Know Thyself - E87 - Max Lugavere, Health Expert: The 6 Primal Needs To Have A THRIVING Mind, Body & Spirit

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Max Lugavere dives deep into the essential factors that contribute to living a longer and thriving life. Drawing from his extensive knowledge and expertise, Max shares invaluable insights on the foods to avoid, uncovering the detrimental impact they can have on our health and longevity. He sheds light on the critical importance of proactive measures to prevent chronic diseases, empowering you to take charge of your well-being.  Max emphasizes the transformative power of incorporating movement throughout the day, highlighting its positive effects on longevity and overall vitality. He explores the intricate relationship between sleep, circadian rhythm, and optimal eating windows, revealing how these factors can profoundly impact our health-span.  Max also delves into the profound significance of discovering our personal "why" for healthy living, igniting a sense of purpose and commitment to long-term well-being. André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books ___________ Timecodes: 0:00 Intro 1:34 A Vision for A Brighter, Healthier Life 3:50 Health Span vs Life Span 12:44 How the Food Industry Tricked Us 21:56 The Danger of Ultra-Processed Foods  28:12 3 Diet Changes That Make a Big Difference 33:04 Can a Plant-Based Diet Work? 36:56 Turning Knowledge into Real Change 46:19 Circadian Rhythm & Eating Windows 53:35 Optimizing Your Sleep  1:05:55 Easily Burn Calories Throughout the Day 1:15:58 Toxins in Our Environment 1:26:51 Doing the Best with What you Have 1:30:12 Finding Your “Why” 1:38:05 Importance of Community  1:41:35 Learning Through Relationship  1:45:07 Conclusion  ___________ Max Lugavere is a health and science journalist, filmmaker, and bestselling author. He is the author of the Genius trilogy of books, including the New York Times bestseller Genius Foods and the Wall Street Journal bestseller Genius Kitchen. He hosts The Genius Life podcast, one of the top health and wellness podcasts in the U.S, and has an audience of over 1.5 million followers across social media. His contributions to programs like The Rachael Ray Show, The Today Show, PBS’s Brief but Spectacular, and The Doctors, along with features in VICE, Fast Company, The New York Times, People Magazine, and CNN, and appearances on The Joe Rogan Experience and The Diary of a CEO, have made him a respected and well-known voice in the field. An engaging speaker on relevant health and wellness topics, Lugavere regularly leads keynote talks and corporate seminars around the world. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maxlugavere YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw-1kRP-tFmU7Byesum5XaQ Website: https://www.maxlugavere.com ___________ Looking to Start a Podcast? Podcasting Course: https://www.podcastpurpose.com/ Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg Listen to all episodes on Audio:  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927 André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ Meraki Media https://merakimedia.com https://www.instagram.com/merakimedia/

It's important to remind people that the default state of any organism is health, and yet today, so many of us seem to be unwell. I mean, we live in a time where our lifespans are expanding, but we're not actually living longer, given current population health statistics. We're dying longer. We're spending more time sick. And I think it's a real shame. About 80% of chronic, non-communicable disease is attributable to lifestyle.

I'm a huge nutrition nerd. But it's just like, it's one part of the puzzle. What would you say if you had to pick, like, maybe three other of the most low-hanging fruit, what would make the most difference in terms of longevity and vitality? People tend to want the easy way out. And I get it. Like we live in stressful times, but also you're always one meal from getting back on track. You're always one workout away from getting right back on track. You have to think about this journey as a marathon. It's not a race. Now, I feel very clear in my purpose. I remember distinctly a time when I didn't feel so clear in that.

What's the leading edge of growth for you in your personal life right now? Oh man. Everyone, welcome back to the Know This Health podcast. Today we have the privilege and opportunity to sit down with a podcaster, a filmmaker, a New York Times best-selling author, and a health and science journalist, somebody that is going to help us live a more genius life, thrive mentally, physically, and spiritually, you know, on all terrains. I love it. Max Lugavir, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. What an honor. Yeah, I'm excited to drop in.

I want to lay some groundwork before we dive into so much. I love having conversations around what it means to thrive physically on a physiological and psychological level. And before we do, just feeling into the conversation that we're about to have, what is the promise of the insight and understanding from the work that you've been doing over the past decade when applied to your life and listening to it as a listener for this podcast and this conversation? What is the promise, I guess, for what this conversation can do?

to deliver in the value of people's lives. Yeah, it's a great place to start. I mean, I think what I hope to offer your listeners is a vision for what life might be like were you to feel your best every day and to live a health span that is concordant with our lifespans today. Today, I mean, we live in a time where our lifespans are expanding, thanks to modern medicine. But I want people to kind of shift the way that they think about that, you know, because in a sense, we're not actually living longer, given current population health statistics.

We're dying longer. We're spending more time sick. And I experienced this firsthand up close and personal with my mother who had not just a shortened lifespan, actually, but a shortened, a vastly diminished health span as well. She was very sick for the last 10 years of her life. And that is really what has motivated my life's work and all the information that I'm about to share is from a place of genuine curiosity about why it is so many of us seem to be getting sick today and and I don't have all the answers I don't I never set out to be a health guru a biohacker or anything like that I was really just a concerned son who loved his mom and was was really taken aback by what I was seeing develop in her and so it's my

life's mission and purpose, I think, to help prevent suffering for people. And I hope to offer some of the insights that I've gleaned along the way to your audience today. So let's dive into those two areas that you just opened up first, a little bit more differentiating between lifespan and health span, because we all want to live long, but want to live healthy and, like, vibrant for a long time. And then let's dive into your story and how this passion sparked for you initially with what happened with your mother. Yeah. So lifespan is obviously the amount of life, the number of years in your life, whereas health span, I think, differentiates from that in the sense that it's the amount of life in your years. A lot of us are spending our final decade or decades of life decrepit, frail, weak, sick, isolated,

lonely, depressed, disabled, and I think it's a real shame. You know, I think it's important to remind people that the default state of any organism is health, and yet today, so many of us seem to be unwell. I mean, across the age spectrum, really. I mean, you just look at population statistics. One and two of us have high blood pressure. By the year 2030, one and two of us are going to be not just overweight, but obese. Many of us struggle with issues related to glucose tolerance, insulin resistance, type two diabetes, things like that. And so it's a big problem. And my particular interest began in this topic began with my mom who developed a rare form of dementia at the age of 58. She was first diagnosed with a neurodegenerative condition. And my mom was very youthful at the time,

still had all the pigments in her hair. She was not the picture of what you might envision when thinking of somebody with dementia, right? I think a lot of people today have experience with Alzheimer's disease, which is the most common form of dementia. Maybe a grandparent has it. I think it's become fairly common. But my mom was still in the prime of her life and developed this monstrosity of this monstrous set of symptoms. And I had spent the beginning of my career as a journalist. So I was a generalist journalist working for Al Gore post college. He had a TV network in the US. I don't know if you remember it. It was called current TV. And so I was there very much like a stem cell undifferentiated, but covering really important topics and reaching an audience of 100 million

people in the United States. And I got to work with some of the best of the best storytellers in the field as an investigator of sorts on a myriad of different, like lifestyle-related topics and some more serious, of course. But when my mom became sick, I became unable to focus on anything other than trying to understand to the best of my ability why this happened to her. And I wasn't a medical doctor, though I began college as a pre-med student. I'd always been interested in health and medicine. And I wasn't an academic. I, you know, don't have a PhD in nutrition or anything like that. But I had tools at my disposal that most civilians didn't have at the time. I had media credentials.

I had access because of my calling card as an on-camera journalist, having worked for Al Gore for all those years to reach out to scientists around the world. And because of my interest in fitness and nutrition, I kind of, and of course, as a journalist, I knew where to look for evidence-based, credible information because it's something that I was doing sort of on the sidelines in my personal life. and without any career aspiration to commercialize what it is that I was doing, I just wanted to find answers for her. Was there anything I could do to help her from the standpoint of diet and lifestyle? Was there anything I could do at that point to reduce the risk of myself, of me developing that

condition? Because I realized that I had a risk factor now at that point, having a family member with the condition. And I experienced in every clinician's, office with my mom, what I've come to call diagnose and adios. So, I mean, essentially, like a physician would run a battery of esoteric tests on my mom, scribble a few notes down on a prescription pad, and send us on our way. So, I mean, to me, that was like Western medicine in a nutshell. And it's not that I had that experience once and in one institution. I had that many times. My family had enough resources to allow us to visit cathedrals to medical, to academic medicine around the country. And in every instance, I experienced that very same thing, you know, a 15-minute doctor visit.

And it left me wanting more. And so the more I would experience that with my mom, the more rigorously I would approach my research. And ultimately, I decided to begin evangelizing this topic at a time when nobody else was, really. I mean, I think today we kind of take for granted that people talk about the relationship between diet and brain health and maybe even diet and mental health. but about 10 years ago when I first started this journey, nobody was talking about it. And actually I, and I say this with like utter humility, but I do think that I helped to kind of like usher in this topic as something that people are talking about. You know, I got to go on, you know, huge national TV shows like the Dr. Oz show back in the day, the Rachel Ray show, you know, mainstream news media, really talking about the burgeoning science of dementia prevention. And in fact, I even got to co-author a clinical review, like an academic review on the topic that was published by Springer in 2019.

So on top of my books and my podcast and now my upcoming documentary, it's become my life's work to kind of, I think, evangelize this topic and make it really clear and easy for people and help separate fact from fiction. Because I didn't come to this topic having had a litany of, you know, preconceived. notions and and and and biases put into place like my only real bias was that I wanted to help my mom. And so for me as an outsider, really, you know, I think it's really important to part of part of what I think my duty is is to help people better be able to delineate between fact and fiction because, you know, we live in a time where there's just so much information and not all of it is credible, not all of it, even if it's credible, is accurate. And so, yeah, that's what I kind of think my mission here is, you know. And again, I don't know everything, but I try to do my best. I think so many of us, whether it's us personally at times

or loved ones have come across in this Western medical system, what is really more of a sick care system, not as much of a health care system. And so, you know, I think so many of us have faced the disappointment of what that can really bring in terms of chronic illness, right? For acute injury, it's an incredible system, you know. But to kind of set the foundation, this might sound like a rhetorical question to some, but I think it actually points at something really important, how much of the chronic illness that we see widespread today at large is from us not living in alignment with how we biologically evolved to live? Yeah, it's a great question.

