FoundMyFitness - #018 Dr. Pierre Capel on the Power of the Mind & the Science of Wim Hof

Episode Date: November 6, 2015

Dr. Pierre Capel Dr. Pierre Capel is a professor emeritus in experimental immunology at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands where he researched a wide range of topics from genetic modification to cancer immunotherapy. Pierre also works with Wim Hof, otherwise known as the iceman (guest on the last podcast) who is especially well-known for some of his amazing physical feats, like staying in a tub with direct contact to ice for over an hour and fifty three minutes. Pierre explains some of the science behind how Wim is able to withstand cold temperatures for prolonged periods of time. The explanation comes down to what the 2014 PNAS study on Wim's technique showed: that reductions in carbon dioxide temporarily increased blood pH. The missing piece to the puzzle that Pierre brings in is the simple fact that pain receptors that are critical to feeling cold temperatures actually rely on what are known as "acid sensing ion channels", which have been shown in other studies to become inactive within the pH ranges Wim and his trainees are able to increase their blood to. In this episode, we discuss...  (00:00) Introduction (05:45) Harmful chronic stress vs beneficial eustress (09:18) Exercise improves a person's ability to deal with chronic stress (12:55) Meditation causes a measurable change in DNA expression (15:51) Loneliness caused 60% increase in tumor incidence in rats (19:02) Loneliness causes an increase in transcription factor NF-kB (23:32) How mood affects the immune system through cortisol and circadian rhythm (26:50) Immune responses activated in the gut can cause depression (30:25) How meditation affects the brain and relieves chronic stress (40:02) Dr. Capel talks about his meditation practice and why he does it (44:42) How Wim Hof endures freezing temperatures for hours  (58:16) Mice exposed to severe cold stress experienced beneficial brain reconfiguration (01:08:05) The close relationship between love and smell If you're interested in learning more, you can read the full show notes here. Join over 300,000 people and get the latest distilled information straight to your inbox weekly: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/newsletter Become a FoundMyFitness premium member to get access to exclusive episodes, emails, live Q+A's with Rhonda and more: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/crowdsponsor

Welcome back, everyone. In this episode, I chat with Dr. Pierre Capelle, Professor Emeritus in Experimental Immunology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where he researched a wide range of topics from genetic modification to cancer immunology. But to give you a little bit more of a backstory of why Pierre is the ideal guest for today's podcast, I met Pierre at a conference that we both spoke at in Amsterdam and was very surprised to find out that he had been working with Wim Hof, otherwise known as the Iceman. The guest on the last podcast I published, who was especially well known for some of his amazing physical feeds, like staying in the tub of ice for over an hour and 53 minutes. This was entirely by coincidence that we would bump into each other and, you know, just a few days before my interview I had scheduled with Wim. Well, as it turns out, Pierre has actually been digging into some of the science behind at least one aspect of why WIM can tolerate the cold in the manner that he does, his breathing technique. In fact, if you ask Wim why he can stand the cold the way he does, he's very likely to tell you that it's because of his breathing technique. While Wim is a man with an amazing story to tell, he's not a scientist. But Pierre's explanation for the underlying mechanism makes what Wim has to say about the importance of his breathing make a lot more sense.

As it turns out, the key comes down to what the 2014 PNAS study on WIM's technique showed, that reductions in blood carbon dioxide levels temporarily increased blood pH. The missing piece to the puzzle that Pierre brings in this simple fact is that pain receptors that are critical to feeling cold temperatures actually rely on what are known as acid sensing ion channels, which have been shown in other studies to become inactive within pH ranges Wim and his trainees are able to increase their blood too. I really, really enjoy this conversation with Pierre. In addition to talking about some of the thermo and pain receptor stuff, we also discuss other cool literature he's familiar with,

including good stress and bad stress and how meditation affects the expression of your genes, meditation and the speed with which it affects fMRI changes in the brain, how even loneliness can change gene expression, including some involved in metabolism, inflammation, and the endocrine system, the effect of social isolation in mice on cancer metastasis, and conversely, how wound healing can be affected in mice by just changing their environment. What affects the stress hormone cortisol has on gene expression, and what the inflammation is and how its activation can be linked to the central nervous system. We also discuss how the limbic system regulates emotions,

and this is not easily controlled, but meditation has been shown to help control the limbic system. All right, now that I've given you a little taste of what this conversation is about, just one super quick reminder. Get on my weekly email newsletter at foundmyfitness.com. This is where I send all of my best content. You can't get everything just by tuning in the podcast or my YouTube channel. You have to be on my newsletter too. Go to foundmyfitness.com to get on it. Secondly, if you like these podcasts, please consider pitching me a few bucks. I'm very happy to say that. As of this recording, I'm over halfway to my next major funding milestone. All it takes is a small percentage of people listening to this podcast to pledge a few bucks and I'll be the rest of the way

there. Thank you so much for your consideration. You can learn more about that at foundmyfitness.com forward slash crowd sponsor. That's C-R-O-W-D-S-P-O-N-S-O-R. Found MyFitness.com forward slash crowdsponsor. Without further ado, introducing Dr. Pierre Capel. Hello, everyone. I'm sitting here in the wonderful city of Amsterdam in Netherlands with Professor Pierre Capel, whom I met yesterday because we were both giving a talk at the Orthomolecular Medicine Congress in bosom. We immediately hit it off, and I found out that Pierre happens to be an acquaintance of

Wim Hof, also known as the Iceman, who many of you may know of through Tim Ferris's interview with Wim and also from the Vice documentary on WIM and his cold and breathing techniques. I'm very honored to have Pierre here. He is an expert on many different subjects, including the science behind meditation, how meditation changes our genes and our brain, and the science behind enjoying life in general. So I'd like to welcome Pierre and maybe if you want to tell us a little bit more about yourself? Yes. Well, first of all, thank you that I can talk in this fantastic surrounding. My name is Pierre Capel, and I'm, as the official word is, an emeritus professor, but I'm just a man who loves science and has now a little bit more time

to do his little hobbies than only running a lab with more than 100 people. My hobbies, are science. But science also connected to the joy of life, what you just said, because it is incredibly important that we should not only be active and creative, but we also should be at ease that the creation we want to find really has a good background. And not all this rush, rush, rush, rush, and ah, no, relax, and then the inspiration comes. I couldn't agree with you more on that. You know, I recently have been talking about some of the negative effects of the stress and the chronic stress response and how that literally ages your DNA, it ages your brain.

