find like a little bottle of extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil or whatever to buy at the grocery store. And I'll just use that for the oil pulling, which is nice too. If you forgot your moisturizer, it works great as a, as a facial moisturizer as well. And also if you, if you, if, if you're at a restaurant and there's not an expensive list of healthy things on the menu, you can just order a bunch of vegetables and just drench them in olive oil, so. Or coconut oil. So it's a good, good little habit that kind of stacks into a few different sectors of healthy travel life. I do some tongue scraping to clean up my tongue, you know, all these kind of ayurvedic practices to get the morning started. And then I'll typically shake my body like some Tai chi style shaking and some stretching, some jumping jacks, you know, just get the blood flowing for about 10 to 15 minutes. And then I'll take some time just to check in with God, you know, do a little prayer. There's an app that I, that I like to use, you know, one that I used this morning. It's a three to five minute pause that just kind of, it's called the pause app. And it's just like a little bit of carved out music and breath work and time with God. But it's nice sometimes to have the accountability, if that's what you want to call it, of an app to kind of put you into that, that space. And so I'll do all of that and then typically use the restroom. I even travel with a little portable squatty potty that allows you to use the restroom more efficiently when you travel. I know it's a little fold out squatty pie. It works perfectly. It fits very easily into a carry on and, and then I'll typically go do some form of physical movement. Like this morning I did super slow training, which is one big hard set to failure, you know, for like the chest press, the shoulder press, the, the row, the pull down and the leg press or the squat, right? And it's very efficient way to get a lot of strength training in, in a short period of time with a low risk of injury. So I went to the gym in the hotel and I did that. And I'll typically sandwich that strength training session in between some type of like an intense ride on the bicycle or the elliptical trainer or the rowing machine. So I'm kind of doing cardio and strength all in one session when I'm at home. I'll usually do something easier like a nice walk in the sunshine or a sauna session with a little bit of a cold bath afterwards. But I know when I travel, if I don't do like kind of the hard workout in the morning, it just doesn't get done because the day gets so busy. So when I travel, usually do something a little bit more difficult in the morning. And then typically, you know, I'm one of those guys who does a, you know, like the intermittent fasting protocol. So at this point in the day, you know, it's usually 9:30 or 10:00am and I haven't eaten any food yet. So, so I'll, you know, go have a breakfast and you know, my breakfast at home is a smoothie. I don't travel with a blender, but I'll, you know, usually for the typical continental breakfast is I'll choose like some mackerel and some smoked salmon, maybe a little bit of egg if they're pastured eggs and you know, possibly a few blueberries or a little bit of natural yogurt or something like that. Just try and choose as many, many of the natural foods as possible and then, and that's kind of, you know, the start of my day. And if I have a little bit of extra time, I do like to throw in like a meditation session if I can. Typically, if time permits, I'll do that after I do that pause app and I'll just sit silently for 10 or 15 minutes and think about what I'm grateful for and who I can serve that day and have a little bit of extra prayer time. And that'll just depend on how busy the day is. You know. And in the case of today, you know, especially when I travel, I walk a lot. I take all my phone calls when I'm walking, obviously I do podcasts when I'm walking. And so, you know, I'll walk around the city quite a bit today. But you know, my morning always consists of something like that. Some kind of ayurvedic self care protocol and then some type of shaking and stretching, some type of spiritual time, use the bathroom, then some kind of physical time and then breakfast. And you know, the, the only thing that I should mention is that I mentioned that it's important to kind of take your environment with you on the road. But I mean, you know, for example, sleep last night I put on the same sleep sounds that I do when I, when I'm at home so my body feels like it's at home. You know, in this case I use one called A brain fm. I use little biohacking technologies. Like I have one called an Apollo. It's a little ankle band that I wear around my ankle that vibrates to lull you to sleep. And my body says, oh, my ankle's vibrating just like it does at home. I must be in a safe place. And you know, I'll even travel with a little blanket that blocks EMF that I pull over my body before I go to sleep. And I do all these things to just make my body feel really safe and relaxed when I travel. Because, you know, the problem is you can be very comfortable at home. And then when you travel you just kind of go into sympathetic mode and you know, and, and stress is, stress is stress. So I always like to think about what kind of stressors my body might be subjected to and how I can manage those. So I stay in just a little bit more of a natural parasympathetic flow state when I'm traveling. So that's like a little glimpse of what the morning might look like.

So what else do you do in terms of actual stuff for when you're traveling to kind of mitigate the effects of jet lag or being on the plane and stuff like that? Do you take melatonin? Do you have like a hot protocol that you do?

