Mobility, Hair loss, Supplements (Health HQ AMA 1)

Gentlemen, what's going on? Welcome to the Substacks weekly Q&A, insert one. Hope you guys are all doing well. Thank you so much for being here. Um, you know, to be honest, I'm much better at answering questions reactively than I'm at proactively creating long-form posts. So in common fashion, I asked myself, what would this look like if it were easy? How can I give the most value to you guys possible? And one of the best ways to do that is to do a weekly Q&A. For me, doing videos and having these more conversational like posts is also easier than these long-form posts. Now don't get me wrong, I'll be doing both, but in the time being, you know, I want to pump these out every week. I want to answer the questions that you guys have. So with that being said, here is my first weekly Q&A video. Let's get into it. Uh, you know, this is a great form of procrastination for me. I recently was very sick. I got COVID and then was not fully recovered, started traveling a bunch, came here and got a horrible virus from the ocean that it seems that everyone had in this town. Feeling better now, but also still quite inflamed as you can tell by my puffy demeanor. Significant amounts of neuroinflammation, but I hacked my way out of it. Anyway, let's get into it. Thank you again for being here. So I'm gonna go through the chat, ask and answer some of the questions that you guys have. If any more pop in, I'll answer them. If not, we've got next week. First and foremost, Fardid, the Health HQ Telegram admin, asked, could we get a one-day GitLab 101 crash course? Useful test to do and how to read and break down the results. So reading and breaking down the results is pretty difficult, but it's good to have labs on your person at any given time, right? You want a baseline. It's no different than a concussion baseline test because you want to know what your starting point is in the case that something happens, in the case that you get some really serious symptoms. You're able to make a reference point to what it was like before, right? If you're feeling like shit, you know, you don't wonder— maybe wonder if your testosterone is low. You need to have that prior test to know if something has changed because some people just operate better at a lower testosterone. They have better androgen receptor sensitivity. Same thing can be said for a myriad of different indicators and markers. Now when it comes to tests that I think everyone should have, you wanna have a CBC, you wanna have a CMP, a complete metabolic panel. You really wanna dig deep on your thyroid as well. A lot of labs will only give you thyroid stimulating hormone, but you want your T3, you want your T4 enzyme, and if you can, you wanna reverse T3. Because T4 converts into T3, which is the more bioactive thyroid hormone. But you want to see how much of that T4 is being converted into reverse T3, which is essentially the inactive form. You want to make sure that conversion is effective. When you're looking at hormone panels, don't just get testosterone. You want total T, you want free T, but you also want DHT, you also want estradiol, you also want prolactin. So make sure that you're getting all of those. Um, there is a brand that Ryan Ayala's coming out with that's going to do a really effective job at, uh, giving you those full panel lab tests at hopefully reasonable prices compared to other competitors on the market, just because other competitors run up really fat margins. Um, and then when it comes to actually analyzing tests, that is a skill and an art in and of itself. It's one that I've been working on a lot. If any of you have, have labs that you do want to look at, I do run a lab analysis and protocol service. So let me know, happy to look at your labs and create some actionable insights for for you. So hopefully that answers the question. I'll dig deeper, but CBC, CMP, full thyroid, full liver panel, and then full hormone panel. Alex asked, what are some hair loss treatments that don't fuck your hormones, e.g., finasteride, minoxidil? So first we have to understand how finasteride, dutasteride are wrecking your hormones, and they are doing that by inhibiting the 5-alpha reductase enzyme. Now that enzyme is responsible for converting testosterone into the stronger androgenic metabolite, which is dihydrotestosterone. As you guys know, and you'll see shortly when I release the DHT guide, DHT is my favorite hormone. I believe it is the true alpha male hormone. It gives you all of those positive psychological and physiological benefits that are associated with testosterone, right? The deep voice, the body hair, the cool, calm collectedness, the libido, the confidence, the feeling of being a man all comes from DHT. So if you're taking something that inhibits the enzyme that converts testosterone into dihydrotestosterone, testosterone, you are removing that thing that makes you man. You may save your hairline, but what's the point of having a hairline if you have no libido, you have no confidence, you have no feeling of being a man? Now, the issue with finasteride and dutasteride in particular is that these symptoms and side effects seem to stay for some people after they get off the drug. They'll take finasteride, dutasteride, they'll get off of it, and they'll maintain those system symptoms. They'll have no libido, they have horrible anxiety, they'll have muscle wasting. They'll have penile shrinkage. It is a nightmare. I highly recommend anybody considering those drugs to look up post-finasteride syndrome, look at the subreddit, look at some of those anecdotal reports. That should scare anybody away from using those. Minoxidil, not as many side effects, but it's a dirty drug. Remember that minoxidil was primarily used as a heart medication, but they started giving it to patients and they realized that those patients started growing hair in their palms. So like most pharmaceuticals, they found an alternative use case. Right? They already patented the drug, they already had it produced, they wanted to find a way to get it out to the public. So they're like, hey, put this on your hair, it'll help regrow your hairline. Once again, minoxidil, dirty drug, it'll get into your bloodstream and it's going to only improve the hair loss growth phase, right? The second you get off minoxidil, it's not going to prevent male pattern baldness. So what can you do instead? Thyroid is one of the most important hormones when— excuse me, one of the most important organs when it comes to proper hair growth. So make sure that your thyroid is in check, right? Do not do a low-carb diet. I think low-carb diet is one of the worst things you can do for your hair. Uh, anything that's gonna really be spiking up your stress hormones and your catecholamines long-term is going to have negative effects on your hair. Remember, the hair on our top of our head is not an essential organ. When our body and our biology is under stress, it's gonna be one of the first things to go. Now, I am extremely predisposed to male pattern baldness. My grandpa on my mom's side, bald as a bat by the time he was my age. So I am kind of a case study to see if I can maintain my hairline while maxing out my DHT. But hey, in the case that I go bald, I think it's worth it for the benefits that DHT gives me. Now, what can you do instead of finasteride or minoxidil? There's a lot of prowess and potential in some of these new peptides. Uh, GHK-Copper, first and foremost, I think is an incredible peptide for hair growth. Uh, topically speaking, it's great for skin. I use it for my skin because my skin was fucked up for from Accutane and a number of other pharmacological interventions. I find that to have a lot of prowess and potential. That plus zinc thymulin. Zinc thymulin is one that I'm looking into now, seems very promising as well. And then from a systemic standpoint, BPC-157. Every time I hop on BPC-157, I notice new hair growth, not just on my head, but everywhere on my body. My beard, even body hair. It just grows so much faster and thicker, and I think it increases the potential for new follicle growth. Via angiogenesis and maybe some other mechanisms as well. So I'd look into those. Uh, in terms of topicals, uh, there's this company called Tribe or Bloom— maybe