Oh, absolutely. Well, the point is that you have to make a division between very functional stress, which is the natural stress, which has a very big influence in. survival like animals do. So if there is a danger, you should not go to bed and think about it and write an article, but you have to run and fight and do and whatever. So this stress response, which people always know, it's linked to adrenaline, heartbeat, sweating, power. That stress response is very good. However, it's rather strong on your body. So if you do that, that for a too long time it doesn't work.

The other thing is the chronic stress, which is not related to danger, but to stupid thoughts. Oh, worry, what's tomorrow? Wow, if that. That are all type of thoughts which can make you uneasy and give a stressy response.

However, there can also be a type of stress which is very real and chronic. For example, a disease in your family. if somebody has leukemia, you can't say, okay, relax or whatever. But if we're going to talk about meditation, which we will do in the moment, what is the very strong point is that this chronic stress, which is outside your competence to cope with it, it is there. But what is the effect it really has on your body?

That you can influence. So the terrible disease is there. 24-7, but it should not devastate your life 24-7, but only 20 minutes, poof. And that we're going to talk about, what that will do. So what you're saying is, in a way, if you have an event that is out of your control, for example, if someone in your family gets critically ill, such as leukemia, obviously you can't control that. No.

It's going to happen, and you are going to be affected emotionally by that event. But what you can control is how you emotionally respond to that event and whether or not you're going to ruminate and continue to have these negative thoughts and anxiety and... Well, the anxiety and negative thoughts you absolutely will have. It's supernatural to float over the real trouble. That's not correct. But there should be a period in the day that you quit thinking and start feeling and don't think about tomorrow. but go to at this very moment and try to get rid of thoughts, breathing easily, quieting down. And that's the fun thing. You hardly will believe it.

But if you meditate 20 minutes a day, you will change the use of hundreds of genes in your body. And this change is a positive one. And we will explain that during this. talk. So essentially buffering the negative effects of the stress with something like meditation. Yes. Also physical exercise is also very

important. So in a lot of psychuretic clinics they just hang around drinking some coffee, smoking cigarettes and doing absolutely nothing. But if you let them do some physical work or walking or swimming or whatever

that has a direct effect on their psychological problems. So you have to stay active, but you have to also contemplate at a proper moment to get your harmony back, which is disturbed by the outside stressor. Yeah, so both exercise and having that time

to be mindful and meditate and be in the present moment. They both serve important functions. I would like to ask a question to your audience, if you don't mind. Folks, you all have an agenda. You all are busy. You have all obligations. You have to bring this here, get that, do this, do that. And this whole exercise we can summarize as your agenda.

Where are you in your agenda? Where is your daily half hour only for yourself and not being busy with whatever? If you really can answer that you have it, then you are okay. If not, you better think about it. You are worth half an hour a day for yourself. And that half hour, if you do that properly, really will have an effect. So I guess the answer, if you say when I sleep, that doesn't count.

No. Sleeping is incredibly important without sleep seven days you die. And in sleep is a very active process in which the mind is really, really reprocessing, changing memory from this side to that side, cleaning up the hard disk. So that's very important. But emotionally, you have to be awake to get rid of the negative thoughts and come to harmony for 10, 15 minutes. And that active process changes the use of your DNA and your genes.

the inactive, unconscious sleeping is extremely important, but that will not have this effect as meditation has. So if it can change the expression of over 100 genes, which means you can turn genes on, turn jeans off. You can do that yourself. How quickly does that happen? Is it immediate after meditating? No, no, it's during.

I will give a little example that there are a lot of measurements done with all type of medical instruments of scans, brain scans, in which you measure activity. And if you put somebody in such a surrounding where you can measure brain function, blood flow, neurotransmitter production, and whatever, then you are on real time. And if these people start to meditate, electrical activity, and especially in this part of the brain, changes in 30 seconds, starts to change. Blood flow is changing within 5 to 10 minutes. And so even during meditation, you already are resetting a lot of basic functions. But if you don't mind, I would like to give a little example about because you say, genes are changed and DNA and whatever.

I would like to explain a little bit what it really is. People always think that DNA is something static. If we have our DNA passport, you know who you are. Well, forget about it. These 20,000 genes, which is not much, are used in a special way together, in a qualitative different way, in a dynamic way. And it is so complex that the,

description of the proteins you have, which are the 20,000, isn't saying much, but what are you using? The point is this, that there is a technique that you have a DNA chip in which you can measure which gene is switched on and which gene is switched off in a cell. That chip you can buy commercially, and in a lab you can do the trick, and it's a type of dipstick, and then you see what is all and off. There was a fantastic research program in which they did this gene expression in white blood cells for people who were loners, socially isolated, had no friends, no contacts, and really felt lonely. So not a person who wants to be alone and is happy, but the people who are really, I'm so alone, compared to the same type of people with income,

age, disease, background, etc. And these two types of white blood cells, you put a stick in this one, put a stick in that one, and then you have, haven't said, a good computer program. And then they analyze 10,000 genes and see what's different. In the case that somebody is lonely, in that article was at least 209, elementary functions in life were changed inside the immune system, inside metabolism,

