Ep #020 | 5 Science-Backed Techniques to Look Younger and Reverse Aging

They are simple practices that you can do that have been proven scientifically to extend your lifespan, but also reverse aging. Talking about overcoming age related diseases. We're talking about changing your body shape, even improving the quality of your hair or your skin or your eyesight.

I did my telomere test and I'm 42, but my test came out as 29.

Today's guest, Mary Christine, she's worked with high net worth individuals, millionaires mainly, to help them reverse aging. Longevity is something we all chase. We don't just want to live longer. We want to be feeling good, looking good, having energy for every additional year of life that we live. What we're going to talk about today is how to reverse aging for both men and women. And you're going to learn some incredible tips, some incredible new ideas that you can implement immediately that can help you turn back the clock in terms of your cellular aging.

And I feel it's one of my top secrets for a youthful appearance.

And in this conversation in the Mindvalley show, Mary Christine is going to be sharing with you her secrets. The secrets that she whispers into the years of high net worth individuals who truly care about extending the quality of their life. So when I got to know her, I was fascinated by her mind and also what she represents. So let's welcome onto the mindvalley show Mary Christine.

Hi there, Vishen. Thank you so much for having me here.

So you excited to get started?

Absolutely.

Firstly, what on earth is going on with your Instagram?

What do you want to know?

I've never seen an Instagram account grow that much.

Yeah, I think it has a lot to do with some of the tactics that I've learned over the years to really develop the account. And I think people are more fascinated than anything in the content that I create. So it's a lot of health related. But more than that, they're really, really amazed by my age and how good I look for age.

So you are 74?

No, I'm actually 42.

42, yes. And you are a mom. How old is your, how old is your child?

He is 19.

That's amazing. Can we show a picture of your son?

Absolutely.

Okay, so let's get into the, the, the secrets. What are you whispering into the years of all of these high networ individuals?

I think, you know, for the longest time, for as long as civilization has been around, people have been obsessed with looking younger, don't you think? And now modern science is determined in finding ways to help people live forever. So the science is changing every Day and the more that happens and over the years and decades, people are just becoming more and more obsessed, especially with social media around, by looking incredible. And how can we reverse aging? We have everyone from biologists to scientists to people in functional medicine to people in conventional medicine always finding ways to look younger. Don't you think so?

Absolutely.

But the problem with that is while we're consuming too consumed over physical looks, we forget that it is more than just physical looks and it's actually more important than how we age on the inside, which is the age of ourselves. Now, how much do you know about cellular aging?

Tell me.

Cellular aging is really the gradual decline of our functioning of our cells over time, which causes our tissue, our organs to decline, which then focuses on an increased risk of age related diseases. Now, because people are so focused on external looks opposed to internal health, they neglect the most important aspects of lifestyle. Right. They inject Botox, they get mesotherapy. They do all forms of modalities to look good on the outside.

What is mesotherapy?

Mesotherapy is a, it's a, is a treatment to the inject really 100 needles into your skin that pump in vitamins that makes you appear ten times younger.

Right.

You know, so you do about a session of six to eight sessions in a span of six months and within that period they do make you look 10 times younger.

Wow.

So mesotherapy is an incredible form of, or a modality to look younger on the outside. Going back to what I was saying, people are so focused on how they look on the outside and the neglect and the, how they, how they're meant to look on the inside. So everything from their diet to working out to the supplements that they're taking or they're not taking, these are all factors that they seem to not take care of. Stress is another big thing. You know, they don't even look at that as an aspect of a decrease in the way your cells age as well as sleep. Most people are getting what, how many hours of sleep do you get VISHEN?

Always between 7 hours and 15 minutes to 7 hours and 45 minutes.

That's incredible. I mean, kudos to you because most people aren't getting between five, six hours. Most people that I work with here in the Middle east are getting anywhere between four to five. You know, it's, it's this, this hustle culture, hustle mentality where people prefer to be productive than to sleep. And you know the saying, well, I'll sleep while I'm dead. So. Yeah.