it's, uh, Blue. It's one of the Peters brands. They use a myriad of different, uh, active compounds as like this hair mask. I've been creating my own based off of that, so I want to give them credit. I've added some other things, um, just to reduce tissue calcification on the scalp, clear up some of that dead tissue that may be clogging my follicles and, you know, inhibiting their growth and proper function. So I think that's really important. I would cut out a majority of typical hair care products. I would look at doing that, uh, you know, the blend that I do is caffeine, taurine, what else, uh, baking soda, a little bit of salicylic acid via aspirin, methylene blue, and I also include zinc oxide. Zinc oxide for whenever I have a dandruff flare-up Works really well for that. Dandruff is pretty correlated with shedding. Uh, you also have to differentiate between shedding and male pattern baldness, right? Is it androgenic alopecia or is it shedding? Typically with shedding it's, um, non-selective hair loss and it tends to grow back. With male pattern baldness, those follicles actually suffocate and they typically don't come back. So yeah, I look into those peptides. RU4856 is another one. I believe it is a, an isolated local selective 5-alpha reductase inhibitor. So it's going to inhibit 5-alpha reductase activity in your scalp exclusively. It doesn't seem to have the same systemic effects. I still err on the side of caution with those, but that one seems a little bit safer and efficacious compared to finasteride. But zinc thymulin and, uh, copper— GHK copper— are my two biggest oh wow moments in conjunction with just improving your systemic circulation. Making sure that you don't have any issues with vasoconstriction or blood flow, and making sure that you're hitting your nutrient baselines and that your catecholamines are low, your stress hormones are low on a baseline. Matthew asked, "How not to be skinny fat?" You don't be, I think addressing skinny fatness starts with addressing your baseline hormones, starts with addressing baseline activity. Skinny fat is a hole that you need to dig yourself out of. Get a lab test, see where you're sitting on, on your estrogen, on your prolactin, on your testosterone, and then move from there. A lot of it's gonna start with lifestyle interventions. What kind of lifestyle are you living that's enabling you to be skinny fat? I mean, if you think about the skinny fat physiognomy, the skinny fat physiology, it is a pretty bottom of the barrel build in terms of rates of survival, right? Um, so I would address your lifestyle in that case. I would address activities that you're doing. I'd address your baseline activity I'd really optimize nutrition. You know, I think if you do that effectively, just pretty much do all the things that everyone talks about on Twitter, like, are you getting more sun? Are you pushing yourself physically? Are you pushing yourself across the board? Are you living a lifestyle that would require you to release more testosterone to increase your chances of survival? If you're in a basement eating processed foods, not getting sun, not going out there, not interacting with the world, not competing, there's no reason for your body to release more testosterone. It thinks it has everything that it needs. So it's okay with being skinny fat, right? It's like the fat king, you know? It has no need to release testosterone, has no need to be competitive and be a physical specimen. So address it. I believe that being skinny fat, although it's a very physical thing, a lot of it comes down to the psychological component and the lifestyle component. Sean asked, curious how you generally prioritize mobility and stretching throughout the week and what role that plays in gym pre and post workout. Thanks, man. So I wanna give you guys some context about how I got upper level mobility. I had a pretty atrocious ski injury. I tore my calf in half. I've always been big on weightlifting. I've always been kind of a meathead bodybuilder in my younger years, you know, because it was a vanity pursuit. I just like being big and I liked being strong. But after a number of injuries that I got throughout college, and then on top of that, having that pretty debilitating calf injury from a ski injury, from a ski accident, I had no other choice but just prioritize mobility because I couldn't really train. And I wanted to get back to 100%. So I did that in preparation to get back into martial arts and taking martial arts really seriously. So I would just stretch all day, you know, I'd be doing mobility work in the morning. Every morning I do a lot of corrective exercises with my shoulders and my hips, things that I could train because I, you know, had only half a leg at that point. And I just made it a habit, right? A baseline habit. You get to a certain point where not doing mobility is more cumbersome than doing mobility because your body's accustomed to it at that point. So I just sprinkle in these snacks throughout the day, these mobility snacks. I would watch some guys on YouTube like Phil DeRue and Ben Patrick of Knees Over Toes, and I would just incorporate those into my daily activity. Now, when it comes to training, I would go in 20 minutes early every day to jiu-jitsu or Muay Thai, and I would stretch. I would do dynamic stretches. I would do these mobility flows on a mat because you got to think like, how much time and how much availability do you have throughout the day to actually just have open floor space to work around, to flow around, to move our bodies the way that we're meant to be moved? Not very often. We're almost always either standing, laying down, or sitting. So I think the best thing that anyone can do if they're looking to get better mobility is to give themselves the opportunity to have floor space. Do you have a rug that you just dedicate solely to laying down on, keeping it clean? Do you have mats that you can lay on? A yoga mat's not good enough. It's too fucking linear. It's so small. You need wide open space. Or just get comfortable with laying on the ground. I mean, I just roll around on the beach every single day and that's my mobility, right? Because I want that free-flowing nature. I don't have routines, I don't have protocols. I have set exercises that flow in between, but all of it's really just an explorative process. So I recommend, you know, getting a mobility session in when it's the easiest. Can you layer it onto a preexisting habit? Can you do mobility before bed? Can you do mobility before your workout? Can you do Pomodoro sessions while you're working? 25 or 50 minutes on and then a 5-minute break where you're just doing mobility. I do mobility work when I'm on the phone, I'll go for a walk, I'll do all these stretches, and eventually it just becomes second nature. I don't prioritize mobility, I don't schedule in mobility, I just do mobility as a natural ebb and flow. Now the recovery process of mobility is much different than the recovery process of hypertrophy training, right? You're directly inducing damage to your muscles, you need those 48 hours to recover. Mobility, a lot of it's neural, right? A lot of it's just convincing your brain that, hey, listen, my muscles are able to withstand this tension at this extended range of motion, so I'm going to get more and more comfortable with that. I'm going to give myself more slack. Now you take that and then you layer on the strength aspect of it, which, which in my opinion separates mobility from stretching. With mobility, you're actually putting weight and load on it and you're generating force through these extended ranges of motion, and then that has more of a progressive overload factor to it. That's something that you actually have to worry about with recovery and stuff like that. But, uh, make it a priority, get it in whenever you can. It doesn't have to be perfect, just get in the habit and you will notice significant improvements. Preferred L-carnitine tartrate dosage/protocol/brand. I love L-carnitine. The only thing I hate about it is it makes me smell like a fish. It's disgusting. So some things that I do when it comes to L-carnitine, I will take probably 3 to 4 grams on average when I'm doing an L-carnitine cycle. 