The estimates that I've seen, and these are just estimates, but that about 80% today of chronic non-communicable disease is attributable to lifestyle, which includes diet. So I think what's really important for people to understand is that the vast majority of conditions that society seems to be, that seem to be bankrupting society in so many ways today are not determined by one's genes. They're environmentally mediated. Genes don't determine outcomes. And this is particularly true for conditions like Alzheimer's disease,

and other forms of dementia, which the bulk of the research that I've seen is on Alzheimer's disease because it's the most common form of dementia. But it's a condition that's largely influenced by what's called epigenetics. So the relationship between our genes and the environment that we, essentially expose our genes to. And so I think that that's, yeah, that's really empowering. I think it gives me great optimism to know that so many of these kinds of conditions, which so many are struggling with are actually responsive to steps that we might take

to write the ship, so to speak. Yeah, it speaks to the power of preventative medicine and really simplifies things because I think in the health and nutrition space, it can get very convoluted. can get very muddied, like so many different opinions, you can find resources support, whatever you want to believe, right? Exactly, yeah. But when we just bring it back to what we talked about, how 80 plus percent, or like the lifestyle, how it contributes to the development of well-being or chronic illness down

the line is really empowering because it's like the food that we're eating, how we're living in modern society, the bedtimes, the blue light, like all of these things that build up to like a more lethargic system. So I'm excited to dive into coming back into living in modern times, but kind of more how we ancestrally evolved to live. I'm just curious how, if you want to share a little bit more about that period where you applied your, like the scientific method and delineating between fact and fiction when it comes to nutrition advice, as you were seeing your mom's health decline towards the later years of her life and how that indignation and frustration really drove you to. the path that you're on now. But like, yeah, how is the frustration of learning this and also seeing the, you know, tough reality with your mom?

Yeah. I mean, the nutrition thing is really interesting because like I'm a huge nutrition nerd. I love the field of nutrition. I think nutrition is endlessly fascinating. But it's just like it's one part of the puzzle. And we're still ascertaining what proportion of the pie nutrition. makes up, to be honest. I mean, you know, stress plays a huge role.

Our, you know, tendency towards exercise or sedentary behavior plays a huge role. Environmental exposures, right? Environmental toxicants play a role. And so I think people that know me at this point, like, you know, a lot of what I talk about is nutrition, but it's just one part of the pie. It's an endlessly fascinating part of the pie.

And as you alluded to, it happens to be a very polarizing part of the pie as well, because we all eat. Everybody tends to feel like they're an expert in their own diets. And I think that there actually is a bit of truth to that. I think like the ultimate experiment is the end of one experiment that somebody listening to this applies to their own life. And so, yeah, back, I think when I was going through this with my mom, that's why I first looked at nutrition. It's just a very seductive topic.

We all eat. And, you know, my mom harbored some views about nutrition that I think were fairly common among her generation that I think she and others like her gleaned from mainstream media. And the fact that her generation, and specifically my mom actually, there weren't many voices necessarily that she had access to, to count. her. Like my mom wasn't on the internet. She didn't know how to use computers or anything like that. She didn't have a smartphone. So my mom wasn't on the internet. So the idea of like doing her own research was not feasible for her. And she came about at a time when, you know, what, what her generation believed to be true about the internet was what she or about nutrition rather was what she heard on the on the nightly news, you know, and the food industry, you know, like claims on

packaged foods and things like that. And, And today I think we live in a different time, a time where we're much more empowered. I mean, we have all of the world's knowledge at our fingertips 24 hours a day on our smartphones. And I think that is, it can be a double-edged sword. But ultimately, it's a really, it's empowering because, you know, we have access to all of these different viewpoints. And I think what's great about that is that it speaks to, yes, there's a lot of misinformation out there. but ultimately there are many different dietary patterns that can work for somebody. I think the one salient commonality between all of the dietary patterns that seem to work across the world

when you look at long-lived populations is that they typically are low in ultra-processed foods, added sugars, and things like that. My mom's generation, though, grew up gorging essentially on ultra-processed foods because those were the foods that were most likely to make. health claims. So growing up I had, you know, if there was a food in the supermarket that had a red heart healthy logo on it, chances are it was going to be, you know, in my kitchen at some point. And so, yeah, we grew up eating a lot of grain products, margarins like vegetable oil-based alternatives to, you know, natural fats and the like. And so I think I started there, you know,

with this sort of notion that modern foods and our modern lifestyles beget modern problems, modern chronic disease. And so I took a sort of evolutionary approach to my research. And lo and behold, you see that foods like ultra-processed foods, foods that you couldn't possibly make in your own kitchen if you tried, are associated with these chronic conditions. And the research is now coming out almost at a breakneck pace. Every week there seems to be a new study linking ultra-processed food consumption with some kind of poor health outcome. I didn't, this research wasn't even, I don't even think people were talking about ultra-processed foods at the time in which I began my research journey.

But now we see that, for example, every 10% increment in ultra-process food consumption, we see a 25% increased risk of the development of dementia. We see a 14% increased risk of early death, all cause mortality, death by any cause. So yeah, for me, that's really getting, clearing my mom's kitchen as best I could of these kinds of high margin ultra processed food like products. That became, I guess, like mission critical for me. And in tandem with that, getting my mom on an exercise program and, you know, reducing stress in her life as much as I, possibly could. But I tried my best not to be a zealot about the ideas that I was mulling over. And I'll never know what dietary pattern, even if my mom's diet at all contributed to what she had developed. But yeah, sort of evangelizing the potential dangers of the overconsumption

of ultra-processed foods has become, I think, my latest, I guess, sort of high-level take-home for people, that these are foods best kept to a minimal proportion of one's diet. One of the most hilarious things that I've seen you post, you post a lot of great health things, but one was the Tufts chart. Oh, yeah. And it's just, I mean, it's so comical when you see these clearly industry-funded studies where it put like what lucky charms and frosted many weeds above, like, vegetables in terms of their like nutrition capacity or something.

Yeah, I mean, nutrition science is, I mean, it's interesting. because as much as I love it, like I do have to concede that it's a, it's a soft science, essentially, meaning, you know, the data that we have is extremely weak and it's muddled by the food industry, whether we like to admit it or not. And the Tufts Food Compass was the latest and I guess most obvious example of where, of the degree to which the food industry and nutrition science make just incredible, strange bedfellows because you end up with this chart that like makes zero sense even a four year old would look at that and just to be clear like what so this controversy was the Tufts university the Friedman School of Nutrition there created this nutrient profiling system which they called

the food compass and it was in the supplementary material to the paper they use this algorithm to basically give food scores to items available in your average supermarket so tens of thousands of of food items were ranked given a score. And a separate group led by Ty Biel, who's a nutrition researcher who have become friendly with, went into the data and noticed some really odd scores given to foods that when taken out of their respective food categories and stacked one on top of one other,

led to really odd juxtaposition. So like as you mentioned, like the lucky charms and frosted mini-weets and just, you know, all these ultra-processed foods were given higher scores for whatever reason than their natural food counterparts. Fake egg fried and vegetable oil was ranked higher than an actual egg. And critics to that chart, and, you know, and they've criticized people like me for calling it out,

have said, well, the scores were never designed. The food, the foods in question were never designed to be, never meant to be taken out of their respective categories and stacked one on top of one another. But that's a ridiculous criticism because scores are meant to be able to compare things, right? That's what a score is, right? Like we give scores to sports teams to rank them, right? And lo and behold, if you actually went to the Tufts University website, they did the exact same thing. They took a bunch of foods out of their respective food categories and stacked them.

And foods with higher scores were meant to be eaten more frequently than foods with lower scores. So the criticisms I thought were bunk, weak, completely unfounded and baseless. And yeah, it was just a perfect example of where nutrition science so often gets it wrong. So can you, I mean, it's is wild to see in the many examples that are analogous to that. Can you define what alter processed foods actually are? Because I think we most can understand it. but then also like the hyper palatibility and the fact that right now I last believe I saw was 60% of adults and 70% of children. That is their diet makeup of ultra processed foods, which is crazy.

It's crazy. Yeah. It's, I mean, ultra processed foods are, the term was originally devised in Latin America. and it came to the forefront with the Nova nutrient profiling system. So Nova is actually, it's a food profiling system comparable in terms of its intention to the food compass. But what Nova did was it just basically ranked foods in accordance with their degree of processing. And it was level four, I believe. That was the foods with the highest degree of processing were referred to as ultra-processed foods.

and those are the foods to be minimized. And these are foods that essentially have ingredients that you wouldn't find in your typical kitchen. You couldn't make in a typical kitchen if you tried. They're essentially foods that are only able to be created in the context of industrial food production. And a lot of obviously snack foods fall under that label. I believe refined, bleached and deodorized seed oils would fall under that bucket, although that's contentious. People debate whether or not where within the NOVA ranking RBD seed oils would fall. But yeah, most cakes, cookies, crackers, commercial cereals, things like that tend to be ultra-processed.

And the reason, I mean, there are a number of reasons why ultra-price. processed foods tend to be so nefarious. I think one of them is that they tend to be highly calorie dense. So just the amount of calories that you get in an ultra-processed food, it's a lot, they're able to squeeze a lot more calories into ultra-processed foods because of a combination of, you know, refined grains often or other refined starches with added sugars typically, refined fats, like oils and things like that. So they tend to be highly calorie-dense. They also tend to be, so that's one, they also tend to be nutrient poor. So they use a lot of ingredients that tend not to have a lot of nutrition.

