The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Biohacking Your Limits: Unlock Peak Performance and Fulfillment | Ben Greenfield

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

Extreme biohacker Ben Greenfield joins Dr. Josh Axe to reveal how to push past perceived limits and achieve peak performance both physically and mentally. In this compelling interview, you’ll discover Ben’s cutting-edge tactics for training both body and mind to reach new heights. Tune in to discover: Unconventional mental practices for strengthening self-belief and willpower Lifestyle changes with the power to catalyze personal growth How to develop a resilient mindset in the face of challenges Why fitness and spirituality create the foundation for fulfillment The key mindset shifts that propel the greats to the top tiers of success If you want to unlock your full potential and become the best version of yourself, tune in now to biohack your own limits! Want more of The Growth Lab with Dr. Josh Axe? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok Follow Ben Greenfield Instagram Twitter Facebook YouTube Follow Leaders Instagram Twitter Facebook Email Newsletter ------  Links:  Check out Ben Greenfield’s Masterclass and latest podcast episode → https://bengreenfieldlife.com/ Purchase Ben Greenfield’s cookbook → https://shopbengreenfieldlife.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If your connection to God and your connection to family are not your top priorities in life, everything else becomes an endless rat race, you know, endless attempts at fulfillment. As one mentor of mine told me, you know, the business will eat you alive and you'll constantly be coming back for more. Zero email inbox will never end. And if you don't set your priorities straight, namely God is number one, family, spouse, children, your community and the like as number two, health, as number three and wealth and business at the bottom of the totem pole, then you're never going to find fulfillment. You'll be, you know, that old washed up, you know, divorced, you know, unhealthy, as you alluded to joy being in the bones,

often cancer-stricken or heart disease-stricken, you know, former CEO who's just got, you know, emotional and spiritual atrophy because you haven't really tended to those things in your own life. And I was on that path. I mean, I nearly got divorced. I was a horrible husband. I was an unpresent father. I was successful on paper, but not really at home. And so I began to focus on my connection to God, my spiritual walk. My morning workouts became spiritual instead of physical as the first thing I do in terms of morning devotions and prayer, a habit that lives on with me to this day. My connection to my family, through family devotion and family huddles and family traditions and fully present family dinners and family games and, you know, connection to my wife and my kids

in a much more present and aware and systematic way. All of that became priority. And really, at that point, the fruits of fulfillment began to pour forth into my life in terms of me actually feeling as though any amount of wealth or health or worldly success becoming something that didn't just leave me feeling even more empty at the end of the day. And look, I know that's a lot. I know we just talked about like the content of like 40 self-improvement books in three minutes. But that's generally the gist of it, man. I just had an awakening moment realizing I was going to lose my family. My spiritual life was atrophied and I was unfulfilled. And by prioritizing God and family and then second, my community and then help all above business. That's when I kind of

started to see the light and come back around. Everyone, I'm Dr. Josh Axe and welcome to the Growth Lab podcast where each and every week we cover the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and grow spiritually in your career and relationships. And this week, we have Ben Greenfield on. Ben is a close friend of mine. He's a globally renowned biohacking and human optimization expert. He is a 13-time New York Times bestselling author and has been voted America's top trainer as an advisor to top performers as well. And one of the things that I love about Ben is he has tested so many of these things on himself. And he walks to walk.

You know, when I think about some of the most fit people I know, both in their physical fitness, but also their mental strength and toughness and resilience, their spiritual mindset and many others, again, I'm just a huge, huge fan of Ben and so much of what he's about. And we've known each other for years. And I've had him on the podcast before, but so excited. Ben to have you on today. Oh, dude, Josh, thank you so much. I didn't realize until we started the name of your podcast.

You know what my number one secret to growth is, Josh? Just to cut straight to the chase. What? Ice cream. It'll grow you like nothing else. Ice cream. Maybe some hamburgers, maybe even some vegetable oil. I've heard that's somewhat hypertrophic for fat cells as well.

But yeah, if you ever need growth advice, just come over to my freezer. So good. Wow. And I didn't, I didn't mention this as well. Ben, Ben is a part-time comedian, which, which we know that, you know, joy is, is good for the soul and good for the bones, actually. It's a proverb. So, uh, anyway, so, so Ben, you know, I'm excited to dive into a lot today. We talked about, I want to talk about body, mind, and spirit sort of in terms of as we look about health. And, you know, I feel like I've seen kind of a, you know, a metamorphosis with you a little bit or let me just say a progression of I know early on you really had a big focus and we're going to talk about it this today on nutrition and physical fitness but also you started

talking a lot about spiritual health recently talked to me about if you know was it was was there a moment or happened what happened that caused you to start teaching people so much more about spiritual health and spiritual habits yeah you know it was probably during my 48th iawaska retreat that I really no I'm just kidding actually it was it was a little bit more more of a at home awakening than that um so like you like you mentioned Josh you know I've I've found some success in the fitness industry you know especially as a speaker and a podcaster and you know I've run some successful companies and generated some wealth and you know had a family and you know did all the things from a fitness and a health and even a wealth standpoint. And honestly,

you know, when you talk about metamorphosis, I suppose the light bulb moment for me to go from Caterpillar to butterfly, if we want to go with that metamorphosis metaphor, is I realized not only was I pretty unfulfilled and lacking in satisfaction and fulfillment from jumping through all these physical and mental hoops and climbing all these mountains. But I was also at risk of losing my family because I hadn't prioritized my spiritual musculature and my spiritual fitness. And I, as a result, had an eternal shaped hole in my soul, you know, as ancient philosophers like Pence, or Augustine or even relatively modern day authors like C.S. Lewis would allude to it as an eternal hole in my soul. I was throwing all these, you know, Spartan races and Iron

man triathlon and business building efforts and, you know, food and homes and everything else into to try to fill. But I was also becoming alienated from my family. And I know it's throwing around ingest a lot, you know, the whole idea of mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, you know, happy wife, happy life, but it actually is really true. I mean, if your connection to God and your connection to family are not your top priorities in life. Everything else becomes an endless rat race, you know, endless attempts at fulfillment. As one mentor of mine told me, you know, the business will eat you alive and you'll constantly be coming back for more. Zero email inbox will never end.