3 to 4 grams of L-carnitine L-tartrate, 1.2 grams of acetyl-L-carnitine. Acetyl-L-carnitine, as you guys probably know, has that acetyl group which makes it more effective at crossing the blood-brain barrier and saturating the mitochondria in your brain. So those energy production and fat mobilization benefits that it has for your muscles also apply to the cells in your brain. More cognitive energy, right? More bioavailable, you know, fat energy, like fatty acids for energy as well in your brain. So I like stacking the two. Now when it comes to dosage and protocol, I want to make sure that I'm taking that L-carnitine with carbohydrate sources, simple carbohydrates that are going to give me an insulin response, because I need that insulin response to shuttle that L-carnitine into my blood, into my cells. So when I'm taking L-carnitine, I'll take it with some fruit juice. You know, I had some orange juice this morning with some dates, and that was a perfect time for me to take L-carnitine. I want to saturate those muscles. I do take it with aged garlic extract, or at the very least I consume a lot of garlic while I'm taking L-carnitine to first and foremost mitigate that fishy smell that comes from TMAO, which is a metabolite that is produced when you take a lot of L-carnitine, but also to reduce the risk of atherosclerosis, right? There does seem to be some correlation between TMAO and, you know, heart issues, cardiovascular issues, but L-carnitine in and of itself is cardioprotective. So I'm not very sold on that. I think Alpha-GPC is more concerned for TMAO than L-carnitine. The only difference is you're taking a lot more L-carnitine and you're taking it at a more consistent basis. So yeah, I do that. I typically cycle probably a month on. You know, you could do longer, but I'm a fan of short cycles. I respond really quickly to stuff, and I also just like experimenting. So I don't like doing anything too long for one period of time. I like switching it up. I have dedicated myself to being the role of an experimenter. I'm an experimenter by heart. Even if I've got something good going for myself, I'd much rather switch it up than maintain that consistency. But hey, that's just me. You do you, just make sure to take with aged garlic extract. Now ideally, in an ideal world, I would do injectable L-carnitine. I might even do that at some point because that mitigates the TMAO production. It's also significantly more bioavailable, so you need a lot less, but that requires subcutaneous injection. I don't really do a lot of sub-q injections unless I'm experimenting with peptides. But, uh, yeah, that's that. So that'll make you shredded, it'll make you feel good. Honestly, I think L-carnitine is probably the most anabolic and androgenic feeling thing that I've ever taken, potentially due to the androgen receptor upregulation. For those of us that have been programmed into believing we should avoid or minimize natural carbohydrate and sugars, e.g., honey, fruit, potatoes, and go heavier on healthy fats so to stay lean and prevent illness, disease, what should we read and/or watch to help us see the light? You know, I think the Ray Peat community and Ray Peat in and of himself is the source material for the pro-carb, pro-metabolic diet. I did a thread, uh, pretty not too long ago about how carbs are not the enemy. I highly recommend everybody read that. I think that's I did a pretty good job of explaining the mechanisms as to why you may not be able to metabolize carbohydrates and why carbohydrates are good for you. But it's also something that you should split test, right? Because I did a high-fat diet for a while and I got fat. And it makes sense, right? Because the pathway from converting fatty acids in your diet to triglycerides and fatty acids that are being stored in fat cells is a lot more straightforward than carbs or protein, right? The lipolysis, or excuse me, the lipogenesis process for converting carbohydrates into fats is more intensive than fatty acids. And for protein, you know, that protein needs to go through gluconeogenesis, convert itself into glucose, and then convert itself into fatty acids in the fat cells. So what is the question here? Like, what should we read and/or watch? Yeah, look up some repeat, you know, Why Carbs Aren't Bad for You, Paul Saladino. I like Paul Saladino personally. You know, I take everything he says with a grain of salt, like everyone. I don't think he's perfect, but he's got some good insight on that as well. And he is pretty well accredited and he does his research. And then also, yeah, read that thread that I did. Maybe I'll link it here. But yeah, try it out for yourself. Test it out. And also cycle everything, right? Even though I am high carb on a daily basis, I go through periods of going low carb. I go through periods of higher fat. I go through periods of near ketosis, right? I just did a fast not too long ago and I popped into ketosis. I did a ketone test. Metabolic flexibility is the way. Cycle everything. So Scott asked, thoughts on NutriCost supplements? Listen, the, the deeper I dig into supplements— and this is someone who's worked with supplements for the last 4 years and has spent a lot of time researching them— the more selective I am of what supplements I use. I'm almost at the point where I don't really use a supplement unless I know who the owner is and I have insight into their supply chain. But you know, there's certain compounds that I'm okay with getting from places like NutriCost. The more simple the compound, the more confident I am in using them. You know, I really just want to make sure they have third-party lab testing, but even then, those are easy to fib. With Nutracost, um, I'll take some of their products. You know, I'll take Nutracost creatine, I'll take Nutracost, um, L-carnitine. You know, some of these simple amino acids that the production process is relatively straightforward. I think if you are going to take a supplement, you know, go quality over quantity, really. You don't need to be taking a bunch of a supplement. You don't need to be taking you know, it for extended periods of time. Go for quantity— quality over quantity. Nutracost is not horrible, but if you're getting like all of your supplements from Nutracost, maybe, you know, not ideal. But if a company has a reputation they need to uphold, typically they'll go through the scrutiny required, at least at base level, to have certain scrutiny in their products. Um, Nutracost supplements aren't the end of the world if you're using them and if costs are restrained. I I think they're fine. But it depends. With herbal supplements, I don't think so. With herbal supplements in particular, I'm very selective about them because herbal supplements are pretty prone to contamination, right? You gotta think about it. Where were they grown? What was the soil quality that they were grown in? What was the pesticide exposure of that cultivation process? What was that manufacturing process and distribution process to get them from where they were harvested to where they were stored? To where you have gotten them, right? Like, when were they exposed to potential mold growth, which most of them are. So a lot of variables there. I'm selective about all of it, right? And if you think about it, like, take tea for example. You can get the highest quality tea and it's still going to be cheaper than— cheaper per serving than a bottle of water. So it's worth investing in higher quality supplements. You only have one body. A lot of these contaminants are bioaccumulative, so it's not worth spamming cheap quality products. Either take them at high quality or just don't take them at all. Generally, how do you determine optimal dosage of a supplement for you? Great question. I do a lot of research, both anecdotal and, you know, secondary, if that's what you want to call it. Um, I go through examine.com, I'll go through a lot of different studies and see what dosages were used in those specific use cases. I'll go on Reddit a lot. I'll use Reddit to see what people's dosages are, and then I always start with a a low dose. I believe myself to be a hyper-responder. I'm particularly sensitive to compounds, possibly because I've just gaslit myself into believing that I'm sensitive and that I need less of a compound. Additionally, I think that I just have a very