hormone levels and whatever. So a feeling of unhappiness changes a whole use of hundreds of genes. But the other way around, happiness also changes an awful lot. So, There is a lot of stress is related with unhappiness or worry and sorrow, but if you actively try to be happy, enjoy life, not continuously, it is not a burgundy type of living that only wine, women and singing in the Germans, wine, wife and kazang, that is not what I am aiming at. But if you are internally at ease with yourself, that's... switches on and off genes. It's not only with humans, but there are fantastic experiments with

rats, and there is a red strain where the women are very susceptible to breast cancer. So after a certain period of time, so many percent of the women have a breast cancer, and that is the way it is. Because rats are incredibly social animals, if you isolate them and given the perfect room surface, Hilton quality, but alone in a cage, they feel lonely. What you see is that the tumor incidence, which at a certain time is 20% in the population, goes to 80. The tumor size is 84 times bigger, and it starts to spread out in the body metastasize. How is that possible? Only loneliness influences the effect how the tumor develops.

Well, if the genes in the human setting, the 209, in the rat, there's a similar thing going on. If a protein is expressed, which is absolutely a necessity for a tumor, to get out of the tissue and to go into another tissue, then it is metastasizing and spreading. If that protein is not expressed, forget about it. He can't leave. But if that protein is under control of the gene, which is under control of loneliness, you influence your disease.

So having a harmonious life and really feeling okay, actively try to find the good things in life, not by being blindfolded, but actively looking at it, really has an incredible effect of health. With the tumor loneliness study done in rats, that's incredible that they, you know, increased the tumor incidence by 60% and the tumor growth and metastasized. Was there any implications in terms of what caused the, you know, metastasis? So, so was there, you know, was there more cortisol or, you know, cortical releasing hormone that increased, you know, factors like VEGF or other angiode? factors which are known to cause, you know, tumor angiogenesis?

So one of the explanations is that FED-JF, which is the vascular and the thielia growth factor, which is a necessity to form new blood vessels, but also to do the maintenance. The point is that a tumor can actively produce FEDGF, but can be stimulated by this loneliness. So there is a much higher expression factor, which is the regulator of a gene, if that is upregulated by loneliness, then the genes which follow this transcription factor will go up. And in this loneliness, you see that a very important protein in DNA regulation is called NF Kappa B, which is a factor which switches on and off about 200 genes. strongly involves in the immune response, but also responsible for this vascular growth factor.

So loneliness affects LNF Kappa B affects the growth factor. And if you go the other way around, then if you take away the growth factor by harmony, then the VFF goes down, and a lot of tumors have lousy vessels and start bleeding and become necrotic. they shrink. So it really is a funny effect. So there's really empirical evidence that social isolation, at least in the context of these animal studies, literally increases the inflammatory response via NF-cabbee. That's really very interesting and very important. I will give you two funny examples. One about wound healing. If in an animal situation an animal is wounded,

then whether is he safe or stress or whatever will affect the speed of the healing of its injury. And they did experiments with standardized incision which had to heal in animals. And depending, if they give extra, nest material and extra content by which he was feeling better. The wound healing is feeling more safe. The wound healing increased incredibly.

It was much faster. But the other example is more in another effect, which is coming not really into meditation, but a little bit. There was a boy who was very often severely, ill in his younger age and he was laying in a room for days and days and a lot of pain and trouble. But in the garden was a beautiful tree which he could see through the window from his bed. And it always gave him mental support, this tree. This tree was supporting his misery. Later on this boy became a surgeon and started to work, I guess,

It was Chicago, I don't know which is town. But in the ward, there was a long corridor with rooms which patients were treated. But along this stretch of rooms, a couple of them were looking to a concrete wall. And a couple of them were looking into a park with trees. So then he started to analyze for 12 years, all the... documentation on surgery, the outcome of it, how long and how well did the patients perform. Guess what? The guys who were laying in the room looking at the tree have less pain medication, shorter hospitalization days were doing better and whatever. And the point is that if you

look at something beautiful, it's not only beautiful. But it also really works. Yeah, there's a study that came out not too long ago. I didn't read the whole study. I just read the press release, but it found that people that took walks in nature versus, you know, in a metropolitan city area, had less clinical symptoms of depression, anxiety. So they were both walking. They're both getting exercise, which we know also has positive benefits on depression.

However, something about being. immersed in nature had a much more significant antidepressant effect. Sure. Which is... That's just completely conceivable with everything you can see in this field. So I had a question in regards to the wound healing and feeling safe versus being stressed in the animal studies that you were referring to. I know that the stress response, at least in terms of cortisol, there's lots of things.

going on with the stress response, but it dampens the immune response. So it actually, you know, your immune system doesn't get as activated. Does that have something to do with the delaying or prolonging the wound healing response? Absolutely. So cortisol is an incredibly important hormone. And it's fluctuating through the day. It's, the official word is the circadian rhythm and it fluctuates and at night it's low and in day it's high etc and it regulates a lot every cell has a receptor on its membrane for cortisol or almost every cell and the complex of cortisol and goes into the nucleus and is called the transcription factor and regulates 20% of our genome so one in five genes is under control of cortisol. So if you are stressed, this rhythm is still there, but this whole fluctuation

is elevated. And genes are overexpressed in a stressy situation or under-expressed because cortisol can also switch the things off. So the best way to say it's bringing things in disbalance with stronger effects. So the stress response is not only cortisol, is not only adrenaline, but is far more complex. But the point is that this cortisol adrenaline and all these stress hormones do not only affect heartbeat or sweating or anxiety, but also the immune system. And the example is the wound healing, which is under influence of this stress response and changes whether you feel okay or not. But the immune system itself is making all types of. of factors and hundreds of them who influence the central nervous system, who

influence your mood, who influence depression, psychosis and whatever. A very strong but sad example is that in the early 70s when gamma interferon was used as a therapeutic agent for a certain type of cancer, the only effect was that all these people who were treated ended up psychotic in the psychiatry ward because gamma interferon influences the immune system but also influences the central nervous system. That is an incredibly complex interrelationship and all type of factors from inflammatory reactions will affect your mind and vice versa. Your mind, your mind will affect your immune system.

