Mike Feldstein: The 5 Hidden Air Pollutants in Your Home and How To Fix It! | TUH #290

We've optimized for our heating and cooling bill at a huge expense to our health.

The way that we build homes now, they're very efficient for heating and cooling and UVA/UVB radiation coming through the windows. But I imagine that that impacts air quality.

But indoor air is a really big problem because of how tight homes are built. Let your home breathe. Your home needs to breathe just like you do.

Air, water, and lighting are things I think people don't realize the impact on our physiology.

You know, you can't heal in the place that made you sick.

When a fish gets sick, we clean the tank. When humans get sick, we never think about the tank that they're in. Your home can really be a place for you to detox and heal.

It can go from the place that makes you sick to your healing sanctuary.

Let's give them some tips for things that they could do if they don't have the wherewithal to invest in a filter to like improve their air quality.

The thing is, the greatest air filter of all time is called—

Hey guys, welcome back to The Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecka, where we go down the road of everything anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today is going to be one of those incredible podcasts because this is an area of real interest of mine. And I saw this guest on Skinny Confidential, um, I don't know if it was first appearance or a second appearance, and it just blew my mind because I really love the biohacks that you implement in your life and then you can just ignore. They don't add one single minute to your day. So today is all about air quality, the importance of air quality, how to get better air quality, tips and tricks on how to do it for nothing, and tips and tricks on how to do it if you have some money to invest, disposable income to invest in your, in your air quality. So welcome to the podcast, Michael.

Thanks for having me.

Michael Feldstein.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm super excited to have you. You know, I was watching the you on Skinny Confidential. And, you know, I found your background as fascinating as what you're doing now because you used to be in like disaster remediation, right? So talk a little bit about the kind of transition from disaster remediation to how you got into the air quality business.

Yeah. So it started— I was doing flood, fire, hurricane cleanup. So I was kind of like a— and huge, huge, huge toxic mold, which lately must have been very good business.

First of all, it's good business in Florida.

It was good business, but I call it sad money. Yeah, it was sad money because, you know, let's just say California— people just look at the homes that were burnt down and they don't realize all the homes that weren't burnt down are actually in a worse position because insurance often does nothing for them. They tell them to go back home and their homes are deeply, deeply contaminated. So my specialty, we were doing floods, we were doing big hotels and apartments and homes from huge mold events like built entire buildings and neighborhoods. Wow. But the wildfire smoke was kind of my— an area of expertise because I was living in Canada at the time. The biggest fire in Canadian history was in 2016, the Fort McMurray wildfire.

Okay.

Which was also where there's oil sands. So the air was already horrible there. And so, yeah, in Fort McMurray, that was the air aha moment for me that was like, this is a really big problem.

Mm-hmm.

So when you would go to clean up a home after wildfire smoke, you know, you clean the surfaces and you clean the air, right? And a lot of people are cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, scrubbing surfaces all the time, kind of like your fishbowl analogy. But instead of the drug, the fish, it's like you have a swimming pool. You don't scrub the sides of the pool, you filter the water, right? So the, the air is the water for you. What water is to fish, air is to people, right? And So we'd go into homes, oft— almost always they would be evacuated from the home. So Fort McMurray was this big moment where I realized, whoa, what are we doing here, guys? We'd go into a home. First thing you do is you set up the air scrubbers. Then you start to rip out carpets, insulation, furniture, anything that's porous. You're getting rid of hard sealed surfaces. Depending on the value, we would clean them, restore them. We're removing insulation, we're painting entire homes, we're encapsulating everything. Like top to bottom remodels. And there was one family in particular that was— there was a lot of families like this, but we would, we'd fully remediate their home. Then we would test the air quality and then we would give them the thumbs up. You're safe to call the insurance company.

Air is clean.

Air is clean. Home's good. You're ready to move back home. Well, what was starting to happen is we got— we'd get a call. Hey, our baby's in the hospital. It's been a week. Baby's in the hospital. We go back to the house, test the air. It's contaminated again heavily. So what we now know is after big regional wildfires, the air quality can be contaminated for 6 to 12 months after the fire, sometimes more. It's in the soil, it's in the water. And then when your neighbors are doing their demolition and their construction, they're constantly kicking that back up.

Yeah.

So they're contaminating the home. And I'm like, I called the insurance company. I'm like, hey guys, we have a problem. Tanya and her family, they got this baby. Baby's in the hospital. They need to move back out to a hotel. They need to get out of town, and we need to wait till the ambient air is clean. And insurance basically said, no way, Jose.

Yeah, yeah, we already paid the check.

Check's on the way. They signed the liability waiver. Like, not happening.

Yeah.

And I'm like, whoa, we have a problem here because we have a responsibility to this family to keep this home clean and safe. And we were getting more and more calls like this. They were coming home, they were getting rashes, they were getting skin stuff., you know, babies on nebulizers. Like, their, their health was not doing good. So I'm like, what are we going to do about this? We came back and we put 4 air scrubbers in the home, and then we waited 3 hours. We retested the air, and the air was fine. So I'm like, okay, we can't— insurance is not going to let them come back, but let's at least put the scrubbers in the home and wait a couple months until they let— so they can live. Noise is reasonable. You know, the city is still very contaminated. Let's scrub the air until the ambient air outside is good., then we can pull the scrubbers out. This kept happening. Well, now we had no equipment to do more jobs. So I'm like, let's— what if we go to Best Buy, Walmart? I just buy 6 or 7 air purifiers.

Yeah.

Put them in the home and let them keep them because we need the scrubbers for work.

Right.

We put the air purifiers in. We're monitoring the air. 4 hours later, the air is horrible again. Wow. And this was my big moment. I knew nothing at the time. This is 2016. I knew nothing about residential air purifiers. I only knew about scrubbers. Scrubber basically is a big industrial air purifier designed for mold, smoke, asbestos, lead, crime scene cleanup, heavy duty. But they're loud and they're ugly. So great for restoration, but not appropriate for residential application. Right now you have noise pollution and that's not going to work. So I'm like, oh wow, this is a really big problem. These air purifiers on the shelves are making big claims. So I was like, wait, when this restoration, when this fire is done, I'm like, we need to create an air scrubber that is actually quiet and is beautiful. Because I remember I was at another lady's home, Angela. We left the scrubbers there. Her baby was having challenges too. I went back to test the air after a week and she unplugged two of them. I'm like, Angela, she was like, they're too ugly, they're too loud, they're too ugly. I have friends over. I can't leave these in my house.

Yeah.

So I was like, this is a big problem. People are having to make a choice between ineffective or really effective and loud and ugly. So after about 10 years doing air testing, air consulting, mold cleanup, fires, flood. I'm like, this is sad money because we're cleaning up homes and then the next time there's a fire, they're being recontaminated. And I'll mention that when I got home, I started using all my fancy gadgets, same ones I used here, by the way. Gary has great air. I had great air.

I was so happy when he tested my air. He's like, you have really good air here.

Top 5 air and no sense.

Top 5 air.

And I've tested thousands and thousands of homes. Thank you. And so, yeah, it really was— it was a really natural progression. But originally I thought we were just going to create a machine specifically for wildfires, cuz I'm like, when California's on fire, it's like when there's a power outage, the generators are sold out in 5 minutes. So I'm like, what if we just focused on fires? So originally I was like, we need something really solid for wildfires. Then COVID happened. First I was living in Ontario, Canada, and they mandated every dentist in Ontario needed an air purifier in every room to go back to business. And based on the airflow, would determine the time between patients. It's a British term called fallow time, which is the minutes between patients for a dentist to see the next patient. So if they had a little air purifier, they were 45 minutes between patients. If they had a Jasper, they were 8 minutes between patients because we had the airflow that they were required.