And if you don't set your priorities straight, namely God is number one, family, spouse, children, your community and the like as number two help as number three and and wealth and business at the bottom of the totem pole then you're never going to find fulfillment and you'll be you know that old washed up you know divorced you know unhealthy as you alluded to joy being in the bones often cancer stricken or heart disease stricken you know former CEO who's just got you know emotional and spiritual atrophy because you haven't really tended to those things in your own life and I was on that I mean, I nearly got divorced. I was a horrible husband. I was an unpresent father. I was successful on paper, but not really at home. And so I began to focus on my connection to God, my spiritual walk.

My morning workouts became spiritual instead of physical as the first thing I do in terms of morning devotions and prayer, a habit that lives on with me to this day. My connection to my family, through family devotion and family huddles and family traditions and fully present family dinners and family games and connection to my wife and my kids in a much more present and aware and systematic way. All of that became priority. And really at that point, the fruits of fulfillment began to pour forth into my life in terms of me actually feeling as though any amount of wealth or health or worldly success becoming something that didn't just leave me feeling even more empty at the end of the day. And look, I know that's a lot. I know we just talked about like the content of like 40

self-improvement books in three minutes. But that's generally the gist of it, man. I just had an awakening moment realizing I was going to lose my family. My spiritual life was atrophied and I was unfulfilled. And by prioritizing God and family and then second, my community and then health. all above business. That's when I kind of started to see the light and come back around. It's so powerful, Ben. And I, first off, like this, it resonates with me so much because I think that for a lot of people that are very success driven and very determined people, that oftentimes it's like, well, we want to try and be the best in our field at something. And so for you, you know, you've done, as you mentioned, Iron Man triathons and Spartan races. I remember actually seeing you on TV compete in Spartan races.

and have been known as one of the most fit people on the entire planet. And I remember reading a book, it was an article about Steve Jobs. And everybody knows he's the founder of Apple. And at the end of his life, he had said that he felt, you know, his biggest regret was his relationship with his kids. And so where he achieved all of this success in creating this memorable brand in Apple, He said, you know, I just really feel like I just, I didn't, you know, I wasn't there for my kids, you know. And we've seen this similar thing with a lot of, a lot of people.

There's a psychologist that you and I both are aware of, you know, Jordan Peterson. And he talks about it's important to be aware of the game you're playing because, you know, it's easy for some people. We're living in a society and this is so prevalent on social media of comparison, right? We compare ourselves to, you know, like we could be comparing ourselves to Steve Jobs or Elon Musk or someone out. But he said, you know, for a lot of these people, their family lives are enchamble. They're divorced, their kid, you know, they don't have a good relationship with their kids anymore. They've taken advantage of people, whatever it is. And it's like, again, the thing that I love about what you're so much about now is this, you know, spiritual growth,

having a great family life. And I think winning a game that matters most, you know, I think someone else that's really coming to the limelight. And then I'll try and finish this up because I want to focus on you and in questions. someone like Andrew Tate has become very popular today. And I think about it like this. I think about, you know, he's teaching men about masculinity and helping people maybe grow in their ability to, in their power, right? And there are in courage and there are certain virtues there.

And I saw Patrick Bet David in a debate with somebody about this. I think her name was Liz Wheeler. And they were saying, is Andrew Tate a net positive or a net negative towards society? And I think we should think about it like that sometimes. too because it's like you have your skill here and you have good and evil so you can achieve great things I mean you could build you know Ben for yourself a hundred million dollar business and do all these things and you know when when you know all these accolades but it's like is it towards the good is it towards loving God loving people making earth a a paradise in a heavenly place and it's like if you're not

if your efforts don't lean towards this spiritual renewal and making earth heavenly then it's not a success, right? I'd love to hear from you in terms of how you define success and how you've come to think more about success through the years both now, but also what would success look like for you, let's say 20, 30, 40 years from now. Yeah, you're right. I'd rather be poor and healthy and fulfilled than wealthy and sick and dissatisfied. Absolutely. Success, I think is very simple. It's the, you know, happiness, back to that emotion of joy that you define, really if you look back at, you know, the original, say, Hebrew, it's really being blessed, right? And I think that being blessed is a pretty good metric of success. I think that to feel blessed

and to be living a blessed life, you need to know your values, you need to know your purpose, you need to know your calling, you need to know your life's drive, and you need to know why you were put here on the planet, and you need to systematically know that. What I mean by that is you need to go through books like the values factor by John D. Martini or Ikeguy 2.0 from the Slow.com website and systematically map out what it is that you like to do when you were a kid, what makes time go by fast now, where your passions are, what, as Mark Manson, the author says, makes you forget to eat and poop, and then you sit down with those purposes and those values,

and you figure out a way not necessarily to commercialize them, because the money will come, if you do what I'm about to tell you, but to instead fully love God and love others with that purpose. And by love God, basically, I mean follow God's law, which essentially based on the teachings of Jesus, comes down to the golden rule, like loving others as you would love yourself. And then, of course, loving others, it's almost a double rule. And so know your purpose, love others fully with that purpose, and chase that as your metric of success. And I think you're going to have a pretty fulfilled life if you focus on that.