Yeah, so, so the jet lag management begins, of course, for the several days before you, you leave to the new time zone as much as possible. If you can adjust your habits to the habits of the time zone that you're traveling to, that's better. You know, so when I'm traveling this far over to London, I'm, it's not like I'm going to get up eight hours earlier because I'm eight hours off of my time zone, but I'll get up a little bit earlier, right? And I'll go to bed a little bit earlier and I'll start to prepare my body. On the plane you tend to get exposed to a lot of both ionizing and non ionizing radiation. You tend to get exposed to a lot more inflammation. And you're of course also, you know, totally disconnected from the planet Earth, you know, 40,000ft above the planet in a metal tube. And so you're not harnessing a lot of the positive electrical energy that the planet has to offer. And so to mitigate some of the effects of that, it's I, I travel with this little like, it's like a tracksuit that blocks emf, right? And I'll just put that on. It's like kind of protects My whole body from a lot of the WI fi going through the airport and you know, a lot of the radiation on the plane. I take a few choice supplements when I'm on the plane that help to protect the DNA from damage and help to protect the cells from the, from the calcium influx that occurs when you are subjected to a high amount of electricity radiation. And so specifically when I, when I get on the airplane, I take some nad, which is a great cellular protectant. I take a little bit of ketone esters, which are not only really, really good for managing inflammation, but also help to keep your appetite satiated so you don't have to eat the crappy airplane food. I take a little bit of magnesium, which helps to protect the cells from that calcium that I talked about. And then I always take a lot of electrolytes and a few hydrogen tablets, right. So that's kind of my stack is NAD ketones, magnesium, hydrogen and electrolytes. And then when I get to where I'm going, I make it a point to engage in what are called zeitgebers, which are circadian rhythm cues that allow your body to adjust to a new time zone a lot more effectively. And the three best ones are food. So I'll wait until it's the actual meal time in whatever area of the world I happen to be in to eat. So if I get into a place at 2am, I'm going to wait till 9am or the standard breakfast time wherever I'm at, because food helps you align your circadian rhythm. The next is exercise, right? So I always make sure I exercise. And for me, the first exercise when I get to where I'm going is usually outside sunshine, barefoot or water, anything that kind of grounds me back to the planet Earth. Even just finding someplace outside the hotel to go do a little yoga or just walk a few laps barefoot, or find a nearby park. And then in addition to food and exercise, the last zeitgeber is light. And so I blast myself with as much natural light as possible in the morning. And of course I eliminate a lot of the bright light at night. But I'll travel with in ear light producing device like the human charger or light producing glasses. There's a good set called the re timer. And the reason I travel with those is because sometimes it's not sunny when you wake up and with whatever area of the world you travel to or you're in meetings and you're unable to get outside into the sunshine. So I'll use those to kind of stimulate my body with light and, you know, between those kind of strategies on the airplane and then doing the food, the light and the movement when I land, I typically feel pretty good. You know, it's still, you know, I won't lie, everybody gets jet lagged, but the more you can do to manage it, the better. And then to finish this up, you mentioned melatonin. Well, there's, there's three things I use to help me sleep when I travel. One is, is actually a sleep supplement that I designed called Kion Sleep and it's a blend of like theanine and five HTP and, and gaba. And then I'll use a little bit of cbd and then I'll use a lot of melatonin. Like I'll take a ton of melatonin on the first night of wherever I get to where I'm going. Like 500 to 700 milligrams, which is a boatload. There's actually a slow release form that you can take in a suppository, which is what I do. It's literally just a melatonin suppository that slowly, slowly brings it into the system. And so I'll put that up my butt literally like, you know, about 20 minutes before I go to bed. And man, that just resets the circadian rhythm. And melatonin is also a natural anti inflammatory, so I'm also combating some of the inflammation again. So, yeah, that might sound like a lot of stuff, but I mean, once you get used to managing jet lag in that fashion, it's just like brushing your teeth. Like you didn't think about this stuff. You just kind of do it when you travel.

Obviously you mentioned a lot of product a lot of the time and I guess we all do, but when, if people kind of are listening to this and it can be a bit overwhelming. With all the products that you recommend, what are your kind of top biohacks or gadgets or products? Whether that be like the sauna, the Apollo, the ice bath, you know.

Yeah.

What are your top things?

Yeah, I would say the top things that I do all return to the concept of the human body being a battery. Right. And there's great books about this, like the Body Electric or Healing is Voltage by Jerry Tennant. The Body Electric, I believe is by Robert Becker. But these books get into the idea that, you know, our cells, you know, back to that calcium leakage I was talking about on the airplane, which is a positively charged molecule. You know, our cells are designed to have a more negative charge on the inside and a more positive charge on the outside. And anytime that that electrochemical balance becomes disrupted, it disrupts cellular metabolism and can cause things like, you know, poor sleep, brain fog, poor energy levels, etc. Because your battery is essentially drained, you know, to describe it in very simplistic terms. And so, so, you know, when I look at the most important biohacks, it's what are the ones that help my body to be restored back to normal electrochemical balance. And many of these practices are the same type of practices that would also allow for better health of the mitochondria, which really, you know, the parts of the cells that really help you to produce cellular energy. And so I would say that the biggies would be some form of grounding or earthing or what's called pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, which is basically harnessing the same type of low level Hertz frequencies, like about 3 to 100 Hertz that are naturally emitted by the planet Earth and that you would naturally come into contact to when you're, you know, touching trees or rocks or outside barefoot. And you can use certain biohacking technologies to concentrate those same frequencies even if you can't get outside, if you're in the comfort of your own home. And so you have grounding and earthing mats and some type of pulsed electromagnetic field technology that's really, really great for charging up the body. Another one that I do a lot of is light. I use a lot of infrared light. You know, these infrared light panels that just bathe the body and healing spectrums of, of red light, of near infrared light, and of far infrared light. It's based on a scientific concept called photobiomodulation, meaning that photons of light can actually help to stimulate energy production in the cells and can even help with things like thyroid balance and testosterone production, and the collagen and elastin health of the skin. And so I'll do a lot of light play as well. Heat and cold. You know, you mentioned the sauna. Heat and cold are two practices that I do on a regular basis throughout the week. So I have a cold tub and I have a sauna. And that allows my body to become more resilient to stress and to grow stronger as it encounters things that, you know, based on the concept of what's called hormesis would kill you in large amounts. Right? Like trying to trek through the Sahara desert or stay five hours in a sauna would be damaging to the body. But short bouts of heat stress are very, very beneficial to the human body, as are short bouts of cold stress. And the cold stress really helps with your nervous system balance and inflammation help with recovery and sleep and body temperature. And then a couple other things I would consider for maintaining the natural electrochemical balance of the body would be really, really good, clean, pure water. So I start every day with 32 ounces of a giant glass mason jar of water. But I put electrolytes in it and I put baking soda in and I put vitamin C in it. So adjusting the acid alkaline balance. And I drink that giant glass of water and I'll even put the same hydrogen tablets that I talked about that I'll use in the plane. I'll put those in the water that I drink in the morning and then I repeat that typically in the mid afternoon. So I'm getting at least two huge glasses of kind of supercharged water during the day. And the important thing is that I also not only put the electrolytes and the minerals into the water, but I'm constantly salting my food and using electrolytes throughout the day because these minerals, back to the concept of a charge, you know, electrical charge, are what carry the charge throughout the body. And so by, by keeping minerals coming in, I'm able to, to really maintain good energy levels. And a lot of people say, oh, that salt's bad for the blood pressure. Well, it's true. You know, isolated sodium chloride as you might find in the average table salt or the average, you know, heavily packaged food where it's used as a preserving agent. Yeah, that's not so great for blood pressure or for the acid alkaline balance of the body, but natural sources of complete full spectrum minerals, you know, that's a whole different story. And that actually helps out a ton, not only with blood pressure but with, you know, the, the adrenal glands and the minerals that they require. And again, the charge that you're able to carry through your body. And. And so I would say that the top things I do would be the grounding, the earthing and the electrical frequencies, the light, heat, cold water and minerals. Besides just moving and eating healthy.

