Biohacking Your Hereditary Lifestyle with Ben Greenfield
Attempting to balance ancestral health with your modern lifestyle can be challenging, but this is where biohacking begins. In this episode of Revolution Health Radio, I talk to Ben Greenfield, an expert on health indicators, about the best ways to use technology to promote your health and support your health. hereditary lifestyle.
In this episode, we discuss:
- What made Ben do science
- Family life and biohacking
- Top four biohacks for primordial life
- What does hereditary fitness look like
- How to track and improve your sleep
- Enhance your cognitive ability
- Ben's coming book
Show notes:
Hello everyone welcome to Radio Health RevolutionI'm Chris Cresser. This week I'm going to interview Ben Greenfield, a biohacker, a health and longevity trainer, a former bodybuilder, a 13-fold Ironman triathlete, a professional Spartan rival, a speaker and author New York Times best-seller Outside learning: mastering endurance, health and life,
So, we will talk with Ben about the intersection of biohacking and hereditary lifestyle and diet. And some simple strategies, and perhaps some not very simple strategies that you can apply to emulate a hereditary pattern using modern technology. I hope you enjoy the interview. Let's dive in.
Chris Cresser: Ben, welcome to the show. Nice to have you.
Ben Greenfield: Hi kris. Good here.
What made Ben do science
Chris Cresser: Therefore, I always like to start with prehistory. All of us, as I discovered in this area, have a path that led us here to why we chose this type of work. So, I would like to know more about what led you to this work.
Ben Greenfield: I was landed on an alien ship, and I ended up in a research laboratory.
Chris Cresser: I half believe it.
Ben Greenfield: I know. Many believe that the crazy laser beams that I see on social networks carry my head, and tubes and needles come out of my hands. I have always loved fitness and nature and the outdoors. I grew up, I studied at home in Idaho. And so I usually finished my studies around 11 o'clock in the morning and just played outside the day, doing hiking, catching rattlesnakes, making forts, digging holes, searching for plants and even doing a bit of cooking, which I like to do now. And this topic is relevant for my heart, because I just gave my boys – my twin boys, where I can see them from my window, they are playing right now with their friends – and I just gave them the opportunity to drop out of school. sixth grade, which usually begins next year and begins homeschooling.
And so they will follow the same path that I did when I was a boy. And I really wasn't interested in exercise science or anything else, until I discovered tennis. My parents really wanted to build some cool place for children, and we finished laying asphalt for a tennis court. And my father and I drew lines and built a tennis net, and they hired an instructor, and I started playing tennis and just loved this sport very much. And I began to delve into how I can improve myself in tennis.
Up to this point, I was very fond of reading and writing fantasy fiction, and I was the president of our local chess club and played a lot World of warcraftAnd I sorted out computers and really wanted to become a programmer and design video games. It was my dream.
Chris Cresser: Right, right.
Ben Greenfield: And I started running over the hills behind the house, and my dad took me to a sporting goods store and bought me my first little 10-pound dumbbell pair, which I had no idea how to use it. I remember my first exercise. I was lying on my stomach on the bed and doing dumbbells. And that seemed to work to make my arms stronger.
Chris Cresser: There are currently no YouTube.
Do you struggle to get enough sleep, spend time outdoors or follow other aspects of ancestral health? Biohacker can help. Check out this RHR episode for the best ways to biologically hack your lifestyle. #optimalhealth #wellness #chriskresser
Ben Greenfield: Yes, there was no YouTube, nothing like that. I had a small tv in my room and that was about it. And at some point I even bought one of those simulators that can be seen on TV, this old school simulator that you would put up against the press. The kind of isometric crunch versus, which is actually a good idea, and it worked. My raids to the library in Lewiston, Idaho, partly advanced from the fact that I grabbed the tales of Arthur Conan Doyle and Grimm and all these art books that I eagerly buy and bring home to Tudor Bompa’s book about periodization and all sorts of physiological exercises and training benefits. And I started to build equipment and build my own small home gym.
Along the way, I met several mentors — the Washington state powerlifting champion who was my father's friend, and he seemed to teach me several moves. And then my brother's best friend was a professional bodybuilder, and he also taught me a lot about my body care and recovery. And in the end I decided that I wanted to learn physical exercise. Therefore, I studied at the University of Idaho and received a degree in kinesiology, which basically just glorified physical education.
And by the way, I was also very interested in medicine. And so I took all the preliminary curriculum and went through microbiology, biochemistry and chemistry, I even took the MCAT and enrolled in several different medical schools. But I decided to stay in school and get a master's degree in physical exercise and the study of human nutrition, pharmacology and biomechanics at the graduate level and as a result did not attend medical school.
I kind of saw dollar signs and I was offered a job in sales of hip and knee surgeries, so I decided that I would work a little in the private sector, and then I would go to medical school after I got some money and maybe I traveled world a little. And I was very upset, in fact, with drugs for my six months at this company, which was biometrics. Spent a lot of time tracking orthopedic surgeons. And up to this point, I spent a lot of time in the emergency room and the like, sort of preparing for admission to medical school.
But, in fact, just visit all the day with the doctors and see that none of them seem to like their work. And at that moment I did not know about alternative medicine, naturopathy, or other alternatives. But no one told me that it would be a good idea to go to medical school, and, to be honest, they all, despite the large cars, houses and boats, seemed a little unhappy with life and did not seem to have much time to spend with with their families or play with their toys.