That's good. I love that. I had this, there was this billionaire recently, and they asked him what his definition of success was, And I think everybody thought he was going to say, oh, you know, some that he's built these companies or, you know, received a certain level of recognition. But he's like that my kids want to come home and spend, you know, the holidays with me and that I have a great relationship with my kids. And so I think that that's, it's very much what I hear from you is this level of, you know, the things that matter most. Your faith in your family are at the very, very top of the list. And, you know, one of the other things, Ben, that I think that I see.

you and I think that there is part of it is maybe your physical training has helped with this but maybe even spiritually you know we're living in a world today that is incredibly polarizing whether it be a war between you know Israel and Palestine or it be uh you know people having different views on gender ideology or or someone being on the left politically on the right there there are a lot of different viewpoints and I think as you mentioned earlier you you you you you mentioned a book about values and knowing what your values are is so important knowing what's worth living for but also worth dying for and i think for a lot of people maybe one of the hardest things is there's a level of and i've seen this even in people that i feel like people would consider leaders there's maybe a lack of mental toughness or resilience and that if somebody gets one or two negative comments on the social media they want a buck i want to tell you a quick story so i've been praying for a child that was taken hostage. And I wrote, and the way that I was doing this to remind myself, there's this group, and I wrote his name on my hand. His name was Gideon. And so I was praying for

him all weekend. And I posted that I was praying for this child that had been kidnapped. And because he was a certain nationality, I had another group of people. I probably had a hundred DMs of people saying I was, you know, immoral, like in some way. And it was like the most ridiculous thing. And I never thought, I would experience something like that. But I thought, you know what? There's probably a lot of people. And I even felt a little sense myself. I thought, wow, I'm getting a lot, a lot of hate with this thing that I feel like is incredible,

like where I was trying to be Christ, like I was trying to be virtuous and what I was doing. I bring that all up to say, you know, finishing an Ironman triathlon, it takes mental strength and resilience. I think as a husband and a father saying, as you said earlier, like, I can do better. I haven't been the best dad. I haven't been the best father. I want to go and be the best husband and the best father and the best son of God I can possibly be. Talk to me about how you have built and how others can build greater mental resilience. Well, first of all, Josh, you're right. We live in a polarizing world. And back to the definition of happiness or success,

you could almost reverse engineer it. Right. Like, if you look at palisizing world, we live in a polarizing world. And back to the definition of happiness. You could almost reverse engineer it. Right? Like if you look at palliative care or something that's been fresh on my mind lately because my dad has been fighting a battle against cancer. And a few times over the past few weeks, he's been close to the brink of death. So I've been thinking a lot about death. Even as much as binge listening a few days ago, this book called Being Mortal, which is an excellent book written by a physician on this new human phenomenon of having the option to keep someone alive as long as possible on tubes and IVs and injections, but often with relatively low quality of life, you know, a shell of their former cell. This conundrum we now have of,

well, yeah, we could have a human being kept alive to the point where they're just a twitching eyebrow, but is that the definition of a truly remarkable or desirable human life versus letting that person, you know, go in peace and be honored and depart to a better place? That aside, though, in thinking about palliative care and death, you know, you see a lot of people talk about what folks express on their deathbed. One very simplistic way to think about it that you hear reported is, was I loved and did I love enough? Was I loved and did I love enough? You know, kind of like that, who was going to cry at my funeral type of question. The other thing that you hear based on Bonnie Rarway, a palliative care specialist who wrote an article that was viral that later became a book under a similar title, The Five Regrets of the Dying, says there's five things that people express repeatedly on their deathbeds as common threads or common themes.

The first is, I wish I'd chosen to show my true emotions more. and that's really related to what you were talking about with the link between, you know, biology and spirituality or biology and emotions, you know, like back to scripture, for example, suppressed emotion, suppressed anger and bitterness being associated with cancer of the bones, for example. So did I show my emotions enough? Did I choose to be happy, right? The whole contentedness, no matter my circumstances, idea, which I also think is important. I wish I'd chosen to stay in touch with truth, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with old friends more often. So back to community, relationships, and even as another excellent book I recently read called the Cancer Connection gets into the importance of connectivity with our fellow human beings. And then a couple of other ones are, I wish I'd chosen to work less,

or I wish I'd worked less. And then finally, back to the root of your question about mental resilience and polarization, is this, I wish I'd chosen to be my trust. authentic self rather than who I thought the world expected me to be. Right. And that's important because, you know, there's another psychologist, not Jordan Peterson, a Gabor Mate. You know, he says that trauma is just a series of disconnections from true self.

A series of making decisions that we know really aren't are true authentic selves, but who we think the world expects us to be, right? When I was with my father a few nights ago as he was going through a particularly difficult evening, I said, Dad, you know, I'm sitting here with you, I have my head on your chest, I'm crying. give me some life advice and he said ben question everything and don't be afraid to be weird when you're questioning everything because if you're not weird then a lot of times you're disconnected from your authenticity you know it's like that saying if nobody on the internet is saying anything bad

about you you're probably a little bit inauthentic or being a little bit too much of who the world expects you to be something i know that you've experienced josh as well as a lot of us in the holistic or alternative health industry or who have at least stepped foot in that industry have experienced. So back to mental resilience, well, I think a big, big part of where it starts that directly ties to what we were talking about before, life satisfaction, happiness, and a metric of success is being comfortable, being weird, and developing the mindset of questioning everything and being our true authentic selves, not in an assholeish way, but in a very graceful way. You know, there's another author named Greg Kuchel, who has written a couple of books

on apologetics. We're like gracefully defending the hope and the faith that is within you without driving people away, but instead in a way that simply allows you to better understand where they're coming from. What do you think about that? Why do you believe that? Huh, that's interesting. Tell me more about that. Very similar to Chris Voss, the guy who wrote the book, never split the difference, the art of negotiation, right? Sounds like, looks like, feels like. tell me more about that. How am I supposed to do that? He gets everything from the illusion of control to mirroring to labeling, et cetera. But he calls it tactical empathy. And I think that that empathy is certainly a good word used to describe this graceful way of not driving people away by being rigid and unapproachable,

but definitely in a way that allows you to be your true authentic self and stand up for what you believe in. So the first is just a general mindset. When it comes to mental resilience, you want to make sure that one of your values is authenticity, being willing to stand up for what you believe in a graceful and empathetic manner no matter what. Now, of course, people might be thinking, well, you know, I can do that, but I'm still afraid. Like, I still need some kind of perseverance or stick toitiveness or a deliverer mindset or a stress-free or low-anxiety mindset to be able to do that. And that's where I think we cross from emotions and spirituality and values and mindset into biology.