Yeah. So for those listening, in the UK we use Celtic sea salt, which is a great.

Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, Celtic is. It's low in metals. It's very high in minerals. It's easily accessible at most grocery stores. And that's a fantastic brand. You know, Redmond is a good one. I've got one called Colema. That's a good brand of salt. I'm a total salt junkie.

Well, you say that about it being available in grocery stores. Grocery stores here are literally selling high sodium table salt and they package them sometimes as low sodium. Low sodium, but it's table salt, so.

Oh. Oh. See, because in the US like Celtic salt, you could pretty much get just like the average kind of crap grocery store has Celtic salt.

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. I always see on, on food blogs and health food blogs that it calls, in America, they call it kosher salt. Is that the same thing?

No, kosher salt is, it's salt that, that adheres to whatever the kosher standards are. Simply like a thick, coarse grind of salt. It's, it's decent, it's not bad. It tends to be pretty clean. Not as good or as high in minerals or as low in toxins as like a good, like, like an unrefined Celtic salt for example though, Right.

Because I'm Jewish and I never had a kosher salt here in the uk.

Yeah.

But yeah, we, we, we kind of have good access to Celtic salt, which is great.

Yeah. And I don't know, everything that makes a kosher salt culture, you know, it doesn't have bacon in it.

Right? That's the metric. Doesn't have bacon in it. Yeah. And obviously for any of the kind of products that you just mentioned, I do. If anyone wants to check out obviously Ben's website for information on that or I have some UK based ones on my website. Subscribe. Just head there. I have a question for you because a friend of mine, I didn't make it to both days of the summit, so I only had the second part of your talk.

Okay.

A friend of mine who I was with said that someone asked you the question, does your wife do all this stuff? So I'd love you to give us the answer to that.

Well, my answer in the session was basically, you know, no. You know, the shoemaker's wife wears no shoes. When I want my wife to do something, I'll leave out a book for her, have one of my doctor friends, you know, talk to her or something. So basically, you know, my wife and I are kind of like yin and yang. She's very type V, kind of flowy, creative, artistic. I'm a little bit more type A, you know, scheduled, you know, organized, regimented, and a creature of habit and a creature of my schedule. And it's great because we complement each other's lifestyles. But she, she's very, she's very healthy, you know, genetically. You know, she's got the grandparents that live till they're, you know, over 100 years old. And she comes from these kind of hard Montana, US Rancher genes, you know, kind of like lean and mean and tough and they've lived through hard winters. And she's just. She's kind of genetically equipped to have pretty good cellular resilience. But, you know, she. She takes a couple of supplements, like, you know, for her hormones. She uses what I consider to be fantastic for just about any woman as they age. Transdermal progesterone and a little bit of oral dhea. So she used progesterone and DHEA as supplements. She plays a lot of tennis. We have a little farm with goats and chickens. So she's constantly out there, you know, digging in the garden and hauling alfalfa and chasing chickens and herding goats and she does some hiking. She's really into hot yoga. She'll do hot yoga, like, usually three or four times a week. But she's also one of those people who. She doesn't do it. She doesn't be. She's not like, oh, I didn't do my yoga this week. She's just like, oh, I feel like doing yoga today. Like, that's kind of like more. She's an intuitive temperament. Oh, totally intuitive.

Just how a human being stays healthy is what she's doing without kind of thinking too much about it.

Exactly. Like, if you ask her like, what's your diet? She's like, I don't know. I just kind of eat when I'm hungry and eat whatever looks good, you know. So, yeah, she's a lot more loosey goosey than I am, but she's healthy, you know, and she takes care of herself. She was one of the top track athletes in Idaho. And when I met her at University of Idaho, she was racing track and field, you know, very fast mile, very fast 800 meter, you know, she doesn't really run anymore, but yeah, she's healthy, you know, naturally. And she also, despite not being as regimented as me, you know, she does things, you know, actively and mindfully to make sure that she stays healthy.

Yeah, so my husband's family are kind of the same. They're that robust, good genetics. Like, they're just really, those strong constitutions. Nothing really can get to them. Whereas I'm the kind of mthfr. Everything's gonna like, knock my immune system if I don't look after it.