So I really decided that I didn’t want to be a doctor at that moment. And after I quit the job that I was doing, I just left it. I didn’t like to stand in the bushes, pointing the laser pointer at the overpriced hip joints, which could probably be controlled by other methods before replacing the knee or hip joint with the overcharge. I wandered across the street to the gym, which was next to the apartment in which I lived, and asked for work, and kind of hit my resume at the front desk. And at that moment I was already a certified personal trainer and a nutritionist, and I worked for four years as a trainer, working part time during my college career. And I even had the privilege of running a wellness program at the University of Idaho. So I did a lot up to this point.
So they gave me the job of a fitness manager, and almost immediately I had a whole plate of clients for training, and I spent a couple of years working at this facility. And then I finally met there a sports medicine doctor by the name of P. Z. Pierce, who was the chief doctor of Ironman, which was somewhat cool for me, because at that time I really enjoyed Ironman triathlon.
Up to this point I was very fond of bodybuilding, and also played university tennis. So I was like a power athlete, and really, really engaged in hard sports. And already engaged in triathlon, and made my first Ironman triathlon. And he presented me with this idea, like, for example, a universal sports medicine store, where we will have physiotherapists and massage therapists, chiropractors, a whole set of medical professionals, and I will manage the sports results laboratory that performs the physiology of the exercises. Tests of athletes and high-speed video cameras, analysis of the gait and fit of bicycles. I also continue to train people, as I did as a personal trainer, and was a kind of nutritionist for the institution. And so we launched this object in about a year.
I collaborated with him, and we launched this institution called Champion Sports Medicine in Spokane, Washington. And I managed this institution for five years and did it very well. I actually used all the materials from the physical therapy initiative and collaborated with many local documents, and they sent their patients to our institution, and we were from those people who could be contacted when nothing else worked for weight. loss or even for sporting results. Because we had all this pretty cool equipment that you won't find in a regular gym, for example, a high-speed camera, equipment for indirect calorimetry, VO2 Maximum. We had one of the first PRP machines, and we did injections into the joints and did a lot of cool, advanced things or what was advanced 10 years ago.
And so I did it for a while, and several doctors actually nominated me for the “Personal Trainer of the Year” award of the National Association for Strength and Conditioning. And I actually got it. And that's why they called me … in fact, it looks like the title of America's best personal trainer. And it somehow brought me to the center of attention, and I started receiving calls from ACE, ACSM and NSCA, as well as from all of these various fitness organizations that wanted me to come and talk in their places about how to run a profitable business. , profitable mortar, business-based gym. And so I began to travel and sort of sit down at the show. And at about the same time, I launched a podcast about health, and I started my own little blog and newsletter, and I was involved in online topics, using what I learned in computer programming in the early years, to encode my own websites and develop a newsletter form, and I just did everything myself.
And I remember sitting at one of these conferences where I spoke, and someone got up and started talking about the online industry. Selling information products on the Internet, creating PDF files, affiliate marketing and everything that was completely new to me. And at that time, I remember, I was sitting at this conference with my wife, who at the time was pregnant with our twin boys, and I thought, “Gee, if I could do a lot, take a lot of this IP and learning that I do, and sort of putting it on the Internet and starting to do business in this way, it would be a cool way for me to be at home with my family, to spend more time with my children.
And so I spent about six months working on a triathlon training product. He was called the Dominator of the Triathlon, and my idea was to take what I was doing at the time – this is a Ironman triathlon training session with a minimalist approach, multi-interval interval training, strength training and plyometrics compared to traditional Endurance training protocols for four hours on the day that hit you in the ground, which were and remain very popular among the crowd of endurance. And I kind of put together this package, which allowed people to prepare for the Ironman, without neglecting their family, friends, career and other hobbies. And I launched this program, and it was very successful. And I earned about $ 50,000 during the week by selling this program online to triathletes, triathlon coaches and triathlon clubs, and it worked very well. I thought, “Gee, I'm …”
Chris Cresser: This is yes. That could probably be the thing.
Ben Greenfield: Yes, I mean, I felt good as a personal trainer. I did six digits plus a year as a trainer, but I also worked out my ass. I show up at the gym at 5 am and return home at about 9 pm. And it was not really resistant to family life. And I, of course, could simply hire a bunch of employees and do most of the work on outsourcing, but instead I decided to dismiss all my clients or transfer them to other coaches, and left the position in Champion. Sports medicine and began to do basically what I'm doing now – podcasting, writing articles and doing books.
Chris Cresser: Nice.
Ben Greenfield: This is what I am doing now.
Chris Cresser: This is a real journey. Thanks for putting it all out. It is always interesting to see where people came from and how they got to where they are.
Ancestral Life and Biohacking
Chris Cresser: So, I want to delve a bit into some of the topics that I want to explore with you, and one of them is the life of the ancestors, not biohacking. And the way I said it almost sounds as if they are diametrically opposed, which I do not necessarily think is true. But we can think of it as a spectrum, and some people may be very interested in biohacking, and not in hereditary life. Others are really interested in the life of their ancestors, and not in bio-haha. I would probably bring myself closer to this end of the spectrum. And then others are very interested in both. So, where would you be in this spectrum, and how would you define both of these categories?
Ben Greenfield: Yes, biohacker, I grit my teeth a little at the word nowadays, because it has become a bit silly. People, regardless of whether they jump on trampolines and wear their training masks and whether the laser beams shine on their balls at the same time or use a vibrating platform to get a press with six packs. Or anyway.