And a very important immunological starting component, so the whole starting engine of the immune system is called the inflamazome. Inflamazome is a very old defense mechanism in every cell, what is living. And it is a complex when there is a, danger, a stress, it will, individual proteins will come together, form a complex and will start a defense reaction. In simple organisms, they will only make this and that and that factor.

And in our system, we have the same as in plants and whatever, but you get a whole cascade of reactions. So if you trigger the inflammasome in the bowel, it will trigger all these inflammatory things, which goes to the brain and your gut flora is directly linked through this inflammation to depression. But if you are very healthy, physically spoken, and you are depressed, factors from the central nervous system, go to the immune system, they will start an inflammatory response and you get a disease from a psychological stress factor. So you cannot separate mind and body in this. And there are interlinking elements, many of them and some are more important than others,

but the cortisol levels influencing the immune system, the immune system influencing the central nervous system, the central nervous system influencing, etc. So you cannot oversimplify it, but you can really say mental problems will give physical diseases. Physical diseases will give mental problems and vice versa. Absolutely. I 100% agree. You mentioned the interferon causing psychosis when they were using it to treat cancer. I wasn't aware of that study. It's a long ago when I was active.

Oh, yeah. Well, you know, there was a little more contemporary study done where people were injected with interferon gamma, which is pro-inflammatory cytokine, induces and mean response, caused depression or depressive symptoms. Yes. But what was fascinating in that study is that there is a group that was given the interferon and there was a group that was given interferon and the marine omega-3 fatty acid, Icosopenta inoic acid, EPA, which is also anti-inflammatory.

they were given EPA with the interferon and they did not get the symptoms of depression. And of course, many different ways in which inflammation is affecting the brain through, you know, this inflammation, which is, you know, very interesting. I don't know much about, I know about the inflammation, but I don't know about the connection between directly how it's influencing the brain. I do know that a lot of these pro-inflammatory molecules and cytokines can get into the brain and also the vagal nerve connecting the gut to the brain. But, you know, it's absolutely true people that are obese, for example, have, you know, type 2 diabetes.

Lots of different inflammatory related diseases are much more likely to also have depression. And depression also leads to, you know, there's cancer incidents that's more common and a whole host of diseases. But I kind of wanted to circle back and ask you about the meditation and how the meditation can specifically influence the way you will respond to a stressful event when it occurs. Let's say if someone practices meditation for 20 minutes a day and then something very stressful happens in their life, you know, will they release as much cortisol as someone who doesn't meditate or is that known? Well, there are a lot of studies on all type of facts of meditation.

and also in the, as long as we stay in the immune system, you can measure this pro-inflammatory cytokines, IL-6 and whatever. You directly influence IL-6 by meditation, it goes down. But before we go into the molecules and the things, I think it's more important to say what the real effect of meditation is. Meditation is not something hocus-pocus or whatever, but the point is this that all the stimuli from the outside world come into our life via our senses, our nose, eyes, ears, but are handled by the limbic system in the brain.

That is what popularly is said between the ears. It is in the middle. That is a very effective, complicated part. of the brain, which is almost unconscious, it's reacting immediately and it's where your feelings and all type of things are. The conscious part, what Descartes is saying that is why we are, we think so, therefore, that is in the cortex. But the cortex is developed in a very short period of time in evolution, from normal cortex to little neocortex in the human being. And so the hardware is not so good. So the emotional development of the brain, the limbic system, was a very

slow process in which hundreds of different areas work together. One is for pain and fear, the amygdala, and the other one is for this and that for that. And so you have this whole complex system, and you have this cortex where your motor neurons are that you can move your hands consciously, etc. However, this thinking is beautiful and we can do fantastic things with our conscious thinking, but the way back from the cortex to our feelings, so our cognitive functions and our emotional functions, the hardware is not so good. So if somebody is afraid of a spider, you can talk whatever you want, but they are afraid. You cannot control the fear of spiders, if you have it, with thinking or talking.

It doesn't work a tiny bit, but not really. So what we see is that emotions and conscious thinking are separate areas in the brain, where the consciousness part has concerning for the neurological anatomy, not the proper influence on the emotions. The emotions will dominate the thinking and not vice versa. Well, selling cars is based on that. Every ad is going for the emotions and then you will stop thinking. Okay.

But what is now the trick of meditation? Meditation is that you will come back to the activity of your limbic system, so where your emotions are, and disconnected with thinking. And this disconnecting with thinking is incredibly important because the thinking almost always disturbs the balance of the emotions. If you think that tomorrow is a problem, in the amygdala there will be a reaction and the whole neural system will give fear and anxiety,

or whatever. However, there is no tomorrow. You are here. Perhaps tomorrow is not. It is your own invention that tomorrow will be devastating. You will make it devastating. Perhaps it's true, but you can only say so if tomorrow becomes today. So we sit here. If we focus on our emotions here at this very moment and don't think what will happen or what has happened, then you get the normal balance of all the neurotransmitters signaling inside the limbic system. And because it's such an old system, it's rather harmonious. You can lean on it. It's okay.