And that, that's really dumb advice because you're not saving, you're not, you're not being more productive, you're slowly killing yourself. You're more likely to experience illnesses, days of low productivity because of not giving your, even your brain recovery time. And you'll die sooner.

Absolutely. You know Dan Buettner, who is an American journalist, Do you know him?

Yes, he, he was the guy who wrote about the blue zones and popularized that idea.

Absolutely. The Blue. So I believe that the blue zones is extremely fascinating.

So let's talk about that. Let me just explain the blue zones for people who might not be aware. So Dan Buettner popularized the idea of the blue zones. These are areas in the world like Sardinia, like Okinawa, where you find 10 times 10x the number of centenarians as you would find in the average American city. So in other words, you're seeing 10 times as many people achieving the age of 100 plus plus in these societies. And it's the topic of a book called the Blue Zones where they try to understand why a lot of these.

Places in the blue zones are isolated. And because of that there isn't any electric magnetic frequencies, pollution, they're eating healthy, there's a sense of well being, sense of family. And a lot of these things don't happen outside of these cultures anymore. Right. So in Okinawa they have discovered that the women that are living there in the 1900s actually live seven and a half times higher than those that live in Scandinavia, for example.

Seven and a half times higher? What do you mean by higher?

There they have a chance for more likely to become centenarians.

Oh, seven and a half times more likely to become centenarians. That's really cool. Now what, what do you think is causing this in the blue zones?

So as I mentioned to you, incredible diet. But one thing that they do is they get themselves to constantly move their bodies. Moving your bodies is incredible for impact, incredible for brain health, incredible for cognitive health, incredible for bodily functions. So the reason why they're living for so long is they're constantly moving, they're constantly having an incredible sense of well being, they're eating really healthy. They're not always focused on blue light or electric magnet magnetic frequencies.

So you were going to give us five practices that we need or five ideas that we need to pay attention to to reverse aging. Let's start with the first idea.

One of my first tips and most important tips is the fact that sun exposure is really, really bad for your skin. The reason being is that 80% of UV rays is coming into Your skin daily. Right. If you're not using sunscreen. Now most Caucasian, western have a completely different genetic composition now. They're lighter, they're lighter skinned. So obviously with being lighter skinned, they prefer to be in the sun for longer periods. Now the problem with being in the sun for longer periods, you start developing skin sorts of all sorts of skin disorders and you're not really using any kind of sunscreen, you're not using any protection. You start develop saggy skin, you develop leathery skin, you develop sunspots. And that causes a breakdown in collagen, elastis, elastic elastin, which then gives you wrinkly skin, sagging skin, aging way more and faster than you would normally.

So what you're saying is if you are fair skinned, don't obsessed about getting tanned.

Absolutely.

What about tanning beds? Is it the same thing?

Yeah, no, tanning beds are pretty good. I mean there are.

Tanning beds are okay. Sun exposure, like going out on a beach, you're saying will actually age you?

Definitely. If you're going out in the sun and not using any protection and going during peak hours, it will age you.

It reminds me of this, this famous picture that went up. It's the picture of a trucker. A trucker who drove a truck.

I saw that.

Right. And one side of his face was constantly exposed to the sun and the other was not. And check out this picture and observe the difference. See, isn't that crazy?

Absolutely.

Who would think that the impact could be that big? And this was a guy who wasn't necessarily outside, it was a trucker and he, he had a window. Right. So it wasn't even direct sunlight. But what then should people do? I mean people, it's a, it's an acceptable aspect of beauty today that if you are tanned you are more attractive. Should people be avoiding getting tanned?

Absolutely not. I mean, I always recommend people to go and get in there enough sunlight during the hours of off peak hours. Anywhere between 7 before 10am they can have it. But anywhere during peak hours they should avoid the sun or use sun protection.

I see, I see. What about getting tanned outdoors by a pool or at the beach?

Yeah, that's totally fine. As long as you're off peak hours.