Chris Cresser: Right.
Ben Greenfield: And I think this term was a bit of a bastard. I simply see biohacking as using technology to a certain extent to improve biology or even simulate what ancestral life can give us. For example, as I said, I look out the window of my office at my children playing outside in the sun, and I’m here, blogging and podcasting and doing what I do during the day. And so, to a certain extent, I find ways to mimic some of these aboriginal lives. For example, I use these photobiomodulation panels in my office to get infrared light, which I do not get from sunlight during the day because I am indoors.
Chris Cresser: Yeah.
Ben Greenfield: Or when I travel and I know that I have access to the Spokane River, to this icy river, into which I can go and jump next to my house. When I’m home, I’ll go to the cryo-therapy room and have a quick cold attack. Or I sleep on a ground mat to mimic, I just returned from a week-long hunt on an island in Hawaii. And I spent the last week just sleeping on the ground on the beach. No litter or anything. My sleeping bag was in the sand and slept wonderfully. As I know that many people are doing in our sector, I wear a self-channeling device to measure my sleep, and sleep rates were simply amazing, just sleeping on the ground, especially deep sleep, at levels from 20 to 25 percent, and I can to model it at home, using essentially the pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, or PMF, on my bed. And I would consider it a biohack.
Or, for example, instead of going out during daytime heat and sweating to activate heat shock proteins or stimulate the release of nitric oxide, I often go to the morning in an infrared sauna and so sweat. And so there are many examples of hereditary life, many of which are based on hormesis, right?
Chris Cresser: Yeah.
Ben Greenfield: For example, some radiation and cold exposure, thermal effects and low-level radiation, which we receive when we are barefoot on the street or sleeping on the ground. And you can simulate a lot of those hormonal stressors or other effects that we would get while on the street or living ancestors, using a lot of these biohacks. Потому что мы живем в постиндустриальную эпоху, когда во многих случаях может быть трудно задействовать многие из этих вещей на открытом воздухе или просто отнести их к жизни в помещении из-за образа жизни, который мы выбрали.
Крис Крессер: Абсолютно. Да, я имею в виду, похоже, что вы заинтересованы в использовании технологии или используя технологии, чтобы получить некоторые из преимуществ наследственного образа жизни, которые трудно получить в нашем современном образе жизни,
Бен Гринфилд: Правильно. И я думаю, что вы всегда должны иметь базовый фундамент. Мол, стволовые клетки сейчас очень популярны. Выходите и извлекайте жировую ткань из вашего жира или костного мозга из кости и концентрируйте и повторно вводите стволовые клетки. Или мы используем такие вещи, как экзосомы, амниотические, пупочные или плацентарные клетки, чтобы делать то же самое. Но я не думаю, что кто-либо имеет какой-либо бизнес, который тратит 5 000, 8 000 или 10 000 долларов, выполняя одну из этих процедур, прежде чем они примут более упрощенные методы улучшения здоровья стволовых клеток. Вероятно, самый большой слон в комнате в этом отношении постится.
Крис Крессер: Да уж.
Бен Гринфилд: Так что, Есть так много вещей, которые мы можем достичь, выходя на солнце, постясь, гуляя в холодную погоду и т. д., что мы должны принять в качестве привычек образа жизни прежде чем мы начнем прыгать на Amazon и заказать световую панель или купить членство в криотерапевтическом центре.
Лучшие четыре биохака для исконной жизни
Крис Крессер: Правильно. И даже те могут прийти до лечения стволовыми клетками. Но я согласен с тобой на сто процентов. Есть так много вещей, которые мы можем сделать только с помощью нашей диеты и нашего образа жизни и даже относительно небольших поворотов циферблата, которые могут оказать очень большое влияние на наше общее состояние здоровья.
Итак, имея в виду, что это, скажем так, три или четыре верхних настройки циферблата, так сказать? Вы упомянули пост. Мы много говорили о посте на шоу. Мы можем пойти на это. Но если бы вы просто выбрали три или четыре из этих биохаков, которые приблизят нас к тому, чтобы подражать эффектам истинно наследственного образа жизни, что бы это было?
Бен Гринфилд: Да, я бы сказал, что многие из них будут основаны на вещах, которые улучшат здоровье митохондрий или имеют какой-то тип гормональный эффект, Усиление аутофагии, например. Я бы сказал, что важные вещи, которые приходят на ум, будут холод и жара, Некоторая форма заземление или заземление, Какой-то способ имитировать то, что мы получили бы, если бы мы были пить природную родниковую воду, богатую минералами, А потом какая-то форма света, как в виде ближнего инфракрасного света или спектра света, который мы получаем от солнца. Таким образом, используя такую логику, можно сказать, что некоторые из лучших биохаков, так сказать, походили бы на установку инфракрасной и холодной ванны, которая, как я знаю, сейчас становится очень популярной, и мне, безусловно, нравится эта идея. У меня есть инфракрасная сауна и холодный бассейн. И возвращаясь туда и обратно между этими двумя, я абсолютно считаю, что это неотъемлемая часть моей недели. Я делаю это почти каждый день. Так холодно и тепло будет два.