Yeah, that's funny. I'm the same way. I've got. I. People listen to, like the interview I did with Mansoor Mohammed of the DNA company, you know, this Was a while ago, probably like four years ago. We were my genetic results. He's like, dude, if you didn't do all the stuff that you do, right, he's like, you have so many dirty genes that you would feel pretty crap all the time. And, you know, it's interesting because you wonder, oh gosh, am I going to now think myself into an unhealthy situation because I feel that I'm genetically ill equipped or am I going to use this to empower myself to make really positive choices that would allow me to be perhaps just as healthier. Healthier than somebody who has better genes? And so, yeah, I don't look at genetic analyses like that that might give you unfavorable results as something that might produce a defeatist mentality. I think it's rather empowering because now I know how I can live longer, how I can be more impactful.

Well, this is what I tell my clients and this is why I do a lot of genetics testing with my clients. Let's have the information, let's empower ourselves with it and figure out kind of how to live our lives based on what our genes are telling us. Yeah, I mean, for me, you know, I learned that the hard way. I was obviously disabled for a very long time, not really understanding why all the things that weren't impacting or affecting other people were affecting me.

Why and what were you disabled with?

So I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis just before my second birthday.

Oh, wow.

I was vaccine injured. And it kind of started just after that. So that was like a whole journey. And then I, you know, it was very. My mum treated me with homeopathy from the outset. Spiritual healing. We really went down the holistic route, but there were so many missing pieces.

Yeah.

So we didn't, you know, my parents are. We have a Mediterranean diet. My family is Israeli. We very much eat like that. But then there was Diet Coke on the table.

Right.

And you know, cordials and squashes and chocolates and the rest of it. So it was, there were lots of missing pieces that we didn't understand. And it took for me to become an adult to, to fit those pieces together. And when I got really sick and things were getting really bad in my late teens, I was told I needed to go on this chemo based drug and I was like, well, I'm an adult, I'm gonna do what I want. And I did it. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but it was also the best thing that happened to me. Because it put me in this state of complete, complete disability. Damaged my liver, lost my hair. You name it, it did it to me. But it was from that that made me think, okay, this is 10 months on this drug and the doctors are only saying to me, well, it works for 70% of people and for 30 people it doesn't. And I was like, yeah, I think there's more to healthcare than statistics. I was 18, and yet somehow I just knew that there was more to why my body was reacting like this than just statistics.

Yeah.

And that's when I set out to kind of find the answers at 18. And so I had to be that sick, as sick as I got, to lead myself back to really wanting to find the answers and looking into everything like what we've just spoken about epigenetic.

And now I assume you probably follow a largely autoimmune diet and avoid the things, you know, the eggs and nightshades and dairy and seeds and nuts and soy and the like.

Well, what I've learned, what works for me and what doesn't. So again, like, I've been on all those things, like, this is an anti inflammatory diet and this is what you need to build. And I feel very much a follower of my intuition now. It's taken a long time to get to that, to know what my body needs and what it doesn't want. So it's a little bit more varied, it's a little bit more nuanced. Yeah, generally, I mean, yeah, my diet's pretty great, but it might be different to what someone else might see as being a great anti inflammatory diet.

Right.

And that's just come through a lot of trial and error really. But yeah, it took took a, took many years to get to that point of kind of inner knowing and all the research and failing a lot. So I basically, when I set out at 18, really 19, and said, right, I'm gonna do this. It took me 10 years from that point to get into remission because there was so much to learn and also so much healing and detoxing to do.

Yeah.

Had to detox from heavy metals, from the chemo, from. I worked with amazing practitioners and, you know, homeopaths and herbalists and all sorts. But the end of the day, something I always say is it's about coming back to knowing that we have to take responsibility for our own well being, take ownership of that. And that was really where, where the key was.

Yeah.

In knowing that someone else couldn't fix me. I had to fix me.

Wow. Since two years old, that's a crazy story.

Pretty crazy. Yeah. So let's go back to you. So we've spoken about, kind of about your wife and all of that kind of stuff. How, how do you feel like you raise your kids differently? Because I know you do things in a way that others might feel a bit that's alternative or, you know, not conventional. And how does that. Because we've got a lot of mums listening to this. How does that work for you and how do you implement it? Because one of the things that I find challenging with me is that my, my kids aren't homeschooled. I want them to be. I've got a very big community of friends that homeschool. I'm running my business and I'm also the provider of all the health stuff. My husband's also running his business.

Yeah.

And it's pretty impossible. And we're trying, we're constantly trying to think of ways to make this work.