Actual nutrition, they tend to be very energy dense, as I mentioned. But they tend to not contain very many essential nutrients. They tend to be low in protein. Protein is the most expensive macronutrient to produce. So they tend to be some combination of carbohydrates and fat. And then the third thing about them that makes them so dangerous is that, they tend to have this characteristic referred to as hyper-pallitability. So they're not just palatable the way whole natural food is. They are hyper-palatable. So they're more tasty than any

natural food could possibly be. And what that does is it sends your brain to a bliss point beyond which self-control is futile. So it's just like you get the Fourth of July equivalent of like fireworks in your brain in terms of your dopamine reward centers when you eat these foods. And that's why, you know, that slogan, once you pop, you can't stop. That's like now a truism. with scientific backing. There was a NIH-funded study led by Kevin Hall that found that when you give an adult ultra-processed foods to consume, by the time they've eaten those foods to satiety,

they've already over-consumed them. So they drive their own consumption. We tend to over-consume them. They're highly calorie-dense. And so it's no wonder that our waste lines are just blowing up, right, around the globe, but especially here in the United States when you realize that 60% of our calories

are coming from these foods that are essentially impossible to moderate. And then I would say the fourth characteristic about them and this is like a, I guess a newer area of study, but I think worth mentioning, is that they tend to harbor a lot of these environmental toxicants which we're starting to learn are not beneficial from the standpoint of metabolic health, health span, longevity,

hormone health, and the like. And these are the forever environmental pollutants like thallates, bisphenols. Pfefos. Pfos, you know, Paphos, which tend to imbue these products. You know, there was a study that just found that pregnant women, you know, who consume largely ultra-processed foods, like they're ingesting a significant amount of thalates, which are endocrine disruptors. Yeah, I saw it recently, too, finding microplastics and uter. which is crazy.

Yeah. I mean, you have to imagine these foods, you know, the network of tubing and, you know, the, the cauldrons that they're stored in and all the various like mixing and, you know, and also under high temperatures typically as well, that they're leaching like these chemicals, you know, these industrial chemicals that are xenobiotic. They serve no purpose in the human body. typically do harm. So yeah, I think from those four different vantage points alone, and we could probably think of others, you know, the fact that they're so rapidly, we're able to consume them so rapidly. So the speed at which we're able to eat them probably has a downstream metabolic consequence. There's a lot of different problems associated with them. And so to me, it's abundantly clear that these really are beyond the conversation about, which, you know,

admittedly has even gotten boring to me at this point about like carnivore versus vegan like I'm never like to me the lowest hanging fruit for anybody at this point in this day and age is going to be to minimize our consumption of the of ultra processed foods and to base their diet largely around minimally processed whole foods yeah great so then what would you say if you had to pick like maybe three other of the most low hanging fruit when you look at sugar gluten things that we should and should not be eating you know what that would make the most difference in terms of longevity and vitality Yeah, I mean, I think sticking mainly to a diet of minimally processed foods, I think that that's, that's king. That's king. That is, yeah, that's king. But then, you know, I think architecting your diet around nutrient density, I think, is probably important. You know, nutrient density, basically, what that encapsulates is like the amount of nutrients that you're getting per count. calorie of food. So a food, for example, and, you know, every, every food has its own sort of like, you know, people can argue about like, people do argue about every different food type now on social media, but like dark leafy greens, for example. Like I've gone to bat many times on

social media for the value of dark leafy greens, which are a very nutrient dense food. And part of that is to do with the fact that they're so low in calories. And yet when you consume them, you're getting folate, you're getting vitamin C, you're getting dietary fiber, which we know supports a healthy gut microbiome. You're getting phytochemicals like carotenoids, lutein and ziazanth in particular, we know are very supportive to eye health and brain health. In fact, in my first book, Genius Foods, I think I really helped to break the news on the value of carotenoids from the standpoint of cognitive health. And they're abundant in dark leafy greens, you know? To me, it's no wonder that there was a study published out of Rush University

that found that people who eat a bowl of dark leafy greens every day have brains that perform up to 11 years younger. And so that's an observation, right? Correlation doesn't equal causation, but when you actually look at what is contained in dark leafy greens, you get a lot of good stuff from the standpoint of brain health. So yeah, I'm a big advocate of dark leafy greens. I think other nutrient-dense foods.

I'm an omnivore, so I tend to promote the consumption of animal source foods. I'm not a carnivore, so I think like people tend to, I think, misinterpret my message on social media. And I do kind of lean into it a little bit because it is engagement generating, you know, in the era of social media algorithms. But I think like an ideal diet contains both a mix of, you know, whole plant source foods and whole animal source foods as well. Okay, so minimizing ultra-processed foods, up being nutrient-dense foods, what are another one or two? I think hydration is really important. We see that even mild hydration is associated with worse cognitive function. You know, water these days can be polluted depending on where in the world you are. And so I think drinking clean water is really important. And, you know, this is a pretty privileged, I guess, statement.

But, like, I love that I get to drink spring water. Like, I get spring water now delivered to my house. And I work really hard to be able to afford that. But prior to that, I was reverse osmosis purifying my water. And then before that, I was using a charcoal filter. I think it's really important to make sure that, you know, if you're 72% water or whatever the statistic is, I think it's really important to make sure that the water that you're

drinking is clean, you know. And, and oftentimes, you know, we, when we're, sometimes the sensation of hunger or the sensation of thirst is actually misinterpreted as the sensation of hunger. Because if you think about it, natural whole foods are a fantastic water source, like, whether we're looking at fruits or vegetables or even animal source foods, like you get water from your food. And back before running water and the availability of bottled water, I mean, if water ceased to be available for a hunter-gatherer, they would intuitively know that the next best place to find water was in food. Ultra-processed foods tend to be dehydrated because that improves the shelf stability,

the shelf life of an ultra-processed food. And I think that's one of the reasons why they tend to be so minimally satiating. So making sure that you're, you know, drinking adequate fluid. I think that's crucially important as well. what are your thoughts because as a whole the nutrient density in our food because of the soil yeah um as much lower but you know i i i there's i guess many reasons why someone would choose to go on a plant-based diet whether it's environmental ethical dietary you know uh reasons uh yeah do you believe that if somebody is really prudent and they they're they're understanding what

they need that they can thrive on a plant-based diet because I see variance in people's ability to adhere to that long term. For me, I feel great on it, but also I see other cases where maybe it's not so. It just takes work, you know, like dietary adherence is hard. Dietary change is hard for anybody. And so for somebody to adopt that diet, you just have to be, and I know that like some of the more prominent thought leaders in the plant-based movement regularly will sound the drum, sound the alarm, beat the drum about the value of protein and supplementation and things like that. And so I think you absolutely can.

I just think that it's going to take more work. And I think for your average person, like not somebody who's fitness and nutrition obsessed, like I am, like, you know, like you seem to be like others in our space are. I just don't know for sure whether or not those concessions will be made for somebody who's just casually adopting, you know, a diet that issues such nutrient-dense foods as animal source foods. But do I think that, I mean, yeah, it's clear that there are pictures of people, there are examples of people in our space that are thriving seemingly on plant-based diets. And ultimately, like, I think this is something that is maybe, that, you know, maybe people don't fully understand about me. I don't care what it is that people eat. I'm certainly not emotionally invested in what people eat.

My passion is really just helping people make informed decisions around their food. But ultimately, I don't care what anybody eats. Like, you know, I'm focusing on myself and the people in my life that I love and care about. and presenting information so that people can make better and more informed decisions. Because today we live in a time where, you know, there is a lot of what I call covert activism. So people that are making claims about nutrition, but they're doing it from a place of, I guess, bias for causes that are not necessarily nutrition-centric, you know. like if I were a physician and I were treating a sick patient and my advice to them were influenced by anything other than what was going to be the best diet for that sick person to get

well like if I were considering the environment or animal welfare in my in my prescription to that patient that would be highly immoral obviously and so for me you know I'm just trying to help like reduce suffering um for people primarily. And it's not to say that I don't care about the environment or animal welfare. I absolutely do. Like I absolutely, you know, like, I think these are all important conversations that we can have, you know, that we can have in tandem with one another. Yeah. But yeah, I think that I've gained this perspective from seeing like real sickness, like my mom. Like, I would do anything to help my mom at that point, you know, when she was still here.

And yeah, like to say that at that point, like I was thinking about anything other than what was going to be best for my mom. Like that animal welfare, environmental concerns, they didn't even cross my mind. I was just, you know, thinking solely about what was going to help my mom at that point. And that's kind of how I approached my prescription or, you know, the advice that I give in my books and my work. What do you think about because in many ways I feel to know and not to do is to not to not to know. To know and not to do is not to know. Yeah. And a lot of people understand like a lot of the simplistic changes and things that we're talking into conversation today and understand that processed foods is not good for you. But what do you think about that like knowing and doing gap where we can

like know what's good for us but we still have the habitual nature to self-sabotage or just to, you know, go for it. Well, I think it's just people, people tend to want the easy way out, you know. And granted, we live in stressful time, so I understand that. I understand, you know, especially when my mom was sick and all she wanted was, you know, a pastry from her favorite pastry shop in New York, Vineros, which is like down in the Lower East Side. Like, I went and I remember like in the cold, sleet, snowy, like, throes of winter, I would get on a bus or whatever and go downtown and grab those for her. Because that would bring her joy in those moments, especially at a point when her quality of life had become so compromised. And I get it. Like we live in stressful times.

There's economic turmoil. There's political unrest. You know, there are two wars happening that we know of, that I know of happening right now in the world. And so I get that people want to self-soothe with food. Food is like the, you know, it's the most obvious way to do that. but also it really pains me when people do get sick and they show up to their physician's office and they receive that diagnosis and then they walk out scratching their heads wondering why me I think we have a lot more agency than than we realize and and so yeah I think you know I don't I don't know why people it's a personal accountability thing we also live in a time where victim mindset seems to be encouraged or if not encouraged at least you know,

foisted upon the American public and applauded at times. And, um, and, uh, there's like this meme that I, that I invoke a lot. I don't know if you've seen it on social media where it's like two lemonade stands.

And, uh, one stand is offering like the changes that you desire, but they're going to require changing your habits, your diet, your lifestyle, your mindset, right?

And the other lemon, lemonade stand is offering the quick fix, right? The magic bullet. and you see the line around the corner for the people that want the quick fix, right? So it's kind of like human nature, I think, to a certain degree. Yeah. And it's a problem, you know?