Ah, okay. It's the volume of air that this thing would move, right?

So you take the ceiling— people think air filtration is about square footage. It's not. It's about cubic volume. Because if you have 8-foot ceilings versus 16-foot ceilings, the volume is dramatically different. So Restoration was where I was starting, but I felt helpless and I felt like we could only restore 10, 20 homes in a season. Yeah, this is a way bigger problem. I started testing friends and family's homes and I'm realizing everyone's VOCs are high. Everyone's mold spores are high.

Except for mine.

Except for yours. Okay. Everyone being a rule, but there are exceptions to the rule. But generally people's indoor air is bad. People's water is bad. We've realized that you can't just drink tap water. You got to do something about it. So I just If you told me 15 years ago I was going to be in the airspace, I would have been shocked. But yeah, it was, it was the heavy-duty restoration, seeing the most critical stuff that made me realize this big problem. And I learned, I learned a lot doing it. Kind of relates to your stuff, how you were in insurance.

Yeah.

And you realize what's going on and you're like, wait, maybe I can move to the optimal and the abundant and the optimistic side and try to help people be their healthiest self instead of just predicting death.

But, you know, I, I was— the wildfires, the recent wildfires in California, I took a great interest in because I was following, like, some of those air quality indexes, which is the outdoor air, um, but also reading some of the, the studies that were coming out of these indoor air quality tests. And I think what a lot of people didn't realize is when, when a home burns, you know, everything in that home is burning. So, I mean, it's plastic, it's fabrics, it's carpets, paint. Um, and even if you don't have, let's say, lead-based paints or asbestos that's going up, you know, if you, if you want to take a compound, any compound, and turn it into a bioweapon, you vaporize it. You know, I mean, that's what we do. I mean, arsenic, uh, you know, sitting on the table is harmless. You vaporize it and it's a deadly, deadly poison. And so these, it's, you know, it's the same with like municipal water. When you, when you're in a steam room, you take a you know, take the municipal water in, it's got fluoride and it's got chlorine, but then you have fluoride gas and chlorine gas. And, um, so it was some of the most toxic air in the world. I mean, there— I think there are a lot of poor air quality cities, like, you know, um, the Middle East is known for poor air quality, not because of pollution, but because of the particulate matter from like sandstorms and whatnot. So, um, do, do these filters address those those VOCs and those polyfluoroalkyls and all of those other contaminants that are in the air that are, that are not particulate matter?

They do. That's what the, that's what the activated carbon is for. And it's really a dance. A lot of people think more carbon is better and they're competing on more carbon, but you need to find the sweet spot. We found about 1 pound to be the sweet spot because if you go higher on the filter efficiency and the carbon, what happens is the airflow drops. So then it's like, would you rather have 95, 99% of a dollar or 95% of $5? Yeah. So you really want to balance that airflow. So the, the HEPA, the media that's grabbing your particulates, your mold, your dust, that's micron size. Yep.

Yeah.

Particulate.

Okay.

And then the activated carbon absorbs the gases and the odors as they're coming through.

Now, does that have a lifecycle too? Because we— I use activated charcoal a lot in, in my detox protocols, you know, for like mold, mycotoxins. Things. So, so that activated charcoal has a lifespan for how much it can absorb.

Yeah. So with HEPA, the filter actually after about a month performs better than the first day because a little bit of particulate on there is, is actually better. It's plugging up a little bit of the spores, pores, giving the more resistance, which is effective. But then you hit a point of diminishing returns where the airflow is dropping. The carbon drops off like a cliff. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. It's nonexistent. Wow. So yeah, if people are having like in a new home, brand new homes where the VOCs are super high, new home smell, really a big problem. But about 6 months is when we find that the carbon is dropping off like a cliff.

So you replace the filter every 6 months, you get a Jasper and then you put a new—

correct—

carbon filter.

And we're moving— we're going to be upgrading to coconut carbon this year and hoping that we can actually extend the filter lifespan a little bit.

So what is that, coconut shell?

Yeah, they take the coconut shell and then, you know, they process it, but it's using old shells. And if we can use old recycled shells from Mexico and Costa Rica.

Yeah.

Because they're being— they're not being really effectively recycled right now. So yeah, it'd be the coconut shell. That's what is way better. The cost is a little bit higher for us, but if the lifespan is better, it's better than using wood and charcoal and carbon. Coconut is definitely the way to go. So we're moving in that direction.

You know, I I sort of classify biohacking into two categories. There's like active biohacking and passive biohacking. So passive, I would put, you know, water filtration, mattress, the mattress that you're sleeping on, air filtration, lighting, lighting, these things that once you invest in them, then usually the investment's over. There's some minimal investment thereafter, but that doesn't add a minute to your day. You know, if you buy a hyperbaric, you got to find 60 to 90 minutes in your day to, you know, you gotta find a hole. If you have a red light bed, you gotta find 20 minutes for that. You gotta find 20 minutes for a sauna. So eventually you just don't have the time to do that. But, you know, air, water, and lighting are things I think people don't realize the impact on our physiology. And once you install those things in your home, and I realize that there's a cost to that, but once you install those things in your home, uh, You know, it's not something that you have to find time to do. And, you know, I— it sounds like fearmongering, but, you know, I think what we're all trying to do is, is just get people around the current system, you know. I mean, and I'm sure you know more about this than I do, but, you know, the way that we build homes now for R-factor, you know, they're very efficient for heating and cooling and for R-factor and UVA, UVB radiation coming through the windows. But I imagine that that impacts air quality.

Yeah. Your home is like a Tupperware container right now. So since the 1970s, energy crisis started to happen and they started, you know, prices were going up at the pumps and they said, hey, let's make homes as thermally efficient as possible, right? This way we can keep, you know, keep, keep it cool in the, in the summer, keep it warm in the winter. We got to make these homes as tight as possible somehow. They slept on air, right? They slept on air. And now— and then they weren't looking at the materials that were being used. So they're using all kinds of insulations and off-gassing materials. And people don't realize this— supply chains are very efficient. So when you're building a new home and you're getting a new couch and a new rug that was manufactured 6 weeks ago, right? And the day that it was done, it was wrapped up, put in a box, shipped to a distribution center, and then it was at your house a week later. It wasn't sitting— they don't off-gas it.

Yeah.

So the actual off-gassing happens in your home, which, by the way, I'll keep talking about the homes. But if anyone does buy new furniture and they have an opportunity to put it in the garage or put it on a patio or put it outside or open the windows in that room and let it breathe for a week or so before you put it in your home, that would be really helpful.

Yeah.

So, yeah, homes are built really, really tight and they completely were neglecting the air quality. So, you know, 400 to 500 is kind of your ambient outdoor carbon dioxide. As it gets over 1,000-ish, that's when we start to have a little bit of diminishing returns. Hmm. I've seen a lot of CO2 in homes when you have 10-person dinner parties hit 2,000, 3,000+. No. Oh, yeah.

So even though they are circulating, it's circulating the gas. It's not replacing the gas. It's just circulating the air, changing the temperature of the air.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So, and then, like, I remember my parents had a dinner party, maybe 20 people at their home, 3,500-square-foot home. The CO2 stayed high for 4 days.

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So any time if you're ever like at a place, if you're ever— if you're hosting a party and you see people are leaving early, crack the windows in the door and people will stay. People don't even know why they're leaving. They just feel anxious, uncomfortable. They need to go.

Yeah.

Like if you pay attention when you go from indoor to outside, that first breath that you take.

Oh, oh yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

And it's like, guys, that's not magic air. That's the regular air, maybe partially, partly polluted.

Right.

But indoor air is a really big problem because of how tight homes are built. So yeah, we really looked for energy efficiency now. There's a way to build. This is what I'm trying to make a big difference in. You can build a really great energy-efficient home that also has very clean air and keeps your CO2 down. So there's products called HRVs and ERVs.