responsive biology. I'm sensitive to a lot of things. I'm sensitive to EMFs. I'm sensitive to dietary inclusions and exclusions. And I always start very low and then I titrate up. I take a lot of breaks. I take a lot of tolerance breaks, but I always start lower. Than the recommended dose, and I identify what am I supposed to feel, what mechanisms are at play here, and then also what are the other mechanisms that may not be identified that I need to be cognizant of. So lion's mane, for example— I like lion's mane. I actually just took lion's mane this morning for the first time in a while, but I'm very cautious on my doses because I went through and I looked at all the potential side effects and underlying mechanisms, and I don't really want to risk that. I don't want those mechanisms to be, you know, acting at large when I do higher doses. So with Lion's Mane, you know, it does seem to be relatively anti-androgenic. You know, it seems to be a mild 5-alpha reductase inhibitor. It also has a lot of negative side effects, um, allegedly when it comes to some more serious adverse reactions. Uh, Lion's Mane Recovery is a subreddit. A lot of people seem to be getting fucked up by Lion's Mane. So I'm, I'm teetering with caution. I'm only taking 500 milligrams when the recommended dosage is between 1 gram and 3 grams. But I might titrate up, I might risk it, because I want to see what kind of benefits I can get from lion's mane for me personally with treating this anhedonia that I occasionally deal with for the last 4 years or so. So start small, continuously acquire research, never assume that you have the full picture because you will never have the full picture because nobody has the full picture, right? Don't rely just on studies, don't rely just on anecdotes. Gather as much data as possible and keep a running list of all that data and use that to inform decisions moving forward. All right, so that's everything from that section. I'm going to go back to that initial post in the Health HQ Insider Chat. If you have not joined the Health HQ Insider Chat and you are a premium member, please join. I want to have this be an open discussion. This is for you guys. The more questions you guys have, the more accurate I can be making sure that the content that I'm posting is content that you guys want. So, uh, back to section number 1. Um, part 2 of the bulking series that'll come, I'm gonna be talking about supplements as well as training. And then I actually gathered a bunch of insights from guys that are much more knowledgeable than me on hypertrophy and strength training. People like Dean, people like Aboud, people like, um, Francis, my boy Francis. So that'll be coming out. Um, uh, Yusuf asked something about antidepressants and how they can mess you up a while ago. Uh, more depth on this. So yeah, antidepressants can fuck you up really bad. Antidepressants fucked me up really bad. And there's a number of ways that these fuck you up. First of all, I just think that they're poisonous by mechanism. All right, most antidepressants use fluoride as a primary constituent, right? It's literally called fluoxetine for a reason. That fluo stands for fluoride. I took SSRIs for a while. You know, don't ask me why. Shout out my primary care provider. Definitely didn't need them. I got off of them, but the side effects linger. Right? And I got off easy. My side effects came from long-term usage. Some people have this, uh, near immediate negative response called PSSD, post-SSRI sexual dysfunction. And that is a misnomer because the side effects go way further than just sexual dysfunction. My side effects didn't affect me from that standpoint. They affected me more from a cognitive standpoint, right? A dampened dopaminergic response, uh, kind of inability to feel the high highs, right? Uh, very much anhedonic baseline. Uh, my pleasure response was kind of blunted. You know, I don't get as much reward out of things that I typically would. I get that, uh, motivation sometimes, but I don't get that reward response, right? So I'll work really hard for something with expectation of a response, and I won't get it. It's dampened my response to things like alcohol, nicotine, you know, accomplishments and things like that. But hey, I Chad rammed my way through it. I'm still figuring out the nuts and bolts of kind of getting through that, but, uh, hey, I'm doing fine. A lot of people are a lot worse. I highly recommend anybody who knows someone on SSRIs or is considering getting on them to look up PSSD, kind of see some of those anecdotal reports. It's pretty nasty stuff. I mean, complete loss of libido, complete loss of sexual function. Um, you know, a lot of people talk about inability to kind of get deeper into romantic relationships, inability to feel any joy or pleasure. You know, I think from my personal experience, the inability to kind of feel the sharpness and tang of a good song, right? That the chills that you get from music, the feeling you get when you get an accomplishment, that's all dampened. Now, I found ways to get windows out of it. I've had a lot of really good windows. You know, I continuously— it's a lot more of an ebb and flow. So I don't think that I'm personally fully damaged. I think there's a way for me out of it. Some people, their outlook isn't as strong. Some people feel like they're ruined from life. There's a lot of reported suicide from people dealing with PSSD. Now the issue here is that you tell your primary care provider this and they don't know anything about this. This isn't a recognized iatrogenic disease, um, iatrogenic, excuse me, uh, caused by a healthcare provider. Um, but it's, it's very much real, right? And they'll just say, hey, you're depressed, we need to up the dose of the SSRIs. Or you get off of them, they're like, ah, they're just withdrawal symptoms, let's get you back on them. Or, hey, you were just depressed the whole time, we'll get you back on them. So a lot of these are, these symptoms are misconstrued as SSRI or depressive symptoms and warrant you getting back on SSRIs, maybe even at a higher dose. I'll do a full post on that. It's pretty dark. It's pretty dreary, but I highly recommend nobody take those just from personal experience. You know, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy of what some people are dealing with. And you know what I'm dealing with personally. Um, just came across a podcast with Dr. Thomas Lodi and Dr. Emma Abramson. Who's a biological dentist talking about the importance of oral health and the ability to indicate problems elsewhere in the body. Seems like a pretty overlooked area worth expanding on at some point in a newsletter. Oral health maxing. Yes, I'm huge on that. Uh, you know, I come from a family of dentists, uh, my mom's side, they're all dentists. So I was fluoridated to the max since I was a little kid. Um, I've kind of taken dentistry into my own hands. Uh, you know, occasionally I'll let my mom look at my teeth, but other than that, It's really all me. So in terms of oral health in general, you know, your digestion starts in your mouth. You have these salivary enzymes and the mastication process in and of itself, that is the baseline of digestion. So from a systemic standpoint, you wanna make sure that you have proper baseline health so that you get those proper enzymes. You have that proper cavity prevention and whatnot. You know, that in and of itself is gonna be a primary indicator of whether or not you're gonna be able to maintain proper oral health long-term. Are you gonna get cavities? Are you going to have enamel wear and deterioration? Are you going to have bad breath, right? Are you going to deal with things like gum disease and stuff like that? Now, I think what he's referring to here is kind of our bite structure and, you know, our, uh, maxillofacial or our, our, our oral development, right? There's a lot of correlation between our oral development and our posture and our overall you know, structural health. I haven't dug deep enough into it to talk on it intelligently in this casual format. I'll have to do a deep dive, which I will do. I want to have Bowtie Gator on the podcast, so he'll discuss this further. I think he's really an incredible insight because he's— he has, you know, the traditional training of a