Q&A: Cold Plunge, Creatine, Best Air Filters & Favorite At-Home Sauna | TUH #039

Hey guys, welcome back to the ultimate human podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecker. Where we go down the road, everything anti aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. How much hydrogen water do I drink per day? I drink about 8 to 10 of these per day. I actually start my day by taking one of these and dumping it into another glass and I add the Baja Gold sea salt. If you don't have Baja Gold sea salt, you can add Celtic salt. There's a really interesting video on my Instagram where I actually took pink Himalayan sea salt, crushed it. I was a big fan of this for a while. I used a, a dough roller and I rolled it into a powder and then I took a high index magnet and passed it over a couple of brands of pink Himalayan sea salt. And you can actually see the flakes jumping out of the salt onto the magnet. That is a no fly zone. Started to do some research on it, found out that a lot of it is coming from China and so I switched to Celtic salt and then I stumbled upon Baja Gold Gold sea salt, which I think is the best salt you can put in the human body. It's. You're going to buy salt anyway. It's a dirt cheap way to get all 91 minerals that your body needs every day. And hydrogen water is by far the best water you can put in the human body. If you want to read some of the clinical studies on hydrogen water, you can go to hydrogenstudies.com when you get there. There's a really interesting search tool. There's about 1350 studies on this site. Some of them are in animals, a lot of them, several hundred of them are in humans. But some of them are specific to certain dise, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia, chronic fatigue, muscle aches, joint pain, arthritis. And some of them are just general studies on the impact of hydrogen waters, reduction of inflammation, increased absorption of micronutrients, especially supplements, and how it helps gut flora and your and the bacteria in your gut. So I am a huge fan of hydrogen water. I use the Echogo water filtration bottle. I haven't tested other brands. I'm not poo pooing them, but this is the one that I actually had tested the parts per million of hydrogen. You got to be careful of brands that are just making alkaline water. There's a significant difference between the water just becoming alkaline and the water having high concentrations of of hydrogen gas. So I drink about 8 to 10.

Of those a day.

I never leave home without this bottle. I also have the under the counter hydrogen water filtration system in my house that Echo makes and it uses a four stage reverse osmosis filtration system and then it dumps hydrogen in and it hydrogenates the water before you drink it. Just remember that hydrogen water, like a.

Lot of other filtered waters or distilled waters or a lot of bottled waters.

Does not have the minerals in it that your body needs. So once a day you want to be remineralizing your water. I remineralize it with Baja Gold sea salt. Question number two. Can I cold plunge every day and for how long and at what temp? So I'll tell you what I do based on the research that I've done. I haven't seen much research that colder is better or longer is specifically better. So 48 to degrees Fahrenheit, three minutes minimum, six minutes maximum, seems to be the sweet spot given the day. I actually will cold plunge Some days for three minutes, some days for six minutes, just kind of depending on how I feel. But three minutes a day, 48 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. And yes, you can do it every single day. It will become your new drug of choice if you haven't done it. If you don't want to spring for a cold plunge, I totally understand. That's a big investment. There's several thousand dollars. But you can always just take a cold shower. My trick for cold showers is finish your shower, lather up, finish your shampooing, your conditioner, your body wash, whatever you're going to do. Step out of the shower stream, turn it to as cold as it will go. And this means a lot more for people in Michigan than it does in South Florida. But turn it as cold as it'll go and then step back into that stream and just deal with it. Start at a minute, try to work yourself up to 3 minutes, towel off and you tell me how you feel. Like I said, this is going to become your new drug of choice. So the sweet spot for cold plunging, in my opinion, seems to be 48 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, three minutes minimum, six minutes maximum. Remember, we're not trying to cold adapt the body. We're trying to cold shock the body. Release cold shock proteins, turn on the brown fat activation, exchange calories for heat, get a peripheral vasoconstriction, activate sirtuins. The survival genes in the body secrete extra dopamine and endorphins. So we elevate our mood, elevate our emotional state, and then as our body warms back up, we feel amazing. There's also a trick on my Instagram that I show you for how to get the blood back into your fingers. A lot of you complain about having really cold fingers, especially if you have poor circulation after a cold plunge. You can leave your hands out during the cold plunge. Just put the water up to your wrists and up to the bottom of your jawline and your neck. And then when you get out, if your hands are having a hard time rewarming or your fingers are having a hard time rewarming, there's this little chop technique I use where I just take my hand and I swing it as hard as I can down below my below my waist. And it helps the blood flow get back into the distal parts of your fingertips.