HRVs and ERVs.

Energy recovery ventilator and a heat recovery ventilator.

And these bolt on to your HVAC system.

They do, basically. And you can— the best of all is you have a really tight home, but you have an ERV or an HRV, so it acts like a fresh air intake, but it has a ceramic like a ceramic coil in there. So while it's bringing in the outdoor and indoor air, it's, it's getting— it's a heat exchanger. So you're not losing the heat in the cool. So you're not having an energy efficiency drop, but your home's still breathing. And then you can filter at the point of intake. So when your home's— the way that way, because where is the air coming in now? It's coming in through your doors, your windows, your attics, the cracks, the walls, all that stuff. Right. But yeah, it's a really— that's why people think old homes are moldy homes.

Yeah.

When I was doing air quality testing, about a third of our business was people who moved into brand new builder-grade homes and they were sick immediately. Wow. Because of all the VOCs from the off-gassing.

Yeah. Whereas the older homes were actually breathing, they were leaking because they were, they were less efficient, but they had more air circulation.

Yeah. So we've optimized for our heating and cooling bill at a huge expense to our health.

Yeah. You know, it's a, it's a problem here in Miami is I think Dr. Minkoff told me this, the mold capital of the world. I believe that because we had a functional medicine clinic here for years and we saw tons of mold, um, and, uh, mold and mycotoxin, fungal, fungal poisoning. And, and the thing about mold is you, you will never, um, remediate the mold in the body unless you remediate the mold in the home. And I think a lot of people are expecting that really strong sort of damp mold smell, but very often you, you you don't smell it. I mean, you, you can smell it, but usually when you smell it, those are live spores. Yeah. Um, and that's when it's probably really, really bad. But I mean, it can sit back there on the drywall in that vapor barrier, and it can sporulate for, for years. And, and, you know, in a lot of people, it doesn't cause the kind of symptoms that drive you to the ER or make you go to the emergency room, um, you know, or to the urgent care. It's like brain fog, uh, poor focus, you know, poor concentration, um, just lack of energy, you know, a little bit of mood numbness, things that people would attribute to their environment other than their air quality. It's like, well, I'm just stressed out, and, you know, the kid's schedule is so busy, or, you know, I've got a lot going on at work. And the truth is, very often it's just related to the air quality in your home.

So like when I was testing mold, you, you test inside and you test outside. The outdoor sample is called the control sample. Always test the outdoor air when you're testing the indoor air. After a rainy day, the mold spores are in the millions for a few days, and you're actually not supposed to test indoor air if it's rained within 48 hours. I've never heard of an air testing company who actually follows that. Yeah, I've never heard that. It'd be a really bad business. The customer's not going to pay you to not come. Yeah, you schedule that, you're paying your guys. But a lot of times people are. And now because of what they called— they started to call it the mold rush in 2010, but now it's really the mold rush. Really?

Yeah, it really is.

But it's a renewable resource. Course. And, and what happened is a lot of contractors realize it's $1,000 to remove drywall and it's $10,000 if there's an inch of mold. So let's do mold remediation instead. So you've got this huge influx of people. And then a lot of functional medicine docs are like, our phones are blowing up off the hooks, people want to do mold detox. So they take a 2-day course.

Yeah.

Who's teaching the course? The mold guy.

Right.

Who's taking leads.

Yeah.

And it's a really big problem because first of all, like, when it's a humid day The thing is, the greatest air filter of all time is called nature.

Yeah.

God's air purifier.

Oh yeah.

Sun, wind, rain.

It's probably why I feel so good in Colorado, man. I talk about it all the time, but you do. Like, I have this little, about a 3.5 or 4-mile loop outside of our place in the mountains, and it's just through the woods. Nothing makes me feel better than putting on a rucksack and going for this, this hike in the, in the mountains. My red light bed, nothing. All the fancy equipment that I have here in Miami, nothing makes me feel better than, you know, in, uh, you know, Chinese medicine they call it forest bathing. Um, and, and they actually used to prescribe— I think they still do, you know, forest bathing. And, you know, so going out and just getting in the fresh air.

Also, the negative ions are super high. And I actually have tested the carbon dioxide on Vancouver Island in the rainforest, and it was 360. Oh my gosh, the outdoor ambient CO2 is like— can you get it lower if you're in the middle of the rainforest? Yeah, it's lower.

Wow.

So you got that, you got clean air, you got the negative ions, you got the sun, um, and mold. Like, if we go outside right now and we test, there's mold everywhere outside, but it's not a problem outside. Mold doesn't grow outside. The problem is it's like the, the little sandwich— there's only— mold only grows on the bread when you put it in the Tupperware, right? When you have the sun shining on it and with the— with good airflow, Mold is not a problem, right? So when people's indoor environments are sealed tight and they have no sun exposure, what happens to people when they don't have sun?

Yeah.

And I think what happens is the mold— the mold is pretty pissed off. It was doing fine outside. Yeah. And then you trapped it indoors and it's just trying to survive. Yeah. So it's replicating, it's multiplying, it's sending out its mycotoxins to try to, you know, grow. And your body ends up becoming the host.

Yeah.

So because of the way we built and we trap ourselves inside, And going back to mold testing, almost every type of mold test is either designed for a false positive or a false negative, which most people don't realize. So, you know, you go to the functional medicine doc, they say take a urine test. You're like, I've got the mold, right? Unless you're like detoxing a lot. Everybody's got levels of heavy metals and mold.

That's true.

So it's a perfect storm. And you go to the functional medicine doc, you know, they took a 2-day course on mold, which, by the way, mold remediation course is also a 2-day course. So your trusted mold technician gets a 2-day course often. Wow. 2-day course. So it's not like they went to school or anything for this. It's a hazardous cleanup. But to become a mold remediation tech is 2 days. Wow. And you learn nothing there. It's all like ancient stuff. You learn as much as a doctor learns about nutrition.

Oh, man.

So you, you have people that are certified that know nothing. They come in and like the restoration guys love the false positives. And the insurance company loves the false negatives. But the naturopaths don't realize, but they're using like ERMI, for example. You're all— if you're— ERMI is like historical. So you're looking at the dust often in the HVAC system or like taking a dust sample. So it's almost always false positive. It doesn't mean that's what's in the air today. It means it rained last week and there was mold at some point. So it's collected in your dust. Right. And then that test is designed to be very alarmist. So this is where it's really nuanced because when you have a mold rush, it's like all the crypto guys. When there's a big opportunity, a lot of experts come in really fast and then you have— so the best thing is to do, you know, you want to test— there's 3 or 4 different mold tests you want to do. But ultimately, everyone I know who's done mold consulting for a while, you know, in a home in your first 2 minutes if it's moldy or not. Yeah, the test only confirms what you already know. It's helpful for the homeowner to get the baseline and the before and the after. And like you said, You know, you can't heal in the place that made you sick.

Yeah, that's so true, man.

That's, that's, that's the number one rule of, of mold detox is to get people are doing supplements but they're still sleeping and they're doing this huge detox protocol. Yeah, in the moldy bedroom. I'm like, guys, what are we doing here?

Yeah, yeah, you're retoxing, detoxing, retoxing, detoxing. And, and, you know, so if you're in that environment, that's, that's, that's the number one thing is to get, get yourself out of that environment. It's the whole reason why I don't want to turn this into a commercial for my mattresses, but it's why I launched the Ultimate Snooze, because I realized we're spending a third life on our mattress. And, you know, when I did one of these detox challenges, I saw so many, uh, urine samples that had these like silicone glues and flame retardants and these accelerants, including my wife's urine and my urine, which really freaked me out.

It's another passive biohack if you think about it.