Подсветка, как я уже упоминал, позволяет использовать панель красного цвета, которую можно использовать, например панель ближнего инфракрасного излучения. И затем для заземления или заземления, какой-либо тип заземляющего мата или заземляющего мата или блока импульсного электромагнитного поля, который имитировал бы то, что вы получили бы, если бы вы ходили босиком на улице или спали на улице. И затем, что касается куска воды, существует множество различных способов взломать вашу воду, так сказать. Но то, что я делаю, у меня есть колодец здесь. Я живу примерно на 10 гектарах лесных угодий в Вашингтоне, и мы не в порядке. Но у меня есть колодец, и даже после того, как вода прошла из колодца через трубы и прошла через пару фильтров, которые у меня есть, – потому что люди думают, что колодезная вода чистая, но, например, у меня очень высокий уровень марганца и железо в моей колодезной воде. Таким образом, вода проходит через марганец и железный фильтр, и к тому времени, когда она попадает в мой дом, она была несколько убогая от своего первоначального подземного источника. И поэтому он проходит через структурированный фильтр для воды, который создает что-то вроде легкой воды, которую доктор Джеральд Поллак сделал популярной в своей книге. Четвертая фаза водыисследователь Вашингтонского университета.
И поэтому я думаю, питье какой-либо формы структурированной воды или воды, обогащенной водородом, предпочтительно обогащенной минералами, или дополнить ее каким-либо видом потребления минералов или морской соли было бы еще одним хорошим шагом. И как только вы это сделаете, у вас как бы простуда, тепло, свет, заземление, вода, минералы, и я бы сказал, что все это будет хорошим началом, если Вы собирались украсить свой дом некоторыми базовыми биохаксами.
Как выглядит фитнес предков
Крис Крессер: Да уж. Да, это имеет смысл, и мне нравится, как вы это сформулировали с точки зрения элементов, которые важны в исконной среде. Я хочу сдвинуться и немного поговорить о фитнесе. Это огромная часть вашего опыта, откуда вы родом, и все же вы сосредоточены сегодня, я знаю. И у меня не было много людей на шоу, много экспертов по фитнесу на шоу, поэтому я хочу воспользоваться этим и немного поразмыслить.
Каковы, на ваш взгляд, некоторые из самых больших ошибок в фитнесе и производительности, которые вы видите у людей сегодня?
Бен Гринфилд: Ну, я имею в виду, если вы посмотрите, например, на синие зоны, где у вас непропорционально большое количество людей, живущих в течение длительного периода времени и имеющих относительно хорошее здоровье в течение этого времени, вы не видите много структурированных упражнений. Вы видите много физической активности низкого уровня, как правило, на природе на природе. Как сказал бы наш друг Марк Сиссон, он двигался, а затем поднимал тяжелые предметы, такие как камни, толкал тачки, строил заборы, садоводство или тому подобное в течение дня. А потом время от времени бегу, будь то игра в футбол или теннис, или в некоторых случаях, в некоторых обществах охотников-собирателей, или даже в том, что я испытал во время моей недавней охоты на Гавайях, тех коротких набегах, где ваш пульс очень высок , Вы мчитесь на вершину холма, потому что стадо диких коз, овец, оленей или что бы то ни было на охоте исчезло с другой стороны, и вы должны сделать очень быстрый стебель. И поэтому вы двигаетесь очень быстро, и поэтому у вас есть интервальная тренировка, работающая в течение дня.
И поэтому вы не видите повсюду боксы CrossFit или эту идею о том, что для того, чтобы хорошо тренироваться в конце дня, вы должны были страдать в тренажерном зале в течение 30, 45 или 60 минут. И на самом деле мы знаем, основываясь на исследованиях, что если вы превысите примерно 60 минут интенсивных упражнений или даже 90 минут типичных аэробных упражнений, которые выполняли бы триатлет, марафонец, велосипедист или пловец, то это не аэробные упражнения. как ходьба, но это то аэробное упражнение среднего уровня, когда оно немного горит, а вы немного страдаете, мы знаем, что если вы превысите 60 минут первого, то 90 минут второго, ваш риск смертности фактически возрастет , И вот мы как бы в такой ситуации, когда люди часто сидят в течение длительного времени в течение дня, выполняя тяжелую тренировку в начале или в конце дня, или и то, и другое, и вот как упражнение рассматривается как эта вещь это отдельная жизнь, а не физическая активность в течение дня.
Мы с тобой сняли видео прямо перед тем, как начали записывать, и ты, наверное, видел меня на моей беговой дорожке. И я, как правило, буду ходить в очень, очень медленном темпе, будь то диктовка электронной почты, диктовка статьи или выступление на подобном подкасте или консультация. Я сохраняю все свои телефонные звонки с 4 до 6 вечера. во второй половине дня вернитесь к фермерской дороге и вернитесь за дом. И поэтому к концу дня я обычно прохожу добрых пять-семь миль. Физическая активность низкого уровня в течение моего дня, которая не подразумевает, что я иду в YMCA или занимаюсь фитнесом 24 часа и сижу на беговой дорожке.
Крис Крессер: Ага.
