“These Basic Health Habits Beat Expensive Therapies” - Bryan Johnson (4K)

Sorry to report I have a new boner record. 3 hours 49 minutes. The Fellowship of the Ring is 3 hours 48 minutes. Is that a good thing? I mean, uh I guess uh from whose perspective >> pick Yeah. Your perspective, is it good for you? >> Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's it's uh substantially better than an elite 18-year-old. >> What would an elite boner 18-year-old be? around 2 hours and 45 minutesish. >> What refers to elite like vasoddilation like >> Yeah. Like take an 18-year-old in peak condition. >> Okay. >> And let's say what would their nighttime erections be? They probably hover somewhere around like high two two nearly 3 hours. Uh that would be elite level. And so it just crushes that level. So yeah, I mean from a like a pure biological capacity. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty good. >> Okay. What were you doing with it? 3 hours and 49 [laughter] minutes. >> So, this is it's kind of like it's news to people as I've been sharing this that I mean people men are generally familiar with the idea that when you are 12, 13, 14, you start having boners and they happen a lot, you know, like in class, you don't even ask for it. >> Gust of wind. >> Yeah. Gust of wind. Like literally anything and you can't do anything about it. >> Wait. Whoa. Like I mean do you remember like I would walk in between classes and it's like you got a bone. >> Where's it going to go? Tuck it into the waistband. Pull it up. Exactly. Put a little book cover in front of it. But like you can't control it. You can't really stop it. And then as you age those things naturally go down. So people kind of forget about it as a phenomena. But men and women have arousal cycles every night. Three to five erections every night. Men get erect. Women have their clitoris engorged. And so it's this natural process. the body says like I want to keep my sexual function alive and vibrant and it pulses it every night. And so it depends upon your quality of sleep, your uh metabolic health, your cardiovascular health, your physiological health and your hormone health. >> And so [clears throat] if those things are not in place, it doesn't happen. And so if someone's bragging about four hours of sleep at night like they feel fine, they're doing great, they have no boners. >> And so this might have survived with the sleep but your erection wasn't there. This is why I started talking about these things. You know, we were like measuring a whole bunch of stuff, but I was really right now sleep deprivation is high status, right? If you can basically flex and say, I only sleep four hours a night. I'm amazing. I work 18 hours a day. People like, oh my god, what an amazing person. We admire you so much. And so, it has this really weird high status. So, this frame of the boners makes sleep deprivation low status, right? It's like sure you can brag about that thing, but also your body has shut down its sexual function and you can no longer get boners. >> And so it's really like that was one angle. The other one is like that erections really are a one of the most representative biomarkers of overall health that you can have big muscles and you can have great skin, but if your boners are not there, then you know it's not your body's not in good shape. He's saying that uh nighttime erections are like the weather vein or the canary in the coal mine that's an aggregate of a ton of other [ __ ] that's going on. >> Exactly right. Yeah. It basically is a representative marker and you can't do anything about it. Like you can't you can't go to the gym and like work out your boners, right? Like you can't pump iron. You go to sleep. It either happens or it doesn't. You have no control over it. So it's this really great marker. But what you mean is you have no control over making it happen at the time, but you do have control over your health, which is going to be indicative of whether or not that does happen in future because you could go to the gym and do a ton of zone 2, which I imagine improves cardiovascular health >> and then might get some more bonus. >> Exactly. Right. >> Yeah. But otherwise, when you lay down and you close your eyes, it's just like you say a prayer, it's like, I hope they happen. >> You can think of Lord of the Rings all if you want, but it's it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. like the the company that does this that makes this device, they've got a 20,000 uh nice data set and my scores just like trounce everybody in the data set. >> Okay. >> And so we've worked very hard. Like >> is that the thing you're most proud of? >> You know, um it really is. I know it's like a in our society people hear that and they blush like oh my god that's so you know like why are you talking about that? >> But like it it's like a biological function. Everybody has them. Like we as a species, our primary biological objective is to reproduce. It's like >> it's on point with what our DNA is meant to do. >> And it also is like the most counterculture thing you can be doing because we have this culture that