Yeah, I had jet fuel get in my urine. I was like, that's weird. I mean, what's got jet fuel in it that I'm like drinking or breathing? Um, but, um, you know, the mold remediation is important. But, you know, I've heard you also talk about how Um, you know, your air filtration system is only going to get you so far because number one, it's not constantly recirculating the air.

You mean like HVAC-wise?

HVAC-wise, you know, so it's not on, it's not constant on. Um, and then secondly, it's, it's recirculating the, the same air, and some of these filters are not specific to getting down to mold spores and smaller particulate matter. And it has a demonstrative impact not just on how you sleep um, but your cognitive function, you know, overall, you know, whether or not, you know, your level of brain fog, your, your, your processing speed, your short-term recall. Um, one of the stats I found fascinating that you quoted, and I don't want to misquote it, um, was putting air filtration into, um, public schools and seeing the, um, attendance rates. Yeah. Go up by 30%.

And, you know, I want to be—

or the absentee rates go down by 30%.

Yes, I guess that's the same.

Okay.

So, so yeah, I guess it is. And if they were optimizing for carbon dioxide, it would have been even better. So like a few baseline studies, when you talk about cognitive performance, they have taken air quality, whether it's CO2 particulate, and they do it in— I've seen it with chess players, grandmasters in chess. And they see how much is their next move game theory optimal. And the air quality was directly correlated to the quality of their move. So even with high performance, like brain athletes, another big one is SAT scores. So the test score is completely correlated to the air quality. It makes sense.

Wow.

Well, think about it.

If we think about what you just don't— you know, it's like plain as the nose on your face kind of thing where you, you know, when you say it, it makes sense.

Air quality is like getting hit in the head by a 2x4. When you realize that it's a duh moment.

Yeah.

So with the school, the study was done in Finland. They put air purifiers, and I don't even think super impressive ones, but decent ones into 50% of the classes across a handful of schools. And the absentee rates dropped by 20 to 30%, depending on where.

Yeah, yeah, right.

They crushed it.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that's that, that whether it's the SAT scores or the chess players and the list goes on and on and on. Another one was like based on the the level of PM2.5 and the inflammation in your body and your airways. A small amount. But when your airways are more inflamed, you get less oxygen. You're not running as efficiently.

Yeah. You know, I notice that sometimes when I travel and stay in certain hotels, I will get phlegmy and slightly congested. I don't feel terrible. Sleep scores are still good, but I can tell that something in the air quality and, you know, hotels are infamous like we were talking about earlier for shutting off the HVAC in the rooms between guests.

So yeah, you save a few pennies, but you remediate your whole hotel for mold and you're knocking them down.

Exactly. So now, you know, you know, the room— and you can tell those rooms where, um, you walk in and the AC's been off for days and they just turned the AC on and the air actually feels— you can feel the moisture in, in the air. Sometimes you can even smell the mold in the air. And, you know, you turn the AC unit on and then that smell kind of goes away and you get used to it. Or maybe it's just because you're getting used to it, um, you know. So I think, I think it's a bigger problem than, um, than most of us realize. And again, it's one of those aha moments I always talk about. When a fish gets sick, we clean the tank. Um, when humans get sick, we never think about the tank that they're in, you know. We really don't treat the environment. And physicians don't ever ask you about the environment that you're in, you know. Is there mold in your home? What kind of water are you drinking? Kind of mattress you sleeping on. They don't think about these— this constant toxic, toxic load. And it may not just be the air quality. I mean, there's a whole thing. Your toxic bucket just is getting filled up with, you know, um, and different assailants. And then eventually something happens— autoimmune, you get sick, you get repeated viral attacks, you get repeated sore throats, whatever it is. And a lot, a lot of these repeated sore throats are directly attributable to mold, especially in children. We found this in our own daughter. We have, um, So I have, I have 3 kids and I have, um, uh, one that I share with my wife Sage. Um, my youngest, Delina, and she, when she was 16, 15, 16, she just started getting all of a sudden out of nowhere just repeated, um, sore throats, like 3, 4 strep infections a year. And I was very anti-wiping it out with antibiotics every time because I knew we were just going to buy a problem for ourselves down the road.. And what I realized, and I would really give this message to parents that are listening, um, was the vast majority of these kids have mold toxicity. It's perfectly— it just lays back there in the adenoids. It's dormant sometimes, sporulates. If there's any streptococcal bacteria, it pisses that bacteria off and it flames up.

Um, especially if when they have a stress, like a stressful event. Yeah, it seems like it really triggers it.

Yep.

Like, I would be testing people's homes. There's family of 5. One doesn't notice it. One is completely itchy skin and red eyes and trouble breathing, and 2 of them are mildly impacted.

Yeah.

Like, really, I feel like mold is really an allergen and people are more allergic to it. Yeah. And then the amount of stress that you're going through really kicks it up. And like, I think the hotel probably doesn't impact you as much as others because of all the stuff you're doing all the time. Right. Whereas for enough people, if that stress bucket was already almost full, a couple nights in that big exposure puts them over the edge. Yeah.

So, so back to the Jasper filter for a minute. Sure. So in an ideal situation for, you know, the best air quality, is this something that you would put one in the biggest area of your home, or would you put them in kids' rooms, your bedroom, and one in the biggest area of your home? How much air does one of these things move?

So by far the most important place to put it is your bedroom.

Yeah. And that is a third of your life in there.

So bedroom for sure. Get the good bed, get good sheets, get a good pillow. And sleep is funny because sleep is only as good as the weakest link. You know, if you have the greatest bed ever but it's hot, you ain't sleeping. If it's loud, you're not sleeping. Like, when it comes to your— I call the bedroom the sleep sanctuary.

Yeah.

And the average person nowadays has a million-dollar home and a $1,000 bed.

I know, maybe get a third of your life, get a $950,000 home.

And spend $50,000 optimizing all your bedrooms, what's the point of a home, guys?

So yeah, it should heal you. You know, your home can really be a place for you to detox and, and heal.

It can go from the place that makes you sick to your healing sanctuary.

Yeah.

So if you think about it, the first one needs to go in your bedroom for sure.

Yeah.

If you— the number one way you pollute your home, though, is cooking by far. So if someone's cooking frequently, Having one in the main room is also a no-brainer. Yeah, but bedroom first, because if we can dial in that third of our life, yeah, it's going to pay dividends and compound like incredibly.

Right.

Then you move into the— then you move into the kitchen and living room area. Also depends where you spend your time. If someone has a home office and they're spending a third of their life there, then that's another really good place to optimize for.

But everybody gathers in the kitchen. And I think, you know, we think that ventilation over the stove is, is, is enough, but probably not for those— that particular matter. And when you're— and when you're cooking, you're creating a lot of these VOCs too, right? So I've been working out with my son lately, trying to keep up with him and his HIROX competitive athletes, and I've been starting to use this Perfect Amino pre-workout. I really like it. It's got BH4, it improves nitric oxide output, but it actually seems to stay after the workout and not crash. There's no stimulants, so no caffeine, no maolong, nothing that gives you that kind of amped feeling. You just feel like you're maybe better able to move during the workout, like you have better blood flow. So if you're in the market for a pre-workout, check out the Perfect Amino pre-workout. It's my favorite now. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

And well, the interesting thing about cooking— so more than 50% of range hoods do almost nothing. So, well, we'll weave some free tips in here because this is what it's all about.

Yeah, yeah. Let's give them some tips for things that they could do if they didn't— if they don't have the wherewithal to invest in a filter. And even if you do, their air quality—

you want to do— but you want to do it all. Okay. But the free stuff that you could do tonight is a really big deal. So if you cook a lot or if you cook at all at home, number one, let's make sure your range hood's working. And I'll use the word range hood and vent interchangeably. It's the thing above your stove that's supposed to evacuate the air from your house.