Бен Гринфилд: В дополнение к этому, у меня в комнате рядом с офисом здесь есть шестигранный бар с грузом весов. И я буду заходить туда время от времени во время перерыва между звонками или во время моих перерывов в Pomodoro, и я просто подниму шестигранную планку пять-десять раз. У меня есть гирька на полу моего офиса, и то же самое. Во время некоторых моих перерывов я остановлюсь и сделаю 30 гирь, чтобы увеличить частоту сердечных сокращений и смоделировать интенсивный интервальный тренинг. Когда я иду проверять почту, у нас около четверти мили. Итак, я пойду к почтовому ящику, но потом, при условии, что никто не доставил огромную посылку, и в этом случае я иду по подъездной дороге, я бегу по подъездной дороге, прижимая почту к груди ,
Итак, мое правило и то, что я призываю людей сделать, – это изменить вашу среду, особенно вашу рабочую среду или среду вашего образа жизни, в той степени, в которой вы занимаетесь низкоуровневой физической активностью в течение дня, у вас есть несколько вещей, которые вы можете поднимать или раскачивать, или мне особенно нравится идея – я считаю, что технический термин – это обозначение – но висящий. Например, если на двери, в офисе или на кухне установлен подъемный бар, чтобы вы могли повесить его. И у меня есть трапеция для йоги в гостиной и раздвижной бар в офисе, и веревка, висящая за деревом возле входной двери. И вот у меня есть эти предметы, с которых я могу висеть, взбираться на них и тянуть с них. Таким образом, к концу дня упражнения, в том виде, в котором мы склонны думать об упражнении, представляют собой комплексную сессию упражнений как вариант, а не необходимость.
И, конечно, я должен уточнить, что если вы решили сделать, скажем, спартанскую гонку или соревнование по кроссфиту, соревнование по фигуре или какой-то тип того, что мы, вероятно, считаем неестественной формой физической активности, но, возможно, это царапает ваш зуд, может быть, это ваша личная гора Эверест, на которую вы хотите подняться, или дракон, которого вы хотите убить. Да, ты должен сделать больше. Вы, вероятно, должны пойти в спортзал и выполнить формальную тренировку, которая включает в себя тренировку для этого конкретного вида деятельности. Но когда вы думаете об этом, этот тип обучения традиционно относился к сфере гладиаторов, спортсменов, воинов и олимпийцев, и это не является синонимом долголетия. Вы не должны обманывать себя тем, что выход на улицу и участие в Ironman или в одной из этих длинных спартанских гонок, соревнованиях по бодибилдингу или фитнесу поможет вам жить долго или естественно.
Если это то, что вы решили сделать, и вы приняли тот факт, что вы жертвуете некоторым количеством здоровья или долголетия ради производительности, да, вам нужно будет посещать тренажерный зал. Вам понадобятся некоторые из этих страданий-фестивалей. Но в конечном итоге, на мой взгляд, самая большая ошибка, которую делают люди, заключается в том, что они не корректируют свою жизнь, свою рабочую среду и домашнюю среду, чтобы позволить им смоделировать то, что мы увидим в более традиционном формате родовых движений, и вместо этого сидеть на стуле, тренироваться в начале дня или тренироваться в конце дня или и то и другое, и это просто не здоровый сценарий упражнений или умственный подход к тренировке.
Крис Крессер: Нет, мы так много знаем об этом сейчас из исследований, где, даже если вы соблюдаете государственные руководящие принципы в отношении физических упражнений, если вы ведете сидячий образ жизни в остальное время, вы все равно будете подвергаться повышенному риску заболевания. Забавно, мои настройки очень похожи на ваши. У меня есть беговая дорожка и что-то вроде разделенного стола. Так что я стою и сижу с одной стороны, беговая дорожка с другой. У меня есть гири, гири, ремни и куча всего такого. И я чередую, я иду вперед и назад между этим, делая такие виды. Большинство дней такие. Но я обнаружил, что иногда мне нравится… для меня особый период упражнений – это столько же, чтобы отвлечься от своей работы, своего компьютера и всего такого, что касается физической активности.
Бен Гринфилд: Это тоже опасная часть, так как многие люди будут использовать его, чтобы просто проверить, как форму медитации или форму катарсиса. И я тоже это понимаю. Я понимаю, что если в конце дня пойти и заняться тяжелой тренировкой с отягощениями, чтобы выпустить пар или пойти на относительно трудную пробежку в обеденный перерыв, чтобы просто отвлечься от работы, я понял. Но в то же время, я думаю, что людям просто необходимо понять, что там может быть некоторая опасность с точки зрения хронического воспаления слабой степени или чрезмерного износа на теле или просто добавления большего количества стрессовых точек в день. Или, если вы отслеживаете вариабельность сердечного ритма, как это делают многие люди, я посмотрю на ВСР многих моих клиентов, которые много тренируются, и это просто отчасти подавляет всю неделю, показывая, что нервный Система просто не получает возможности для восстановления и восстановления, что может повлиять на циклы сна и снова может повлиять на ваше воспаление, ваше движение, качество вашего движения.
Так что с этим нужно быть осторожным. И что я призываю людей делать, так это найти как можно больше способов почесать этот катартический или медитирующий зуд, который не обязательно включает, особенно, например, эксцентрические упражнения, которые разрывают мышечные волокна, такие как силовые тренировки или например, бегать. Сеансы сауны, холодная терапия, я очень люблю ходить. И поэтому я, вероятно, занимаюсь примерно на треть той суммой, к которой привык, но я все еще делаю много вещей. По утрам я все еще хожу в сауну и холодный бассейн, а днем гуляю часом. И это так же приятно и полезно, и почти так же катарсично, и дает мне эту форму движущейся медитации. Потому что я люблю двигаться. Я просто не могу сидеть неподвижно большую часть времени. Но это не так, это не обязательно должен быть эллиптический тренажер или тренажер для гребли в тренажерном зале, или просто делать многократные повторения снова и снова, пока вы не почувствуете боль и не сможете двигаться на следующий день.