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, I've. I've accepted the fact that despite me having the heart of a teacher and I. I would love, if I had my way to teach my children everything, you know, arithmetic and reading and writing and logic and computer programming and rhetoric. Like, you know, I have a degree in education. I love to teach, but I don't have the time to do both that and, you know, run my. Run, you know, a couple of different relatively large businesses, you know, in addition to my travel schedule and everything else. And so I've accepted the fact that the two best things I can do for my sons is to manage the physical disciplines and the spiritual disciplines. Right. So I lead them in, you know, in meditation and journaling and prayer and worship and devotions, and we go through certain books during the week. And I lead them, you know, in kettlebells and ice bath training and heat training and breath work and anything related to the physical disciplines. And then everything else is really, it's kind of outsourced to a certain extent. You know, mom does a lot with them very similar to me in the areas that she feels best equipped to teach them, primarily art, the creative art, you know, know, crafting, sewing, crocheting, painting, you know, sketching and even like animal husbandry and gardening and, you know, a lot of things that she's doing at home, she's training them in that. And then everything else is kind of outsourced. You know, they have a math tutor who comes over to the house a couple of times a week and does math with them. And they have a. They have a Spanish instructor. And they have a, you know, they go to jiu jitsu and they go to tennis, and they have, you know, like a few online curriculums that they do for reading. And they're. And we go through certain blocks. So when I say that, the model that we use is called unschooling. And it's this concept of a little bit of a, kind of like a loosely structured approach where you're simply paying close attention through dialogue with your children about what it is that their current passions and interests and desires are, and then trying to foster the development of skills related to those passions and also surround them with as many books and games and tutors and models and toys and documentaries as possible, and even excursions and traveling and adventures that allow them to study those things that they're really super duper interested in while still covering the bases for things they might not be interested in. Like, my kids don't wake up begging to learn math, but I know it's a skill that will serve them well in the future, so I make sure that they do math. They probably wouldn't have chosen to study a foreign language like Spirit Spanish, but they know it's good for them. I know it's good for them to develop a language at an early age. And so we do certain things that they might not have expressed as their passions and interests and desires, but we weave those in anyways. But, but I mean, like 80% of just stuff they wake up just really wanting to do. And so the, the way that it looks is we have one person who works with us online who helps to kind of figure out what blocks, what parts of the year the kids are going to do what it is that they're interested in. So right now they're in like a bitcoin investing financial block where they'll get to start their first nonprofit. I'm opening a custodial account for them where they can have a certain structured stock and bond portfolio, some crypto exposure, a little bit of real estate exposure, some business development. And so that's something that will be like a three to four month block during, you know, this year, 2022. You know, they're also right now very interested in building their cooking podcast and their, their YouTube cooking channel. And so there's typically, you know, three to four times a week they're doing excursions to like, bakeries to walk around and shadow the bakers, or going to restaurants and doing stories with the chefs or planning out new meals in the kitchen. They're also preparing for to be Mentors for their first wilderness survival experience, where in the past they've gone to a little wilderness survival school where they learn a lot of survival tactics. But this year they're going to be mentors in that same school and help other kids who are younger. And so, you know, it's kind of fun and a little bit unstructured at the same time. So for me, constantly as a parent, I'm asking myself, gosh, are my kids getting the right education? Are they studying the right things? Are they going to turn 18 and, and be, you know, mad because dad didn't, you know, teach them more about, I don't know what NFTs, the metaverse or, or whatever else. So, so kind of because you're not outsourcing their entire education to a neatly packaged traditional schooling system which I think is rife with failures, you know, peer pressure and bullying and learning things you don't necessarily need to learn and outdated, standardized, yeah, rote memorization of facts, you know, in an era of Google when we don't really need that. And so I think that, yeah, like going with a neatly, tightly packaged, outsourced curriculum at a public or private school can take a little stress off of parent, a little worry off a parent. The fact is, I think too many parents take that approach and then assume their child is learning everything that child needs to know at school, when in fact there's so many elements of life that a kid still needs to learn and there's so much experiential hands on learning that doesn't take place at a school. And so our approach was, you know, when my kids were in fifth grade and going to a school like that, you know, private school, I sat them down and said, hey look, you know, you guys don't need to go back to sixth grade. If you decide not to go back to sixth grade, dad will just basically take everything it is that you want to do, put together a curriculum for you, surround you with the right resources to study what you want to study, support you in that, help to teach you. And they both, you know, replied with the main worry that they weren't going to get to see their friends as much or engage in sports social life as much. And the fact is, with all their extracurriculars and jumping at the trampoline park and going to jiu jitsu and playing tennis and going on museum excursions and even finishing school earlier than a lot of kids so they have more time with their friends. They see their friends just as much, if not more than they did when they were going to a normal school. So that's kind of what we do from an educational standpoint.

I think it's such a misconception that unschooled, homeschooled, home educated kids are unsociable or don't socialise enough. From my experience of all my friends who are home educating, they're always around different groups and the kids are socializing not just with the same people every day and also importantly, not just with children. They're getting to know and be around and respond to different adults every day.

Right, Exactly. They're not around people of their same age all day either. They're learning how to navigate through life in a manner that gracefully teaches them how to interact with people from a wide variety of backgrounds in as non judgmental way as possible. So they're not all snooty and only want to hang out with the other 14 year old kids. I think that's important too is expose your kids to a wide variety of people of all ages and backgrounds and habits and let them see you interact with those same people. We don't just hang out with the fit people who are entrepreneurs running their own businesses. Right. You hang out with the plumbers and you hang out with the accountants and you hang out with the people from church you might not normally otherwise hang out with. And you basically develop a human network that's based on the value of each individual human being as a sacred soul and not necessarily someone who might serve you transactionally or have the exact same interests as you. And I think that kind of cementing that into a child at an early age is important and helps them become somebody who's better equipped to just love more people.

So yeah, I mean, I just think it's really empowering to watch for kids to watch parents be entrepreneurs and then start kind of implementing that into their own lives. Like, what more could we want, could we ask our children what are we actually sending them to school to do other than to kind of be empowered to do something like that? So yeah, I love that.