Right.

So number one, take a Kleenex, take a paper towel, turn it on, and make sure it's actually sucking it up.

Okay.

Often you'll see it's blowing it down or it's not pulling at all.

Wow.

If it's not pulling it from your hand and holding it there, It's not—

it's been a few years before you— if you— since you've cleaned that thing too, you wouldn't imagine the amount of grease that's stuck up in those.

Yeah, clean that thing regularly, like at least once a year. Um, then if we know that it's pulling air, let's find out where it's venting to. You'd be shocked how often it's just venting into the cabinet right above. Right above, you open that little cabinet above and the vent's just there wide open.

So your, your GC just ran it into there.

Yeah, especially apartments. Wow. Often it's venting into your attic.

Yeah.

So imagine you're steaming and boiling your veggies and you're cooking and you're vaporizing water and then you're just dumping it into your attic. Why do you think you get mold in your attic?

Yeah.

Especially when the attic doesn't breathe. So ideally that range hood should be pulling air. It should be venting it outside.

Okay.

So cooking, not only does it create a lot of particulate and stuff, but also creates PAH, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. When I would test homes after wildfires, PAH, hexavalent chromium are two of the main things that we would test for. And until those were nonexistent, a home wasn't cleared.

And those are carcinogens. And those are, those are, those are byproducts of like, you know, coming in contact with very high heat.

Those are—

yeah, that's, that's, that's denaturization from very high heat.

So you could have the— you could have the best pan and the best oils and high-quality butters and a great grass-fed, grass-finished steak, but you're still going to create the PAH. So you need to be venting that out of your home. And if you go into a home and it smells like food everywhere, yeah, it dissipates. Where do you think it really is going? It goes into your carpets, into your clothes, into your walls, into your bedding. So that pH is getting absorbed into your pillow and then you're sleeping on it. The good news is this is an easy thing. This is a low-hanging fruit, right? Get that range hood working. It's also an area that's very worth investing in.

Yeah.

Eventually I would like to make a new, better range hood. It'll be a while. How, how silly that your range hood still has to be manually turned on and off.

Yeah.

Why is there not a sensor? And then when you have these great vents, if your CO2 is high, let's use all the existing fans in the home to help the home breathe and exhaust. Yeah, just a no-brainer. So cooking, let's get that range hood going. Number 2, bathroom fans. Everything I said about the range hood applies the exact same to the bathroom fan. Take the tissue, hold it up. You might be surprised it's not working. If it's caked in dust, Clean it, open it, clean it, check where it vents. So you're taking that shower and if you look how much water your towel can absorb, it's, it's a lot. It can be a gallon of water plus the water pooled up in the shower. And then it's going— even if your bathroom fan's running, it's going into the attic, which often is not ventilating. So you really want to make sure those bathroom fans are venting outside. If they're going into the attic, then you want to make sure that the attic is breathing properly. Otherwise, you're taking the cooking particulate, the steam, the showers, you're dumping it in the attic, then you get a whole bunch of mold growing in there, which is the least bad place to have mold.

Right.

But it's still backdrafts and it can still create a problem and it can still grow downwards. So we need those bathroom fans working. And people think bathroom fans are for the poop particles. Yeah, they're for the shower, they're for the moisture, they're for the humidity.

Right.

So if you have a family of 5 and there's 5 showers happening a day, you're talking gallons and gallons of water just dumping into your home every day, potentially unfiltered water. So you want to be getting that stuff out of the home. Obviously, minimal carpets, minimal rugs. If you are using carpets, getting a really good HEPA vacuum— and I don't mean like the Dyson, for example. There's a really— the mold vacuum that I used to use for mold and asbestos, it was called the GD930.

That sounds serious.

It's very serious. They're only—

sounds like a front-end loader.

They're only $500, $600 now.

Really?

And they're on Amazon.

What is the difference? Is it the suction power?

Suction power is incredible, but it's a real mechanical filter with a big HEPA bag. Even in mold restoration, this would last us months. For residential use, you'll probably never have to change the filter ever.

Wow.

And this should be your—

it's not your daily driver, but you can't get these things at like Walmart or Target.

Amazon has them now.

Amazon has Euroclean.

No, first, what is it called? GD930.

GD930.

So that is like your deep clean vacuum.

Okay.

And I really recommend that every family, part of your New Year's resolution and you're, you know, you're getting ready for the holidays, having a family-wide detox deep clean party one day.

That sounds like something my family would do for sure.

Put on good music, take the dishes out, take the— move the dresser, move the bed, have some like rotated out. Yeah, once a year, a deep clean. This is a good time to get your ducts cleaned, get your carpets steam cleaned, and do a deep clean of your house. Do the range hood, do the bathroom fans. Once a year is fine. So Big deep clean party. Why not? Yeah, it's just, it's just a low stakes, you know, because last thing we want to do is create daily, weekly, or monthly habits.

Dude, when you pull that bed out from the wall too, there's some nasty business going on back there. I mean, and yeah, as clean as my house is too, um, uh, we just recently renovated and put, put new, new furniture in the house. And you know, I'm a psycho about— you tested my air quality, um, about the air, the cleaning products we use in here, everything. But man, both bed out from the wall and behind that headboard was—

it's like the one place where the cleaning isn't happening.

Yeah, it was pretty, pretty bad.

Um, so those are big ones. Obviously, you know, you want to mitigate the source, so using better cleaning products and using better oils and all that good stuff, but really getting the ventilation dialed in. And then, oh, as much as there is outdoor pollution, outdoor air is typically— indoor air is typically 5 to 10 times dirtier than outdoor air.

I've heard that from so many sources.

It's very consistent. Yeah, it's very— not here. It's very consistent though. And if you think about it, your indoor air, like people think of their home air as like this insulated thing. When I test 99% of homes, there's more pollen in your bed than there is outside, even on a high pollen day, because your home is not— it's not— where do you think the air inside is coming from? Comes from outside, right? So that pollen is just staying inside and getting trapped. So open— if you're cooking, this is a great time to open your windows. So if your range hood isn't working good and your bathroom fan isn't working good, let your home breathe.

Yeah.

And you know, the loud range hood vent can be quite annoying, but opening a couple windows, get that cross ventilation going. Your home needs to breathe just like you do.

You always feel so much better when that happens too.

Of course.

I mean, one of the nice things about Miami, we have dinner parties sometimes in the winter, and I'm always— I open the whole one side of the home, and it's just a different environment when you, when you do that and let fresh air.

And so fresh air, range hood, bathroom fans, once a year family clean party, you know, keep the shoes outside or have a separate pair of indoor shoes and slippers.

I got a pair of my—

if 95%—

big on that.

95% of shoes tested have fecal matter on them, AKA poop. Uh, we're good here. Um, okay. So, and then what do you think it is for glyphosate? It's going to be the same. Yeah, you're walking around on— just because you're not using Roundup, you're walking around on public grounds all the time.

Yeah.

Dog poop, that dog poop and glyphosate is on your shoes. Then you come inside, you're walking on your carpets, you're walking on your floor, then baby's crawling around, and then it's constantly getting aerosolized. So you want to be cleaning your air, but you want to stop things at the source level if you can.

Yeah.

And like, water is an obvious thing. If people realize it, only in the last 10 years did drinking filtered water become like kind of a thing, table stakes. Everybody grew up, you know, drinking from the hose.

Yeah.

And then you think, I did too.

We survived.

Yeah, me too. Yeah. Um, they probably still are.

God only knows what was in the municipal water in the '80s when I was drinking it out of my— well, we lived on a farm, so at least we had well water.

So, and if you drink the hose water, you're like, kind of tasted a little plasticky.

It did.