Выйдите и найдите вещи, которые царапают этот зуд движения, который не обязательно включает избиение тела. And you’d be surprised at how fulfilling that can be. And if you do want to lift or sprint or do workouts, you can get away with a couple of decent weight training workouts per week, which is what I do. I do a full-body weight training session twice a week to keep your VO2 max elevated. You only need to do a hard, very hard cardiovascular workout once every two weeks to keep your mitochondria health maintained. Or to even get mitochondrial biogenesis, you only need one like high-intensity interval training workout per week.
And then to maintain your muscular endurance, or what we would call your lactic acid tolerance in exercise physiology, if you’re doing a weight training session a couple times a week and you start and/or end that workout with something like a Tabata set of 20 seconds hard, 10 seconds easy, you’ve all of a sudden checked the mark of strength training, lactic acid tolerance, VO2 max, and mitochondrial training, assuming you’re engaged in low-level physical activity during the day. You’ve got the aerobic piece managed, and all of a sudden you’re checking all the boxes of fitness with what might amount to an average of perhaps 30 to 40 minutes of formal exercise per day without the amount of body wear and tear that a lot of people are getting by, you know, kind of hitting the gym for an hour every day.
How to Track and Improve Your Sleep
Chris Kresser: Yeah, it makes sense. So let’s talk a little bit about sleep. You’ve written a lot about this over the years and sleep tracking with various devices. And I’m just curious where you’re at now, what you’re finding to be most helpful in terms of tracking for sleep and getting the most out of the sleep tracking data. Because it’s one thing to collect the data and it’s another thing to actually put it to use.
Ben Greenfield: Yeah. I actually did just publish an article recently on, a 10,000 word article on deep sleep over on my website because that seems to be the thing that’s the most problematic for people—
Chris Kresser: Yeah.
Ben Greenfield: Is having very low percentage of deep sleep, like 2 to 5 percent, when in fact something closer to 15 to 20 percent seems to be better for nervous system repair and recovery and for good sleep architecture. And as far as the tracking component goes, I personally just use the Oura ring. There are other better ways to track.
Some of these newer headbands that track actual brain waves like the, there’s one called the Dreem headband. Those work even better. The problem is that unless you’re a back sleeper, the headbands tend to kind of move around during the night and they’re difficult to keep on. So I haven’t been able to get good data from those. And then some of these mats and newer mattresses. I know at CES they showcased a few different mattresses that kind of track your sleep cycles for you during the night. And the problem with those is they tend to often be accompanied by high amounts of dirty electricity. You usually have to have Wi-Fi switched on or you’re sleeping with Bluetooth on during the night.
I tend to keep the bedroom relatively electricity free as much as possible. I actually have a kill switch installed in my kids’ bedroom and in my bedroom where you can just turn off all electricity during the night. And the only thing that I have plugged in during the night is that PMF mat that I sleep on that has a little dirty electricity filter built into it. And then an essential oil diffuser. And those are all plugged in to a dirty electricity filter in the bedroom. So I try to limit the amount of EMF, especially in the bedroom. And we also don’t have Wi-Fi. I just plug everything in via ethernet cables in the house. So if you want to connect to Wi-Fi, it’s kind of annoying until you get used to it. But you just have an ethernet cable and an ethernet-to-FireWire adapter or ethernet-to-USB adapter, and you just plug in your laptop or your computer in whatever room of the house that you happen to be in.
But back to the sleep tracking. Right now, I just use the Oura ring. It gives me pretty decent data. A few of the interesting things that I’ve found are temperature affects it very dramatically. And so most people are aware of normal sleep hygiene, right? Sleep in a quiet room, sleep in a dark room. Avoid especially blue light exposure at night and don’t do business in bed, right? The bed is for sex or for sleep. So you have your temperature, your light, your sound, and your sleep environment kind of dialed in. But when it comes to temperature, I found that going beyond just lowering the temperature of the room to 64 to 66 degrees and instead getting some form of cold exposure in the evening, a lot of folks, and I like this approach because it works well, especially when I’m traveling.
And also when I don’t have access to, say, like a sauna and a cold pool, although that regimen helps tremendously with deep sleep. Just a simple, hot/cold contrast shower, which involves five minutes of 20 seconds of cold and then 10 seconds of hot. And you do that 10 times through for a total of five minutes. That dramatically affects deep sleep if you do that sometime in a couple of hours leading up to bed. If you wear socks when you go to bed to keep the feet warm so that more blood is shunted to the core, it enhances that effect even more. And so if you take a hot/cold contrast shower, then you put on socks and you go to bed, and the room is already at a relatively cool temperature, 64 to 66 degrees, that’s one thing that amps up my deep sleep cycles dramatically.
This might not be something accessible or affordable for a lot of people, but I also have one of these chilly pads under my top sheet of my mattresses. And so that circulates about, I have it set as low as it can go, which I think is 55 degrees.
Chris Kresser: Yeah.
Ben Greenfield: So it circulates 55-degree cold water under my top sheet while I’m asleep. And that enhances it even more. So that’s one thing. Another is CBD, and there’s been a lot of research on CBD for anxiety and for sleep. The problem I’ve found is that a lot of these CBD oils and tinctures, the dosage is about five to 10 milligrams. When you look at the research, most of the research is 100 up to 900 milligrams for sleep. And I find when I approach that 100 milligram mark with CBD oil, it dramatically increases my deep sleep quality. And you wake in the morning just slightly groggy, very similar to if you’d taken a lot of melatonin.