But if we think about tomorrow, you get a disturbance. And the only thing what meditation is doing is not changing your life. It doesn't make it better. but this tomorrow and this space-time feeling, but also the ego feeling, I am afraid of that. That's if you disconnect that. And that is a very simple way to do that because the connection between emotions and consciousness are rather weak.

So multitasking, they say you can do, but how many things you really can multitask? If there is a lot of this and that and that and that, that you can only handle a little thing. So if you concentrate on something which is not thinking, for example, breeding, you concentrate, so airflow in the nose, count, out, and really concentrate on it. You don't have much space of solving a mathematical problem anymore,

because, and then if you concentrate where the airflow goes through the, and then close your eyes and then have a little music and then all of a sudden you stop thinking and you stop losing the time, space feeling. You are. You get a function of being instead of going of whatever. And that is what meditation is doing. But as soon as the Islamic system comes into the harmonious things,

it really controls a lot of stress responses, a lot of hormones, a lot of cortisol, a lot of whatever, but also transcription factors, including NFCAPAB. So if you meditate, your immune system is different. If you meditate, your stress response is different. And if you meditate regularly, then you have a very fundamental change, a positive one, which really becomes constant. So there are studies in which they measure activity in the left prefrontal cortex, that is this part of the brain. Normally it's a 50-50 activity left right, but with meditation, it shifts a little bit to the left. And the left part is more the harmonious well-being feeling okay instead of the troublesome on the right.

And this shift, and you make new neuronal connections, new nerve cells are being made, gives you a really constant feeling of emotional stability. And you can measure the number of brain activities at different levels. after seven weeks of meditation and you see a fantastic change to the positive. Wow, yeah. I remember reading a study where people that had never meditated before were trained to meditate for eight weeks

and they had changed like five regions of their brain. They had decreased the amygdala, which is part of the limbic system. They decreased the activity of it and increased parts of the prefrontal cortex. Perhaps it was the left region. I don't remember. Oh, that are details, but... No, it's true.

And so the amygdala, which is a part of the fear and pain and trouble sensing organ, is really changing in size and function. And you're saying that doing this long-term meditation has lasting effects, and so then one would predict that then, you know, not only are you not going to continue to ruminate on the future, the things you have to do. I mean, to a certain extent, obviously setting goals and having goals you want to achieve is a good thing, but when it becomes so overwhelming. It becomes obsessive.

Right. And 24-7, you're absolutely wrong. A goal is fantastic, but at this very moment, we are sitting here. I have zero goals, only to be here, to enjoy your presence, to talk about the things I like. Look at the flowers. That is my life now. Do you practice meditation? Yes.

Do you do it on a daily basis? Yes. How long? Well, about 20 minutes. I made some music compositions of a full type of meditative things and of about 20 minutes. And so when the music stops, I stop. You always go on a little, so it's five minutes later than you. Oh, yeah.

Now. And does your meditation focus on the breathing aspects? Well, the point is that with meditation, a lot of people think that it is you really have to go into Zen mood and your third eye and the chakra this and whatever. That's absolutely not necessary. Everybody should just do whatever. You do not have to sit in the lotus position. If you like it, you do it. But you can walk, you can sit, you can lay down.

And the only thing is you have to. to concentrate on something by which you do not think. I had very heavy times emotionally by which I had a lot of stress. I turned grey in three months and from a slim boy I changed into a fat belly person within half a year with the same eating. So my whole metabolism was changed by stress, which is called a metabolic syndrome. I know exactly what it is. But in those days, it was difficult to get grip on your life, people dying and little children and problems, and really heavy. So I went to a place where, if you have time, you should do that. It's called the Kirla-Muller Museum in Holland. That is a national park.

in which there are hundreds of bikes for free. So you go in, you take a bike. You go through the forest, the fields, the header fields, you see deer walking. And then after this nature experience, you come in the most beautiful museum where Van Gog is hanging, beautiful Mondrian, whatever.

And in those days when I really had some trouble, I went there sitting in front of a picture, which I liked, and just looking at the picture for 20 minutes, and then I could cope with it again. So in very stressful situations, you really have to meditate. Now I have a happy life, and I still like to meditate. But the urge of it, especially if you're in trouble, is increasingly. incredibly big and you get a lot of power out of it. Yeah.

And how you do it, if you look at the picture, look at nature, look into a floating water, fireplace. You called it. My meditation was, I've been wanting to meditate again and practice it on a daily basis. It's one part of my life that I'm really actively trying to incorporate something new. And I used to when I lived in San Diego many years ago before, about 10 years ago, I'm from San Diego, but I grew up, you know, surfing. And I was able to meditate while I was sitting on my surfboard looking at the waves coming in because I didn't care about anything else because all I needed to think about was right now, that wave coming. one so it doesn't wipe me out and make me drowned

and two because I wanted to catch one and have this fun ride in. Yeah, so meditation is just coming to the current situation now, no time, just be. And it can be on a waveboard, that can be on a bicycle, that can be on the top of a mountain, it can be anywhere, it can be in a museum, and it can.

So there is not a strict rule in meditation. and a lot of people make a little fuss about it, how it should be. But it is stop thinking and start being. I really like that definition. I really like that definition of it. You were mentioning when you were talking about the meditation and the breathing techniques and it reminded me of some of Wim Hof's methods of breathing and he does some cold shock. I've been very interested in the effects of things.

good types of stress on the body. So we've been talking about bad stress, chronic stress. But there's also you stress, good stress. Oh, absolutely. So maybe we could dive in a little bit because I know that you're very interested in some of the mechanisms and the science behind how cold and how these certain breathing techniques can change different hormones,

you know, the endocrine system, immune system. Oh, it changes a lot. The point is that, first of all right, first of all right, is a very charming man with a lot of stamina and a lot of charisma. And he really know how to talk to people to convince them that they have to do what they think they should not do like going into an ice bath. Everyone who just thinks I'm going into the ice is a little strange. But he convinces, please do it.