dentist, but he also has the intelligence and foresight to see things from a more independent perspective, which I really respect. Now moving forward, um, let's see what else we got here. Best way to overcome a depressive state. This is really important, right? Because everyone gets in ruts, you know, some get in ruts more than others. I think the act of getting in a depressive state is not— is a negative, right? Like, I'll admit it, I used to get depressed a lot. I mean, there was a reason I was on SSRIs, right? I'd get down bad. And, you know, depression is a blanket term because everyone's depressive states manifest differently. For some people, it may be depression, it may be feeling down bad. For some people, it's remorse. For some people, it's guilt. For some people, it manifests as anger. So they all manifest differently. The way that I look at it is asking myself, Am I my optimized self? Am I the best version of Noah or am I the unoptimized version of Noah? Am I the lower baseline version of Noah? And I have very clear pictures of what these two people are, right? And they're two very different people. It changes the way that I show up in the world. So first and foremost, you need to make sure to identify like, what do you look like at your best? For me, I know I look like when I'm at my best because I'm really excited about things. Everything is so carefree. I'm smiling, I'm happy, I interact with people, I attract people with this natural charisma. You know, I'm feeling pretty good right now. I went to the coffee shop today and I was just in like a really good mood and people were coming up to me and saying hi and wanting to have conversations. And that's what happens when you're in a good mood and when you're at your peak state, you know, you just give off good vibrations. I hate saying that word, but it's true. People resonate with that. So identifying what you look like at your best, identifying what you look like at your worst, And then when you are in that bad state, call it a depressive state, call it a low mood, first and foremost addressing that and saying, "Hey, listen, I'm not optimizing," or, "I'm like not at my best right now." Setting that precedent gives you a foundation to build off of and to get out of, right? So identify it first and foremost, and then you need to build out a toolbox. Do you have a list of things that usually get you in a better mood? I do, I have a great list. Exercise, right? Making a really good meal, talking to a friend, helping somebody else, going to the beach, playing with animals, spending more time in nature, accomplishing something, anything. The action is the reward in and of itself. So as you guys can see, I have this giant toolbox and then I go down the list and I just start doing each of these things. Sometimes it takes me 3 things, sometimes it takes me 4, sometimes it takes me all 5. Sometimes it's so bad that I need to go a little bit more extreme and I go on a vacation or I go and I change my environment entirely. I do something more drastic. I get a new haircut, I change up my wardrobe, I get a beard, I change up my diet, I do something drastic, right? Because if you put yourself in an uncomfortable situation, doing uncomfortable things are less uncomfortable, right? If your baseline is uncomfortable, anything else, just add on to it, right? That's why I like changing locations so much, because not necessarily when I get in depressive states, because I really don't anymore. Uh, it's, it's pretty incredible what I've been able to get myself out of in terms of just like maintaining a solid mood and feeling good, because anytime that I even teeter on that line, I get myself out of it. But build that toolbox, and only you can figure out what that toolbox is for yourself. The way to do that is to keep a running list. I have hardwired this alert system in my brain to identify whenever I'm above or below baseline, and then I take a note. And I did this by spending 3 months documenting every single time I was above or below baseline, and then identifying all the variables that were involved in there. What did I eat that day? What interactions did I have? What was I doing from a work standpoint? How was my sleep the night before? What variables were new that could have contributed to this state? And then I just had this irrefutable data set of 3 months that I could discern beyond a reasonable doubt things that either put me in an above state or a below state. And then I optimized for prioritizing those things that put me in a heightened state and then just removing those things entirely that put me into a bad state. And that is how I was able to build a life where I'm doing pretty much what I like. Every single day with no compromises and with no exceptions for the most part. So I think that's the key. Build out that toolbox and accept that every single bad thing that's ever happened to you, every single low state has been got, like you've gotten through it, right? Like this storm will pass is something that my mom used to always tell me. You know, I've got it tatted on me as well. Everything is temporary, right? You've always gotten through every single bad thing that's happened to you. This one's gonna be no different. And every time you get through it, you just become that much more powerful. So, um, yeah, getting in depressive states is common, especially with people that are more creatively inclined, people that have maybe more emotional intelligence. They're just more attuned, right? They're more attuned to things. So figure out those things that are detracting, remove those, and then build that toolbox. High performance athlete guide, combat focused if possible. I will be talking about this a lot. As you guys know, I don't train to just look good. I train to be a physical specimen across the board, as well as an intellectual specimen. So that'll be coming Personal thoughts on money, business, and the dance with social media. Great question. So I unfortunately, or fortunately, I'm not driven by money at all. I've tried to make myself money-minded. I think that I still need to make myself money-minded in some way, shape, or form. I've just never been able to do that. And I think a lot of that has come from realizing that, you know, I put myself in situations where I've been able to be around a lot of money. I've been able to experience the benefits a lot of money. I've been in places where I've been able to make a lot of money. And it didn't make me happy. As a matter of fact, the things that I pursued in order to, you know, get to those places or even, you know, to create that money didn't make me happy. They made me depressed. You know, when I was in software, wasn't very happy. The short-term benefit reward of building something of substance was good, but it wore off. It was fickle. It was not a long-term pursuit worthy of pursuing. So, you know, I kind of gave up on that. And once I started giving up on making money for money's sake, I actually ended up making decent money. And I think more importantly, life was just so much better. Also, you have to identify like, what are you making the money for? Right? Like, my objective was always to live in the jungle on a beach and drive a dirt bike. And I did that when I was dead broke. I did that when I was dead broke. My, like, ideal outcome and my worst case scenario are not that different. Right? Like, I either way, like, if I'm making, you you know, $50K a month, or if I'm making like $2K a month, I'm gonna be living the same lifestyle, more or less. I'm gonna be on a beach driving a motorcycle. Sure, maybe I'll be in a hut in one situation and like a nicer villa in the other. But my day-to-day doesn't really change, you know, the best things in life are free. I'm not a fan of materialism. I'm not a fan of, you know, the hustle and bustle. I'm not really motivated by those extrinsic values and factors. Now, do I use them as a comp— Competitive driver? Yeah, because I'm competitive. So I want to compete with people for the sake of competing, but I know it's not going to bring me long-term happiness. And I think that's something that people mess up a lot. And that's why there's so many really successful people that are inherently unfulfilled, because they are chasing goals that are not bigger