has high status relative to sleep deprivation and having a shitty lifestyle, drinking a lot, um doing addictive things, nicotine, vaping. So it really is like like counter to all those things trying to say those are actually low status this is high status. Let's try to change the moral narrative on like what do you aspire to and what really is a flex. >> Great point. Um it's a weird trades like that. I think most people understand uh if you're smoking particularly cigarettes uh if you're drinking very regularly uh if you are overweight these are um there are visual markers right now that also suggest you're probably going to be pretty [ __ ] down the line. Yeah, >> sleep deprivation is one of these weird inversions of that where you're rewarded for the sleep deprivation in the moment and the costs are pushed further down the line. >> Uh I guess it would be like um birth rate decline like you don't see it because the population can be getting bigger even while the birth rate is getting smaller because people live longer and then this thing drops off a cliff or uh climate change. You can continue to do it and continue to do it and continue to do it until you reach some point where you can no longer handle it. >> It's like going bankrupt gradually and then suddenly suddenly. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're you're right to call out the fact that there's this sort of pedestalization of it. I think about um especially watching you who is now the tip of the spear of sort of like you're the canonical example in basically no time at all. You know, it would have been back in the day like a Ben Greenfield and then it would have been a tear or a hubman. And I guess these guys all have their own pockets, right? your like hard longevity now moving into culture with like um limited balance on I'm just doing what it takes to be as healthy as possible. >> Yeah. >> Um >> anyway, everyone's got their own little pockets. You've become the canonical example. What I've seen is this sort of the spiral is getting tighter and tighter and tighter of movement counter movement counter counter movement counter counter counter d. So, um, we don't know that sleep's important. Matthew Walker comes out and says, "You should watch How Much You Sleep." That was the first time I ever learned about it, right? And I think he would be right to say he was close to this sort of front modern push of that. >> Then that lasts for a good while. And we get back to well, you know, like the hustle and grind culture can come back in and take over and then you get back to no, this is really, really, really [ __ ] important and it'll improve your performance right now. And now we've already gone back to like the next iteration of the hustle and grind culture which is much more of a uh push back against overoptimization. So there was this is important. [ __ ] off. No, it's not hustle and grind. >> Yeah. >> Uh you will perform better if you do sleep well and also you should consider your sleep which is an elevated version of the first one. >> Yeah. >> [ __ ] off. You're overoptimizing. Like we can just do it ourselves. Do you know what I mean? It's like this ping pong that like it gets tighter and tighter and tighter. >> Yeah. It's like also the uh I mean I'm waging mimemetic warfare, right? And so like this is the classical thing that has always been done throughout history is you take a given moral value in society. If you don't like that that thing has power, you invert it. Right? So this is like uh like Christianity would say the meek inherit the earth. Right? So this is like a counter to the rich and powerful have the ability to push everyone around and do as they please. And so you can't really combat that. So if you can't compete on strength, you compete on virtue. So you invert that, >> right? And so this has been done through religions. It's been done through all kinds of cultural norms. And so this is I'm trying to basically do the same thing to death culture. And so death culture is, you know, we power, wealth, and status are the primary objectives of our society. We will do anything for power, wealth, and status, including killing ourselves. And but killing yourself for power, wealth, and status is actually a virtue, right? Like you're you're a hero. You're on the hero's journey if you do this thing. And so to combat that, you have to take that which is high status and make it low status. And so the way you punch away at that is you you do the the thing where it's like if you get four hours of sleep at night, you have no boners, right? If you don't have a boner, are you a man? Right? And the same thing is true for for women, you know, like same cycle. Then you could also say you if you're not well rested, if you don't have good nourishment, if you're not exercising, you have functional IQ 10 to 12 points lower >> nearly a full standard deviation. >> So it's actually making you dumb, right? And like what what do people care about more in that high status place than their intellect, right? Their ability to >> to actually >> maybe only after that would be their erections. >> Ex