Right. So what do I mean by that? Well, this comes down to a concept. I know you're very familiar with Josh Hormesis, right? I engage on a lot of hormetic stressors that at the end of the day feel like they inject into me a great deal of mental resilience and the ability to be able to. handle whatever it is the world throws at me, even if I'm being my true authentic self. And so some of the ways that I do that, I have a robust heat cold practice. Three to five times per week, I am going through heat stress, typically in infrared or a dry sauna,

to the point where my heart rate's pretty high. And even though this might not be what some people with, say, atrial fibrillation or mineral depletion or, you know, a low HRV might want to do, I pretty much stay in the sauna until I want to freaking crawl out of that thing screaming because I'm so hot and then I go straight into about 33 to 35 degrees of cold and I stay in that cold until I'm pretty cold. And I do that on a regular basis. I think hot, cold contrast is fantastic for mental resilience. Another thing I do is breathwork.

I use a couple of apps. My two favorites are Other Ship. Another one called Breath Source. And I am a breathwork freaking addict. You know, I do breathwork multiple times per week, often in the sauna. And typically anybody who's done breathwork knows, it kind of sucks for the first few minutes. Like you got to get yourself into that state and you're doing long exhales where you just have to trust your body as you've breathed off all that CO2. And big inhales where you feel like your head's going to explode.

And very similar to weight training for the muscles, you know, playing with your breath is like weight training for your physiology, you know, for your bloodstream, for your mitochondria, for your heart, for your lungs, etc. weight training is another big one i do super slow single set to failure weight training two to three times a week where i'm not doing traditional like three four or five sets 10 to 12 reps i typically do one single set to failure which is usually about two minutes of time under tension for the deadlift for the squat for the chest press for the pull down or the pull up for the row and for the shoulder press and when you're pushing at the very end of a set and you just can barely get it up and barely down and you're literally just emptying the gas tank on a on a set i think that's also very useful for mental resilience although i'm careful with it because i think that it can

when overdone result in some endocrine and thyroid system dysfunction i also fast right i deny the body in a very stoic fashion typically with intermittent fasting done regularly 12 to 16 hours each day so i have an eight to 12 hour compressed feeding window and i am giving myself mental resilience by denying the dopaminergic surge from food. Very similar to the phone. The phone is typically off in airplane mode, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth disabled at least. The color is turned down as low as it can be turned down, again, to reduce a lot of that dopaminergic surge, because there's a direct tie between dopamine desensitization and lack of mental resilience. So the more you can not be a rat pressing the pellet in the cage for that.

delivery of cocaine, the better. I'm not against dopamine. I'm hedonistic, right? Like, I like my ice cream. I like my steaks. I like a good glass of wine here and there and a, you know, fun trip to a movie or an escape room, but generally I live what some might consider to be a somewhat stoic lifestyle. I think that that also delivers mental resilience. And then I think the last thing, and this would return back to the dopaminergic consideration, is I am a foodie. I am a chef. You know, like you, I've dabbled in the cookbook sector, and I am highly aware of highly palatable processed foods designed for that dopaminergic surge that also, I think, strip you of mental resilience because your body nodes that highly palatable, calorie dense combinations of fat and carbohydrate are available anytime you need them. And in the same way that, say, sauna and ice build mental resilience, that idea of simply being pampered by calories at your beck and call all the time, can strip mental resilience. And this is why probably the final thing I'll mention meditation or being

able to sit, you know, with either a verse from scripture or an empty head or a mantra is very useful because it trains the body, how to focus, how to be resistant to grabbing the marshmallow and how to, again, have mental resilience. So those are a few things, heat and cold, weightlifting, breath work, denial of calories via fasting and avoidance of processed, highly palatable foods. meditation and then just being aware of constant sensory stimuli in a modern entertainment-based environment. It's so good. I think, Ben, as you're sharing all these things, it's intentional suffering, right? It's intentional discomfort that you're putting your body through. And, you know, I've heard people, you know, experts and philosophers say this. It's like you can either deal with

the pain of discomfort or choosing your sacrifice or the pain of regret. Or the pain of regret. It's the pain of sacrifice or the pain of regret. You're going to have pain either way. It's better to choose your pain as you're saying. You know, there's pain of I'm skipping out on dessert. And then there's the pain of, well, I ate way too much. I ate ice cream every meal. And now I've got, you know, heart issues or diabetes or whatever it is. And so I love it's picking your pain. And one of the things you shared here in a lot of the similarities here is when you can create physical discomfort, it really, mentally, the thing that we deal with the most, I think, that causes us to sort of buckle or want to

give up is physical, it's physical pain. Now, there's obviously, the other one I want to ask you about now is this level of emotional pain. You know, I think that there are people, I think all of us experience emotional pain when somebody has a negative comment on social media or when a friend betrays you or when again, you know, you're wrong about something and you don't want to admit that you're wrong, right? So we have a lot of mental and emotional discomfort. You know, one of the things that I cover in my book, Think This, Not That is, that's coming out, is I talk about three virtues of hope, grit, and gratitude that are incredibly important virtues to foster when it comes to building mental resilience.