than themselves, right? They want things for themselves. They want a nicer car. They want a nicer house. They want more chips in the bank, but they're not asking what they want for the world. And I think that's really important. That's something that's driven me. You know, I'm not driven by money. I'm driven by influence. I want to make a lasting impact on other people because that's what makes me happy. And, uh, that's my role in this world from what I've been able to deduce at this young age. Uh, business. I love business, or I love the business a lot. You know, I started my first business when I was 16. I've never had a real job. I love the way that it incentivizes and is a proxy for personal growth. All of my personal growth came from wanting to become better at business, right? All of it, right? Because it was a goal that was bigger than myself. I don't really care about improving myself because at the end of the day, I'm cool with living in a hut on the beach doing nothing all day. But when I had a team, when I had employees, when I had people that I was responsible for, I needed to be the best that I could be for them. I needed to be better than I could be because I needed to be a good impression for them and I needed to guide and lead them. You know, I studied a lot of leadership in college. I was in a leadership program and it was relatively arbitrary, but it gave me a lot of good source information on leadership. And the best thing I got out of it was making me a better person, you know, punching above my weight. So I think business is an incredible proxy for self-growth and development. I think it is the frontier in terms of competition and natural drive that we all have as humans. I think it can very easily get misled and misconstrued. I'm much more interested in expanding ideas than I am expanding on business. You know, I was reading Good to Great, and what is the guy's name? Whoever the guy is who's like the father of modern economics, you know, he said, what gets— of modern management, he says, what gets measured gets managed. He told, I think Tim Collins is the founder of Good to Great, this really good quote when Tim Collins was kind of stuck on whether he wanted to be an author or a business operator. And he said, you can have good ideas or a good business. You can't have both. Or no, good ideas or a good company. You can't have both, right? So I hit an inflection point, you know, while I was still growing my agency and I was in the process of kind of growing this Twitter and starting to create more content online. And I was like, oh, like, I don't really give a shit about having a great company. I want to have great ideas. So I went all in on that. And you know, I believe that money follows value. I believe if if you have audience and attention, you will always prosper. So I doubled down on that. And you know, I'm playing the long game here. I wanna be doing something I'm happy about 10 years from now. And I don't really care for growing a massive business. I care about growing massive ideas. And that's what I put my focus on. And then when it comes to social media, I'm a social media native, I'd say, right? Which is so funny because when I was building my software company, I deleted all social media. And that was the thing that enabled me to level up because all that time that I would otherwise spend on social media, I was spending reading. I remember I had really strict rules about social media use. Well, I didn't use any social media. I had really strict rules about technology use. I only used YouTube to essentially watch courses, right? I was digging really deep. I was teaching myself computer science. I was teaching myself a lot of fundamentals of chemistry and biology. And it was just so incredible. So I think social media is the biggest make or break in this modern world. But you know, it's also an addiction and I'm addicted. And the issue with social media compared to other addictions is you can't just cut it out cold turkey, especially if you work on it like I do, right? If I were an alcoholic, it'd be really easy for me to detract from my alcoholism, right? I would have support from my peers, I'd have support from groups, and then I just keep it away from me. I wouldn't bring alcohol into the house. I wouldn't go to places where alcohol is common. But that's not the case with social media, right? I can't just keep social media out of my house. I can't just keep my phone out of my house because that's where my livelihood comes from. From. It's a double-edged sword, and anything that is powerful will have equal capability to be powerful for good or for bad. So for me, it's about setting a lot of boundaries with myself, treating myself as if I'm someone that I need to be responsible for, right? Setting screen time limits, utilizing tools at my disposal to remove the friction from me doing good things and increase the friction between me and bad things. So I don't have social media on my phone. I upload everything to iCloud automatically, and then I just upload it from my iPad or my computer. I really try not to use YouTube on my devices. I have a separate browser for work where everything is behind like a block site. I use News Feed Eradicator. So I'm not really that avid of a social media user. Like I don't go on Twitter that much to scroll. I don't go on Instagram that much to scroll. I have accepted my role as a creator and not a consumer. And I try to be stringent on that, but man, it's still tough. I am telling you guys, my attention span has been destroyed by social media. You know, it's almost like a price that you have to pay, but I'm working on it. I'll do a full post on how I break it down as utilizing social media in a healthy manner when you work on social media. But I will say it is very tough. Someone asked how Soulbra eats raw cheese with olive oil drizzled all over it, AKA high-fat snacks, meals, and stays so shredded. Guessing it's something to do with meal timing. Uh, I think you guys have to understand that Sobra is really at the top of the game when it comes to living a pro-metabolic and balanced lifestyle. I mean, the guy practices what he preaches to a tee. He lives a very healthy lifestyle. He doesn't have a lot of bad food at all, so he has a very effective metabolism. And everything that he's eating, although it's calorically dense, it is healthy for all intents and purposes, right? And if you look at his overall macronutrients throughout the day, it's probably within a range that is aligned with his basal metabolic rate. He's a big guy, he's like 6'4", he's highly active throughout the day, so he can have high-fat snacks and meals. Also understand that some people are better at metabolizing fat than they are carbohydrates, and vice versa. I'm not a very good fat metabolizer, I never have been, so if I eat a lot of fats, I will get fat. So he does that effectively. You know, everyone is different. Maybe you are a high-fat metabolizer as well, you know. But I think becoming healthier, for me, it's aligning myself with nature, I get a lot with— I get away with eating a lot more. But you have to look at it from an overall perspective. Look at his overall caloric intake, and it's probably aligned with, you know, what he would fall in based on his activity, his lean body mass, and his height, size, and weight. Do I have any thoughts on castor oil? Yeah, I mean, castor oil really is an interesting compound to me. I've seen a lot of people use it in like those castor packs for things like mold. I know that you can take you take it orally and it increases hair growth and the darkness of your hair, which is really interesting. I want to— I want to look into its effects on melanin. Um, I occasionally use castor oil as a topical for my eyelashes and eyebrows just as an experiment. It does seem to improve hair growth somewhat, especially combined with something like derma rolling. I don't have the specifics on mechanisms there, so, um, can't really talk about that, uh, that deeply yet. But hey, that's what the long form's for. So, Trad Chad, I will go into that for you. Um, a post on not measuring in the minors could be interesting. This is from Krish. Krish is the man. I actually hopped on the phone with him. Uh, yeah, I think this is where a lot of people mess