Yeah, exactly. I mean like there's it's so primal. It's like how smart am I and like how sexually um formidable am I as a person, right? Like like that's that's who we are as these animals. And so I'm trying to take those high status things, bump them down to low status and invert the arc because otherwise when you make these like um goodnatured like sleep because it's good for you, no one gives a [ __ ] You have to hit the heart of power because unless you pick to speak to power, Wilson, and status directly, nobody's going to change anything because they're locked in on the goal they've been taught to pursue, which is like, I care about my status in the tribe. I don't want to be ostracized. I want of high status. I want high respect. I want high power as much as I can get. Which is talk to me about power, wealth, and status. U is there a hierarchy to you? Is there one which is more seductive than the rest? Is there a a sequence that people seem to move through on their evolution to wipe themselves, rid themselves of the slime? >> Yeah, I mean, you can like just jump in between groups and just see it so cleanly. Like, for example, I spent some time in DC recently. They're they're not after wealth. I mean, you can get wealthy being in DC, but that's not the primary objective. You're really after connections and power and status within that community. Whereas in Silicon Valley, it's really about wealth creation, right? Like that's like the ultimate objective. And so different communities have different levers. Uh I'm impartial to whatever they are. Like ultimately people are trying to people playing this game are trying to superimpose their view on the world, right? They they're trying to muscle in and reorganize the world to somehow be trained by their mental models of existence. And whether that's done through a product or their philosophy or their presence or their personality, but everyone's trying to wrestle like their mimemetic essence onto the world. >> What do you make of the Harvard longevity study? I'm sure that you've become familiar with this. >> The world's longest running study on adult life and happiness. and it does have some sort of longevity, life uh span, health span predictions in there. >> Uh given that that's been going already for such a long time and has had lot huge data set, right? I think it's like 80,000 maybe even more. >> Yeah. >> What's your perspective on that given what you're interested in? >> Yeah, I mean there's probably some truisms on like humans respond favorably to having robust relationships. Like that's true long ago. is true now. Uh, humans respond favorably to exercise. There's a lot of truisms like we know this shit's really, you know, the case. But I think it's like what may be interesting about this is uh that is a good retrospective study. I'm not sure all of it's going to carry over into the future. So in the in the coming years, if we figure out some of these uh new therapies to rejuvenate ourselves in ways we couldn't before, it may be an entirely different environment in which we look at long live species. And it may be less about those things and more about other things. Now, this is not to say that relationships are going away. It's not to say that fundamentals of like uh being active are going away. But I do think we're at a moment in time where in if you have that study going on and we're talking 1960s, we'd be like, "Yep, >> good data. Let's carry on." But being in 2025 where AI is now starting to make novel discoveries, >> I think the landscape is going to be very different. >> What are the specific differences that are going to have the most lever behind them? >> I mean, we there's an open question like what is AI in our lives? like is AI a relationship or not? Uh do we have human relationships? Like what are the contours of those things? Uh what do longevity therapies do for us? If we start playing around with gene therapies, what does it also I mean for example you look at ompic like these GLP1s you you put a you take a shot it alters your experience with hunger like it changes a fundamental part of being human. And so if we have the ability to change something so like fundamental to our essence and we get really good at drug design like what else are we going to change? So I'm talking about this on like a 10, 15, 20 year time scale. This is not like next 2 or 3 years, but still like we are in this open frontier where there'll be maybe some things that continue as universalisms that just as a biological species they're true. >> Also, uh it's like a radical change and I'm more interested in like what is going to be different than what has been. >> Yeah. Uh Morgan Hel's book Same as Ever uh is an interesting one that people try to predict the future, but what is easier is to work out the stuff that's not going to change moving forward because the future is as yet undetermined. But working out what from the past can be predictive, it's quite nice. >> Um there is this sense, right? Everybody's had this sense that our generation, we are the one. It's the inflection point. It's the precipice. It's right now. It's always right