You can lead a horse to water. You can't make them drink. You know, you can give somebody all the facts that you feel that they need to make the best decisions for themselves and their loved ones, but you can't make them think. and I think that's just sort of the era that we live in now unfortunately. Yeah. I feel like it's also a big part too of just rewiring ourselves to allow us to be compassionate towards ourselves. I think especially when we're stressed and we've had a long work day or things aren't

going our way in our career relationships or whatever. You know, we tend to go to those things that are self-soothing but also like bring us further down in terms of like accumulating more stress. the body scrolling on social media pornography, the ultra-process foods, the things that give us that dopamine hit in the moment, right? But then also leave us feeling worse afterwards. It's like, I definitely feel like it's just a rewiring process to actually have compassionate practices that don't have a bitter aftertaste. Yeah. Well, and you bring up a fantastic point, actually. And I think, like, a lot, we, I think, in the wellness world can get better at providing real

tools for people and not making it seem like you have to be perfect and do everything. right and have a 1500 step morning routine in order to reach a more optimal version of yourself. And I actually try very hard in my work to not perpetuate what I've come to call holistic derangement syndrome, which is a term that I've seen on Twitter that I thought was brilliant. I didn't coin it. But we live in a time now where there is this sort of perfectionist. Like everybody has, you know, it's like we're all trying to one up each other with the more optimal morning routine.

And I think that's hugely problematic, you know. It's like the more jargon we can stuff into our Instagram captions, you know, for us, science communicators in the health and wellness world, the more credible, I think it, you know, people tend to think that it gives our posts. But that's not what people need, you know, people need like the simple, daily steps, you know. And I think for most people, just integrating one healthy habit at a time, it's a much easier lift, you know. It's a much easier lift. And then once you've got that going for you, then you could start to do something else. But we can't let perfect be the enemy of the good. So, you know, if you don't have a hardcore resistance training routine at the moment and you're completely sedentary,

well, maybe don't start with like trying to develop the hardcore routine, right? Maybe start by like getting up and going for a few more walks on a day-to-day basis, you know. If your nutrition is total shit right now, maybe just try drinking water in the morning first thing before you drink the coffee with the sugar and the cream in it, you know? And then maybe after you've got the more, you've solidified the morning water as your, as your new healthy habit, maybe reduce the sugar a little bit in the coffee, you know, maybe use like a stevia or something, you know, it's going to have less fewer calories or something. Maybe instead of eating dessert seven nights a week, you know, like so many do, maybe have it on weekends, you know? And when you do choose to eat dessert, make sure it's

something that you really love, you know, you're not just eating it passively like a Labrador because that's become habit for you. So yeah, I do think we can be better about lowering the bar. And yeah, I think that would go a long way. Yeah, I feel like it's not just what we do, but how we feel about what we do. And, you know, really enjoying a bite of a dessert versus feeling guilty about it will, you know,

I guess build momentum, I feel like, and towards its negative effect on our system. And, and yeah, just having that process of self-compassion, I do feel like we can get caught in the West, and especially in the scene where it's like so overly focused on the biohacks. And it causes, like, it builds more stress thinking that you have to do all these things to live healthy versus trying to build it into like your harmonious life and make it effortless. And just a thing that you're actually excited to do. And then it can build into this like upward spiral momentum where. you're feeling good because you're getting morning sun. And so you make healthier choices because you're getting good sleep.

And it becomes more of a joy and not like a burden thing, burdensome thing you have to do. Yeah. I mean, once you start feeling better, I mean, that becomes its own sort of feedback loop in and of itself. Yeah. But you've got to take that first step, you know. And again, yeah, like you don't have to be perfect. Like, there's no such thing as perfect. I have habits that I know are bad that I wish I could change.

I probably spend too much time on social media. I can be two perfectionist to my work. I generally am a good sleeper, but some nights I go to bed later than I'd like. But at the end of the day, for example, with regard to nutrition, you're always one meal from getting back on track. You're always one workout away from getting right back on track.

And you have to think about this journey as a marathon. It's not a race, right? Like, it's about, from a nutrition standpoint, it's about your dietary pattern as a whole. It's not about one meal here or there or one snack food or one indulgence. Like, ultimately, you know, one indulgence now and then, or overindulgence, I should say, because indulging is fine. But, you know, it's really inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. I mean, your dietary pattern as a whole is what ultimately matters most. as long as you're taking an 80, 20, 85, 15% approach to things where, you know, 85% of the foods that you're, or 80% of the foods that you're eating are largely whole, minimally processed, then, you know, you've got 20% of leeway for the fun foods.

Yeah. And as long as you're not shaming yourself, I think guilt is like, all right now and then. I mean, if I go out to a restaurant and I just completely go off the rails and I overeat, yeah, sure, I feel a little bit guilty afterwards because I'm like bloated and I feel like crap, you know? It's okay to feel guilty. Like we also live in a time where people are like coddled from experiencing normal human emotions that actually serve an adaptive purpose, right? Like it's okay to feel guilty if you've gone off the rails and you've eaten like an ass, you know? Just don't shame yourself. Like don't allow that to become negative self-talk and self-loathing and self-hatred.

That's not the idea. But I think it's okay to have to every now and then have like a real conversation with yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. great. So I think we, I mean, it's an endless rabbit hole for like what to eat with nutrition, what not to eat all these things. But I want to kind of go through some more like needs for our primal ancestral self of how we've evolved in our in terms of our biology. Another big one, also you touched

in one of the chapters in your book, Genius Life, is about timing. So I think to kind of segue into there's many different aspects of honoring the circadian rhythm, but also timing of when we eat is super important our like fasting window. And so in regards to eating times, times for our last meal, first meal, what do you see is, yeah, the most powerful reflections there? Yeah. So this is basically like a field of research now being referred to as circadian biology and it's a very exciting field. And I'll preface by saying it's, I think it still matters more what you eat than when you eat. But when you eat does have an impact on your health we're starting to see. A lot of this research is being spearheaded by a researcher named Sachin Panda over at the Salk Institute, who's a great guy. I mean, I'm sure

you'd love to come on your show. Brilliant, brilliant dude who's really elucidating a lot of what we are now starting to understand about the relationship between our bodies and time. And so as diurnal creatures, I think what the research is starting to show is that... Diornal means eating during day. Eating during the day, yeah, I guess as opposed to being a nocturnal creature. you know, like a mouse would eat primarily at night. And so, yeah, I think what the research is starting to show is that, you know, if you accept that what you eat is still, you know, still plays a bigger impact.

Eating late at night seems to disregulate our peripheral circadian clocks. So we have clocks in our bodies, if you can picture that. The primary one is in a tiny region of the brain called a supracuprocal. chasmatic nucleus within the hypothalamus, which is like the most primordial region of the brain. And it interfaces with proteins in our eyes called melanopsin proteins. And when we are exposed to daylight, it basically sets forth a 24-hour timer. And that dictates when we are to be at our most alert, our most coordinated, our most balanced. It interfaces with our digestion, our enteric nervous system. So, I mean, it's the reason why peristalysis ramps up when we first wake up. You know,

most people will have a bowel movement in the morning. I mean, it's not happenstance of that happens. It's just that's when all the processes in our body are sort of ramping up to basically stack the odds in our favor for the day ahead so that we can be at our most energetic, our most focused, seek out new foraging opportunities, find new campgrounds, maybe find a mate for those of us that are unpaired. And, and so, that's why morning light in through the eyes seems to be so important. Now from the standpoint of food, we have peripheral clocks and those clocks are primarily in our digestive system because other than the input that we get through our eyes, which alerts our brains as to the time of day that it is,

the other major input is like when we're eating. And it seems to be the case that when we eat too late at night, which is not when we're really meant to eat, because once the sun goes down, you know, prior to the advent of artificial light, we would start to secrete a hormone in our brains called melatonin, which would make us typically get sleepy. And, you know, we tend, we would tend to probably sleep not too long after dusk. Today we have artificial light. And so we're, you know, awake at all hours. I mean, the modern world has become the equivalent of like a Vegas casino. But, um, But so if you accept that one of our ancestors, for the vast majority of human of our time on this planet, would have gone to bed soon after sundown, and the fact that we're now eating well into the night, like right up until the moment before we typically go to sleep, that leads to some degree of asynchrony in these peripheral clocks.

And so what the research is starting to show is that, you know, eating too late at night can have a negative impact potentially on various cardiometabolic. markers like blood pressure, blood glucose. It seems to perpetuate next day hunger, not to a massive degree, but that there was at least one study that I'm thinking of. And I can send you the reference. I forget the journal that it was published in, but it found that for people who ate very late at night, they had an increase in next day hunger. They consumed more calories, and they actually saw a drop in their resting metabolic rate the next day. So they burned fewer calories as well. So for me, what that basically entails, and there are all these other interactions, you know, between, for example, insulin, which is the fed hormone essentially

after we eat. Generally, you know, we see a rise in the hormone insulin. There's a relationship between insulin and brain health. There's an enzyme that degrades amyloid beta in the brain, which is a plaque that's associated with Alzheimer's or protein that's associated with Alzheimer's disease that gets degraded by an enzyme called insulin degrading enzyme. As the name implies, it also exists to break down insulin. So, you know, there's, we're just at the very tip of the iceberg, but it doesn't seem to be in our benefit to eat too late at night. And so the advice that I give generally, it's very simple, is just stop eating two to three hours before you go to sleep. And I think that's helpful in light of this burgeoning, you know, field of

study known as circadian biology. If you eat close to bedtime, it's not a big deal. And it also ultimately, I think, for pretty much everybody is going to depend on what goals are. So I mean, there are some studies where they'll give people who are focused on building muscle protein before bed and they see that it actually increases overnight muscle protein synthesis and reduces muscle protein breakdown. So you have to kind of like take all of these different studies and synthesize them and just at the end of the day, pick and choose. And, and kind of see like what your goals are. Right.