But if you just get up, it wears off. You have your cup of coffee within about 20 minutes, you feel just fine. And whereas I’ve found THC to actually decrease deep sleep percentages, CBD and isolation, especially these higher doses, seems to help out quite a bit. So that’s another protocol that’ll do in addition to the cold, is I have a little CBD dropper. I’m kind of brand agnostic because there’s so many different brands out there now. But I’ll use whatever brand of CBD I happen to have around the house and take a higher dose of that, and that also seems to help out quite a bit.
And then if I could throw one more at you, I have replaced all the bulbs in my home. For awhile I was kind of into the whole biological LED thing, which there are companies out there that will make bulbs, LED bulbs, that can be either high amounts of blue light for areas where you want to be more awake and alert like a gym or an office, and then bulbs that have lower amounts of blue light for areas of rest, like the master bathroom and bedroom, or the kids’ bedrooms. But the problem is, I actually had a building biologist visit my home and kind of walk through with not only things that the tech, the amount of microwaves or the amount of radio waves or signals coming in from cell phone towers or other forms of electricity that could be disrupting your physiology during the day or your sleep during the night. He tested the flicker from two of these LEDs and very similar to a computer monitor flicker, they all produce quite a bit of flicker which is irritating to the eyes and can be damaging to the retina long term and can also affect sleep architecture.
So I’ve replaced all the bulbs in my home with incandescent. Just full-spectrum incandescent, but in particular in the bedroom, replaced all the bulbs in the bedroom and the master bathroom, should I turn on the light when I get up to use the restroom during the night, with red incandescent bulbs. And that had a pretty big impact on sleep cycles as well. I can still see, but it’s pretty much the same as firelight. And so, in the bedroom it’s red incandescent bulbs, and that bulb replacement seemed to help out quite a bit as well. So those are a few of the discoveries I’ve made of late when tracking my sleep cycles, is the hot/cold contrast shower or some type of sauna, cold pool, back-and-forth therapy sometime in the few hours leading to bed, like after dinner, for example; the use of higher-dose CBD; and then also installing red incandescent bulbs in the bedroom.
Chris Kresser: Nice. Yeah, those are all tips that I think will be helpful for people. I’ve found, as I imagine you have, in working with clients, like certain ones will make a bigger difference for some people than others. So it pays to experiment a little bit and see what really leads to the biggest shift. For me, temperature is one of the biggest. Like, that’s one of the things that I don’t like about travel is less control over the temperature of my environment. And not having, like, the cooling pad. And if the HVAC system in the hotel or whatever is not working properly, that will torpedo my sleep more than anything else.
Ben Greenfield: Yeah. The air pollution one is an especially tough one when you travel. There’s not a lot you can do about it. So I found that some hotels, in a similar manner as when I travel, I always have my little Whole Foods shopping list and have the Uber drop me off at Whole Foods. And I’ll typically buy them a little snack in Whole Foods while they wait outside. And I’ll go in and grab my Pellegrino and a few cans of sardines, a couple of avocados, some coconut yogurt and a few of the things for the hotel room. But I always call ahead and make sure they have a mini fridge. And if when you call ahead, you also ask if they have an air filter. A lot of hotels have a few extra HEPA air filters that they’ll actually have available for you in your room if you want.
Chris Kresser: Yeah.
Ben Greenfield: That’s always an option as well, unless you’re staying in a place a long time. If you have a Costco membership or you shop at Walmart or whatever, someplace with a decent return policy, you can go that route too. But yeah, the air quality one is pretty tough when you travel.
Boosting Your Cognitive Performance
Chris Kresser: So how about the cognitive performance? Let’s finish up with this. I mean, sleep is obviously a huge contributor to cognitive performance, and exercise and fitness, which we’ve already talked about. What else have you found to be the biggest levers for cognitive performance?
Ben Greenfield: There’s a few things that maybe fly under the radar, because I know neurogenesis is talked about a lot. The idea of learning new things and protecting inflammation of the brain by limiting sugar and vegetable oils. There’s a lot of, of course, nootropics out there, from Ciltep to Qualia to Alpha Brain. A lot of people are aware of many of the things that are out there. But if I could give you a few that folks might not be aware of, one is this idea of using low-level laser therapy or some form of infrared light at a specific frequency in the form of, like, a head cap for the head during the day. There’s a company called Vielight, V-i-e light. And they initially were developing these head-worn devices for Alzheimer’s and dementia that have a signal emitted in the range of 10 hertz. And then another device that has a signal range of 30 or 40 hertz. And that newer device is called The Gamma.
I recently got my hands on one, and I’ve been using that in the mornings. It can, because it enhances the activity of cytochrome c oxidase in the mitochondria neural tissue, and whenever you upregulate mitochondrial activity like that, you do create reactive oxygen species. In the same way, you wouldn’t want to use an infrared light panel all day long. You would only want to use this about once every 24 to 48 hours. But when I use it in the morning, I’ll often put it on while I’m sitting with my cup of coffee in the morning reading through research or replying to emails. It really gives me a big boost of cognitive energy for about four to five hours, I’ve found. You wear it for about, I think it automatically turns off after about 25 minutes. It’s called a Vielight. I want to say the price point is somewhere between like $600 and $1,000. So it’s not an inexpensive device. But that’s one I’ve been toying around with that seems to give pretty good results.