Hey guys, if you've been watching the Ultimate Human Podcast for any length of time, you know that one thing I do not do is push products. I do not just let any advertiser into this space because I believe that the products that appear on the Ultimate.

Human Podcast should be things that I.

Use every day in my life to improve my own physiology. One of them is something called the Echo Go Plus. The Echo Go plus is a hydrogen water generator that you can take on the go. You essentially take the top off of this bottle. You pour bottled water in this and repeatedly it will make high part per million hydrogen water.

You press this little button, you'll see.

These bubbles going up in the water. That's hydrogen being created in the water. There are all kinds of peer reviewed, published clinical studies on the benefits of hydrogen water, including reduced inflammation, better absorption of your supplements, better absorption of your foods, better balance of the stomach acid, and it feeds an entire class of bacteria in your gut. Hydrogen water, in my opinion, is the most beneficial water that you can drink. And now you can take it wherever you go. You can go to echo e c h o h2o.com that's echo e c h o h2O.com Enter the code ultimate10 for a discount echo h2o Enter the code ultimate10 for a DISCOUNT.

What are your thoughts on creatine? I'm a big fan of creatine. If you are exercising and weight training on a regular basis, I haven't seen any clear evidence that you need to creatine load when you start taking creatine. That seems to be a misnomer from what I've been able to find out and read and research. So my thoughts on creatine are 5 milligrams a day or 5 grams a day prior to exercise. Some great creatine brands out there. I actually use the Symbiotica brand. I have no affiliation with them. I just happen to like their liquid form of creatine. But you can get creatine at gnc. Just make sure that it's not full of a lot of other byproducts. But 5 milligrams of creatine A day is actually very, very good for muscle composition. Do you have a recommended at home infrared sauna? Yes, there is a link to the infrared sauna that I love, which is on my Ultimate Human website. You can go to theultimatehuman.com you can read about the infrared sauna. The one that I like is actually infrared and also a dry sauna. It happens to also have these salt crystals in it, these pink Himalayan sea salt crystals. It has jade crystals in it. So I call it a bio stacking device because it's more than just a sauna. It comes in a single unit. I think it comes in two, three, four and maybe even a six person. So they've got sizes to fit every budget and every amount of space that someone has. And they plug into a regular 110 outlet so you don't have to get an electrician over to upgrade, you know, your, your electrical outlet. What are your opinions on gummy vitamins? Gummy vitamins are great for kids. Douglas Laboratory has a great gummy vitamins. There's a couple other brands. I'll source those for you put them on the ultimate human website. Make sure they are methylated multivitamins, meaning they have the methyl form of nutrients. Look for things like methyl folate and methyl cobalamin. When you see those, when you, when you see labels that are absent cyanocobalamin, absent folic acid. These are generally brands that care enough to take the vitamin to the next stage and actually get it in the more bioavailable form. I'm a huge fan of methylated vitamins, especially for kids. Most of these are sweetened with monk fruit or stevia. I would avoid any aspartame sweetened chewables for kids, especially for gummy vitamins. And they're dosed by weight, so you can take, depending on the weight of your child, you can take 1, 2, 3 or 4 a day and that way kids love them. They taste like a gummy bear and it's a great way to sneak nutritional vitamins into your kid's diet. I also, as you know, recommend getting the folic acid and the fortified or enriched foods out of their diet. There's no downside to feeding your kids non fortified, non enriched foods. You can still get the bagels, the white bread, or not the white breads, but the breads, even some cereals that are non fortified, non enriched, that do not contain all of these grains that are high in glyphosates. Number six, where can I get the air filter you talk about? You can also go to theultimatehuman.com it's actually sitting behind me. Ironically, I was actually testing it today. This is a, this is called a Dylos air filter quality monitor and I use this Dialos air quality monitor. Probably can't see that from where you are, but I use this Dialos air quality monitor to tell me the amount of large particulate and small particulate matter in the air. It'll measure particulate matter in the air down to 0.1 micron, which is about the size of a virus. The reason why I like this particular air filter, you might have seen me testing air filters online before, is that it truly was able to prove itself and filter down to 0.1 micron. But even better yet, it has an ozone setting on it. So many of us are exposed to daily toxic mold spores, mycotoxins that are in our air, pet danders, you know about these different bacteria and things that, that, that dogs and cats carry. They, they end up in their saliva, they lick their fur, they become airborne. So we can filter those out of the air with this air filtration system. And you can also kill mold spores even behind your drywall by running an ozone setting. Just remember, if you do use the ozone setting, which I'm a big fan of, ozone g for your ventilation systems, it's great for your homes to actually get rid of mycotoxins, molds, spores, all kinds of things, viruses and other bacteria and pathogens. You cannot run it in the presence of any living thing. So make sure that you get all the living things out of your house. Don't leave your pets in the house. If you're going to run the ozone setting, come back a few hours after it's done running and you'll be great. The one that I use, the air filter that I use has a 15.