As long as you're off peak hours and you're using sunscreen. Okay, so that's really fascinating. On sun, on avoiding the sun and what you said about what the damage it does to your skin is a really important lesson. Now does this lesson apply more to people with fairer skin?

Yes, absolutely.

What Is your ethnic background.

So my dad's English and my mom is half Spanish, half Filipino. So I have quite a special mix in a sense that I can be in the sun for a short amount of period. And I don't really need that much sun exposure to get Filipino blood, because I do. Right.

So is this your natural color?

No, this is not my natural color.

You're typically fairer and you have a.

Suntan a little bit. Yes, exactly.

Slightly. But how do you get your suntan?

I don't really stay in the sun anymore. I usually just use a tanning spray.

So it's a spray tan?

It's a spray tan.

Okay. Are spray tans okay for your skin?

Yes. If you're using products that have no toxic chemicals in it, you can totally use them and they're pretty safe. There's a lot of brands out there now that have incredible products that basically rejuvenate, nourish your skin so you make.

You look incredible out in the sun. You can get a spray tan that can make you look incredible, but it also rejuvenates your skin.

Absolutely.

Okay, so that's a really, really important tip. Let's go on to the second idea.

I think the second most important tip that most people don't think about or talk about much is sleep and the importance of sleep. Now, most of the people and most of the clients that I work with every single day prefer to sleep less than more because they feel that, you know, they just need to be productive.

All of these high net worth individuals.

Absolutely. They're running massive corporations. They're dealing with a lot more people and their stress levels and are just off the roof, high cortisol levels. And they're overthinkers. And the problem when you're an overthinker, you don't sleep as much. Right.

Because your mind's constantly up at night worrying about stuff or thinking about the next day.

Absolutely. And because of that, they have problems with their cellular age. They shorten their telomere markers.

So sleep has a huge effect on cellular age.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So we have these things called the telomeres. And as we age, these telomeres get shorter and shorter. But with lifestyle factors and the way we deal with things, we can actually keep them long and lengthy. And these telomere markers are similar to how we talk about our biological age or how we understand our biological age. So, for example, vishen, last year I did my telome and I'm 42, but my test came out as 29. So I'm actually reversing age backwards, which is.

That's crazy.

Absolutely amazing.

What test is that that you used?

So it's a blood test that, that basically tests your telomere.

What company?

I use a company called Frayberg. That's.

Could you spell that for us?

Yeah, it's, it's a laboratory here in, in the uae and it's called F Fraberk. F R E I B U R.

G. Okay, Freeberg, so let's just explain what telomeres are. So, you know the little tips of your shoelaces. So your, your DNA has those little tips as well. And these tips are essential in DNA replication. As we get older, these tips get shorter and shorter and shorter, and so your cells become less effective at replicating. And so the longer your telomeres, which are the little shoelace like tips of your DNA, the better your longevity. And there are certain tests like Fribourg that Mary mentioned that actually measure your telomeres.

And I believe, like, when I found out the age of my cells, I was extremely. Not even surprised. Like, I just thought, that's incredible. That, that it was 29. And the fact that I live an incredibly healthy lifestyle really reflects on, on the, on the, on the age of my cells, not just on how I look on the outside, but also matters more in how I look on the inside. Absolutely.

Okay, so sleep, sleep has a huge impact on telomere language.

Absolutely.

And studies show that meditation also has a huge impact. How much sleep should people be getting and what are your tips for improving sleep?

People should be getting anywhere between seven and a half to eight hours. Now that depends with age, too. And as we get older, people don't sleep as much anymore. So I would say anywhere between, if you're up until the age of 40, I would say anywhere between seven and a half to eight hours. And in your 50s and 60s, you can have between six, six and a half to six, seven hours.

So as you get older, in your 60s, you don't need as much sleep.

No. Okay.

Why is that?

That's what science shows, that, you know, we don't really need as much sleep and we get older.