now. Because it always does feel like that, right? If you look at a hockey curve, that graph, at each point, it was the highest, most rapidly ascending, biggest, quickest moving point ever, >> and then you just pull it along a little bit, and then it zooms out and you go, "Oh, that was nothing." >> But now, now, and then you zoom out and you get going, "But now, >> yeah, >> sure." >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Like we we I read um I just finished 1929 about the stock market crash, also tripping on utopia and also a history of western thought. I finished those three books last last week and like the the theme that comes through is that humans replay the same actual play every generation. It's the same cast of characters. >> It's the same archetypes. It's the same arguments and they just roll through different ideological spaces, but it's the same dynamics. And so we experience this moment like you're saying like we think it's novel and unique and we imagine we're something that's pivotal but really like it's just the same thing. It's really very humbling because then it goes back to like >> how much of your lived experience is NPC and how much is truly novel. And like I have to con like concede >> probably 99% of my lived experience as NPC. I probably have one shot at a novel thought or you know like it's just it's just the state of play and it's very hard to get outside of that. But once you realize that it's some way it's somehow relieving that that's the case but also um challenging because you have to figure out like how do I pull myself out and try to find moments of sobriety to see what this moment is. >> Yeah. Again, speaking of the Christian piece, the the meek, the sort of humility, the you're less special than you think you are. Uh it's grounding in that way. I don't think British people need more of that. Maybe Americans do. We already got >> God, I love the Brits. I I love how uh I love how um honory they are and brutally honest and acrimonious and like I find >> I I do I find the those personality traits to be so charming. >> Well, I think everybody misses what they don't have, >> right? Uh um Americans would probably quite like a little bit more piss taking and being brought back down to earth and British people want a little bit more enthusiasm and encouragement. >> Yeah. >> And that's why I came over here. Oh my god. It's like being, you know, taking a drink and not knowing I was thirsty. I was so nourished by this. And then for you, it's like I've always wanted someone to tell me I'm a prick. Like, you know, if finally these people [laughter] will f say it to me straight. Yeah. >> Um I'm interested, you know, sort of relating to the Harvard longevity thing. um from the outside a lot of what you're focused on seems to be kind of the raw physiological um but there's a huge emotional piece to longevity regardless of how much AI is going to change things um and some of that will manifest in like sympathetic stress chronic stress blood pressure sleep blah blah blah more than that as well is what is your momentto moment experience of of life like too so I'm interested in how you are thinking about the emotional and spiritual piece of longevity and health when you've got all of this focus on the physical piece. So are you are you and how are you looking at the at those two elements? Do you even conceive conceive of them within your map framework? >> Yeah, I mean first I don't really feel emotions so no joking. [laughter] I mean people that so the that's a very common perspective. What people don't realize is that the entirety of my endeavor is um is about AI and how we as a human race survive this moment like full stop. That is the only reason I'm doing this. >> Was it like that when you first started? >> Yes. >> Really? So you saw the writing on the wall with regards to AI before normies like me did >> in 2016. I I gave this talk and I was like look if we look at this graph very clear it's up and to the right and it's big >> what was the graph >> AI >> right >> whatever it is it's going to be big and so I didn't care to get into the prediction game of like what it when it's going to arrive and what it's going to be and all that just that this is a moment and I was trying to poke around like given this uh it it really does feel like this is like very much like a feel in intuition It feels big and it feels consequential and it feels like we probably want to be sober to get this thing right. And so what I've been trying to do more than anything is to say we need a new moral philosophy that enables us to survive this moment. >> That basically the philosophy we have now that drives everything is is one built on death. We are inherently a die species. We seek death for the glory of immortality through our various games. And the new moral philosophy I'm trying to create is don't die. That is like when you give birth to super intelligence, existence itself is the highest virtue. And so that back to this book of the history of Western thought, Plato, Aristotle, uh medieval uh Christianity, medieval times, renaissance, enlightenment, modern day scientific era, like big chunks of time for these big ideologies. we're due for a brand new moral philosophy and it will be induced by AI. And so it the opening is right now and it's not just like some small tweak. It's a really big opening and that's what I'm really angling for. And so health is a vector to basically talk about it to say like here's how you understand philosophy through these very practical actions. But that's really what I'm trying to do. And so above all, it's a health is a is a language to communicate a new moral philosophy on what do we do as a species in this moment. 