You know, so I try not to make any like sweeping recommendations because, you know, if you're on a vigorous resistance training routine, as I like am personally currently right now, there might be value to eating protein late at night or like, you know, before you go to sleep. But for your average person who's eating 16 hours a day,

there does seem to be some value in constraining that feeding window to, you know, maybe an hour after you wake up is when you have your first calorie. and then cut it off two or three hours before going to bed. That also has the benefit of assisting with calorie control. A lot of people do see benefit from intermittent fasting from the standpoint of weight. It's not magic.

It's not better than calorie restriction, but it does seem to provide a parameter for people to help them better control their calories. Also, we tend not to eat very helpful things after dinner anyway. Like the foods that most people tend to eat while watching TV after dinner tend to be all ultra-processed snack foods. So for a lot of people, it seems to be it's a really helpful means of just controlling calories and achieving better body composition as well. So I feel like in my own health journey, I've put sleep as kind of the cornerstone

in which so much of what I eat, when I eat, all these things are really informed. Because when I get a good night of sleep, and I do fairly frequently because of how much I prioritize it, like my nightly routine, when I go to bed, getting sunlight in the morning, all these things set up my clocks. I feel like within to be able to wake up and have the cognitive ability I need for my goals of having these conversations and podcasting. And also getting good sleep, I feel strengthens willpower. And having a bad night of sleep builds that spiral down for the next day of not having as much will to decide eating the healthy things or whatever. And so I found for my, to prioritize the optimiveness of my sleep,

and I'd be curious to hear what, like, have been your few key most important metrics for improving sleep. I've, 95% of the time my eating window is between like 11 and 3. I stop pretty early in the day when I went eating. But I feel like I get enough calories. I still eat a lot during that window. But I'm not digesting anything by the time I go to bed. And, you know, with winding down and having red lights at the house and not, you know, exposing blue light at night, all these things I feel like really contribute to waking up feeling restful. and life just is so much better perceived.

Like you're just so much joyful, more joyful. I feel like I have a better outlook and perception on the world simply by getting good sleep, which, I mean, it depends on like all these things that we're talking about. So what are the other few key metrics that you feel like in terms of optimizing sleep? Yeah, I mean, sleep is crucial

from the standpoint of mental health, hormonal health, body composition, recovery from exercise, brain health. We know that our brains literally clean themselves during the hours in which we sleep, thanks to the fairly recently discovered glimphatic system. So sleep is crucial. I mean, I tend to, these days from a food standpoint, I'm eating, I generally eat like four meals a day,

and I try to get about 40 grams of protein with each meal because I'm in a phase right now. I just really, like, I've been leaning into, like, I'm a closet meathead, so I've been leaning into, like, the resistance training and trying to, like, really optimize the muscle protein accrual. process of things, but sleep plays a huge role in that. I mean, if you're not recovering, like you just can't train as hard in the gym and your hunger patterns are all dysregulated

as you alluded to, your mental health isn't as great. For me, some of the big levers with regard to optimizing sleep, I think it's really important to keep a cool bedroom. I mean, I, you know, maybe I'm biased, but I tend to sleep hot. So, I mean, they're before getting a, I mean, I keep a cool bedroom and I also have a mattress cooler. Same. Yeah. I used to, there were many nights where I would just like wake up sweating. Yeah.

Same. Every night. Yeah. Like they can't be normal. Yeah. I guess, but if you're sleeping hot and it gets hot and there, it's just going to happen. There's some like Ayurvedic. I mean, I'm definitely not an expert in this world.

So I'm going to sound like an idiot to anybody who knows about it. But like, you know, don't you have like more, there's like more fiery body types. Yeah. Like kaffar, pittas is the fire. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe that's us.

Yeah, who knows? Yeah. That's some pithup for sure, both of us. Yeah. So I try to keep my bedroom as cool as I can, as dark as I can. I see a lot of sleep improvement when I take three grams of glycine before bed. I'm a huge fan of glycine in their clinical trials to show that three grams of glycine before, which is just a free form amino acid.

It's not, I think it's synthesized, like synthetically. And they've shown that that can actually reduce the time that it takes to get to sleep. It helps your body better, like, um modulate temperature and uh and so i love that i think the evidence on magnesium is actually a little bit weaker than it's often uh you know than people often make it out to be but um you know i supplement with magnesium on a daily basis and i find that that helps my sleep as well subjectively yeah um warm shower before bed i mean these are just the basics and then getting that morning light and has been shown to actually help with sleep as well

Anything else you want to share there in terms of like a spike of cortisol or like why as early as we can upon waking that light like it just sets up that clock? Yeah, well the light sets up that timer. And so the timer dictates when you're going to be at your most virile throughout the day and alert and awake. But it also, it's a 24 hour timer. So it also influences when you start to feel sleepy in the latter end of the day. It plays a role in melatonin release. So yeah, good sleep actually begins like the morning of. I also think it's really important.

Sleep scientists will often refer to the concept of sleep pressure. So making sure that you are not just active throughout the day, but like, but actually, you know, like exercising, like actually stressing your body to the degree. agree that recuperation is needed, right? If you've spent all day sedentary behind a computer screen, like, what does your body need? You're not sending the signal to your body that it even needs recovery, you know? I mean, so building sleep pressure with exercise, I think is really important. And I think there have been a few studies to point out that resistance training seems to be the form of exercise training that builds it up the most. aerobic exercise is good, but when you're stressing your CNS, your nervous system with resistance

training, heavy, intense resistance training, I mean, not just is it incredibly valuable from the standpoint of body composition, but it seems to also help, you know, encourage reduced sleep latency, which is the time that it takes to get to bed, improve sleep quality, and the like. So, yeah, I mean, I do all these things, and I'm not saying that I'm like a perfect model for optimal sleep, but, like, I sleep pretty well. All right. Any other little tiny sleep hacks? I'm personally a huge fan. Yeah, I mean, blacking out the room is huge. Do you do mouth tape or like eye mask? I used to special pillow or anything. Teddy bear. I use firm pillows. I sleep on my stomach, which I know I shouldn't back health experts, you know, or whatever. Lumbar experts will, you know, probably come after me. But yeah, I don't think it's like, I don't have like a magical sleep routine. I do have a red. I have a lamp by my bed and the light bulb in it is red.

and so that's a very cheap thing that anybody can order from Amazon and I think that really helps to have like a red light in the bedroom so that you can turn off all the lights and just keep on your red. It makes my bedroom look like a strip club. It's more of a vibe.

Yeah, it's a vibe. And it's good for, you know, it's good for romance, but it's also like great for, you know, as you're winding down, you want to reduce the amount of light that you allow to enter your eyes in that latter portion of the day.

Sleep consistency is, also very, very valuable. Going to the bed times consistently every night, basically. Yeah, consistent, consistent bedtimes is super important. Because if you think about it, if you go to bed, if you go to bed at 10 o'clock at night during the week, right? And then Fridays and Saturday nights, you're going to bed at one in the morning. It's like basically you're flying to New York from L.A. every weekend.

And people wonder why Mondays suck, you know. It's because you're essentially jet lab. You're starting every single week jet lagged. So wild. Yeah, it's so true. I feel like I've gotten a little bit of a reputation in my community as kind of a grandpa. Because I feel that if I go to bed at 11 or 12, just because I want to go to a gathering, like the gathering's got to be really freaking good for me to do that because I know that

the cascade of the effect of the next week is just going to, you know, I'm pretty sensitive in that. And not like I'm resilient to where I can get up and, you know, get after it. regardless, but like if I'm prioritizing what I'm committed to most, which is like my purpose and what I feel like my Dharma is in sharing this podcast and conversations, I just want to be as alive and sharp as I possibly can. And so prioritizing that, but it does, you know, often lead me to leaving gatherings at 830 when it's, you know, still rock. Dude, you got to keep your eye on the prize. And for me, like lately, I've been, for the past

year, I've always been like a fitness junkie, but I've, for the past year, I've been really dialing up the intensity of my workout. and um i don't think you're a closet meathead anymore bro i think no i think it's public full meathead i think i am i think i i think i i've gone full meathead but uh but i'm not saying that everybody but i but i genuinely enjoy it because i see the the feedback loop like it's just so clear like once you once you dial that all in um i'll just give you like a quick example of like where where i've changed my thinking on on fitness and like the and this is what you know i'm i wouldn't consider myself like a fitness expert but uh

I lean into and I read a lot of the fitness research and I follow it a lot of like evidence-based fitness experts and coaches and the like. And you know, you go to the gym and you see a lot of people like lifting a weight that they perceive as heavy. But then they put it down while they still have like five or 10 reps in reserve, so to speak, reps in the tank. You don't have to take every rep to failure. But you should be getting pretty close to true failure, you know, for most sets. And once I kind of like, once that clicked for me, you know, it's not when I say that my workouts have gotten more intense, it's not that I'm like gushing sweat. I'm like huffing and puffing. It's just that I lift now every set. I try to like lift. I try to calibrate my set so that I'm lifting a weight heavy enough. And I try to get as close to failure as I kind of not go all the way to failure. And sometimes you can go past failure. Because that's the signal that's that that tells your muscles to adapt and grow stronger or die.

And so when you're lifting with that degree of intensity, I mean, not only is it taxing on your central nervous system, which you can recover from if only you were to like sleep on a consistent basis. You know, have quality sleep on a consistent basis. But, you know, it's like that's what stimulates the most muscle growth as well. And so, you know, I see a lot of people kind of just like phoning it in in the gym. And they think that just working their muscles provides the adequate stimulus to grow. You've got to actually like challenge your muscles. And so. And so, yeah, like getting in that quality sleep is like mission critical to recovering so that you can just do that every day, you know, like for to a different muscle group every day. I'm not hitting the same muscle group two days in a row. But the point is like once you start to, once that feedback loop is in place, like for me, I'm so excited to wake up and like go to the gym and know that I'm firing on all cylinders like for the given, you know, muscle group that it is that I'm that I'm exercising on that day. And you can really only do that with like good quality sleep. Yeah. So you got to dedicate yourself to something like, you know, like a goal like that. Like maybe it's getting in your best shape.