I see, I see. So sleep. So never, never sacrifice sleep because you have a busy day, because it's going to affect your cognitive performance the next day itself. Your brain is going to be slowed down.

Not only that, it also affects the way you eat.

Yeah.

Because if you lack sleep, you're not getting any energy, and you're always going to crave and binge for foods that you shouldn't be eating that.

That's very true. So, so here's a study that Dr. Daniel Amen, who's America's number one brain doctor, cited in one of my podcast recordings. It was a study done with us, with the US Military, and they tested sleep and its effect on soldiers and their accuracy on a shooting range. And soldiers who had seven hours of sleep were 90% accurate. If they dropped their sleep from seven to six hours, the accuracy went down to 50%. That's a huge, huge, huge drop. And if they go down from six hours to five hours, the accuracy plummets further. And so just an hour less of sleep can completely reduce your accuracy on a shooting range. And in work, accuracy matters as well. Right. We have to make the right decisions. We have projects that we have to work on. Your accuracy is a function of your brain cognition, your responses, your reflexes. All of that are going to be sacrificed if you take away an hour of sleep because you bind to the dumb idea that sacrificing an hour of sleep is going to make you is going to give you an extra hour the next day. It doesn't, you'll be doing far less effectively in every hour of that next day.

Absolutely.

What does sleep do for our external appearance?

Yeah, sleep is incredible in many ways. It makes our skin look better, we look refreshed, we're moisture, we're hydrated. We don't have the under eye dark circles which most people do. And you can tell that people are not getting any sleep. Then you have really deep under eye circles.

What time did you sleep last night?

I slept around 2:30am last night.

Okay.

But in general, I'm usually, I'm very early sleeper and a very early riser. So I'm usually in bed around 10pm and wake up at 5am yeah.

So. So confession. Last night, Mary was at a party I hosted in Dubai for all our podcast guests and our mindvalley authors and local celebrities. And I think the party went on till about 3am you went to bed at 2:30. How many hours of sleep did you get?

I got a good eight hours.

Okay. So that's an important lesson. So I went to bed at 2am okay. After this party and I had a lot of work to do in the morning, but still I cancel my morning meetings because sleep is the most important thing for me.

Absolutely.

Because I needed my seven and a half hours. So if I went to bed at 2am, I would need to stay in bed till 9.30am and then I wake up sharp at 9:30 I meditate for 30 minutes and I'm ready to go. But I will rather cancel my morning meetings than cancel my sleep because I know if I cancel even an hour of sleep, my entire day is going to be wrecked.

I'm exactly the same way. Sleep is one of the most important aspects for longevity and I feel it's one of my top secrets for a youthful appearance.

And this is one of the reasons why I think when you hear about ideas like the 5am Club, I'm not a big supporter of that. Dr. Michael Bruce, who is the sleep doctor on Mindvalley, he says that ideas like the 5am club only apply to 30% of the population. There are different sleep chronotypes.

Absolutely.

You can Google Michael Bruce B R E U S sleep chronotype and you can figure out your chronotype.

What is yours?

Mine, I believe, is the wolf.

Okay. I'm a bear.

You're a bear. Okay. What are your thoughts on 5 hour on the 5am club?

I totally agree with you. I think the 5am club is really depending on your sleep chronotype. And because we don't all have the same circadian rhythm, it really depends on, you know, when you're most productive when you wake up and when you're most productive when you are depending on your on your chronotype. So definitely the 5am clubs apply for the chronotype, which is a bear like myself, but it doesn't apply much to other type of chronotypes. So yeah, I do agree with that point.

So, so just keep that in mind, folks who are listening, not saying the 5am Club doesn't work, but it works for according to Dr. Michael Bruce, only 30% of the population. Now, if any of you have major sleep issues and on sleep medication, that's something you, you need to get off. Sleep medication can really mess you up. And the good news is you can get off in about 7 days to 14 days. Michael Bruce's program, Mastery of Sleep is on Mindvalley. Go check it out. If you're a Mindvalley member, over four weeks, he teaches you how to master sleep. So you get the required sleep. But for every hour you're sleeping, you go super deep and you get even greater cellular rejuvenation. So check it out. Mastery of sleep. And that doctor's name is Dr. Michael Bruce, America's sleep doctor. Let's go on to the third idea.