Yeah. And you know, I'm writing a parenting book right now and, and you know, I, I have focused on, on me not being the only author of the book. I've got like 30 other parents of children of a wide variety of ages, parents of many different backgrounds, everything from some of the most successful entrepreneurs and billionaires to people who are just kind of living an ancestral life in the backwoods. And I'm basically collecting all this information and it's interesting because you see repeated themes you see, for example, a consequential based discipline where rather than just engaging in capital punishment or hitting a kid's hand or spanking them for doing something which, which may have its time and its place in extreme circumstances, you're instead just teaching a child about the natural consequences of any decision that they might make, whether it's, you know, eating gluten or watching porn or drinking alcohol or anything else, and then allowing them to make the decision. So there's no bedtime in our house. There's no screen time rules, there's no food rules. We just do a really good job educating our children and then setting an example for them of the way that things should be like screen time. For example, they have a phone. It wasn't a big deal. We just got them a phone one day and said, hey, if you need to make any phone calls, here's a phone for you. And because mom and dad aren't obsessed over our phones, because the phone isn't like this, oh, this amazing thing that you have to own when you turn 16 to get a phone or whatever, it's just like another random tool in the house that's used for, you know, whatever research or wayfinding or taking a photograph. But, you know, they're not spending a disproportionately large amount of time on screens just because, you know, in our home, screens are used to create and to produce and occasionally to communicate. But it's really not like the, the center of our household. You know, the TV is hidden away downstairs. We don't make a big deal out of the phones. You know, same thing with, like, alcohol. You know, pour a little wine and let them taste a little wine. And, you know, they're not going to grow up thinking that alcohol is some forbidden fruit and, you know, wind up getting drunk one day when they're 16 years old. So see, I'm constantly just making sure that I allow them to learn about the natural consequences, to be educated on the natural consequences. Then I let them deal with the results as much as possible. And you see that, you see, you see this repeated theme a lot in many of the parents who I'm interviewing for this book. Another example would be, like, a lot of them have really, really strong family traditions. Like, here's what we do on Christmas. Here's what we do. Our vacations. Here we doing. Here's what we doing. The kids are 12 years old. The rituals 16 years old. Here's. Yeah, the family values, the rituals, the tradition, kind of a strong sense of legacy built in rather than just kind of having a loosey goosey approach to everything that happens in the household, many of them also carve out not only dedicated one on one time for each child, but dedicated one on one getaway time for the couples, where every quarter the couples will go away to some place just so important and plan out things and plan out, you know, what's going with the family. Where do we want to live? What do we want to teach? What do we want to learn? How are each of the kids doing? How are you doing spiritually, physically, mentally? And my wife and I certainly carve out intentional times to do that and then also like one on one dates with the kids too. You know, making sure that you get a kid off and away from their siblings, because often the way they express themselves and the things that they talk about and the things they open themselves up to are different than the type of things that they're going to focus on when they're with their siblings or with their peers. And so, yeah, it's been really, really interesting and super refreshing and educational for me to work on this parenting book because I'm just learning so much about the way that amazing parents raise children who eventually grow up to be amazing human beings themselves.

It's called boundless parenting, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's gonna be the name of boundless parenting. It'll come out in hopefully about like, November or December of 2020. What is it, 2022? Yeah. So this winter. Yeah.

Okay. Well, we'll definitely make sure to keep an eye out for it. Just quickly going back to kind of the health optimization stuff. Is there anyone that shouldn't be fasting, shouldn't be doing ice baths, shouldn't be doing saunas?

Oh, I mean, theoretically, if you have like adrenal fatigue or you're a super duper low, chronically low heart rate variability score, or a really weak nervous system, and you need, like, a lot more just like easy walking in the sunshine and maybe some restorative yoga and a really, really nutrient dense diet. You know, a lot of calories, kind of restore the body and adrenal reboot, so to speak. Most of these things are amazing for the human body and can be handled by just about anybody within moderation. I just think some people, you know, I know some people, you know, reach out to me like it's okay if I do two sauna sessions a day. You know, mostly like rich people with too much time on their hands who are just like, what else can I do to optimize my body? I'M like, well, you could, or you could go like, you know, volunteer at the soup kitchen or go, you know, mow somebody's lawn or do something nice for somebody. Like you don't have to optimize all day long. So, you know, or you know, the people want to do the 20 minute cold bath so that they just masochistically feel good about themselves versus the quick two or three minute cold soak, which is just as good. You know, I think people will sometimes get super obsessed about this stuff and take it too far and do too much of it or they need to give their nervous system a little bit of a break, especially if they have, like I mentioned, some kind of adrenal fatigue in that case. Yeah, they might not be able to handle some of these hormetic stressors until they've restored their body back to a condition where it can handle stress.

And if people can't afford a proper ice plunge bath, can they just do it in their bath with ice cubes?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, cold therapy has been shown to produce benefits even as low as 55 degrees Fahrenheit. My apologies, I don't have that in Celsius. But basically, you know, longer treatment times and less cold temperature like a five minute cold shower, or shorter treatment times with a really cold temperature like a 2 minute long ice bath, you're still going to get the benefits of cold. I mean, cold lakes, rivers, oceans, ponds, cold showers, ice in the tub, like even just the ambient air, like going for a walk in the morning with, you know, not a whole lot of clothing on when it's a little chilly outside. You know, any of these things can be used for cold. You know, you don't have to have the fancy cold tubs. Last I checked, our ancestors didn't have any ozone, clean, infrared, light infused UV cold tubs.

Yeah. But they also didn't spend as much time inside as we do and on screen. So I guess we need to like use these hacks.

Yeah, exactly. That's what a lot, a lot of these, a lot of these hacks. And sorry about the background noise of the tree cutter up there, but a lot of these hacks, they're used to basically fight against an evolutionary mismatch. Right. We can't get a lot of sunshine, so we might use light panels or we might not be able to drink water out of a spring, but we can put like a whole house structured water filter system in our house or we might not be able to be outside barefoot or on the ground all the Time, but we can get a grounding or earthing mat. We might not have a job dedicated for manual labor, but we can visit the gym and simulate that same type of hard work that our ancestors would have done. So yeah, a lot of these things we do to stay healthy, they are really kind of almost like fighting this evolutionary mismatch that we have to deal with living in this post industrial era.