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Right now, you can get 35% off your first subscription and that 30-day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemus.com/modernwisdom. That's livemus.com/modern wisdom. Yeah, I've got uh miniature essay from you. People confused by me and my intentions. I'm called a narcissist, a tech bro, vampire, grifter, and health freak. Let me be clear about what I'm doing. My goal is to build the world's next major moral framework. An ideology that bridges human and machine, biology and intelligence, the ancient and the emergent. The coming psychosis, a real possibility in the coming years, is that society becomes dangerously psychotic. Yes, we are already psychotic, addicted, fragmented, and self-destructive. But I mean clinically psychotic and on a civilizational scale. We are already showing precursor symptoms. Record anti-depressant use, rising suicide rates, rampant addiction, and global increases in loneliness and anxiety disorders. These are all biomarkers of a species whose cognitive environment has outpaced its biology. Human cognition evolved under conditions of slow change. Our nervous systems and social architectures were shaped for a world that changed near imperceptibly over millennia. When things change faster than our native capacity, we lose coherence. The hippocampus binds the present to memory and the prefrontal cortex constructs a coherent future. What's that mean? >> Yeah. Um, it means that we are going to struggle to keep up and it's going to be so unnerving to us that uh things might get chaotic and psychotic and it might just like have the bottom drop out. Like for example, when I was reading this book 1929 about the stock market crash, uh the the focus was financial gain, you know, invest in the stock market, get credit to invest more, like leverage yourself up >> and then when that burst, it created all kinds of destruction in the economy and we took us a long time to recover from that. I think the equivalent right now would be hope that you have hope for the future, right? Like you have imaginations of what you want to be, become, what you want to achieve. Everyone has that and as society progresses when AI starts doing various things it's not that they're bad it's just that change happens that creates uncertainty for humans like what am I going to do who am I what's my identity how do I feel secure all these basic questions if we can't answer those as fast as people feel insecure about it then you kind of teeter on this psychosis where like can you keep your [ __ ] together and so people focus a lot on AI like is AI a threat uh should we pause it all these different questions. There's an equal and opposite concern of what happens to human society when all this change is happening so quickly >> and we can't respond fast enough. Like is is humanity like is is the bottom falling out the real risk of you know then humans do human stuff, right? Like we >> what's the bottom falling out in this scenario? Uh, it's the sturdiness of law and order of hope that I I my my son, you know, my 20-year-old son, he can go to school, he can get a degree a degree, he can get a job, he can make money, he can find his own apartment, he can get married, you know, if he wants to have kids, like the natural life progression, if he can't quite see that structure anymore, who is he? Or you take like my dad who's like now his early 70s, he's on the other side. He's in the legal profession. the tools are getting so good like he just can't hang like it's it's it's hard for him to hang and he's like what do I do like I'm now out of the game and I don't feel any worse like I don't have any identities he's really really struggling and so you take any person at any stage in their life you've got really serious existential challenges this is not guaranteed it's just is like a thought experiment of like what could happen and so what don't die could be is like this this sturdiness beneath us to say it's okay like our identities are not tied up in our profession. They're not tied up on our status in the community. It's it's like actually tied up by this ex this virtue of existence that we're going to fight this new game as a species that don't die. >> And so it's trying to create sturdiness of identity, sturdiness of community, sturdiness of like we've got this, we have a purpose, we have a mission, we're here for a reason. >> If the mission of being alive is simply mortality, does that not uh drop down much of the complexity that people find