And then the sacrifices, they just work themselves out. I definitely feel on maybe towards the later part of this conversation, we can touch on this a little bit. But having a why and a chief aim that you're moving towards, like if you don't have that, it's tough to build a framework for like building priorities and what really matters to you because you don't have something you're in the pursuit of. If you don't have a reason to want to wake up feeling refreshed and sharp

outside of just it feeling good, but what is going to contribute to in your relationships and career or whatever, then it's just going to be much harder to follow that, I feel like. So yeah, I'm excited to touch on that. Now we're here into this, you know, primal need for movement. What is neat? Let's talk about that because we largely live these sedentary lives right now. And we talked a little bit about resistance training, which we can touch on more. But also all the other hours of the day, what we're doing with our body, how much we're active is really contributing to overall caloric expense and metabolic health and everything. Yeah. Well, neat is really important. It's non-exercise physical activity. So, and neat, well, non-exercise physical activity leads to

non-exercise physical activity thermogenesis, so the basically the burning of heat, the burning off of calories, with your just everyday subconscious movement. So the fact that I'm like, you know, shaking my foot here, a form of fidgeting, that falls under the bucket of neat. So it's like movement that you do, that falls outside of the bucket of exercise, that actually cumulatively, over the course of a day, adds up to a massive calorie expenditure, far more calories burn doing neat than you would ever hope to burn on a treadmill or on a, you know, stationary bike or stair master. And so just being more active, I think it's, it's really important. And, you know, just going on a walk is not necessarily exercise. It's just being, it's being mobile

and moving about the world. Chasing your kids or your cat around the house, walking your dog. I mean, there are so many opportunities for, for neat in, you know, over the course of one day. But today, leisure time, physical activity is at an all-time low in general. And we tend to be more sedentary than ever before. And, you know, there are benefits to eat outside of the calorie burn. Need is a great way to reduce triglycerides, which is fat in the blood. It's a great way to reduce blood sugar. I mean, even just going on a brief five-minute walk after a meal is a great way to reduce, you know, that post-pranidial post-meal glucose excursion. And so it tends to be because of how mundane, you know, these movements and these activities are.

They tend to be underappreciated. But, yeah, almost as valuable, if not more so than like a, I wouldn't say more valuable, but definitely, you know, as valuable as a gym routine is just moving about the world more regularly. You know, sometimes I'll park my car at the far end of the shopping of the parking lot when I go shopping for food. because it's just a way to integrate more steps into my day. So, yeah, it's super important. Yeah, I feel like also finding the ways in which it can be more of a natural process-centered day instead of one of those other boxes we have to, you know, tick to try to live up to our ideal, healthy self. But like, yeah, like you said, parking further away or taking the stairs instead of, you know, the escalator or, like, walking when you're taking your calls.

Are there any other things that you do kind of to naturally implement into your day? Well, the interesting thing about neat is that it's such a massive calorie burn that part of, when people are on fat loss diets, part of the metabolic adaptation that occurs when you start to bring your calories down, your calorie intake down with the intent of losing fat, oftentimes people will notice that their fat loss slows at a certain point. And it's not because you've damaged your metabolism. But the body actually subconsciously ramps down neat. It ramps down non-exercise physical activity in order to preserve energy because it senses that your body isn't a calorie deficit. And that's, again, just like a testament to how many calories subconsciously, how effortlessly your body will just burn calories. So people that are on fat loss diets for extended periods of time, and I actually experienced this myself about a year ago when I was doing a bit of a cut, you fidget less. you have less energy.

Like you just, you notice, well, you don't even necessarily notice it because again, it's subconscious. But if you do kind of tune your mind to it, you'll, you'll see that, you know, your body just moves less when you're in a calorie deficit. And conversely, when you're in a calorie surplus, you might actually have more energy. And that energy, your body, like, needs to get it out, right? So people will fidget more. And so it's a, it's just a really interesting, like, way in which our, you know, our subconscious

mind adapts to our body's energy status. And I guess the take home there is that, you know, there is a neat is, you know, largely subconscious, but you can kind of reverse engineer it, you know, like by just moving more. You know, to, I guess, counter the effects of metabolic adaptation if you do desire to lose fat, which, you know, I'm sure is a concern to many people. but uh but yeah you know i think it's just it's just important to like to move you know anything is better than sitting on the couch for an extended period of time and i sit on my couch enough to uh to know that um you know outside of outside of the world of recovery it's you know we're spent we do tend to

spend too much time being sedentary like even somebody who's active today is like minimally active compared to one of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, you know, who's just like running around all the time on a consistent basis, foraging, looking for mating opportunities, new campgrounds, etc. I mean, today life has become just so easy, and I think that that's, you know, it's the comfort crisis. It's been to the detriment of our health. Yeah, and that also builds momentum, too, you know, just towards lethargy and conforming to these box lives that we've created for ourselves and sitting in our chairs and all these things. And so I definitely agree and feel the same with in regards to neat coming down like the lower the caloric intake is and also what the

lifestyle is like some people that choose an aesthetic life or like monks who are meditating 10 hours a day like their average resting heart rate I'm sure is just so low and their energy expenditure is so low and they need so much less food and they're literally like it's a more active form of sleep the brain states that they're actively in for the most of the day and so you know some days can even go without eating or you don't really need that much. Yeah. And that's one end of the spectrum

versus somebody who's, you know, working out twice a day. Well, that's the thing. I remember looking into this research back when I was writing my first book, the brain doesn't like require that much more energy when given a cognitive task.

It generally is using the same amount of energy like in the macro sense, right? Like your brain accounts for 25% of your basal metabolic rate. So it's a massive energy consumer. So you're not going to see very like, you know, variations in its end. energy utilization. Like, it's not going to come out in terms of, like, it's not going to affect your

overall daily calorie needs, right? Like, your brain isn't, it's calorie burn isn't that labile. Like, it is what it is, you know, it's fairly static. But it's your body. It's your body that burns calories. And having more muscle in your frame is going to burn more calories compared to having less muscle in your frame, not by a huge margin. I think sometimes it's overstated how much, you know, additional calories muscle will, will burn. Your muscles do. burn calories, just sitting on your frame. And so that's another reason why I think focusing on resistance training is so valuable. We're starting to now hear about the role of skeletal muscle in the context of longevity, of health span. The health of your skeletal muscle is now be considered

a vital sign of sorts. My friend Gabrielle Lyon talks all the time about the value of, of muscle in the context of longevity. And she's coined muscle-centric medicine to describe her approach, which I think is really novel and interesting. So, yeah, I mean, it plays all these, you know, many important functions of the body, but again, just burning calories. Because today we live, most of us live in a, we, it's, we live amidst energy excess, you know, we're just inundated with exposure to these ultra-processed foods. And again, so many of us are overweight, so many of us are glucose intolerant. It's not necessarily that we're just consuming too much sugar or that we're consuming too much fat or animal products or anything like that. It's just

we're consuming too much, you know. And I think that's, it's a phenomenon being driven largely by the, the nature of our food, the food itself, which is ultimately not food. It's, they're food like products that we're ingesting. And so, um, so yeah, that's where muscle, I think, the more muscle we can have on our frames, the, you know, the better off will be, I think, within a certain healthy range, right? Yeah, and also like maintaining bone density through age. Yeah, lifting weights is like the number one thing that you could do for bone health. You know, keeping your protein high, obviously, but I remember my mom. My mom was suffering from osteopenia, which is like, I guess, the prodrome to osteoporosis. And she was prescribed like these calcium

caramels, you know, and my mom was like, okay, well, if I take the calcium caramels, then I'm protected. But I mean, like, where was the talk of the, of, where was the prescription for resistance training, you know? Now we're starting to see how valuable resistance training is from the standpoint of, and muscle accrual is from the standpoint of bone health and protein consumption. And, you know, there's certain minerals that can help. I think boron has been shown to play a role. Obviously vitamin D.

But yeah, I mean, especially as you get older, fighting off frailty is a huge, is mission critical to aging well. And bone health plays a huge role. I had a friend on Darren Olin, probably a mutual friend. Yeah. Yeah, love his last book, Fatal Conveniences, about the toxic world we live in. I think it just runs in tandem with the frustration we feel for the Western medical system

with like the prescription of drugs and the perpetuating of a business that keeps essentially sick people or great customers. But then also on the flip side, how much toxic chemicals we are exposed to. And so I just want to touch on, you know, what do you see as the most deleterious things that we're exposed to, whether it be air quality, you know, the things that are in our water, furniture around us, you know, VOC,

like VOC's, what do you think are the most important things to bring into our awareness that can protect us? Yeah, I mean, it's such a, it's a great question. And there's so much to cover. And it's hard to really kind of cover the topic and do it justice without unduly fearmongering because we do live in a world that has become largely toxic. And we're inundated with exposures to industrial pollutants, even from the point of conception.

I mean, it was either the EPA or the environmental working group. The environmental working group, you know, has its own set of detractors because it's funded largely by the organic industry, but found something like 300 industrial pollutants in cord blood that were exposed to, you know, even as embryos, as fetuses. And, you know, so it's terrifying. And today, our store register receipts, our water, our food is contaminated, has become contaminated with these environmental pollutants. are air. We're starting now to see a very clear link between air pollutants, find particulate matter in particular, and the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease, that there are compounds in the air break dust, right? That like we can inhale, pierce the blood-brain barrier, right? Because whatever we inhale through our noses has very easy access to the brain and can catalyze pathology that looks a lot like accelerated aging and ultimately, the signs associated that we associate with Alzheimer's disease, plaque aggregation and the like. They've done studies in Mexico City where they receive cadavers from across the age spectrum, right? People have been killed, you know, various accidents and whatnot.