Another would be, I don’t know if any people are familiar with peptides, But there is kind of a growing interest in peptides. I was recently at the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, and there were many, many kinds of peptide breakouts and conferences there. And peptides are just these strings of amino acids designed to elicit specific functions. Like, two that are popular in the sporting world are BPC-157 and TB-500. The former works on decreasing inflammation, the latter on improving healing of myosin and actin fibers. And these are all injectables. Other popular ones would be, like, there’s one called epitalon, that’s one that would be used as kind of like an anti-aging peptide. Another two similar peptides that are kind of mitochondrial drive peptides are humanin and MOTS-c. So this world of peptides is very interesting. You need to be very careful because a lot of websites are popping up that are selling kind of bastardized versions of peptides. Typically, you want to work with a physician who has access to a good compounding company, like, Tailor Made Compounding is one very good one for peptides.
But there is a newer peptide of late that enhances neurogenesis and decreases inflammation. Might improve the integrity of the blood–brain barrier and is also kind of, acts very similar to a nootropic for cognition and for memory. That one’s called Semax, s-e-m-a-x. That’s another one I started to play around with in the past month. It involves injecting it, just like with an insulin syringe in the skin, around the abdomen during the day. And that works very well, again, for a very good clean boost of cognitive energy that seems to last about six to eight hours without producing any kind of drop in energy afterwards or a crash like you’d get from something like, say, modafinil or something like that. But that seems to work very well, this peptide Semax. So that’s another one.
And if there is, let me see if I can think of one more. That’s kind of interesting in the world of nootropics or smart drugs. I guess another one, and I’m trying to come up with some things that folks may not have heard of.
Chris Kresser: Yeah, thanks.
Ben Greenfield: Lysergamides, probably the most popular being LSD, are kind of popular now in terms of things that one would microdose with. And LSD can cause kind of a merging of the left and right hemispheres of the brain and allow for you to engage in creative and analytical thinking simultaneously. And, for example, I actually, when I kind of wanted to experiment a little bit with microdosing with LSD, I used it about a year and a half ago for about eight months. Every Friday, I would use it because I was writing a fiction book, and I found that it seemed to help quite a bit with me being able to organize thoughts and still be able to tap into my creative brain. And so I just used it every Friday to write fiction. It worked very well.
The problem with it being that it’s a little bit difficult to get your hands on, LSD. But there’s a new analog of it called 1P-LSD, which is also a lysergamide, that’s a little less expensive and easier to find. And there’s a website called Lysergi, I think it’s just L-y-s-e-r-g-i, where you can buy this stuff called 1P-LSD and in very small amounts. And you want to be careful because you do get a little rush of serotonin and dopamine, and you don’t want to create some kind of a neurotransmitter imbalance with frequent use. But used every so often for a day in which you want some really good kind of creative/analytical thinking, using a very small amount, like 10 to 20 micrograms, which is nowhere near like a trip dose of LSD, that also seems to really help with things like creative writing, creativity, problem-solving, etc. And it’s not LSD, it’s called 1P-LSD. I forget what the P stands for.
Chris Kresser: What is the legality of 1P-LSD?
Ben Greenfield: I actually don’t know. It’s one of those things, not sold for human consumption. Probably questionable in terms of legality. But as something that acts as a pretty powerful nootropic, it seems to work pretty well. So if anything, I just advise everyone to go out and use illegal drugs, so my apologies. But that’s one that came to mind.
Chris Kresser: Yeah, yeah. No, I was just curious. I haven’t heard of that, and since you mentioned you could order it online, I was, I mean, I know you can order a lot of stuff online now that …
Ben’s Upcoming Book
Chris Kresser: So cool, this has been really fascinating and I know listeners are going to get a lot out of it. Just in closing, what’s on your radar these days? What are you exploring next? What are you up to?
Ben Greenfield: Besides working really hard on developing a curriculum for my kids, which involves sitting them down and picking their brains over and over again about their passions and what they want to learn from gardening to graphic design to how to dissect a wild animal, I am kind of deep in the throes of finishing up a book called Superhuman RX или же Superhuman Prescription, It’s kind of a beast. It’s about 600 pages long on this big eight-and-a-half-by-eleven hardcover. And it’ll be, probably won’t come out until January of 2020, but it’s almost like a sequel to my former book, Beyond Training,
I wanted to work in a lot more spiritual healing, gratitude, sound healing, vibrational therapy. There’s a lot of quantum physics in there. A lot more of what some people might consider to be woo-woo. But things that I’ve found to be very helpful. And there’s even chapters that take a pretty deep dive into things like sexual enhancement and libido, etc. And then a lot on the brain and cognitive enhancement. And about 10 chapters on the body as well, especially in terms of using a lot of the type of longevity topics that we talked about.
And the chapter on anti-aging is, like, 90 pages alone, just delving into everything from peptides to injections to stem cells to just kind of like the new world of anti-aging and what works and what doesn’t. So that book has been kind of a beast, but it’s turned into the publisher, and so that’s what I’ve busy with as of late.
Chris Kresser: Congrats.
Ben Greenfield: Благодарю.
Chris Kresser: That’s a lot of work. Well, Ben, thanks so much for joining me, and it’s been a pleasure to chat with you. And I’ll see you at Paleo f(x) as we do every year.
Ben Greenfield: I’m looking forward to it, man. I’ll see you at the speaker’s dinner.
Chris Kresser: All right, take care. Bye-bye.
Now, I’d like to hear from you. Do you live an ancestral lifestyle and have you tried any of Ben’s biohacking tips? Comment below and let me know, and don’t forget to submit your podcast questions,