So you mentioned obviously not having access to, to the sun. What's it been like for you being in the UK and seeing what our weather is in nearly June?

I happen to be from a part of the United States that tends to have like a lot of rainy, gray, dreary weather the, the, the inland Northwest. And so I'm pretty used to it. I'm one of those guys who's, you know, obviously we're walking right now in a, in the rain, you know, somewhat chilly out recording and I'm one of those guys who just, I, I'd rather be outside in nature dancing in the rain than sitting inside running from the weather.

Yeah, it's, I mean, this has been kind of a journey for me. My whole like ancestral line, my dad's ancestral line. Moroccan and Moroccans have this fear of cold and my dad has raised me to fear the cold. And it's been such a journey getting into, you know, cold water therapy and just kind of going out the house without too many clothes on. And my dad will be like, why wrap up? You know, like he's always like trying to put more.

Going to get sick? Yeah, yeah. I mean, fantastically enough, you know, the cold therapy is actually pretty good for a lot of arthritic type of symptoms. You'd think that the cold would cause the joints to become stiff, but it seems to do a really good job like restoring blood flow and synovial fluid to joints and of course decreasing the inflammation that can contribute to arthritic symptoms as well. So I think cold's fantastic.

And it's funny you say that because for me it was like when I would. My, my, how I was raised to manage the illness was kind of with this mix of strength and kind of get up and go and you know you're going to be okay and you've just got to go and keep moving. And also having this amazing nurturing mother who wanted to protect me. And so every time at the beginning of my cold water journey, it was like, oh, if my knees are inflamed on that day, I'm not going to do it. And then it became, no, that's exactly when you need to do it. And it's changing that mindset around these ways of being that we've kind of been raised or conditioned into being just based on fear. None of these decisions should be made over there.

And the body's pretty good at making excuses too. You know, when you wake up and it's like, eh, I don't quite feel right. I think I should just do some easy stretching on the floor instead of going to the gym. Like, sometimes you push through the first two minutes of some of these uncomfortable activities and you realize your body was just being a little bit lazy, you know. And yeah, you want to be intuitive. You don't want to push through and over train yourself. But I think a lot of people, they baby themselves a little bit too, too much. You have to understand, like the body in its natural state kind of wants to be lazy, wants to conserve calories, wants to eat calorically rich food, you know, like ice cream. And you just have to be aware of that and, you know, kind of pass the marshmallow test. Right? Like delayed gratification for better health and feeling better. And I don't talk to many people who like, aren't happy that despite not really wanting to go to the gym or get into an ice bath or do a sauna session, having done one don't feel absolutely amazing afterwards with a big smile on their face.

Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. That's the thing. Sometimes I go, I'll treat my. I'll treat myself to a hot shower and then I don't feel good when I come home. Not a treat, but just going back to treats a minute because I have seen you say something about being consistent but also being consistent with. How is it you worded it? Indulgences or.

Oh, yeah, you know, hedonism, you know. You know, and what I mean by that is, yeah, I mean, like, I'm constantly making healthy choices for both my body and for the planet, right? So for me, like a cheat day, I'm not gonna go eat a bunch of like, you know, monocrop, you know, donuts fried in vegetable oil that's highly inflammatory and is gonna remain in my body for 90 days, made with wheat from monocropped agriculture that's destroying the surface of the planet. You know, paired with just the fact that it's a low vibrating energy food that typically doesn't leave me feeling like, you know, like, like being a very impactful person, you know, but at the same time, like, you know, on a, on a, quote, cheat day, if that's what you want to call it, you know, I'll have just like a giant rib eye steak and, you know, a nice glass of organic red wine and a, and a good bar of dark chocolate, you know, and maybe a little bit of sweet potato fries or carrot fries. And so I indulge in the good stuff. You know, I take time to dance and to play music and to sing and to enjoy all elements of God's creation. I think, you know, especially, you know, for me as a, as a Christian, a lot of people think that many Christians are like, puritanical, you know, beating people over the head with the Bible, telling people, you know, you got to live a certain way. And, and, you know, they're almost kind of, kind of boring to a certain extent. Like, I want to live and try to live just like a wild life full of seeking all the adventures that this planet has to offer. You know, bringing my family and my friends and my audience along for the ride, savoring all aspects of God's creation, being super curious about, oh, what's this new thing we can eat, or what's this new exercise, or what's this new adventure we can go on? And so, yeah, I think to a certain extent you can live a regimented lifestyle, but at the same time embrace spontaneity, embrace adventure, and embrace basically savoring creation in a sense. And one of my favorite books in the Bible, Ecclesiastes, talks about this. You know, really the very best thing we can do with our lives is to put our hands, to work with all of our might, to chop wood, to carry water, to do the hard work, and then at the very end of the day, to celebrate the blessings that result from that hard work. To eat, to drink, to be with family, to dance, to sing, to dream, and to engage in all aspects of what it means to be a truly sacred, spiritual, fully vibrating human being. Right. And, and, and, you know, it goes way beyond just like whatever, doing CrossFit and eating protein bars.

Yeah. And, and I love that. I mean, it's one of the questions I ask on my quickfire round is what do people most get wrong about you and someone? Well, a few people have asked me that, and it always comes down to people get wrong about me, that I'm not fun. So I don't think it's just, just generally people in wellness, they might think that we're just pretty rigid.

Yeah. We're funny duddies. Yeah.

My husband and I are like, more extra than most people we know. Like, we, we explore. We like, we do so many different things that people. Other people might not do because we understand the fullness available in this life. And also, I think, like, growing up being sick has been one of the biggest blessings because I'm so grateful every day. There's not a morning I wake up and I'm not grateful for not being in pain.