Do you have any thought on those particular hope, grit, and gratitude? and then are there any other virtues on top of that or character qualities that you think this is important for mental resilience? Yeah, first of all, back to that idea of suffering and stoicism to put a pretty bow on that. I'd say if you want to delve into further material, sounds like your new book would be great, Josh. And then any of Ryan Holiday's teachings on stoicism and books on stoicism, stillness is the key, ego is the enemy and the like. And ego is the enemy, of course, is relevant to what we're discussing now.

idea of emotional resilience and being able to set aside the ego. Those are fantastic, as well as the book Dopamine Nation by better wrapping your head or for better wrapping your head around this dopaminergic desensitization that so many people run into. But back to hope, grit, and gratitude. That's interesting because, you know, one of the things we've worked on as a family at the Greenfield House is our family constitution. So we worked with a legacy program called Legato to build out our family logos, our family spirit animals, our family crest, our family mission statement, our family values. The logo is proudly displayed on flags on either side of the front door, the freaking pepper grinder, our pickleball paddle, throw pillows, and of course, a crest that

proudly hangs above the fireplace. And many of the elements of our mission statement actually include elements of that, hope, grit, and gratitude. Right. We work hard. We persevere. We pride ourselves in a job well done. That's nearly word for word what's written on our mission statement. We are green fields and we are content no matter our circumstances all the way down to on the family crest, the four of us climbing a mountain through lightning and thunder up to the sun that's peeking just over the top of the mountain. We sit down at the beginning of each day for our family huddle at about 7.30 a.m. where we all gather together as a family and we not only listen, to a section of the Bible. We use an app called dwell for that. We go through a devotional, which varies, but right now we're going through one called New Morning Mercies, and we pray together. And we also have had a habit of using journals such as the spiritual disciplines journal in the past to write down something that we're grateful for or share what we're grateful for. And in addition to that, in the evening, before we gather for dinner, we sing, we pray, and we pray a prayer of gratefulness

over the meal. And so gratefulness is systematically woven into our daily comings and goings in the same way that grit via perseverance and hard work and hope via contentedness and choosing happiness is woven into our day-to-day activities, even the difficult ones. So yeah, I totally resonate with that. And I feel like, you know, back to the ego thing and getting hurt, again, it comes down to being comfortable, being weird, being comfortable, being comfortable, being authentic. And to me, it's like a muscle. Like, the more you practice it and the more you realize that, gosh, especially, you know, what we're looking at right now at the time of this recording with what's going on in Israel and, you know, and people dying, you know, over in the,

over in that area of the world, I mean, to be torn to shreds on a Twitter thread is like nothing. Like when you really step back and think about it, that's almost all ego and pride coming from you. And sure, there's that biological reaction. to loneliness. Like none of us want to be tossed out from the tribe because in ancient times, that would have meant sure death. And we still have the same nervous system hardwiring that makes us want to be accepted and makes us not want to get beat up on Twitter or feel bad.

And someone comments about our hairdo on Instagram. But if you realistically and like logically think about it, really, your life is not at peril. I mean, maybe for some of us, our income might be at peril if we lose our Twitter or YouTube or whatever, but even that is not that big of a deal because there's eight other social media platforms, you know, out there. And so I think, I think really it comes down again to being comfortable, being weird, questioning everything, and being your authentic true self. But I love that idea of hope and grit and gratitude. I'm sure your book's going to be a good seller. I'm sure I'll read it. Well, you know, Ben, I think, and one of the things you're

mentioned there with authenticity, to me, it's this, it's authenticity woven with courage, right? it's this courage to be yourself. And I mean, that's such an important, you know, part of mental resilience is, hey, if you know what's right, then you have the courage to do what's right. And I think you and I are both wired the same way. When I get these negative comments, yes, there's this sort of physiological response of that I, you know, feel attacked or whatever. But at the same time, it's like, you know, you and I, I know are very much,

we care more about pleasing God than we do, do most people. And I think, you know, there's this great Theodore Roosevelt quote, right, that is something like, you know, it's not the critic who counts, right? It's like the man in the arena. And so I think that's very, yeah, such a great mindset around what we're talking about. You know, one of the things switching gears a little bit here, Ben, that I've loved over the years is I love how you've used yourself in a way as a test subject and constantly sort of experimented on yourself of what's working and what's not working. and I'd love to hear what are some of the most outrageous tests you've done on yourself? And what was one of the most surprising things you discovered as you've done some of these physical, done some of these physical feats and tests?

Oh, gosh, you know, we got to be careful that we don't go into the R-rated sector on this. I would say one interesting one was when Men's Health magazine hired me to do an immersive journalism, some six-month stint for, I believe it was their 2018 magazine feature entitled New Year, New Dick, in which I underwent all of the things that a man could possibly do for improving sexual performance, libido, and erectile quality. I mean, you know, PRP and shockwave therapy and gas station ED pills and, you know, reduced eject frequency, all culminating and kind of like the icing on the cake being, three stem cell injections into my genitals and my wife being very concerned because my package

looked my package was black and blue and looked like I've been run over for a semi truck for about a week uh but uh despite they're not being a great way to directly quantify I suppose maybe a ruler the results of that protocol um you know it actually wound up being probably one of the most profound things I've ever experienced for sexual performance later followed up just this year by a study with a study by Judd Brandis another guy who's been on my podcast showing that the use of that PRP and shockwave therapy along with 30 days of a pump and a nitric oxide precursor can restore pretty significant ED and improve sexual function in men across the board. And so that one was interesting. It caught me a lot of flack. It's been a while, at least until the advent of

another biohacker named Brian Johnson, who's now taken over the, or grabbed the torch from me as far as the male penile experimentation protocols in biohacking. And he's now taking that so I can slip quietly behind the curtains and not have to be painted as that guy anymore. So that one's interesting. Here's one that's kind of cool. Reading the book about melanin in the body and the ability of human biology to be able to photosynthesize somewhat similar to a plant with the introduction of certain compounds that interact with photons of light to generate ATP and upregulate cytochrome Coxidase on the cell, the idea of combining with photobiomodulation, red light therapy, or sunlight, the dark bluish green, dark blacks, and

and dark blues of the plant or synthetic compound kingdom. And what I mean by that is, and this is something I'm doing now and feeling fend. I did this all summer and literally felt like I was drinking a cup of coffee mainlined into my arm whenever I'd step out into the sunshine or into an infrared sauna, combining or even using just one of these, photocyanins from Clorella, Spirulina, or any blue-green algae source. Sheila-Jet, which is your black, and then methylene blue, which is your blue, in combination with photons of light, that for ATP production, cellular energy, and literally feeling like you can photosynthesize as a plant is something I kind of started experimenting with a lot more last year. And that's kind of like my stack before I do this on is Sheila-Jet, methylene blue, and some kind of spirulina or chlorilla. So that one's been interesting. And then... And then, okay, and then, yeah, you'll do that in the sauna with the infrared.