beauty in? It's like simply being alive. Like there's two parts to this that I see in my mind. One is one which is very whole. It's about enoughness. It's about being okay as you are. >> Yeah. >> Um but that's not how humans are wired. You know there's >> Yeah. >> Like power, status, money like we are going to try and even if it's just I play pickle ball on a week weekend with my friends. I want to become better at pickle ball next week. If I'm not better at pickle ball, there is this sense of lack that comes through. But on one side there is sort of enoughness. Um but when you get down to a more sort of raw objective ledger like your job is to be alive tomorrow. >> Yeah. >> It's like >> [ __ ] hell really. Yeah. Like maybe if we were in a time of war or there was a lot of pressure or there's a pandemic like oh that'll imbue me because I'm there's resistance but like >> really like the the peak of my contribution is to not expire by tomorrow >> permanently until you know it does happen. Do you understand what I mean? How inspiring is that as a vision versus >> Yeah. I mean so to make a parallel example think of capitalism as an objective function. So you say making money is your goal, right? When you wake up, that's what you do. And now you see the entire world is engaged in that goal in some capacity. Everyone don't die is a similar game where you say our goal as a species is to end death. Not just for ourselves, for us collectively, and the planet. And so you're basically taking on the biggest challenge you could ever take on in this part of the universe. you're trying to solve for entropy. Like let's just like list out a few things we could work on. Like how would you go about building a global biological immune system? So let's say we say a pandemic like COVID is not good for us. Like we don't want those anymore. We don't want the plague. We don't want somebody in a lab, you know, cooking up smallox again. Great. So, how could we build out a global biological immune system where we have sensors around the world where it automatically detects any kind of pathogen that is threatening to our life? That's a pretty cool scientific project. Now, let's say we care about the oceans and the ocean health and the coral reef is burning up right now. That's bad for the environment. How do we stop that from happening and rebuild coral reef? And so, you just start like ticking down the projects of how could you as a species solve for entropy like solve for death? The list is endless. Like it's like you have more to do than you ever could in capitalism. It's it's a bigger game than capitalism. >> Can you flex it in the same way? >> Sure. I mean you have the same rules, right? Like anyone who does something has high status in the community. Like if I'm sol if I'm making a contribution like for example I started to to again like my entire game is to make uh death related things that are high status make them low status. Right? That's my whole thing. And so in in this case, you could start uh scoring companies that do something that actually kill you, right? So that could be scrolling, endless scroll, inducing you to endless scroll. It could be alcohol, it could be vaping, it could be porn, it could be um toxins, like right all the things. Companies that introduce that into the world, you would quantify it and they would get a die score. any fast food company >> represents death, >> right? They are actively introducing molecules into people's body that induce death versus uh more, you know, healthy ingredients. So like that's an example where you start assigning a quantitative measure on what an entity individual or company is doing into society >> like a carbon offset but for longevity. >> Exactly. But it defined this really granular fashion and you try you tie because right now if you make money and you dirty the world doesn't matter, right? If you if you make money and you poison people doesn't matter. In fact, you're kind of a hero. So like to tie social status with your actual effect on life or death for the species. What have been the biggest changes uh in your approach or beliefs about health and longevity over the last few years? We we you came on the show maybe 3 years ago and then we got to hang out in Rowitan a couple of years ago but lots of research lots of experimentation self-experimentation. What have been the biggest pivots? Yeah. I'd say one is do less. Like most things in health and wellness and longevity don't work. And so people spend a lot of time doing stuff and I would say save your time and money and don't do a lot of stuff. do a few number do a few things and then two is the biggest yield is typically doing behavioral change. So like if a person has like take everybody has their thing let's say somebody's thing is like they they love Skittles and they just you know can't help themselves to have a bag late at night then um that's the biggest longevity therapy for that person is to stop eating the bag of Skittles. And so what a person will typically do is like if they have that if they're locked in on that battle, they will um to compensate for that, they'll