up in the health space. I don't know if you guys have noticed, but a lot of these bigwig health guys don't look that healthy, and the reason for that is because they get obsessed with the minors. That's what happens when you dive into a certain level of depth that's required to be an expert in this space, is the things that you're focusing on become so important because you just get a myopic view of everything. You forget to look up and smell the roses every once in a while. So give it, you know, maybe it's just my natural proclivities, but I get bored of stuff and I move on to things really quickly. I become hyper-obsessed with them and then I realign myself with the big picture and I realize that it's not that big of a deal. So I kind of get the best of both worlds, right? I'm able to go into that depth for a period of time, but then I'm able to look up and see the horizon and I'm able to see the bigger picture. Um, I don't think you should major in the minors. I think you should dabble in the minors and find a way to make them sustainable, right? Get obsessed with them for a little bit, go all in, act like it's the end-all be-all and it's everything, and then find a way to pull yourself back and look at the bigger picture. At the end of the day, when it comes to health hacks, I mean, my biggest health hacks are just spending more time in nature, right? It seems to solve everything. Avoiding contaminants, avoiding the inherent toxicities of life. I mean, I'm relatively neurotic, but not in a way that it impedes on my lifestyle, right? Like, I go to bed, there's no EMFs in my room. I sleep with my windows open. I'm pretty cognizant of mold and stuff, but I also trust my biological capability to withstand these toxins in small hormetic doses. Um, so yeah, don't major in the minors or else you'll become a dork, uh, but you should dabble in the minors as much as you can. One of the biggest needle movers for me, uh, something that Krish also asked, it's more time in nature. I'm telling you guys, nature heals all. More time grounded, more time without your shoes, more time just sitting outside. You know, I will be honest, I think a lot of my connection with nature has always been there. I've always been a nature guy. I've always just had this incredible reverence for nature. I've been a jungle boy my whole life. You know, I grew up in Minnesota, but I've always been obsessed with nature. I felt so good in it. I felt so at home. I think some of us just have more primal proclivities, right? Some people feel great living in an inherently unnatural lifestyle like the big city. Some people just need nature and they're more sensitive to our natural environment. A lot of that was reinforced when I went to the Amazon for 2 weeks and I did a bunch of ayahuasca. But I think regardless of the high doses of ayahuasca, spending 2 weeks in the jungle not talking to anyone, with nobody, not eating really any food, and just sitting there with nature will do some crazy stuff for anybody. So maybe consider a silent retreat in nature, see what that does to you. Let's see, what else do we got here? Do I use a natural face cleanser? I don't. You know, I have very acne-prone skin. As you guys can probably see right now, I've got like a little bit of acne here. You know, a lot of that comes just from probably the fact that I have some intestinal permeability. I think additionally some people tend to use their skin as a detox organ more than others. I definitely do. So whenever I have dairy, which I just had, I started experimenting with Glostrum again, you know, I get minor breakouts and that seems to be an issue. I don't use a facial cleanser currently because I'm going in the ocean every day, right? I'm going in the ocean and then I rinse off. I do that like twice a day. So that's a natural, like, uh, saline solution that acts as a natural exfoliant as well with all that sand. I don't use a facial cleanser. Um, if I were to use a facial cleanser, I'd probably use like an olive oil-based cleanser. What I will do is I, um, exfoliate So I have these cotton towels and I use those. That acts as a good way to kind of break up any sebum in my pores. I don't think that facial cleansers are horrible. I know BIOM creates a good facial cleanser, which I do wanna try. I'd consider reintroducing it, but you know, I just don't wanna mess up my natural protective barrier of my skin. I took Accutane, so I kind of need that barrier to begin with. And every time I do use a facial cleanser, my skin health seems to get worse. So I want to maintain that natural barrier, especially because I get a lot of sun, so I need that for hydration and UV protection. I do use tallow on my face. I use Meraki Medicinal a lot. I use GHK Copper now to kind of remove, or I guess reverse, some of that damage that I accrued from, you know, spending a lot of time unhealthy, using a lot of really harmful topicals like, um, benzoyl peroxide, like clindamycin, like a lot of salicylic acid. So kind of just recovering from that. Modern problems require modern solutions. Full ADHD guide, that'll be coming soon. I will be doing a full ADHD guide of everything that I've done to go from an extremely hyperactive individual— like, guys, I'm gonna be honest, you know, it's very hard for me to operate as a normal person, you know. But hey, that's great, because if it's hard for you to operate as normal, you know, it's pretty easy for you to operate as exceptional. And I find with a lot of people with ADHD, they operate on one side of the bell spectrum or the other. They're either complete degenerates or they are hyper-successful. And then there's people in the middle that are fine operating in the middle. I don't think ADHD type people can operate in the middle. You gotta choose one or the other. If you wanna operate in the middle, you're gonna have to load yourself up with amphetamines and just like to scrape by and destroy the same brain system that people think you have a detriment with to begin with, which is your frontal lobe, by utilizing these drugs. Um, so I'll do that and then also talk about if you are going to use Adderall, how to use it effectively, because I think it can be used effectively without causing a lot of damage, but you got to be smart with it. And most people, you know, they want to just classify it as good or bad. That's not how it works. Safety of regular usage of nicotine via lozenge. How to determine appropriate levels of fish consume a week considering mercury levels. Let's talk about nicotine real quick. As you guys know, I know a lot about nicotine. Because I find it so interesting. My first business was a vape juice company. You know, I was in a lab, I was 16. Don't tell the FDA. Actually, yeah, maybe I'm lying. My first juice, my first business wasn't a vape juice company. I've never sold vape juice. But hypothetically, you know, I thought about selling vape juice and it was a really good model. You know, I got this nicotine concentrate from online. I used used some natural ingredients, I mean propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, uh, some flavorings that was typically used in, in cake, um, and they used nicotine. And I just realized really early on that this compound that was so demonized was really effective for me and improving my cognitive function. And I started looking into it more and seeing how pretty much every successful intellectual since the beginning of time was a pretty chronic nicotine user. And then looking at the actual mechanisms behind its neuroprotective effects. The fact that, you know, people who utilize nicotine have significantly lower cases of neurodegenerative diseases like ALS and Alzheimer's. Um, when it comes to regular usage, uh, the least addictive form possible is the best. So, you know, there's a lot less addictive potential with lozenges or gum or, or pouches and patches in particular. Uh, keeping dosage as low as possible— there's a threshold to where overstimulation becomes ineffective and side effects start to occur. Primary side effect I'd look for with nicotine is excess glutamate, so making sure you're balancing that out with GABAergics like magnesium or glycine or taurine even, and, uh, making sure that you're living a pro-vasodilatory lifestyle, right? Do you have proper, like, cardiovascular