You could taste it right now just thinking about it. Yeah, you got that memory.

Tasted super metallic. Like, I could actually taste copper.

Or like the school or the park water fountains.

Yeah.

Occasionally I go around and test water fountains at parks. Oh, and like the lead's off the charts. Really?

Off the charts. Just because the pipes.

Yep.

Yeah.

So like we all realize, and once you start drinking filtered water, now you learn to trust your senses more and you can taste what tap water tastes like.

So true.

Versus filtered water. So the cool thing is what's really exciting here is ignorance is not bliss. What happens is I always tell people there's the one— the worst part, there's one bad thing about really cleaning your air. You may become an air snob. All of a sudden you go to people's homes.

Yeah. And you're like, this is, this is, you know, everybody comes to me in hotels, man.

Yeah.

I can smell the lack of air quality even in really good hotels.

We'll know. We'll know that my work has been valuable if, if by 2030 when you go on Airbnb, there is a scent-free option on the filter or when you go on Uber, there's a scent-free option.

Yeah.

We can get that awareness going enough. Yeah. With those fragrances. Yeah.

Because you're big on the fragrances.

Or I'm big on the anti-fragrance.

Yeah, anti-fragrances. Yeah, you're big on fragrance awareness, I should say.

I guess while we're talking about the free tips, no Glade plug-ins, no Febreze, no air fresheners.

Dude, I, I, I have a driver in Las Vegas, and I went out to— for, for the fights this weekend with the family, and we got into his, um, uh, Suburban, and he actually had this little, um, thing that created scents in the cup holder, and it was the heat.

Smoke.

Yeah, so I guess what it was doing was taking the, the, the little gel filter and, and vaporizing it. And I got into the car and you could just feel it. It's like, you know, when somebody just has way too much perfume on and you get on an elevator with them or something. It felt like that in there. And he was like, don't you love it, man? I, you know, I bought this thing, it's electric, it's a car, always smells good. I'm like, shut that thing off, open the doors.

I'm making a, a beautiful card that we're going to send to all of our customers.

Yeah.

Um, with their Jaspers, and we'll send it out to as many people as we can. Where it'll be a beautiful card in English and Spanish with a little QR code that you give to the Uber driver that explains to them what that Christmas tree of death is doing to them. Yeah, because like, people need— we need help. And I have a lot of videos where I actually would talk to the Uber driver of why they have it there. Yeah, they think it's increasing the ambiance.

Yeah.

And you know what's interesting? You can't trick human biology when it comes to temperature. Our thermal sensors are— we're so— you can't trick the body. Cold feels cold, hot feels hot, but you really can manipulate smell and you can really manipulate taste. So companies have taken a lot of advantage manipulating our food and manipulating our air in a really big way.

It's a whole separate podcast. I could definitely go down that road with you. But, um, yeah, that's important. But part of my whole Maha presence is, you know, trying to fix food quality, especially in the public school system. And I mean, the public school system serving 30 million meals twice a day, you know, so 60 million meals a day to our most vulnerable, which are children in their most vulnerable stages, their prepubescent years. And, and, you know, it's no wonder 42% of kids have one chronic disease.

So I'm curious actually what you think about something, because what I've— what my research had showed and what I believe to be true is when you think about— I learned don't eat unless I'm salivating, and I've noticed this to be deeply impactful. So even if I'm like out in public, I— my prayer for food is putting it close and smelling it very slowly. And I smell each thing on the plate and I feel my mouth instantly fill with saliva. It's amazing.

Yeah. No, the body is like— that's like the Pavlov's dog, you know, experiment. But the, the body is amazing at starting creating cravings around what it needs. And I think what's happened with highly processed foods is it's perverted that sense, right? I mean, we— if you're nutritionally deprived, you will actually crave the very things that make that situation worse. So, you know, like GLP-1 is a hormone we secrete in our gut. And I mean, there's a trillion-dollar industry crept up around GLP-1s, but we secrete GLP-1 in response to nutrient density. So when you chemically, um, circumvent the GLP-1 response, the body doesn't realize that it's the amount of calories it's taking in. It's trying— it's reading the nutrients. That's why you can eat 4 boxes of Oreos but you can't eat 4 avocados.

Got room for dessert.

Yeah, I always have room for dessert, right? Um, because 4 avocados is too nutrient dense, you know, you would gag. But you could eat— you could eat a whole box of Oreos because they're chemically designed to circumvent that response. And, you know, again, when we get back to like biohacking You know, I just tell people, look, there's no secret to dogmatic dieting. Secret to living a long, healthy life from a food perspective is just the absence of processed foods. But, you know, again, these things like air quality, water quality, light quality, even though these are expenses, you know, if you're on that journey of wellness, longevity, anti-aging, whatever you want to call it, I mean, making your home this sanctuary, of healing, sleep, relaxation. This should be where you go to detox, not sort of retox. And I think so many of our homes are making us sick, and not the least of which is, you know, mold and, and indoor air quality. And 5 years ago, I would bet more than half of all, uh, primary care physicians would have just told you that mold is a made-up You know, it's hocus pocus. We all have mold. Mold's everywhere. You don't need to worry about mold. I can patently tell you that that is false, you know, from, from having our clinic treat tens of thousands of patients and remediate mold. By the way, I have a free mold detox on my, on my website at theultimatehuman.com. It's completely free. So if you find that you have mold in your urine, or you do a test and you find mold, there's an 8-week detox in there for mold and another one for heavy metals. Because I'm such a believer that as the, you know, we we slowly sort of micropoison ourselves to death. Um, and, and air is one of those things. So, so back to the filtration.

Sure.

Um, what, what kinds of things is, is this taking out of the air, and, and what direct impact does that have on our physiology?

And I'll say, when we talk about— when I say PM2.5, what that means is particulate matter 2.5 microns in size. And the reason—

2.5 microns.

And why is that an issue?

Estimate of what that is? That, like, dust? It's a lot of smaller than—

it could be dust and smoke and, oh, like, well, 0.3 to 10 microns is what I was testing for before.

Okay.

PM2.5 in particular. And, you know, a lot of things have, like, ranges of particle sizes, but the reason PM2.5 is the one that you see reported and talked about the most, okay, is because it's small enough to get into your lungs and bloodstream and too big to get out. So when things are 0.03, 0.1 microns and tiny, tiny, tiny, they come in and you breathe them back out.

Yeah, they don't get stuck. Yeah.

That PM2.5, it comes in and it stays in, which is why that's like the number that we always see reported on. And it's, it's big in air quality indexes. And VOCs is this catch-all term for volatile organic compounds. You know, there's naturally occurring VOCs, right? But when we're talking about it in an indoor environment, we're talking about what the fragrance is creating and the off gases, basically airborne chemicals, right? Is the, is the simple way of thinking about it. So when we test air in a home, Average bedroom, when I go and test it, you know, there's a million particles floating around between 0.3 and 10 microns inside. What's that? You're talking smoke, pollen, rubber from the tires of the cars. Yeah, you got mold spores, you got allergens, you got all the general pollutions. You know, you may not be using lint dryer vents, but your neighbor is. So everybody's polluting this air that we share. Your home is pulling it in and then that's in your bedroom.

Yeah.

So typically in the average bedroom, when you start cleaning the air, in about half an hour we can get it about 95 to 99% cleaner. Really, really, really quickly. It's just like water filters work, air filters work in half an hour. Half an hour.

Wow.

When we did a test at the, at the Ritz here, we got it 10 times cleaner in 20 minutes in the room.

You're staying in the room? You just walked right in there with the Jasper and set it right in your room?

I travel with it everywhere I go.

That's awesome.

Everywhere I go, I drag that thing with me.