Yeah.

You know, so I think that's really important as well, like an important part of my journey and giving me that access to gratitude that makes me want to really live life fully.

Right, right. And let's say, you know, taking your family to the movie theater at night and disrupting your circadian rhythm and maybe even having a little bit of the popcorn. Yeah. That might suck 20 seconds off your life, but it's also going to create an amazing memory, an amazing time with the family. And so I think within balance, especially if your choices are made through the light of loving other people and loving God and loving the planet, that you can, you can kind of engage in a somewhat hedonistic lifestyle while still also being a healthy and dependable and responsible person. So, yeah, I've got a few minutes left before I got to go off to my next little walking meeting. But you mentioned lightning round. I don't know if you, if you have other questions or where you want to go.

Absolutely. So I just want to end with this, though, before we do the same. Supplements, There are so many, and I personally like to take a personalized approach to supplementation. But are there specific supplements?

Everyone should be thinking, like everybody I work with, especially if you ask me this question. You know, they get a genetic test, they get a stool test, they get a urine test, they get a blood test. You know, we look at their, their, their activity desires and their physical goals, which can sometimes, not necessarily, you know, somebody who wants to race an Ironman triathlon, you know, they're probably going to have a slightly higher amount of carbohydrates and calories and perhaps some maltodextrin and fructose during their rides. You know, things that the average healthy person might not engage in, but because that person's chosen a physically challenging activity, you know, it's not just about the health of the nutrition. It's about some other choices that need to be made. But that all being said, when it comes to supplementation, I think there's a few things that have proven or been proven over and over again, many scenarios to be healthy. A lot of people don't get a nutrient dense enough diet. They need some type of a good multivitamin Mineral complex. So I think a well formulated multivitamin, you know, there are companies like Thorne is one that I like. They do a really good multivitamin and then fish oil and creatine. Creatine for brain power, for muscle, for longevity. Fantastic. Fish oil for heart health. Both of those very safe, proven, well researched supplements. So if you're going to start anywhere, I would say, you know, eat a naturally healthy diet as close to nature as possible and throw in some fish oil, throw in some creatine, throw in a good like multivitamin mineral complex and that's, that's going to be a pretty good place to start if you're operating within a budget.

Right. And what about in terms of detox? I know you're quite big on your detoxing. Would you recommend everyone does binders and some sort of detoxing quite often?

Well, I don't live my life with this idea that you kind of let a bunch of stuff build up in your body and then every January, you know, do a 30 day detox or whatever. You know, I jump up and down trampoline every day. Like I mentioned, I sweat in a sauna, you know, three to five times a week. I do a coffee enema once a week. I'll take binders before I do that enema and follow it up with a sauna session. And I will, you know, just basically constantly be thinking about how can I move lymph fluid, how can I sweat, how can I excrete toxins through the stool, through the urine, through the sweat, through the breath? And so I think small daily choices that I let you naturally detoxify are better than doing some giant detoxification program because you've let so many metals and toxins build up in your body.

Yeah. Okay, so quick, play around. We've just gone completely the wrong way. So we're just really far from where we need to be. But never mind. Okay, so I always start with this one. Wellness is.

Wellness is loving yourself, loving other people, loving God fully.

Okay. If you could have another career, what would it be? You could try something new. Really?

It's tough. I'd either be a fiction author or I would be a singer songwriter.

Wow. Okay. A book that changed your life that everyone should read.

There's many of them, but one that comes to mind that's pretty good is called Snow Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday. I think in our busy culture more people should read a book like that. And of course, the Bible is probably the most formative book that I read and Own daily.

What makes you worried or scared? And how do you manage fear?

The main thing I get worried about is if I'm prioritizing the right thing, making the right choices, doing the right things in my business or personally, because I have so many opportunities, inevitably being someone who kind of lives my life in the limelight. And so I'm constantly asking myself that. And the way that I manage that is at the end of each day, I do a process called self examination in which I close my eyes and play my whole day like a movie in my mind. And I ask myself, what good have I done? What could I have done better? But then one question that's really important and related to this is where was I most purpose filled today? And by identifying those activities that really left me feeling like I was truly acting out my life's purpose, I'm able to prioritize and make decisions that engage in similar activities the next day.

I love that. I love the self examination. And just the very last one is, if your sons could take one thing from what you teach, what would you want it to be?

How you live your days is how you live your life. How you live your days is how you live your life. The little choices that you make each day, whether it's how you're going to care for your spirit and your soul at the beginning of the day, whether you're going to exercise, what you're going to eat, who you're going to spend time with, what activities you're going to prioritize, how much time you're going to waste on, say, social media, or how many minutes you might skip of practicing some skill, all that stuff adds up. So I always ask myself, if I lived this same day over and over again, what would it look like at the end of my life? And you ask yourself that question, you might be pleased or displeased with the answer. But constantly analyzing how you're living your day through the lens of that being how you're actually going to eventually wind up living your entire life, I think is the thing that comes to mind that I'd love for my children to have taken from me.

Amazing. I know from the talk that you did, everyone stood up because everything you spoke about was, I know people use this word inspiring, and it's kind of a bit generic, but it is the things you've speaking about that you speak about inspire people to be better. So I just think that everyone will feel like this about this interview as well. So thank you so much. And now we're absolutely getting soaked.

We are getting soaked but we made it through. We made through half the podcast. Dry him. I'm honored that you have me on and, and, and yeah, I, I just, I love this, this city and parks like this you go to walk, meet new people. So, so thanks for doing what you're doing and keep up the great work.

Lauren, thank you so much.

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode.

Today and if you liked it or.

If you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.