Prior to the sauna, 30 to 60 minutes before you do infrared or sunlight or even just like a day on the beach because there's a little bit of cellular protective action of those as well. The methylene blue can limit the formation of reactive oxygen species to a certain extent. So that's another self-experiment that I've been enjoying lately. And then let's see. If I could think of another one that I don't know if it'd fall into the category. of super crazy or not. But I kind of went on this stint of trying really high dose collagen, gelatin, and amino acids

after running into Marxist and like four years ago outside of coffee shop in Malibu. And he's like, Ben, I'm convinced that 40 grams of collagen a day is like the best thing an aging man can do in terms of staving off muscle loss, muscle maintenance, and even muscle growth. And so, you know, at that point, I was doing a lot of weightlifting. Like I mentioned, I've stripped down my weightlifting considerably, like three times a week for around 20 to 25 minutes for that super slow training protocol. But between gelatin, bone broth, collagen, I don't have some of the ancient nutrition stuff, and amino acids, usually averaging with all three of those, protein from whole foods aside, like chicken and steak and fish, 60 to 80 grams. I've been able to maintain all my lean muscle mass, lose body fat and have huge amounts of energy

from really digestible broken down protein sources combined with a pretty minimalist approach to weightlifting. And because you've probably seen a lot of the research on frailty with age, on the correlation of things like grip strength, and not necessarily muscle size, but muscle strength and power when it comes to longevity, I am convinced that weightlifting combined with amino acids slash gelatin slash collagen are all three, vitamin D, fish oil, and creatine are like non-negotiables for anybody who wants to avoid frailty with age and live a long time.

You know, I think probably somebody we were talking about before we started recording, I know you're doing this conference in Nashville next year, Gabriel Lyon, you know, the... That you're a keynote speaker at. Apparently I am now. Nothing like being put on the spot. I'd love to be, though. Muscle-centric medicine, you know, it's this idea that really that's kind of the wave of the future when it comes to longevity versus like inhibiting EMTor to the extent where you're cold and hungry and libidoless and huddled up inside a hyperbaric chamber for those extra two years you're getting. Really, I think it's important.

And again, I think heavy weight training, vitamin D, fish oil, creatine, amino acid, slash collagen, slash gelatin, are all three. And arguably, you could also make a case for higher dose digestive enzymes when you do have food sources of protein. To me, that's been a game changer for muscle. So I would say, in summary, biohacking male sexual performance, photosynthesizing like a plant, and maintaining or building muscle with a minimalist weight training protocol are three things that have really paid off in my life for the past year or so. That's so good. Well, thanks for sharing that. I, you know, just to touch base on a few of those things.

One of the things that I've noticed for myself for, you know, testosterone specifically is doing organ meats of testicles. I mean, you know, I actually noticed the difference with that. I know doing a lot of red light therapy. We have a red light bed. I've done that. I noticed the difference there too. Of course, as you mentioned, weight training and doing creatine and really high levels of the protein and in college and with that. So anyways, I love that you shared all of those things.

Um, you know, I, uh, you, I want to stick on this topic because I'd love for you to share a little bit more on things that you've noticed move the needle for you because there are so many different things out there that we see everything from. And you mentioned a lot of them, right? There's infrared light. There's cold plunge. There's, uh, there's, there's, there's heat therapy, right? Like infrared sauna. There's PRP and stem cell. There's exosomes. There's, there's a lot of different therapies out there. What are a couple other therapies or or things that you, done that you really felt like or good practices and move the needle for you for your health? Well, first of all, I love the idea of testicles. I mean, I want up you. I just lift them. I just get big old bowl testicles and take them to the gym and, you know, do overhead presses, alternating overhead presses. That is great though.

I actually do eat organ meats. I get raw liver. I soak it in kefir for about 24 hours. I rinse it. I blend it in a neutral bullet. And then I pour it into little molds and I put it in the fours. freezer and I'll pop typically about two to four ounces of those molds into my morning smoothie and it's like freaking lifeblood, especially for a guy like me who's a relatively poor methylator.

You know, organ meats are fantastic for not only being kind of like nature's multivitamin, but also supporting really good, healthy natural methylation. So other things that are staples of my protocol, like I mentioned, I'm into meditation. I hack it. I like to use light sound stimulation. I'm a big fan of the brain tap and also the neurovisor. And I typically do that in the hyperbaric chamber. So I'm a big fan of stacking.

So for example, I will use the HAPB, or I'm sorry, not the HAPB, the Apollo around my ankle for vibratory stimulation for relaxation, the HAPB by my head for magnetic stimulation, the brain tap or the neurovisor for light sound stimulation, and then the hyperbaric. oxygen for the pressure and oxygen delivery. And I'm typically five to six times a week in the hyperbaric chamber after lunch for about an hour. I will nap for about 20 to 40 minutes of that. Then I wake up and I read for a little while in there. And then I get out and it's like I have a

brand new day. And that's also kind of like the part of my day I've programmed to be able to experiment with new devices that you'd normally use for like meditation or relaxation with run reason for that being I'm married. And when you're married, you can only go to bed with so many wires on your head before your spouse kind of complains. So, so biohacking naps and siestas, that's one big one for me. Another one would be, I think a lot of people will ask me about my diet, even though based on biochemical individuality, I think that you're going to run into, you know, differing vitamin D excretion rates and pancreatic enzyme production and methylation status, which would all dictate self-quantification is something I highly recommend to figure out