If you know me, you know I don't recommend anything I haven't I personally tested. That's not a marketing line, that's just how I operate. I've been on the road my entire career— different time zones, brutal schedules, no margin for days off— and so I'm constantly testing what actually works in my own body. NAD+ was something I keep coming back to. It's the molecule your cells use to produce energy and repair, and it declines faster than most people realize. When I found Symbiotica's liposomal NAD+, the absorption technology is what got my attention. I tested it, I felt it, and it's been in my bag ever since. I'm always evolving what I put in my body, and this one has stayed on the list. I'm genuinely excited for you to experience it. This is the standard we hold every product to before it even reaches you. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

So it's like, it's kind of like what you're talking about before, where it's like, it's, it's your body. I, and I, for myself, I rebranded sleep to healing time. So because sleep felt like a dormant word, I didn't want to, like, go to sleep. It felt like I was turning off. And I love being on and vibrant and awake. Yeah, but like when I'm sick, I'm like, I'm going to do my healing time now. And in 8 hours I'm going to find out if I'm feeling better the next day or not. Like, it feels like all the healing happens in that state. So when I talk, when I view it instead of sleep in a bedroom, I'm like, it's my healing room.

Yeah.

And I want to optimize my healing facility, my, my, my sleep sanctuary. So if I get that dialed in, so when the air is now in it's not filled with pollen and it's not filled with mold and it's not filled with, with dust mites. And it's not just the dust. When there's dust, there's dust mites, which most people are fairly allergic to. Then your body can heal itself.

So true, man.

So that's a big one.

Nothing more powerful than our God-given immune system.

But it's amazing.

Distracted.

Just get out of its way.

Yeah.

And babies. This is a really crazy one too.

Huge. Yeah.

So, you know, you got, you got your baby, comes home, born in a hospital, um, which already usually is typically horrible air.

Yeah.

Um, and then you bring your baby home and you just painted and you got a new crib and a new little mattress and little toys filled with mold, and then you put your baby in there 18 hours a day and you shut the doors and you shut the window and you close the blinds.

Right.

Baby's sick all the time.

Yeah.

And the worst is you get these little diaper pails.

Yeah. They're supposed to be airtight, but you go into a diaper genie or whatever it's called.

Yeah, that's one of the big brands.

Yeah.

And it stinks like poop in there.

Yeah.

New Flash, trust your nose. If it smells like poop, it is poop. And if it's poop, it's incredibly high levels of bacteria.

Yeah.

So I'd love to say Jasper's the solution for this. It helps. But the right— like, if there's like one message that I'm a huge proponent of, it's getting those diaper pails out of baby's room. And there's actually a pretty small one. It's like a $70 Amazon one. It's very small and it works like a trash chute. And it's small enough that you're dumping it out every single day. Yeah. Because the Diaper Genie and others, they have a weak capacity. Wow. So you're holding 5, 6-day-old diapers in a bedroom and you go in there like, oh. So remember, this was 2020. I was living in Kelowna, British Columbia, and I'm going into my first daughter's room and it stinks like poop. And I'm like, Rach, I don't know about this. My spidey senses say this is not okay. Yeah, but she was really holding it down. First baby. I said, can we please not put the diapers in the pail? Like, let's commit to taking them outside right away. And she's like, ah, you know, there's a lot of stuff. Like, this is really convenient. I said, fine, rite of passage, Mom. Mom and Dad, rite of passage for tonight. Let's put the diaper pail in our bedroom and see what it feels like to sleep with a poop can in our room. P.S., I'm going to sleep in the other room tonight.

Yeah.

And she's like, ooh, no, I'm not doing that. You're like, I don't have to say anything else. Yeah, because then it clicked for her. She's like, wait a second. I wouldn't sleep in it, but our, but our baby who can't talk is, this is a big problem.

Yeah.

So, you know, you're talking about the mattress before, like, so tips for, for inspecting expecting parents is, you know, you want to make the pretty nursery. I get it. If you're going to paint, do it as— do it 6 months before, do it 4 months before. Open those windows as much as you can. Let that room out as much as possible. Please don't put those little anklets, those EMF anklets on your baby either. We don't need that. If you are going to have a camera and a monitor, if you can put it 8 feet away, that seems to be the sweet spot EMF-wise. Agree with that. The cribs— everybody loves new furniture, but if you can get a secondhand dresser and a crib so the off-gassing has already been complete before you put that into your nursery, that would be great. And if not, get the baby stuff 4 or 5— get it as early as you can. Put it outside, put it in the garage, open the windows, let that stuff off gas. Because, yeah, adults— fun facts, this probably should have been the first thing I said.

Yeah.

Adults are breathing on average 15,000 to 17,000 times a day. Toddlers are 50,000 to 60,000 times. Infants can be 60,000 breaths a day.

Wow.

Infants can be 80,000 to 100,000 breaths per day.

Wow.

The average person drinks half a gallon— this is probably a good water drinker— half a gallon of water per day. But you breathe 3,000 gallons of air per day. They say about 70% of all your detox happens in your lungs. So if you're taking in this amount of air relative to this much water, so you're breathing, you know, you have 2 pounds of food coming in a day, half a gallon of water, and 3,000 gallons of air. It's by far the thing that we take in the most. It's also the breathing is the only thing that we do passively and actively. So when you're sleeping, you're not eating, you're not drinking. The only thing keeping you alive all night long is your air quality. Is the air that you're breathing. It's so— it's the first thing you do when you're born. It's the last thing you do before you die. And I think that's why we're sleeping on air, no pun intended, is because it's so core to our existence that if we were so distracted by air, you know, we're really good at adapting to things.

Yeah.

So I think that's why air is just like this, this duh moment.

Yeah.

Because of how much air we take in. And if you look at the Google search volume, air quality is like meh, flat. Type in breathwork. And it's like hockey stick growth.

Wow.

The fact that we don't talk— I mean, we should, but we're talking about what we eat more than how we chew, and we're talking about water quality more than how we drink. But breathwork is talked about way more. Breathing is clearly understood and growing. But what are we even breathing? It's just, it's just hiding in place.

I try to do it outside every day. I mean, and it is such a game changer. You know, it's, it's more of the free advice things that I talk about that really help move the needle. Those habitual things like just getting sunlight in your eyes in the morning within first 30, 60 minutes of the day. Delaying your coffee intake maybe 60 minutes after you wake up. Love that one. You know, getting a little sunlight onto your skin, you know, doing a few rounds of, of breathwork. And which was really hard for me, learning to sit in silence. Um, you know, I always growing up until just very recently had a real issue with silence. I mean, it's when my brain would just start to ricochet and think about everything. But quieting my mind was a really hard thing. Tuning into my breath allowed me to quiet my mind. And it's sort of that transition from waking into the day and it's free and portable and you can do it anywhere. I do it, I do it on commercial flights. I mean, when I do those 15-hour flights too.

Breath is your connection to like everything, everything. And if the air field is polluted and distorted, your connection to the everything— there's too much noise in, in that, in the air. And people like— we're talking through the air. EMF moves through the air. We're not just talking about particulates and VOCs, but air is the vehicle in which— we couldn't be talking underwater right now, right? This is like the medium of life. So keeping that channel super clear and super dialed in. And there's two fun studies, you know, because like mold is everywhere that I forgot to mention to tell you. So all of our studies I like because I was a restoration guy. I wasn't a scientist or an engineer. I was a mold man, you know. So I was testing the air before cleaning it, testing it after. It was like very simple layman kind of thing, right? I was just looking at before and afters. And so all of the lab tests that we do are real-world stuff. Most studies that you look at when you look at water filters, air filters, cleaning products, it's these in these controlled environments. So all our mold studies, you know, we remove 97.1% of the mold spores in a 500-square-foot room with 8-foot ceilings in 1 hour. In 2 hours, it's 99.9%, uh, and 98.1%. In 3 hours, it's 100% because we're scrubbing— we're scrubbing the air in the room. So all of our studies, and when you go to our website, we put all of our lab data it is right there. So people can look at jasper.co.