and circulatory health to begin with? If you're dealing with things like, uh, balding or hair loss or erectile dysfunction, nicotine might not be best for you. But if you use it correctly, if you keep the dosage low, if you take constant tolerance breaks, and if you only utilize it for things like this, right, for things that require cognitive tasks, that require increased cholinergic function, right, more focus, more short-term memory, more adherence, and fo— and, you know, essentially like linear thought, that's a great time to use it. So that's my thought. In terms of appropriate level of fish to consume in a week, um, this is a tough one, right? You got to look at how much mercury is being absorbed first and foremost. The more balanced your minerals are, the less chances you have of those heavy metals being lodged into your tissues, right? Because heavy metals are ionomically similar, right? They're ionic mimickers. They mimic the structure of these essential minerals that we need to have for proper function and that we don't have a lot of. So if you have a deficiency in say zinc or selenium or anything like that, those minerals are much likely to lodge to those receptor sites and act as if they were, say, zinc or selenium. So make sure that your minerals are in check first and foremost. When it comes to eating fish, I want to make sure that I'm not having a lot of these large fish that bioaccumulate metals. The longer a fish lifespan is, the more chance it has to eat more fish that have other mercury in them or other heavy metals in them. So I eat a lot of mahi because they grow so rapidly, they don't have a lot of time to accumulate a lot of heavy metals. I eat a lot of smaller fish like snapper, you know, sardines, stuff like that, a lot of seafood and shellfish in general. Um, but you know, it's very much a personal preference thing. I would definitely get, you know, an HTMA just to see where your baseline is at, to have that, and then maybe incorporate some fish and see if that moves the needle or not for you. Some people are just going to be more prone to accumulating heavy metals than others. All right, I think we got another question here on the weekly Q&A. Recommended supplements in particular and hacks for cognition, focus, and motivation, given your diet, sleep, sun exposure, exercise are all great. Well, that depends on what neurotransmitter system you're looking to improve. And I think everybody has a different neurotransmitter dominance. Some people are more cholinergic deficient or more— some people are more dopaminergically deficient or dopaminergically dominant. For me, you know, I like focusing on the cholinergic system when I'm looking for better focus, better learning, better memory, um, enhancement and memory encoding. So that's why I like compounds like Ginkgo biloba. I find that Ginkgo biloba is incredible for me for giving me clarity of thought, reducing brain fog. Um, now, you know, I kind of tone it down on the nootropics because I'm not doing anything that requires intensive focus that much. You know, and I think that's what people should strive for, is to create a life where you can do these things when you're sleep deprived, when you're hungover, just because it's so inherently natural to you. Now I'm writing a book, so in that case I'll probably be using some more nootropics. I really like Notable. Uh, my friend, my good friend Noob Bro, has, you know, in my opinion, is probably the best formulator that I've ever met. One of the best formulators out there through and through, knowing a lot of formulators and being a formulator myself. Uh, he's created a really incredible dopaminergic product with Notable. Um, I always take lower doses on everything. I really like Alpha GPC. Uh, if I'm doing a podcast and I really need that sharpness, I'll take Alpha GPC and maybe some ginkgo biloba as well. Everything happens in a threshold. You don't want to have too much cholinergic function. You know, there's a cholinergic hypothesis of depression— too much choline and you might actually feel depressed. So, um, you gotta experiment with all of them. I really like L-tyrosine. It's a very mild dopamine precursor. I take it with phenylalanine. For that enhanced synthesis. Motivation-wise, what is the best thing that I've used for motivation? Uridine monophosphate has been really effective for me. I find it to be really good for task saliency, which is something that I want to focus on, my desire and ability to start new tasks, because that's something I struggle with. But experiment for yourself. I'll probably drop like my favorite nootropics guide pretty soon here. What do I find— what else do I do to find balance/recover? Guessing BJJ. Uh, if it— but curious if there's more besides it and downregulating activities too. Um, you know, I just have like a very balanced lifestyle to begin with, I'd say. You know, I don't really need to recover because my lifestyle is just so pro-recovery to begin with. I spend a lot of my time just hanging out at the beach, you know, relaxing. I live a relatively low-stress lifestyle, you know, I chill out quite a bit. Um, so those are kind of things that I do. I just set like low stress as a baseline. When I'm really looking for recovery, I love hanging out with animals. I don't think there's anything better. You know, I befriend animals all the time. You know, I live in an environment where there's a lot of animals. That's something I prioritize. I want biodiversity. Just spend time in nature, spend time with animals. There's nothing better for me. Other than that, you know, I love cooking. I love anything related to food, anything that gets me more aligned with nature. And our natural proclivities. It is the great reset. You know, sometimes I'll just lay out at night under the stars in nature and really just tap into this primal feeling of being. And there's nothing better than that. That's why I can't live in the city, because I need that, that much for maintaining my sanity and also just being a happy-go-lucky individual. Um, what else I do to find balance? You know, I love socializing. I love spending time with friends. I really use that as a primary health characteristic. If I'm feeling antisocial, there's something up and I need to dig deeper into that. So those are some things that I do. Guys, I don't want to make this too long. I say that as it has been literally an hour of doing this. This felt like nothing. Like I said, you know, this is something that just comes naturally to me. I love doing this. This hasn't felt like worth— work at all. If anything, this has been energizing to me. It's given me the energy that I need to go and pursue other things today. So guys, once again, I want to say thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you all being a part of this Substackington. This is, uh, something that I've wanted to get into for a long time. You know, I've always liked writing. I've always liked ideas. Uh, you know, it's so funny. I look back at some of my old journal entries when I used to be a habitual journaler before social media, right? That's just what I did instead of social media. I wrote, and I was looking at some old passages and there was one from July in 2020. And it said, I'm not really feeling this whole technical thing. You know, I was sick of cybersecurity. I was dabbling into Web3 a lot as well, because those were the coattails that I wanted to ride. And I said, I'd much rather just write about things that I'm interested in. And I listed them all out. It was like cooking, nature, lifestyle, martial arts, fitness, you know, health, all these things. And it's so funny, you know, I look back, 3 years, 4 years later, and it's exactly what I'm doing. So, you know, I couldn't be doing this without you guys. I appreciate you all for your involvement. Remember, this is for you, so don't be shy. Engage in the chat. If you guys would find something like this interesting, I can create a more interactive chat via Telegram for all the premium subscribers, because I appreciate you guys being here, and I appreciate the community aspect of this. And I hope this helps. Anyway, guys, godspeed. Have a wonderful week. Monday is always the best day of the week. Let me know what you want me— you want to see next. Godspeed.