what diet's going to work well for you. You know, blood work, stool test, food allergy test, DNA test, some type of hormone analysis, and then sitting down with those results to see your diet. My diet is a nose to tail approach to meat, more organ meats, bone marrow, bone broth, liver, heart and kidney than I do muscle meat, along with ample amounts of fish and eggs for the coline. Almost all my carbohydrates are from underground storage roots, beets, carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, purple potatoes, and the like, along with little bits of honey and dark chocolate. I do drink organic wine, have a little bit of coffee, and sometimes even throw in alcoholic digestifs like Igbo-Lebo from Italy or Plankovacs from Croatia for almost like a medicinal

approach to alcohol consumption with dinner. And then hefty amounts of water and mineral and electrolytes. So my diets generally like no satail carnivore with some of those things thrown in for carbohydrates. And then all the vegetables that I eat are soaked, sprouted, fermented, mashed, parade, pressure cooked and generally treated in such a manner to deactivate all plant defense mechanisms. And I think that if you are smarter than a plant and can deactivate, you know, a lot of the goutens and the phytates and stuff accordingly, you can get away with eating them. So I'm omnivorous, but in a kind of unique way, in terms of the nose to tail carnivore approach, slow food prepped plants, and then underground storage roots, honey, dark chocolate,

and bits of alcohol. And so that's the diet. You know, I want to point this out with your diet, I want to point this out with your diet, Ben, because this is so good. You know, I think that I remember when I first got into practice or when I was in school before I opened up my clinic, we had, I mean, raw was the rage, right? It's like eat a lot of raw vegetables. you know, I always go back to, you know, Chinese medicine taught this. They're like, you know, if you're eating plants most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time, they should be well cooked. And they would always call it one pot, like, but like, you know, throwing something, you know,

oftentimes fermenting things and in letting them, you know, culture and then throwing them in a in a pot, you know, and cooking it for a long period of time. And I think there's some misconceptions about, oh, cooking things decreases the nutrients when in fact it unlocks them, right? Fermentation, cooking actually allows you to have better absorption. Yep, exactly. Spot on. So, yeah, it's not that you avoid plants.

Although I think if you have gut issues and you don't have the time to do all that, you can actually get by on like a well-structured nose to tail carnivore diet. Arguably, you could say you might need to throw in a little bit of salt or vitamin C, et cetera. But I think an omnivorous approach that's well planned out is better. you know, that's the type of approach I use in, you know, my cookbook, boundless cookbook, and I've got another one coming up soon called Boundless Kitchen. Same type of eating scenario and food prep scenario. And then finally, this is kind of broad, you know, I mentioned water and minerals, but I treat

my body like a battery, right? We know you need a largely negative charge on the interior of the cell for proper depolarization, slightly positive charge on the outside. We know that EMF and airline flying and poorly structured diet, lack of mineral intake, lack of hydration, etc. Can all drain that body and result in calcium influx and a large positive charge on the interior of the cell. So for any given day, I asked myself, well, how can I keep that battery charged? And refrain from systematically being near or around things that would drain it.

So, you know, my entire house is hard-shilded or hardwired with a cat 7 metal shielded Ethernet cable. Right? There's no Wi-Fi. There's just Ethernet. cable and adapters in every room and you plug into the internet every room has a dirty electricity filter in it the entire house has had you know building biology done in terms of an EMF walkthrough to make sure i'm not exposed to a lot of dirty electricity and i use a lot of products when i travel like a dirty electricity filter and a device like the selma vetic or the blue shield to mitigate EMF when i

travel i use grounding and earthing mats extensively in my office i sleep on a grounding mat i use earthing shoes or go barefoot quite often outside. Again, to soak up negative ions from the surface of the earth and also to get that natural electrical anti-inflammatory surge. I engage with photons of light, like I mentioned, and often biohawk that with certain nutrients on a regular basis via infrared light, red light panels, and ample exposure to sunlight. Heat and cold stress can also help with electrical regulation in the body, as can really good clean, pure filtered water, preferably water that's even structured because that creates

what's called an exclusion zone in the water, which allows for minerals to be better carried throughout the body, along with really good use of minerals and salts. So by avoiding EMF, grounding and earthing, getting ample exposure to photons of light, doing heat and cold, getting really good water and minerals, I'm basically treating my body like a battery and allowing that battery to stay really well charged. So, you know, those are a few other things that seem to be really working for me would be a really well-structured and well-thought-out diet, systematically programmed, almost like biohacked naps, and then just a really present consideration of my body's battery and how I'm

keeping that battery charged and keeping it from being drained during any given day. So I would say those are a few things that come to mind. I love it. So good, Ben. And we started off talking about sort of mental, mental resilience and health. And we've now talked about some physical health. I want to now talk about personal growth and practices and even spiritual growth as well. What are some of your top practices that you've seen that you really feel like have helped you grow both personally but also spiritually?

Yeah. I systematize everything. meaning if I know what I'm supposed to do, I'm far more likely to check it off and do it. So a very simple example is I, for a long time, was a lifelong beginner in guitar. Oh, what am I going to practice? I'm going to strum this today. I forgot to play anything this week. I'm going to come back.

Oh, hey, I think I'm going to practice for an open mic night. I don't know what to practice. And now I am part of an online guitar tutorial. It's 10 minutes of lessons a day, period. and all I do is wake up, make sure it's loaded up on the computer that evening before dinner, press play, do my 10 minutes. For the longest time, I would bounce around in terms of what I was going to read in the Bible, how I was going to pray, what I was going to say, how I was going to do my morning devotions.

Now it's the Bible in one year app, right? Wake up, do the readings, say the prayers, boom, check it off, not in a cold, heartless way, but in a way that allows you to have a system and a calendar and stick to it. Every Sunday night, I map out every workout for the week, Monday through Saturday. So as soon as I wake up on Monday morning, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on, I know exactly what I'm going to do. I never walk into the gym scratching my head because I've got it all written out for me. So whether it's my spiritual walk, my workouts, my music, any habit, I systematize.