Now, the third tip is probably one of my favorite tips that I use. I love to share this tip with everybody. So let's Just do a little bit of backtrack. Because I would say 99.9% of people that meet me are shocked that I'm in my 40s. 99.9%, yes.

When I first met you, I would have guessed you were maybe 30 to 33.

I think I like to stay 33.

And then because of your wisecracks and how you made fun of me, I could tell that you had a probably an extra decade of wisdom.

Right. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. I think, you know, every woman's dream is to look younger, and we would spend millions to be able to achieve that. Right. And I think before we go on to the point of, of the third tip, I think it's really important for people to also understand those that are tuning in, that most of the people that do speak to me or meet me always kind of blame or say that the reason why I look incredible for my age is due to genetics. But I'd like to talk a little bit about that.

Okay.

So genetics plays a really small role in the way we look. Now. Science has proven that in so many ways. You would know that too. And there was this twin study that was done in, in the 1800s between twins. Now, in order to be able to understand the difference between genetics and environmental factors is to always do your research and study on twins. Because identical twins have the same DNA. Right. And the study showed between Danish twins in the 18. I think it was the 1870s. So about 1900s, those that was born in that period to measure the heritage ability of genetics opposed to environment and how that impacts our everyday living in terms of longevity. So when they did this test, basically they found that men were about 0.26 in terms of heritability and women were in 0.23 spectrum of heritability. Now, heritability is quite a technical concept and most people don't really understand what it is. Now to really understand a little bit more about heritability for, for the, for those that are tuning in, is that heritability comes in a concept of if, if two identical twins have a heritability of 0.1, it means that genetics are the main cause of, of any sorts of their longevity genes. And if it's anywhere between below 0.33, it's environmental factor. So for example, if, if twins have, if one twin is shorter than the other and they have irritability factor of 0.33, it means that it's not, it's not genetics, it's more of an environmental factor. And if it's for example, a 1.0.

Then it's purely genetic.

Absolutely.

1.0 is purely genetic. Okay, so then what they found is it's only about 25% is genetic.

Yeah, they say 10. They say between 10 to 25% is genetics.

What do you think about this idea put forward by the recent. I believe it was the Secretary of Health of the United States that said obesity is a genetic problem.

No, obesity is not a genetic problem.

Exactly. Almost every health coach was aghast when she said that it is not a.

Genetic problem because they have discovered now epigenetics and how we can totally transform based on our lifestyle factors. So although genetics is a part of who we are and the things that we can inherit, we can still change that based on lifestyle.

In my family, I have people who are obese. I have people who have died of diabetes, of heart attack because of obesity, and it is absolutely not genetic. If you believe that you are going to be cursed by that same thing, you are more likely to go through that issue because of our mind's impact on our body. So it is so dangerous to put that. That idea out. I don't know what the US Government was thinking.

So there is another Study conducted on Ancestry.com Ancestry.com is where they do your genealogy and they kind of understand and they have profiles of over 100 million different family generations. And within that, they concluded that it's not genetics that basically promotes your longevity and those factors, it is environmental factors. What is what they concluded from that?

Okay, so let's go on to this third idea.

Yeah. So the third idea is retinol. Now, for the women who. I mean, most of the women that are tuning in probably understand what retinol is. It's a vitamin A compound. And basically, as we age, as you would know already, we lose a ton of collagen and our skin is not as elastic as anymore as it used to be. And retinol and vitamin A applied to your skin as an ointment daily really makes your skin.

So as a guy, I've never heard of this retinol. So what, how do you get.

I promote this to all of my male clients, by the way.

Yeah.

Yes.

So what should men be buying in terms of retinol?

So you can get it in a. In a serum or in a cream form.

Is there a brand you'd recommend?