Minute, a 2 hour, 4 hour and.

A 24 hour ozone setting. So if you're leaving for the weekend, you can run the 24 hour ozone setting. When you come back, your air will be squeaky clean. I cannot tell you the importance of filtering your environment. There's actually a lot of aluminum and other light or other heavy metals in microform in the air. A lot of it's due to jet fuel. A lot of it's used to other industrial chemicals that actually become airborne. So filtering your home environment is an absolute must. And the air filter that I use is on theultimatehuman.com website.

Most of us have a very difficult time meeting our protein needs. And certain protein sources like whey protein and others can be as little as 20% absorbable. This is 99 absorbable and it has all of the essential amino acids that.

The body needs to build lean muscle.

To recover, to improve our exercise performance and most importantly to repair after we have intense exercise. So this is called perfect amino by body health. It's, it's like I said, 99 absorbable. It only has two calories. Eventually the caloric intake has virtually no caloric intake. It will not break a fast.

It tastes amazing.

You mix it in water. I take this literally every single morning. If you're working out in a fasted state, you have to take a full spectrum amino acid prior to your workout to preserve your lean muscle and make sure that you're recovering properly. And again, it will not break your fast. So the caloric impact is virtually zero. You get get all of the full spectrum amino acids. It tastes wonderful. I use it every single day. You can go to bodyhealth.com forward/ultimate. That's bodyhealth.com forward slash ultimate. And look for the perfect aminos. They actually come in capsules if you're on the go or it becomes in several flavors that they make in a powder, which I love. It's flavored with natural means of flavoring. So there's no artificial sweeteners in here. So this is one of my absolute favorite products.

Give it a try.

If you're working out at all. You need a full spectrum amino acid, go to bodyhealth.com forward/ultimate. That's bodyhealth.com forward slash ultimate. I love their lab tested products.

You can actually see the absorption rate for all of their products.

They've got great electrolyte protein combinations. My favorite is the perfect Aminos. Bodyhealth.com/forward/ultimate. And now back to the ultimate human podcast.