And the weird thing is that people like it and get a positive effect. And then you say, hey, how, why? Well, if you go unprepared into ice cold water, 0 degrees Celsius or whatever, it's in fire night, you have a lot of pain, you get a lot of trouble, a lot of anxiety. It is terrible. Don't do it. However, Wim is training people and they do. do it and they like it. What is the training? The training has two components. First of all,

a meditation type of thing, so you really have to come at ease and really try to get rid of all the surrounding stress. And then do this breathing technique. The breathing technique itself, you do about 20 minutes, is the type of meditation in itself. but also a breeding technique. So why not have a double-edged sword? And this breathing technique, he really specialized in such a way that you change the content of carbon dioxide in your blood and you lower it. Carbon dioxide is acidic in water.

And if it's out of the bloodstream, and the tissue, or at least less, then the pH is less acidic, but more alkaline. In the normal situation, the acid alkaline balance, which is called pH, the strict balance is pH 7, and our body is 7.4. That is our regular situation.

In the stomach, it's very acidic, and in that is this, so there is a little difference in the body, but let's say 7.4, that is our body equivalence of alkaline and acid. By this breeding technique,

pumping out a lot of carbon dioxide and having periods in not breathing, heavy breeding, well, he can tell people how to do. You change your pH. and now comes the little trick that in his training that type of

breeding raises the pH sometimes to 7.7, 7.8 and for biology that is a lot. Yeah, and this is published. And it is published. It's scientifically measured and whatever. But we go now

Now back to this terrible cold. If you go, you always have an idea of the temperature of your surrounding and for that you have a whole family of receptors, thermosensors, and there's a whole family. And for each temperature range, you have a separate set of family members who are telling you what the temperature is. So if it is above 50 degrees Celsius, rather hot, you will burn. So if you touch something which is very hot, immediately, you can't react differently. You can't keep it on and say, hmm, it smells, you don't. But if it is 37 degrees, you say, hmm, nice. And so there is, for each temperature range is a family of temperature sensors,

which are proteins which are doing things. And they do not only measure temperature, but also mechanical stress. So if you feel something, this touch, you feel it's metal, it's colder, it is this, that is this whole family of things. One of the family members is effective beyond 1717 Celsius, so cold. and because our body temperature doesn't want to be lowered,

this cold surrounding is aggressive. We should avoid it. So you get an active stress response, get out of the cold. And now, that is this receptor telling you. However, he is not alone. Because if you go in this cold water, it's painful. it hurts. And you get a very strong anxiety response.

And I have to get out. And that's so dominating that it really can cause you a lot of trouble, heart attack. So if you go into ice cold water and you are really in trouble, the body is telling you that. However, pain, anxiety and temperature, they are all combined in this skinny dipping in the cold water. But biologically, they are separate units. And normally the thermocenter tells you it's cold and his job of this thermocenter telling you, hey, switch on the heat, burn your brown fat, generate calories like hell, make energy, energy, energy in temperature should not drop, so burn everything we have to keep your body temperature constant.

That is the function of this receptor. But it is coupled to a pain receptor. So you cannot just sit in the water and say, oh, nice, I'm changing my metabolism. You have pain. But now we come to the pain receptor. which is another one. And there's also a family of receptors. And the trick is this.

It is a protein in the membrane and as a single protein is doing nothing. But if three of these proteins combine into a trimer, so three proteins together in a certain confirmation, then they will signal and that signal is pain. Normal situation,

like we are sitting here, let us say that 5% of our pain receptors are in an active state. So if I do this, well, I feel it, but doesn't hurt. However, if I have a big wound here and I do this, then we get trouble with the neighbors because I shout too loud.

Because then this is not 5% is on, but everything is in the trimor position and generates a pain signal. So a pain signal has a volume switch. It can be low, can be high. But it is dependent on a lot of things, also inflammation, but also on pH. And at pH 7.7, the pain receptor is a monomer.

So it's out. So no pain. But the same receptor is also. also in the amygdala, giving fear and pain, but also in the spinal cord and all over your body. So all of a sudden you don't feel pain, don't feel anxiety. But the temperature receptor, which normally gives you pain is doing now the job by himself only, generates an incredible amount of adrenaline, gives you energy you won't believe, burns your fat like hell. and Wim Hof is able to sit for two hours, or one hour and 58 minutes, or something like that, to be precise, in ice cold water, without a significant change in body temperature.

Why? Because his thermocensor is heating up and burning the brown thread. Come on, boys. And afterwards, you're going to change the white fat into brown fat, which is, the brown thread is in this area of your body. and so you regenerate that. And so if you come into the cold, you get a fantastic amount of energy. You get this strong stress response without pain and fear. And then you can walk up a mountain in short time. What's the name of the thermoreceptor? Do you know the name?

Yes, that is. transient potential, the TP. Oh, one of the TPV or RV. Yeah, the TPV, there's a whole family. Okay, so it's responding to the cold. And there are also receptors which are responding to heat and whatever. Right, yeah. So, I have so many questions, but one is the importance between coupling

the breathing technique, which then decreases the carbon dioxide in the blood, and as a consequence, raises... Right, but it raises the blood pH to a little more alkaline, which, by the way, is not easy to do. Usually, you can't just raise your pH in your blood, but, you know, breathing, obviously, the breathing techniques, obviously, it's working, and that's been published. And that then switches off the pain receptor, which needs to be trimerized. So it's now not able to do that because the pH is too high. So that's uncoupling now the pain receptor from the thermoreceptor, which somehow I know

that UCP1, the uncoupling protein, which norepinephrine, which cold releases norepinephrine, and that activates uncoupling protein 1, which then uncouples your mitochondria. So your mitochondria usually are sensing, you know, the electrochemical gradient. And when that becomes uncoupled, your mitochondria go, oh, my God, I need to make energy. So they're burning more, you know, you're basically burning all the energy like you said to, you know, generate heat and to also make energy, ACP. So you end up burning fat, like you said. And this is all really cool because I was, for one, the pH, changing the pH of the blood.