And they've seen that people who are exposed, even children who are exposed to high levels of air pollution, have Alzheimer's-like pathology in their brains. And in fact, it was the 2020 Lancet Commission on dementia where air pollution was for the first time actually highlighted as a modifiable risk factor

for Alzheimer's disease, which is a condition that takes years to develop, right? I grew up in New York City. My mom, you know, born and bred New Yorker, lived there her whole life. I know the city's cleaned up its air quite a bit over the past couple of decades, but, you know, it's a, it's a polluted city. There's a lot of noise pollution. There's a lot of air pollution. Yeah, noise pollution. Most people aren't as familiar with. Yeah. Stimulates your bodies,

fight or flight, you know, without your consent. I think it's a major problem. It's one of the reasons why I couldn't wait to get out of that city. I still love New York, but but yeah, so I mean air pollution, our water has become polluted, our food has become polluted. It's a huge problem. So I think like do the best that you can. I tend to by organic fruits and vegetables where I know that I'm eating the skin or the peel. And if I don't, if I didn't have access to organic, I wouldn't stress about it. I would just rinse. I mean, you want to rinse organic, you know, as well. But, you know, make sure that you're rinsing your produce. Make sure that you're bolstering your body's own defenses, like your own

resilience. And I think exercising, eating a healthy diet, regardless of whether it's organic or not, is going to go a long way. Making sure that you're integrating a lot of antioxidants and things like that and your diet through whole foods. You're sweating on a regular basis because sweat is a major route of exit for certain pollutants. Making sure the water that you're drinking is clean. I mean, if I'm traveling and I have to drink water

out of a plastic bottle, of course I'll do it. You know, I'm not like trying to drive myself crazy. But, you know, it's important to recognize that drinking water in plastic bottles, whether it's microplastics that we're talking about or the leaching of thallates and other plastic-related compounds into our bottled water. It's a real genuine concern. Because of their endocrine disrupting qualities and many of the things.

The thing about endocrine disruptors that make them tricky to study, and this is one of the reasons why there's so much debate around them, is that most things, you know, most compounds have a point. of toxicity, and this is why we always say the dose makes the poison, right? Most, pretty much, you can think of any compound you can think of, pretty much, like water even. Like there's a linear, there's a linear dose response after a certain point, water, you know, whether it's the rate at which you drink it or the quantity can become toxic, right? I forget the condition, but you can drink enough water rapidly enough where your electrolytes get diluted.

to a point of serious concern and possibly even risk of death. And this concept applies to most chemicals, most compounds. But the problem with endocrine disruptors is that they often have what's called a non-monotonic dose response. So they can be toxic at a certain level or show effects in the body at a certain level. And then go quiet below that, below that level. right, but then have different effects at very low levels. And so this is what makes these chemicals really difficult to study.

But, you know, our hormones is a, it's a network of chemicals in our body. It's how organs, you know, essentially talk to one another. And you don't want to mess with that system. Like it's involved in everything from, you know, obviously sexual function, body composition, libido, but also brain development. energy homeostasis, hunger levels. Everything in the body is basically dictated ultimately by hormones. And so we're just, our exposure, our ex, our exposome now includes innumerable endocrine

disrupting compounds. And, you know, we don't even have names for probably the vast majority of them. But it's definitely something worth being, I think, being mindful of without. driving yourself crazy. Yeah, and it's very easy to drive yourself crazy as you see how much there is and everything. Yeah, you know, I just try to do the best I can. I try not to eat a lot of fast food. We know that, you know, you're exposing yourself with fast food.

I try not to touch store register receipts. I try to minimize my exposure to plastic. I try to eat as whole food, you know, as whole food-centric a diet as I can because we know that you get higher levels of these compounds in ultra-processed foods. I try to sweat regularly. I try to be as strong as I possibly can in body. I try to stay hydrated because one of the major solutions to pollution is dilution. So just making sure that you're drinking, you know, you're staying hydrated in the water that

you're drinking is clean. And that's pretty much it, you know, like it's sort of, it is inevitable that living in the modern world, which in the modern world is great. Like, I love the modern world. All the trappings of the modern world, I partake in them, right? But there is some degree of exposure that is inevitable. We can't freak out about that. We just have to do our best to stack the odds in our favor, right?

Yeah. And look, at the same time, you're going to look better naked. You're going to feel better. You know, you're going to have better digestion. You're going to have more mental clarity. You're going to have possibly better mental health. Like, by taking all these same steps. So it's not, I'm not suggesting that anybody go out of their way.

But so long as you're eating an antioxidant-rich, antioxidant-rich diet, you're sweating on a regular basis. you're basically bolstering your own resilience. And similarly with, like, I had a conversation recently with a friend of mine who is a cancer expert. He's a PhD in cancer. He's a cancer biologist. We're exposed to carcinogens on a daily basis. But just because you're exposed to a carcinogen doesn't mean that you're going to develop cancer because your body can defend itself. So you just want to make sure that you're doing good by your body.

You're stacking the odds in your favor. Yeah. And you're keeping that balance, I guess, optimized towards. resilience and recovery and robustness. Yeah. And that you're just, I guess, being prophylactic with how you're moving about, like, enhancing your detox pathways and, you know, living in modern society, obviously inevitably being exposed to toxic chemicals.

But making those moves that I feel setting up your life in a way that is automatically already going to boost minimizing those, the toxic buildup and bucket within ourselves. So, like, you kind of spoke to getting. clean water filter and air filter and organic bed sheets and the things that like we just automatically are always breathing the air in our house and drinking the water that we're drinking and it requires like a decision but then you don't really have to think about the decision once you've made it but you receive the benefits of it there afterwards set it and forget it yeah yeah so those are like i feel like the biggest low-hanging fruit of like you know what are the detergents and cleaners that you're buying

and the sheets that you're sleeping in and all those things and then you can obviously get more Nicky Pitt, you know, nitpicky with the glyphosate that maybe somebody's shoes stepped down on a lawn before they walked in your house or what, you know, all the different little things that. Yeah. I mean, and again, going back to like the wellness world on social media, there is a lot of like, I don't believe you need to buy everything organic. I mean, and if you can't afford to buy anything organic, then that's fine too, you know. Yeah, I think like you have to meet people where you're at.

And I think part of my, the privilege that I've, that I've had to get to go on many, many national TV shows, for example, Apple and reach huge audiences of people that aren't just following nutrition hashtags on Instagram and whatever, you know? Like I get to reach people in food deserts. I get to reach people like across the socioeconomic spectrum. And you've got to meet people where they're at. Yeah. You can't just scare people. And it's so easy to forget that's the majority of how like America at least is living right now. I mean, we live in a bubble of these health conscious podcasters in the west side of L.A., which is really great. I love like, I love the modern world too. I feel like for me it's pretty easy to like forget how widespread like what the how frequent

the standard American diet is and these food deserts and like what the reality of the majority of people living in America are like. It's pretty bad. Yeah. I mean it's it gets pretty bad. But there's hope, you know. I think like I'm very great. Thanks Max. Yeah. Can't forget their self folks. There's hope. I mean, look, the fact that the wellness industry is a double. I'm going to sword, you know, and I think there's a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of marketing. There's a lot of, but like there's a lot of good to come from it because now you can go to freaking Costco and you can buy frozen wild salmon. You can buy organic at Walmart. You know, I think it's like, I think we've done a lot of good in terms of waking people up to the power

that their choices have, were they only to make those choices. And yeah, and I think as long as you're following like credible people that seem to be unbiased and seem to be authentic and dedicated to truth, I think you really can't go wrong. And I think like, yeah, over the course of one's journey, you're going to try things that don't necessarily work. You're going to maybe spend some money that, you know, I mean, I can't tell you how much money I've spent on supplements over the years. Like, you know, and I still do. I still buy supplements knowing that half of them aren't doing anything for me, right? But I enjoy it. I enjoy the process of discovery. And I'm, I know that I'm on this like end of one journey, you know, and that even supplement studies that,

you know, that elucidate a, you know, an average effect size. Like I could be, you know, one of the, of the population where I, maybe there's a negative effect, you know, like studies only only elucidate averages, you know. So you have to kind of like have a growth mindset and, and be willing to experiment and embody, you know, an open mind and curiosity. And I think that's all part of the fun, you know, as long as you can stay away from the wackos that are trying to tell you that broccoli is killing you and that oatmeal is toxic and, you know, granted, maybe there is some toxic oatmeal out there, you know, like, there was a new study that found that, you know, a lot of non-organic oatmeal in the U.S.

is contaminated with Chlormequot, which is like some, you know, crazy new chemical that is like a desiccant or something or a pesticide or an herbicide or something like that at very low levels I'll admit but like at the end of the day as long as you're sticking to primarily whole foods I think like you're doing better than most. Yeah. I think it goes back to where we started

initially with this conversation for those that just want to give ourselves the best chances to extend our health span to be able to live life in a vibrant healthy state where we can go after the things that are most meaningful to us. I think it can be a little solipsistic when we're so overly focused on just healing our health journey, which we need to at certain points, maybe if we're sick or whatever it is, but then we're meant to live our life, you know. And so we touched on, you know, some things to

and not to eat, understanding this whole umbrella, you could have a podcast with hundreds of episodes and you still won't even touch 5% of because there's so much there, right? But we touch on that and timing and movement and the toxic world that we live in. I want to kind of wrap up the last topic of this podcast talking about some of these less quantitative, I guess, or easily measurable intrinsic qualities that I think are really important to reflect on, one of which being, and I'd love to hear your personal opinion, about crafting a vision of a future that excites us for our life to go after. And like, I'm just curious because so much of these things get motivated like we spoke to earlier

when we have a vision of a future that excites us when we feel like we're living in alignment. And I think that we all go through our own journeys of sometimes feeling more lost or more on, more on it with how we're serving on the planet, whatnot. But how has clarifying what life wants to use you for in a way, been clarifying in your own journey and bringing joy to your life? Hmm. Yeah, I mean, I feel very clear in my purpose. And I remember distinctly a time when I didn't feel so clear in that. I guess you refer as your Dharma. Is that like? That's a way to, yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Yeah. I think I'm very clear on what my Dharma. I've become more clear on what my Dharma is. And I love that term. And for me, I had to go through, you know, a fiery pit of truels. trauma and tragedy and sadness to get there.