go to a a gym, they'll go get red light therapy, they'll do a cold plunge, they'll do all this stuff >> that isn't a thing. >> But yeah, it's basically to compensate for the fact that they feel so powerless to stop the Skittles thing that they'll rather do. So most people are doing that compensation and even though like those things are good, they're not the higher yield thing. the higher yield thing is to stop the bad behavior. But that's the thing that most people feel very hard. And what they don't realize in doing that is like the reason why that's hard is because they're not sleeping. Uh not sleeping well just destroys your willpower and they're not sleeping well because like five other preceding things are the case. So I I try to help people understand like here's a fivestep process to nail your sleep. When you nail your sleep, your willpower boosts. When your willpower boosts, you can tackle Skittles. That's your therapy. >> Okay. So, is sleep numero uno >> by far? >> Okay. Give me after all of the experimentation, what's the 30,000 foot view on how to get perfect sleep? You you want to lower your resting heart rate before bed? It's the highest value biomarker you can track on a daily basis. So, you'll find that everything that increases your heart rate before bed besides sex is bad for you. And everything that lowers your heart rate before bed is good for you. And so, for example, food. Timing of food is really important. So, if your bedtime's at 10 p.m., you want to have your final meal of the day at 6:00 p.m. So, 4 hours. Uh, I personally do like 10 to 12 hours because I really like that digestion time. It lowers my heart rate to like 39 to 40 beats per minute. So, food, uh, 4 hours before, uh, 60 minutes before bed, screens off. So, that's very hard because we're all addicted to our phones, but hard cut, phones off. Uh, because you want to avoid scrolling, texting, working, and that's very arousing for the body. >> Um, red light, amber light in the house. So, whites, blue lights, uh, are really bad for melatonin release. Um, you want to have a like a wind a 60-minute wind down. So, when screens are off, you want to use that 60 minutes to just calm yourself down. So, this is very hard because people have we created these habits where we're glued to our phones and if we're not on our phones, we don't know what to do with ourselves. And so, it creates this panic. So, this 60-minute time window before bed is really precious in that you just need to kind of be with yourself. Now you can hang out with a friend, a family member, you can go for a walk, you can do breath work, meditation, a hobby, like puzzle, journal, like whatever. But you just need to learn how to be with yourself without stimulation. And that will naturally allow you to calm yourself down. I do this process where I talk to myself. So like I talk to my various Brian. So like sleep Brian comes on duty at 7:30 p.m. because my bedtime's at 8:30 p.m. And then all the Brians line up and they want to talk to me. >> How many are there? >> Oh man, there's like probably a dozen. Like probably allowed. It's like a Bonnie Blue meetup. Okay. >> Yeah. So, the first one's Ambitious Brian. Ambitious Brian is by far the loudest, right? He's always like, he shows up and he's like, >> do more. >> I got a banger idea. Brand new idea. It's [ __ ] amazing. And Sleep Brian says, I love you, ambitious Brian, right? Doing us a real solid like doing great out there. Also, we're in sleep mode. So, I'm going to write down your idea and tomorrow we'll talk about this. And the next one is anxious Brian. He's like doing all the checks. Like, today, did you make any big errors? Did you like you know do anything upset >> anyone >> do anything anything stupid anything you say anything you regret and so like doing that internal reconciliation of like do you have good self-awareness and they all just line up but if you don't talk to them then when your head hits a pillow they show up and they're like we're here and we want to talk about our stuff and then you go to bed finally you wake up at 2 a.m. and they're like we're back and so you've got to have some kind of reconciliation process to calm those voices. So like those those are the big ones like food um light um windown routine screens off um that um yeah like and then caffeine. So you want to have your final caffeine around noon each day. So it has a 6 hour halfife. Those are the real big ones. So but what you want is like for a man you want to like be like 50ish heart rate. Same with the same with the female. If you're in that zone you're doing pretty well. if you can bump down a bit more. Um, and once you get that nighttime routine knocked down, then you can start exercising very well. Like if you sleep really well, your willpower skyrockets. If you sleep poorly, it like knocks your prefrontal cortex offline. You can't really have it much willpower. So that's like number one. >> Okay, lots there. >> A quick aside, if you have been feeling a bit sluggish, your testosterone levels might be the problem. They play a huge role in your energy, your focus, and your performance. But most people have no idea where theirs are or what to do if something's off. Which is why I partnered with Function because I wanted a smarter, more comprehensive way to understand what's happening inside of my body. Twice a year, they run lab tests that monitor over a 100 biomarkers and their team of expert physicians analyze the data and give you actionable advice to improve your health and lifespan. 