Jasper.co. Okay. Yeah. Now that they know you have a big company, they're going to hold it for you.

And so all— everything should be real-world examples. We did a study, a sleep study about a year and a half ago where we shipped 150 people Jaspers. They were using Oura and Whoop and a few other sleep tracking devices, a lot of Whoop. And what happened was They, um, these were people who were not filtering their air. So we said, we'll give you guys a Jasper in exchange for 30 days of sleep data, 4 weeks. So the first week, keep your Jasper off. Weeks 2 and 3, Jasper on in your bedroom, fan speed 3, dark mode. Week 4, turn your Jasper off. The average person got 25 minutes more sleep per night, 18% more deep sleep, and they fell asleep 5 minutes faster. And this was dramatically pulled up by the people who were sleeping. The people who were sleeping 4 hours a night were sleeping like 6. You know, people who were really dialed in and optimized still got solid benefit. But people who were really struggling, anyone who had mold or pollen or allergies or VOCs, or they were cooking a lot. And then the white noise also helped a lot of people quiet their minds as well.

Yeah.

So this is just like when I got to see that 30— this is still— and by the way, all of this is a community study. That was an anecdotal study that we did with the general public. A lot of them were influencers and doctors, but this was not an official sleep study. This was our own community-led sleep study off of basically Oura and Whoop tracking data and stuff like that. And to me, that kind of study is very relatable.

Yeah.

And when I realized that also about 30% of people who were snoring stopped snoring and we historically look at snoring as, you know, weight and structural issues. But for a lot of people, especially people— they have CPAP machines to force air down your throat. It should be like the law, like table stakes, that if you need a CPAP, you have to clean the air. Yeah, because you got this moldy pollen-filled air that you're just driving deep down your airways. Come on, guys. Yeah, another duh moment. So, um, HEPA— I'm kind of on a— we're going to change our language soon because, you know, we're calling it a HEPA filter. HEPA is bullshit.

It is. Why is it?

It's totally bullshit.

Why is it? Just particulate size or what?

So, you know, you often hear that it filters down to, you know, 99.97% or at 0.03 microns. What they don't tell you, that's the MPPS, which is the most penetratable particle size. So we actually are more effective at smaller particle sizes. That's— they say down to 0.03. It's not true. If you look at the lab data at 0.02 and 0.01, we're more effective than 0.03. That's like the PM2.5. That's the sneaky size. That, that gets through.

And that's the most damaging.

That's the most damaging. Um, but also HEPA. So you go to these third-party labs, and if you dig deep, when you ask these companies and you look at their, their lab data, what happens is— so Jasper's, you asked about airflow, right? At the lowest fan speed, we move about 100 to 120 cubic feet per minute. At the highest speed, it's about 400 to 430 CFM.

Okay.

A lot of times you'll see the lab data, people are testing their filters at 4 CFM. So a Kleenex, if you could blow gently enough, could be HEPA. So there's no standard in the reg— HEPA is a standard, but they're not mandating that the airflow is at a certain fan speed. So you'll notice when you look at our lab data, we put the CFM on the lab data because we're testing it at the actual fan speed that Jasper is running. If we test it at 1 CFM, it's going to be off the charts. But it's not a real— it's like testing your 0 to 60 on your car if the car was off the pavement. That's like 0.1.

Yeah.

No, you got to put it on the pavement. That's how we test this thing. So a lot of the marketing claims that you see, if you really look in a layer deeper and coming from the restoration standpoint, it was like eyes wide open, what's going on here? So really looking. And when people are talking about how many square foot does your air purifier do, well, on what— typically they have these big claims. Then you look at the fine print, it's like 7-foot ceilings in an isolated chamber on, um, on full speed. Most people are running their air filter at the lowest speed all the time, right?

So, so you want to have real-world data.

I see real-world data. Yeah, like let's, let's, let's test the pollen in the room, let's run the machine, and let's test it again.

Yeah.

Um, so I really love, as a restoration guy, before, during, and after testing. In a real environment. That's the real stuff.

Michael, I'm, I'm, I, I think this is just such an important topic for, for people to really get their arms around. I think it's an important topic for people to also understand that is, you know, as they're on this wellness journey and longevity journey, you know, as they get some disposable income, you know, where are the best places to point it? And I think air water, and lighting are great places to start in your home. Because once you make these investments, you don't remake the investment, or there's minimal investment thereafter, and they don't add any time, time to your day. And I think that if we just focused on those three things— air, water, and lighting— in our homes, made it a sanctuary to improve our sleep, to optimize our health, to not retoxify us, you know, we're more resilient when we're outside of the home going through the rest of our daily tasks. So I think my audience is going to really love this.

So just to comment on that one thing there, you know, the 80/20 being the air, water, lighting, like what's the 80/20 of the 80/20? I think it's drinking water. There's a lot you could do in the shower. There's a lot you could do in all your taps and your bathing and all that. But drinking water.

Yeah.

Dial in drinking water, dial in your sleeping air. So, you know, drinking water and sleeping air and then having a nice lamp in your common area and a nice dimmed diffused lamp in the bedroom. If we can just deal with your lighting after sunset.

Yeah. You're especially in your bedroom.

Yeah. You're sleeping air and you're drinking water. Now we're talking about like really realistic stuff. I just want to mention one more thing too.

Sure.

Well, you talked about the study for the school. Yeah. Something that we're going to be very much open sourcing is we bought a school in Austin.

You told me about that.

And I just, I just think it's important for people to know about this. So we're putting in clean air, clean water, good lighting, non-toxic cleaning products, very outdoor-based. You know, we'll have big screened-in porches. And we want to say, if in Finland they got the air quality— the absentee rates down by 30%, I believe if we can get the absentee rates down like 50%, that's our target. And I'd love to talk to you later actually about ways that we can measure it and make it scientifically valid.

Love to do that.

Because if we can, the public schools— the reason that they have all these truancy laws and they force you be at high attendance and all that is because they get paid based on attendance rates. So if we can prove out that we can get the absentee rates down, it's going to be profitable for the schools to build healthy buildings, clean air, clean water, good lighting, healthier food. If they know that can get the attendance rates up 30, 40, 50%, if you can align to the business incentives—

50%, it's a major move on the—

well, 30% with just air.

Yeah.

So I want to make sure that we're scientifically accurate, you know, testing, monitoring the sick symptoms, the attendance rates. Schools are already monitoring attendance really well, but, you know, coughs and runny noses and, and stuff like that. Like, we want to make this undeniable proof. We want to, we want to open source it. And then, you know, our school is going to be quite small in Austin, but everything we do, every product we use, the data, we're going to open source it all on the website. So ideally, as many schools as possible. And if people are— if you, if you're go— if your kid goes to a private school, I wish we could help public schools. They're very difficult to work with. Yeah. If you email us, we give several hundred Jaspers every couple of months away to schools to put into your kids' classrooms.

Oh, that's great.

Because we found once the kids— once, once people's kids start getting— stop getting sick, it becomes undeniable. And then we help the school teach about air quality to the parents and everything.

That's great.

Our big initiative is getting clean air into schools. So if this resonates with you, great. If not, open your windows. Don't wear your shoes inside. Get your range hood going. Get your bathroom fan going. Tell your Uber driver to take out the Christmas tree and unplug Glade plug-ins wherever you go. We're looking to build a clean air ambassador army. So, you know, thank you so much for listening. And I hope this helps you guys out.

I'm a huge, huge fan of these kinds of biohacks that don't add another minute to your life. And for the rest of you guys, I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Until next time, that's just science.