I was not, I was a little skeptical of that until I actually read the study and, and how, you know, carbon dioxide in the blood can do that. I think there's a term for it, like respiratory alkalosis or something like that. Oh, yeah, you can name it whatever, yeah. But the point is, it's functional. Yeah, yeah. Have you, have you tried any of the breathing techniques or? Well, no, not in that sense. that, but I have a little story. I know a guy who was doing this for the first time,

and he didn't take this breeding so serious. So I said, well, I said, okay, and in the meantime wandering around, and then hopped into the cold water, and that was extremely unpleasant. And then the second time, he really was aware, hey, I should take it serious, this breathing and then he had no trouble. So this is a control in itself. So the breeding technique is really necessary to prepare for this cold and this cold will, after uncoupling of all the other effects, will have the positive stress response in metabolism, adrenaline, etc. Without the pain. So you can withstand the cold for longer. I've been very interested in the effects of temperature on the human physiology.

I've talked a lot about the sauna and how this sauna is a good hormetic stress activates heat shock proteins, which have a variety of positive effects. It also changes brain function as well. It changes the opioid system, endorphins, makes you more sensitive to them. So I became very interested in that.

But cold, more recently, I became interested because there was a paper that was published in nature last January. where researchers took mice and exposed them to about 4 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes. Caused their core body temperature, so unlike WIM, their core body temperature dropped from, you know, 98.6 to about 65 degrees Fahrenheit. So very, I mean, hypothermia almost. But what was very interesting is that they, the cold shock, there's a whole class of proteins

called cold shock proteins are activated by the cold. And one of them specifically is in the brain and at the dendretic spine region of neurons. And it increases dramatically in the cold. And what's really interesting is that what the function of this protein is, is RBM3, is to regrow lost synapses. So hibernating animals, bears, for example, some hibernating rodents, when they go into hibernation, they lose a significant amount of their synapses. I forgot like 30 or 40% or something like that. But when they come out of the hibernation, they regrow the synapses that they lost, which has huge implications, of course, for a neurodise, brain aging in general. So this is kind of what instigated the study because they found that what happens is upon hibernation, they have this

huge increase in this gene, brain, RBM3, and that regulates, you know, regrowing the synapses. So that's when I became very interested in the cold and then started reading about it and all the effects on the endocrine system or a benephrine burning of the metabolism. And now I'm very interested in some of the techniques that WIMS doing and science behind what's going on. So I'm really excited to have you talk about it. And so, but you wanted to talk about a couple of other interesting effects on the same family of receptors. Yes. And then we don't go so, be sorry. as in the heat or in the cold or whatever. But we just go to this family of receptors,

which the family name is TRP, and then you have Uncle M and on TV. So the whole family is RTPV1 or M, etc. The question is that you have a measurement of each type of temperature by each family member. But now the question is, why in the tropics people eat so spicy, a lot of hot peppers. The point is this, that a compound with a beautiful name in the red pepper, is binding to one of these family members which

senses heat, not the extreme heat, not the 50, but so around 40 degrees Celsius or so around 100thranite. What is doing that the pepper stimulates this receptor, so the receptor sings you are too hot. Capcassin? Is that specifically? Yes. That is the name. But the receptor senses hates hot and is reducing your body temperature to neutralize the effect of the outside temperature. So you lower your body temperature by spicy food. But if you're, you lower your body temperature by spicy food. But if you you're in the tropics, you will be heated up by the sun. And if I go as a Westerner, not, well, I like spicy food, but I haven't done it, and I'm sweating, and then you have this really white man's burden in the tropical, you know that. Well, I'm sorry, but whereas if you have spicy food,

you lower your body temperature, the sun is raising it, but to the normal level you want. You don't have to sweat to get rid of the extra temperature because you set your thermostat lower. So that is what the hot pepper is doing. Now the other way, the cold receptor, if you have a cold, you have all these types of things that you wrap your breast with mantle or eucalyptus, etc. The point is that compounds from these plants bind to the cold receptor. So as soon as you wrap in your chest, it feels. cold because you sense cold, like the pepper you feel hot. But the temperature receptor is not only

making more energy and whatever, but changing the blood flow. So the blood flow increases in this area where you put mantle or eucalyptus and you generate heat. So first it's cold and then it really is getting warm because you pump up the fire by this plant extract. And the The trick with cold, why it's so good and very simple and you don't need further medication because you can do it yourself, is what is a common cold? If I am for 10 minutes outside and unprotected and I feel cold tomorrow I am ill, how is it possible? The point is that this illness is already there, but I can cope with it.

So you have a renal virus or whatever cause of my common cold, and my immune system is coping with it. So let's say I have 100 units of immunity which have to fight to 80 units of a viral or whatever infection. So the immune system dominates the infectious agent and this is a continuous process. Now I go 10 minutes into the cold. The blood flow changes because the cold gives fasco constriction, so you have less blood. So my 100 units per time can't reach that place and become 75. Hey, he says the virus, poof!