I would recommend the brand Murad M.

U R A D. Yes. Okay. And so you put this on your face before going to bed.

Yeah. You put it in your face before you're going to bed. And you have to make sure you wash it in the morning because you can't be in direct sunlight when you're using retinol.

Really? Okay. Okay. So. So I'm a guy and most men I know are not very smart when it comes to, like, taking care of our face and our skin care. So we wash our face with face wash and then we put on retinol, go to bed with the retinol and then wash it off before we go out in direct sunlight?

Absolutely.

What happens if we wear it in direct sunlight?

Use sunscreen. Because retinol is.

Oh, so we wash it off and then we put sunscreen on?

Yes. So when you're somebody that just starts using retinol, you start peeling. So what happens is it peels off a lot of your dead skin and it keeps on the renewed skin. Hence why you always look like you're glowing.

I see.

Because most people don't exfoliate.

And you do it every single day?

Yeah, I do it every day.

Every single day before going to bed. So you have retinol cream.

And the wonderful thing about that is that by just them doing their research on it, 98% of people on a two week trial saw that their skin became less, less wrinkles and more smooth.

98% of people in two weeks?

Absolutely.

Okay. That is a phenomenal tip, especially as a guy. I can. I appreciate this because I've had female friends mentioned to me, hey, you know, are you using retinol? I have no idea what that is. And you just made that clear. Phenomenal. What's the fourth idea?

The fourth idea is spermidine.

Spermidine, okay. So I take spermidine as a pill.

I'd love to know why you take spermidine.

I was speaking at a biohacking conference and there was a company there that manufactures spermidine as a supplement. They gave me the supplement for me as a gift. I recently started taking it because I read about the health benefits. But I'm certainly not an expert on spermidine.

Now, spermidine is incredible because scientists have really seen it promote longevity. They've tested it out in mice, and they've seen that by giving them spermidine in higher doses, they end up having incredible lifespans.

Wow.

Yes. And where can we get aspermidine? Aside from it being in supplement form? You can get them in food, too.

What type of foods contain broccoli? Okay. Yuck.

You don't like greens. You're not a fat.

I don't like broccoli.

You don't like.

Okay, give me. Give me another food. Something I'd eat.

Plants. Most plants have spermidine in it, so broccoli is really good.

And you're right on that one, because I realized I eat a lot of meat. I'm a meat eater, but I hardly. I don't definitely don't eat enough veggies. And I think that's true for a lot of people out there. So spermidine is going to be extremely useful.

Yes. It really helps reverse the age of your cells.

Amazing. Amazing. And you can get spermidine in supplement form.

You can.

Speaking of which, let's go further. In terms of longevity, what are the most important supplements you think we should be taking?

Spermidine is one of them. Definitely. Resveratrol.

Resveratrol.

You already know that.

Okay, tell us about resveratrol. What does that do?

Do you really want to go into the science of all that?

Exactly. So resveratrol. I know we get it in wine. Yeah, but you don't want to be over drinking wine.

But. No, but according to Dr. David Sinclair, who is somebody I've been following for a really long time, he did say that you can get it from wine, but you'll need to have consume so much of it to get the amounts of resveratrol.

What's the problem with that?

I'm kidding.

Okay, so resveratrol, of course, I can say that online. It's my podcast show.

Can you talk about stuff like that?

Of course. I'm wondering why you're being so damn serious. What do you think this is cnn?

It's wild.

Okay, so, so, so resveratrol. Okay. Take resveratrol as a supplement.

You can get the right amounts from wine, and so you got to take it in pill form.

What else?

I have a brand that I. I use for that's really good. Okay. And it's called Do Not Age.

Do Not Age. Resveratrol. I love that name. Okay. Third supplement.

Nmn.

Nmn. Okay. Yeah. NMN has been talked about a lot recently.

Do you use an nm?

I take nmn. I take. So I take spermidine, resveratrol and M and N. And we take these daily?

Yes.