But yeah, for me, it's become very clear. And, you know, right now what I do is at the intersection of, I think, my skills, my passion, my interests, what I feel like the world needs, what I'm able to monetize. And I feel very, very grateful. I mean, even though I did end up where I'm at due to something really awful that happened in my life with my mom and you know and and and I would give it all back in a second to have my mom back and in good health I also love what I do and and I wake up every day excited and because I love what I do I feel like I'm able to do my best at whatever it is whatever

task I'm given I don't always get it right I'm you know I'm I'm definitely always learning I'm not perfect, but I think as long as you're doing the best you can on a given day, I think that you're likely on the right, going to be on the right path. Trusting in myself was also a really important sentiment to just feeling ultimately that, no matter, what happened, I had my own back, really helped propel me through those dark moments where I didn't know what was coming next. I didn't, I mean, there was a time when I didn't know how I was going to pay my bills, when I didn't know how I was going to pay my rent. But just knowing that, feeling a genuine sense that there was something in me that could serve the greater good

really helped push me forward. and yeah and then just adding value where I could to people, whether on social media, given the tool, with whatever tools I had access to at any given time, you know, really helped to cement that that sense that I had that I was on the right path because people were responding to what it was that I was putting out, what it was that I was talking about. And yeah, so it's a really,

a really wonderful feeling and you know and it's a feeling that I that I wish for anybody listening to this you know I feel I feel super aligned and um and yeah I don't know what I'm going to be doing 10 years from now hopefully the same thing but uh but yeah it's been it's been quite the journey and um and honestly I don't think that I I don't think that I could have said that I'd had it all figured out up until maybe about five years ago and I'm 41 now so I mean it's It's taken me, you know, the better part of my 30s to really feel the sense of security about what it is that I'm doing. But yeah, just grateful that I've landed here. Yeah, it's funny.

The areas that you mentioned, I refer to often on the show I feel like by the Japanese term, Ikey guy, which is just the intersection of those qualities you mentioned, which is what you're good at, what you love, what you can get paid for, and what the world needs. Yeah. And it's a revelatory process to arrive at that place where all those kind of boxes are ticked. And the intersection of those is like your Dharma, your Iki guy, your purpose. Like a reason for being where you feel most activated by life. And I think it's important to hear and reflect on stories about the moments that led to that. Because everyone sees the highlight real and the glory and the big podcast and the successful New York Times bestselling book and like all these things. But they don't really get to see the trenches of the moments where, you know,

you were crying because, you know, your ex left you or you couldn't make rent and you were so stressed and like those moments, so many series of those moments often are required to be on the path to one day feeling secure. And like you have stability in your life and you are aligned and feel like you are living your purpose and whatnot. So yeah, I just think it's important to, and I'm glad you shared about a little bit of those moments where you really did not feel like you had it, you know, locked in. Yeah. And they, and you know, and today even, even, you know, Even today, given all that I've accomplished and all the good that I think I've put out into the world, I mean, you still get criticism, you know, thanks to the nature of social media. I mean, you know, anybody in any basement anywhere can, you know, create a social media profile and go onto your feed and let you know how they really feel about you.

And I think, like, once you have your, once you have a sense of a noble aim, I think that's the term that Jordan Peterson coined. Your eye on the prize of something larger than yourself, where you've been able to remove your ego, then these little affronts to your ego day to day, which are bound to happen, right? Like you're bound to generate criticism by stepping out of line, by sticking your neck out. I mean, if you want to go uncriticized, like, don't do anything, you know. But if you're doing anything of note, you're going to be criticized. And I think the way to maintain a healthy mind about it is to always, you know, have that North Star, that noble aim, something bigger than yourself.

It's the same reason why, you know, missionaries will go down to a third world country. And like, despite all the pushback and the violence and whatever, like, they're there for, they're on a mission for God, you know. I'm not a mission. I'm not on a mission for God. I'm on a mission to help people get healthier. But that's why when people come over and they, you know, they criticize me, they don't fully understand what it is that I'm about. they don't know my thesis, then, you know, it's, it just, you know, it's like rain falling off of a windshield. It just, it doesn't bother me, you know, because I feel like I have that.

But, you know, anybody, for anybody that, that, you know, feels like they're being criticized or or what have you, I just think you have to remember that we live in a time where even the most benign thing that exists has critics. You know, there are people out there that hate Disney World. There are people that hate pizza, you know. So I think as long as you're being true to yourself and you've got that noble aim in sight, then I think it's all going to be okay, you know. Like, I don't, the critics don't bother me.

And yeah, it's fine. It's just par for the course. Yeah. What have you felt is the power of community and relationships like we are, these tribal beings that are meant to relate, you know, some say, you know, tribes of 150 or 200 people really. And we're on one end so connected to so many people, but also very disconnected to and for most people very disconnected to, you know, real human relationships in this physical world where you're just there for each other. And I'm just curious about your perspective on the power of

having a community and friend group that are aligned with your values and how that contributes to well-being? Yeah, I mean, community is super important. I love my friends, but I also think family is very important. I'm a big family guy. And I spent a lot of time with my family, my brothers, my dad. That's a big part of my life is my family. And then, you know, your chosen family, your friends, I think, are also crucially important. And unfortunately, not everybody has that. We live in a time where many of us subsists on parasycial relationships, you know, thanks to social media. But I think obviously having friends in your life plays an important role.

Having a pet, I think, is really important from the standpoint of mental health. And so, yeah, it all kind of plays a role. What was that Harvard study of adult development? It was an 80-year-running, ongoing study at Harvard found that, like, the one variable that had the strongest correlation between healthy outcomes and lifespan was being socially connected well into one's golden years. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. whenever I'm feeling down, whenever I'm feeling frustrated, I know that I always have somebody that I can reach out to, whether it be family or people that I work with or close friends.

I mean, I think that that's a real gift. It's a real privilege today when so many seem to be so isolated. And yeah, I'm definitely a big advocate for it. And if you don't have access to community, I think, you know, you can, I think there's a degree of faking it that one can do. You know, I think like social media is great. You know, if you live in a small town and you feel chronically isolated, you know, I think social media does, can make you feel somewhat more connected. You just have to be really careful because social media can, you know, there's a lot of downsides to social media from the standpoint of mental health. You know, the chronic comparison.

and the hyper-filtered, hyper-styled version of reality that social media tends to present. I think that that can obviously be to the detriment of mental health. But yeah, I mean, I have friends on social media that I've never met in person, but that are like friends. And we share memes. And, you know, it's like one of the, I think, more benevolent aspects of social media today is that we can have these sort of power. social relationships. They're not replacements for the real thing, but I think they can be helpful. What's the leading edge of growth for you in your personal life right now? What are you, what are you, anything you're growing through that is like a new area or, uh, oh man. Um,

well, I've been seeing somebody. I have like a girlfriend for the first time in more than a decade. Let's go. Yeah, let's go. Um, so that's been great. That's been actually quite wonderful. And I'm, you know, it's been a journey because it's just new territory for me. But she's very sweet, very smart, very funny. And she speaks in terms of her Dharma as well, which I think is really funny. Nice. Yeah, she's a very enlightened being. And, and yes, I'm just trying to keep up.

But no, she's great. So that's been a really interesting, I guess, like new development. Is that bringing up stuff? Inevitably it has to, right? Of course. Of course. But it's a, you know, I felt like, I guess, like ready in my life to, to like lean into that. And of course I'm at, you know, it wasn't just my decision.

Like, you know, she actually chose me in a way. And, you know, it's been just really great. So I don't know. I'm just trying to live in the present as much as I can. and, you know, I tend to overthink things like, you know, jump ahead to the future, spend a little too much time in the past. But I've also seen a therapist for the better part of the past two years. I'm not currently, but I did for a while.

And that was one of the big takeaways is I got to learn how to be more in the present. That's a good take home for anybody struggling with, like, anxiety, depression. I didn't have clinical anxiety or depression or anything like that, but I will say that learning how to be in the present because we tend to, you know, our thoughts tend to run away from us. And I think it can be the cause of a lot of anguish.

And I'm certainly, you know, definitely somebody who's experienced that, I'm either like anxious about what I think might happen. in the future or depressed about something that's dead and buried in the past. But the present really is all we have. And so if we can learn to be here now, I think that's a really important skill to cultivate. So yeah, I guess it was kind of like some of the newer ideas that I've been mulling over. I love it.

Yeah. I love it, dude. Well, thanks. I mean, I really just appreciate your, I guess, energy and approach to discussing a lot of these topics because it is such a polarizing space where people even become evangelical about, you know, what their beliefs are or their dogmas. And it becomes very affirming to people's confirmation bias. And, yeah, I think it's important to like look at the stuff non-emotionally, kind of really discern. And yeah, I think it's just an incredible service that you're providing for people. And yeah, dude, you're a powerful

educator. So thanks for doing what you're doing, living your Dharma. Thank you, brother. Yeah. You've added to my vocabulary. Yes. No, thank you so much. That means a lot. Yeah. Is there anything else you want to leave our listeners with today?

Oh, man. Well, this was a ton of fun, and I super value you and everything that you're putting out into the world. And I guess for me, the story of my mom and everything that she went through is portrayed in a documentary that I am about to release, depending on when this comes out. but the film is called Little Empty Boxes, and it's going to be a very powerful watch for anybody that has any experience whatsoever with dementia,

either as a patient or as a caregiver. If you've had a loved one suffer from the condition, the film is a really intimate look into what it's like, both from the patient side and the caregiver side. And if it's a tribute to my mom, it's a tribute to the science of dementia prevention. And I'm super excited for the film to come out, and we're going to be,

Taking it on tour, releasing the theaters across the country, so people can learn more and get a ticket at little emptyboxes.com. Films called Little Empty Boxes.com. And yeah, I look forward to connecting with people on the gram, on my podcast, on all the places. Right. So good. I can't wait to see it. Yeah, thanks, brother. We'll have to do. Well, we're going to definitely do a premiere in L.A., and so you'll definitely be invited to that. Don't worry about that.

Great. Congrats, man. I know it's been a long time coming. Yeah, man. 10 years. Yeah. Yeah, a long time. All right, everybody, thanks for tuning into this episode on the Know-Lithself podcast. I appreciate you for coming on this journey and just doing the best you can with the knowledge that you have at the level that you're at and trying to implement and become the best version of yourself so that, yeah, you can live a purpose-driven life and follow your Dharma and have those healthy relationships and thriving community and all these things that we're

talking to. Thanks for coming and joining us in this conversation. Until next time, we're welcome.