And because that goes very fast, half a day or a day later, you have a common cold. So if you now put on some mental eucalyptus by increasing the blood flow and giving a lot of energy and raising the temperature,

then the immune system comes back with much more unis-pulliphyp. time than the hundred and can cope with it and so therefore these simple things from plants have a very strong effect i never knew there was actually any validity behind putting menthol or eucalyptus oil but you feel cold and it's been so long i was a kid i think my mom put it on my chest when i was sick but i you know it's been and just it's been decades since I've done it. So I don't remember feeling warm. Or you can do with that.

Yeah, kind of a burning feeling. So, okay, let me ask you this then. Why, why when you go out in the cold, don't you have the same response? So obviously there's vaso-constriction occurring. How come there's not a response then also similarly to then increase the blood flow after, or is there? Well, the point is that if you go into a, the real cold, like WIMM is doing, you switch on full-blown all the engines to pump up the fire.

But if I walk out here and I go from room temperature to a little lower, I don't have this family member which is reacting at minus 17. My throat is getting minus 24. So I don't activate the receptor Wim is using, which pumps up the whole thing. I see. And I do with Menthol, I go to the low temperature receptor, which I pump up the activity. So a decrease in temperature from 37 to 28, so in your fingers it can be 28 or so.

That doesn't switch on the receptor which Wim is using in the cold bath. So you have to go much further. So if you go into the ice bath, You immediately trigger the subsequent response. If you just walk outside and you're just chilly or whatever, you do not have the proper family member of the receptor being activated. So we need to also be happy when we go outside when it's cold

because being happy also regulates our response to this virus and whether or not we're going to fight it off. Oh, yeah. And so it is really important. to have a positive view on life. And there are a lot of studies of people who are optimistic or pessimistic, and that really makes a difference statistically in how they cope with disease, life expectancy, the number of days without disease,

that is directly related to a positive or negative attitude to life. Smell the flowers. Beautiful. And look at them. Oh, yeah, but if we talk about smell, what an effect that has? Oh, yeah. You know, falling in love is based on smell. I didn't know that.

You didn't? No. Oh, wow. Fair months? No, no, no, no. The point is this, that falling in love always has to do with sexuality and procreation. For nature, something. Right.

I'd say that way. So if somebody, once a partner and once children, they want to know if they are okay and if the genes are really properly fitting. A lot of genes are the same. So a gene for insulin making is the same in all people. But there are also genes which are extremely different, polymorphic, so many forms, polymorphic, which is especially in an immune system. Each individual has a different immune system. Each has an individual set. For that complexity, you have proteins, which are the major histocompatibility complex,

MHC or HLA, transplantation antigens, etc. They differ from person to person. And I am, for example, have an immunological setting, say that I can have no trouble with malaria, no trouble with yellow fever, but I cannot handle influenza. Now I meet, I will encounter a woman who also can handle yellow fever, also malaria and cannot cope with influenza. If we made, that is a pity that the child has nothing new.

So I have to find someone who copes with influenza and I give a damn about the yellow fever because that are my genes. So I want to know the gene passport. Animals are doing that. if you walk your dog, they immediately sniff. And the olfactory system in the nose is extremely fantastic and is highly polymorphic. So everybody has an other smell perception. Therefore, you have all this racist things that these people, the whole group of people

smell. Well, no, my perception is genetically different from there. So I'm stinking for them and vice versa. because each nose is different. Okay, back to the immunology. It is important to give the child as many defense possibilities as possible. For mathematical reasons, you cannot have a total immune system fighting everything because then you are included and that includes autoimmunity.

So immune system is defense against the outside minus myself. And I should not turn to myself. But to make a longshore restored, these vital molecules, which are different in each individual, are being chopped up in little peptides and secreted by all type of body fluids, which are in the armpits and between the legs and in all the sexual organs and sweat. There they are secreted. And as soon as you smell them, you know how the immune system of the other person is. And so therefore you come into the area that smell is an important thing for a genetic selection

with whom you have to mate. A certain type of fish, old fish doing that, swimming together, exchanging smell. If that's okay, then the wife, the woman puts her eggs down and can be fertilized by the man. If not, she's not putting any eggs down, he has to go. Dogs and people, mice, you name it, all type of studies. So therefore, smell is important. And then you come to the thing, and I don't know, the American population is always, you can't talk about things too much,

but let's talk about pubic hair. That's not there for protection or worm or whatever. Holy boly, it's warm enough. And children don't have it because they are not sexually active. So as soon as you become sexually active, you have to distribute your smell, your little molecules as much as possible. So you need a big surface. So therefore, in the areas where a lot of these molecules are secreted, you get a lot of hair to increase the surface and to select. and it is impossible to make love from somebody who smell you don't like.

That doesn't mean that there is a strong smell. It can be stinky like hell, but you still like it. And if you don't like it, forget about it. That is really fascinating. First of all, I had no idea that you secreted the immunohist compatibility complex. You chopped it up. You chopped them as little peptides. And secrete them in your sweat and other bodily fluids.

Well, I think we can go for a long time. Well, this has been a very interesting conversation, Pierre. I really, really enjoy talking with you. We have a lot of common interests. If people are more interested in hearing or learning more about what you are researching or the talks you give or anything about you, is there a place where they can find you on the interwebs? Well, I do have a website, which is the first three-levels. use and then meditation to go. But that is a site I do not actively support so much. It's still okay.

I'm now working as another one, which will be Pierre Capel.com. And there is my activity on meditation, but also on science, but also how you incorporate quantum mechanics into biology and things like that. So, but that is now under construction, so please wait. But for your audience, I really want to say, why don't you take half an hour for yourself per day? What is so important in the outside world that you keep on running? Oh, I have to do this. Oh, and I'm, where are you in this situation? Please make this choice for yourself. Half an hour a day keeps more than only the doctor way. That concludes this episode of the Found My Fitness podcast. I hope you all enjoyed listening. Remember to get on my weekly email newsletter for access to more detailed written information

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