Isn't there a risk of, like, over supplementation if we're taking all three?

No, absolutely not.

You take them all three daily. Okay. And nmn. I think you can Google the benefits. But what are some of the benefits that.

That, you know, it's incredible for cellular aging. It helps reverse the age of Your cells. It's great for gut health, it's great for longevity.

So daily intake of spermidine, resveratrol and M and N. Anything else?

And.

Or do you suggest we stick?

No, I think those are, those are good.

And would you recommend, do you take all three daily? I do all three daily. Okay, what about nad?

I do take that too, but I don't take that daily.

Okay. And now how often do you take nad and why do you not take that daily?

I don't take NAD daily because I just feel like, you know, I honestly feel supplements really depends on who you are, your lifestyle, your age, your where you are in life. Now I don't really recommend supplements of hundreds every single day that you're taking. It's too much, right? Sure. Supplements are really important because there's a massive deficiency in just the foods that we're eating today and we supplement based so that we are getting those nutrients in. But in general I just feel like over supplementing on many things that can be a problem. It can be a problem.

Right, and that's why you going back stick to those three, but you don't add NAD to it.

I'm going to give you a reason. Another backing as to why supplementation isn't too good. There has been a meta analysis that has been done on 83 subjects with over 230,000 people stating providing them antioxidants as supplements and doing a study based on that. And they noticed that it doesn't extend lifespan, it actually kills.

Oh wow. I did not know that.

Right, I did not know that. But the reason being is because it promotes cancer cells.

I see.

And it does give the growth of cancer cells because it's an overconsumption of antioxidants in your body. The problem when you have too much antioxidants in your body is unable to protect your body from all the other cells that you need to destroy because it's too much. So it, hence it causes an overproduction of good bacteria. So in the end it develop all sorts of problems. So hence antioxidant supplements actually cause cancer and are really bad or don't promote longevity. They, they kill you.

I did not know that. Let's go on to the fifth idea.

So the last and final idea is sugar intake. Now most people know that they shouldn't be consuming too much sugar. What's too much sugar? Anything over 24 grams of sugar a day is too much sugar. Now where do we get those kinds of sugars? From supplements like gummies.

Yes. So Here's a funny story. So Mary saw me eating goalie gummies. I bought their famous Ashwagandha gummies, and she's like, what the hell are you doing? And she was right. Gummies are supplement trickery. A gummy doesn't contain the, the right amount of dosage that you actually need to see beneficial effects. But every goalie gummy, if you read the back of their bottle, contains two grams of sugar. And people are popping these because they taste so good, but it's the damn sugar. You pop two to three a day, that's six grams of sugar and, and very little of what they actually promise in terms of its nutritional benefits. You just simply cannot cram that level of nutritional benefits into gummies. So gummies are something you may want to rethink. They are not as. I mean, gummies are way more pleasurable than swallowing a pill with a glass of water. But the pill is going to give you so much better results without the sugar. Let's go on more.

The problem with gummies as well, I'd like to add to that, is that they do say that there are gummies that are sugar free. But the problem with the sugar free gummies is that it contains citric acid, which is eventually really bad for your enamel of your teeth. Right. So that causes a lot of problems for that too. On another note, I believe that people who consume a lot more gummies have a lot more digestive and gastrointestinal issues than those people that don't take the gummy form. Another thing is science has, has been able to discover that gummies loses potency over time. So even though you have a shelf life of five, six years of a particular gummy, it is prone to molds and it loses its potency.

So, so basically, stop buying gummies.

Basically stop biking.

Just, just swallow the pill.

Just swallow the pill.

So that was a very important detour because I, that was new to me. I didn't realize how harmful gummies could be. But let's go back to sugar.

So the problem with sugar is that when we're consuming way too much sugar, it causes glycation. Now, as you know, we're already losing a ton of collagen and elastin from our skin as we age. And glycation expedites that process.

I see.

So it's causing a ton of glucose spikes. And when it's causing a ton of glucose spikes, we're developing a lot of problems in terms of the amount of sugar that we have in our body.