How do I become a rule breaker? Well, you don't have to break any rules to become a rule breaker. You just sign up. It's 47amonth. I believe it's 47 bucks a month. My, my goal is to exceed your that value by miles and miles. I do a lot of intimate One on ones on the Rule breakers where I actually take the community into a room and we just do several hours of Q A. We do breath work sessions, we do cold plunge sessions, we do sunlight settings sessions, we do ground sessions. I do a lot of what I call lateral shifts which is taking nutritional items from your cabinet that you love to eat and switching those for better nutritional items without changing the budget or the nutritional profile. You're the first to see behind the scenes content. When I'm traveling, meet some of the celebrities that I work with and a listers and athletes behind the scenes. I always try to do some exclusive content for the Rule Brcas and the Rule Brcas are my community that is going to help me change the world. I want people that want to be in service of humanity and mankind that are on this journey to bio optimization and actually want to take what we're collectively learning together and preach it to the world. Remember that every month I do some type of free event. I either do, you know, a three day breathwork challenge which is absolutely free, or I'll do a three day water fasting challenge which is absolutely free. Next month we're doing a three day cold plunge challenge. It's also absolutely free. I write a very detailed guide that you can download. So if you can't join the Rule Brcas and do it with us live, and I always do these events live and take questions, then you can do it on your own at any time. I encourage you to forward these free newsletters to everyone that you can so we can actually start to make an impact together. What do you suggest to treat brain fog? Well, brain fog has a lot of different root causes, but number one would be to get a hormone panel done at any age. Your hormones can be disrupted? Yes. Even if you're in your 20s. It can be disrupted by certain proteins in the blood, sex hormone binding proteins, protein. It can be disrupted by low levels of raw materials like dhea. It can be true testicular hypofunction. It can be primary or secondary hypogonadism. It can in females be related to your menstrual cycle being out of phase, being aphasic. So it's hard to just say there's one treatment for brain fog, but I would start by getting your a hormone panel done by a qualified physician. Have them read that panel to you and look for deficiencies that could be causing your hormones to be out of balance.

That is a big cause of brain fog.

The second one I find is that people that have the MTHFR Gene mutation. They often suffer from brain fog because they're ingesting high amounts of folic acid. Remember, it doesn't sound like a big deal that your body can't convert folic acid into the usable form called methylfolate until you realize that folic acid is one of the most prevalent nutrients in the human diet. Stop eating the fortified or enriched foods, make sure you're hydrated and learn to do breath work. There's a free breath work guide on theultimatehuman.com download that, start your day with breathwork and see if that changes the trajectory of your brain fog. Number 10 is steam sauna as good as dry sauna? So I'm not sure there's anything so such thing as a steam sauna. But a steam room, is it as good as a dry sauna? So here's my kind of rule of thumb with steam versus sauna. The reason why I don't use commercial steam rooms is not because I don't like steam. I actually have a steam room in my house. But I don't use commercial steam rooms because very often they're just taking municipal water supply, bringing it into the steam room and they are vaporizing, rising chlorine gas, fluoride gas, microplastics and very often pharmaceuticals. I know this sounds like fear mongering, but if you're actually going to use a steam room, if you're going to put one in your house, make sure that you filter the water before it goes into the steam unit. You don't want to be steaming fluoride and chlorine gas. So the most of the time I avoid commercial steam rooms unless I happen to know that they're filtered. Some of the high end hotels right now it's actually out in Las Vegas this past weekend staying at the Fountain Blue, I found out that they actually do filter the steam before it goes into their steam rooms. So some of these hotels do do that. You're always better off, you know, using a dry sauna. If you're concerned about fluoride gas, chlorine gas, microplastics and pharmaceuticals. Some of the things we don't think about when we get into a steam room. Huge fan of dry sauna. About 20 minutes seems to be the sweet spot. When you get out, take a cold shower afterwards. Always end on cold and you will get get all of the benefits of the heat shock and the cold shock proteins. Hope you guys found this helpful. You can see more tips like this on theultimatehuman.com and I hope every one of you becomes a rule breakers and help me, helps me change the world.