Every book that's on my bedside, the rule is got to be at least two. two chapters a day. Doesn't have to be more, but non-negotiable, two chapters a day. So I don't get into bed and think, how much of this book do I have time to read? When I'm going to read it? It's like, oh, I don't turn off the lights or go to bed until two chapters of this has been done. So my entire life is, you know, not in a way that keeps me from flow, from being creative, from being able to just like drop everything and go play pickleball occasionally if somebody invites me out. But it's all built on systems. And if you have systems that are achievable in tiny bits every day, all the way down to for me as an author, you know, when it's time to write, I have a certain amount of words I write per day

when I'm writing a book, a certain amount of words per day when I'm working on an article, a certain amount of minutes per day when I'm working on a master class or a video, my entire life is built on systems. And for me, the consistency I get from that, the regularity of production and the ability to create every day and to manage my often hectic schedule, it's a game changer. So that's probably the biggest thing I do. Ben, I say you've covered so many things,

but to me, this is one of the most important. It's optimizing these different areas of our life. So I just, I love that you share this because I think that so many people do this, it's like, well, I'm going to try and eat healthier. There's a few foods I'm going to add in. And maybe I do have something the same that I eat for breakfast or, hey, spiritual growth.

It's like, well, I am going to consistently read. but I'm just going to flip over in my Bible or do or do whatever it is versus you've really thought out and spent more time planning. It's like that, you know, I think it's the Abraham Lincoln quote. And I'm not going to say this perfectly, but it's like, you know, I'm going to pretty much spend 10% of the time, you know, 90% of the time sharpening my axe and 10% actually focusing on cutting the tree. And this is a principle that I find that people are incredibly successful. They've spent a lot of time planning because they don't want time wasted. They want to do the things that will move the needle the most. And they're actually building towards something specific.

So anyways, I didn't mean to interrupt, but just to say, I mean, you shared a lot of wisdom today. But this is something I would encourage everybody to embrace because it's key, these systems or habits or rituals and building towards something is just so key to being successful. Right. If you want to get stuff done and I actually got to, I might have to go pretty soon based on all those systems I've built. Yeah. But if you want to get stuff done, think about it this way. Anytime you find yourself spinning your wheels, it usually comes down to three things that you need to consider doing so that you're not spinning your wheels, procrastinating, and not getting that achievement that you want any longer. The three things are you either need to hack your why, right?

You got to have a purpose or a vision for what you're going to do. My purpose and vision for like guitar is not because I want to be like a world famous musician or perform on stage. It's because I want to entertain my family and friends with music, right? But when I sit down to practice, I have a purpose. I have a why. The second is that you have to hack your environment. You've probably heard that to radically change your habits, you must radically change your environment. I play guitar sitting on the stool at the end of the dining room table with that MacBook open to that Chrome browser that's on a separate window. so none of my other windows are open at night at 645, right?

That is my environment. It's there in the same way that when I walk into my office, that's the environment for deep writing. So you hack your why, you hack your environment. And then finally, no surprises here because I already talked about it. You hack your system, right? It has to be scheduled, calendared, some type of system, some type of app, some type of masterclass, some type of learning or teaching tool. And if you want to get more done, hack your why, hack your environment, hack your,

your system and you will turn into a productivity and creativity machine. It's so good, Ben. It's so good. Last couple questions for you. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? I received a lot of them, but it's going to go back to what I was talking about earlier, a guy who I featured in my book, Boundless Parenting. His name's Chad. He's a father, 11 kids, Iron Man Triathlete, Big Mountain Skiers, successful entrepreneur. He told me, Ben, your business will eat you alive unless you set your life up with this prioritization. number one God, number two spouse, number three children, number four health, number five work. And ever since then, that's been my priority.

And it's been a life changer. So good. And what's your last piece of advice for anyone here who wants to grow in their body, mind and spirit as you've focused on doing? You're going to laugh at this, but there are certain things that are like dominoes, right? You'd knock over one domino and everything else starts to fall over after that. So here it is. at some point within three hours after waking up,

do one to five minutes of something intensely cold. Cold shower, cold soak, cold lake, river, or ocean. Trust me, your entire life will kind of start to line up after that. And yes, I know there's God and prayer and the Bible and your family and kissing your wife on the cheek. But that one, throw that into the mix and just see what happens. The thing I love about it is it's doing a hard thing. first thing in the day.

And then you can do other hard things after you do one hard thing. So it is a fantastic piece of advice. Well, hey, I want to encourage everybody. Check out, Ben has written numerous books that are all fantastic. Just go on Amazon.com and search Ben Greenfield. You will find some great things on there. Also, Ben has an incredible podcast. If you go on iTunes or YouTube, just search Ben Greenfield.

You'll find some of his great interviews and content on there as well. And I think I have a semi-commitment. I'm not calling it a full yet, but we're putting on a big health conference next year in Nashville in April. And Ben may be a keynote speaker. Look out for that potentially in the future. And Ben just want to say, you know, I was actually, I just wanted a last comment here for you. I was someone on my team loves you and loves your content. And I said, you know that one of the best things about Ben is that not only is he a brilliant health expert, but he's just a great person.

You know, I know that one of the things that I've always gravitated towards you as we've, you know, both spoken at conferences and been together over the years because you just truly are somebody who cares for people. You love God. You love people. You truly want to add value to others and contribute. And so anyways, man, I just have so much respect for you. And so grateful for taking the time to share all your wisdom with us today. Thanks for filling up my ego bucket, man. I love you. Love you too, buddy. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks so much for listening to another episode. of the Growth Lab. And thanks so much to Ben Greenfield for sharing his wisdom with us today. Hey, if you're not subscribed, make sure to subscribe here to the podcast. We've got some more great content and interviews coming out here soon. Thanks so much for listening. God bless everybody.