I see. Wow. Okay. So avoid sugar in as much as you can.

You can have sugar in the natural form, but just limit your intake in that because it really starts developing. Glycation, causes sagging of the skin and the wrinkles. And if you consume way too much sugar, you're just accelerating the aging process, not just externally, but internally.

And sugar is addictive. It's one of the most addictive substances out there. Now, for many people, getting over sugar can be hard. But I can tell you it's a lot easier than you think if you follow the right steps. So I remember 2014. Back then, I was. I was not as deep into health as I am right now. And I was attending an event, and this guy sees me add sugar to my coffee. I add two satchels of sugar to my coffee. I drank coffee with sugar. And he said, what the hell are you doing? And I go, don't tell me how to drink my coffee. I'm Vishen Lakyani. I drink my coffee any way I want. And he goes, vishen, I'm a health expert. That's really bad. But what I want you to know is that you can get used to the taste of black coffee with no milk and no sugar really easily. Just take my advice. And he advised me this. And in three days, I gave up adding sugar to my coffee. And it's now been 10 years, and I no longer add sugar to coffee. Coffee with sugar tastes disgusting to me. Basically, I went from one satchel, two satchels on day one, two satchels, as I normally do on day two. I went down to one satchel on day three, half a satchel on day four, no satchel. And that simple gradual toning down changes your brain chemistry. I remember a few days after that, I happened to accidentally add a little bit of sugar. The coffee tasted disgusting to me. It is very easy to train your brain to give up its addiction to sugar. Now, Mindvalley has a program on this called 7 Days to Giving Up Sugar. It is on Mindvalley membership. Go check it out. This program in 7 days retrains your brain and helps you give up sugar. It is by the creator of WildFit, the popular weight loss program on Mindvalley, Eric Edmeads. And Wildfit doesn't use dieting. Diets are bullshit in my book. He makes you not just give up sugar, but give up eating everything else that you're eating based on emotion or habit or addiction. And then to create the stuff that's good for you. Wildfit transformed my life. And you can check it out on mindvalley.com wildfit and seven days to giving Up Sugar, also by Eric Etmeads is just for you. If sugar is the main problem and you can find that in your MindValley membership, just type in sugar in the search box.

Another thing I'd like to point out when it comes to sugar, which I think most people don't seem to understand, is a lot of the countries in the world, especially here, where I live in Dubai, is really so focused on takeout culture. Right. There's a massive takeout culture here. People eating out all the time and it's impossible to not get sugar in the meals. Even if you try to eat healthy, there's always going to be some form of sugar. So. So I am a massive advocate for home cooked meals. I think it's really important to limit your intake of foods that you're eating outdoors, outside and takeout eating at restaurants and really make meals at home.

Yeah. Sugar is found in 70% of the items in a typical American grocery store. And you got to ask yourself why, even if you buy pasta sauce for an American grocery store, it contains sugar. Now why would you add sugar to pasta sauce? It doesn't necessarily make it taste better, but it makes you eat more of it. Sugar makes you eat more, therefore you finish the pasta sauce faster and you desire to buy more sugar. Is this is also the reasons why gummy companies are selling gummies that are so sweet you eat more and you end up buying more of this, this over marketed, bullshitty supplement?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

So thank you for those five tips. Let's do a quick recap. Okay, so the first tip was healthy exposure to the sun and the right way to get a tan. The second tip was on sleep. The third tip was that stuff that you put on your face.

Retinol.

Retinol. Okay. The fourth tip was supplementation spermidine and then resveratrol and then nmn. And the final tip is cut down on sugar.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Mary Christine. And where can people find you?

People can find me on my social channels. It's Mary Christine.

M A R Y C R double I S T I N E. And her Instagram is so cool. You should check it out.

Thank you. Thank you, Vishen. It's great to be here.

Thank you, Mary. I'll see you in the next episode of the Mindvalley podcast. All the show notes will be below this video. It.