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So, for example, if your bedtime is 10 p.m., your circadium rhythm rhythm is locked in to 10 p.m. And your body expects sleep to happen at 10 p.m. >> This is what jetlag is. >> Yes, exactly. And so, like, you have a garbage truck that rolls through your body at around 10:30 p.m. And it's there to pick up all the trash. >> What is that? >> It's your your basically your cleansing system of like your your lymphatic system is cleaning all the trash from your body. And if you're not asleep at 10:30 p.m. and in your deep sleep mode, it's going to it's going to not come. So, you've got trash build up. Like New York, you've got the trash bags all over the place. And so, people think if I'm not in bed by 10:00, I'm going to go to bed at 1:00. That's okay. I'll sleep in tomorrow morning, wake up. It doesn't work that way. And so, the body has very specific rhythms that it wants to be on. And so, when you lock in, it's good. And so, when someone makes the argument like, I'm going to give my body some horatic stress, right? I'm like, push it to one and then it move back. The body hates it. Like inconsistent sleep is as bad as little sleep. >> I was going to say, do you when it comes to prioritization, is duration more important than regularity or are they equal? >> Regularity by far is the best one. Yeah. >> More than duration. >> Uh oh, so I'm sorry. You said duration. Um I don't know. Uh I'm not sure on that one. >> It's kind of like picking your favorite child, I suppose. >> Yeah. Because you kind of need both. >> Yeah. [clears throat] Like the the lesson here is uh because these are bad habits people have. You need to be on time. You can't make it up. You can't uh skip during the week and then make it up in the weekend. It doesn't work that way. So you miss a garbage truck every day. It doesn't come back. Like sure, maybe the weekend, but then you're you're so off on your circadian rhythm that like now is the garbage truck even in service. >> Mhm. Okay. Um, so, uh, I understand what you mean with regards to the timing, but the 60inute window. What if you don't get it? What if this you're out at dinner, you're doing something with friends, you're hanging out, you don't get to, you're around some bright light. I've got a great a great story from a friend when he was in his hyper hyper optimizer zone, which everybody goes through, where it's like the stress of trying to be perfect kills you more quickly than your imperfections do. >> Yeah. And uh he had this 60-minute windown routine which was blue light blockers on and the mouth tape and the nose strip and the magnesium by glycinate and the everything else. And he'd been sort of winding down for 60 minutes and his girlfriend at the time had been downstairs and he was brushing his teeth in the dark so that he wouldn't have any light on. And she just comes like tinkering in, hits the light in the bathroom like the lights come on. He's like ah he's blinded. He hasn't looked at light for for an hour. goes to bed and he's raging. He's like, "My entire routine's been messed up and I laid there sort of staring at the ceiling, doesn't sleep, and she drops off within five minutes having just come in from like, you know, scrolling TikTok or whatever." >> Um, >> the example is about the fragility of reliance on that and the fear that without it, what does that create? >> Oh, I mean, how am I going to be able to write my book today? I didn't get my, you know, like as you said, like what were the stupid things that I said today? That's anxious, Brian. But another type of anxiety is, oh, I didn't get my routine done, therefore I can't sleep, which becomes self-fulfilling. Sleep's one of the very few things that trying harder at it makes it worse. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, people can find their happy balance. I think if you look at the uh various archetypes of people, some people love that kind of regimen. They love to be um regimented. They like structure. They like process, procedure, order, and that's just their personality type. Other people like the girlfriend in the story. She's not. And so the I think the thing here is for people to recognize their kind of archetype of where they naturally gravitate to where they feel good about themselves. If you're not naturally orderly and structured, like don't be that, right? if you're >> so it's just like find your jam but understand there are principles at play which you can't just override >> right >> regardless of whether you like structure or don't like if you have a three-hour swing between bedtimes across a week >> yeah your body doesn't work in that way okay um what are what are the things that people focus on for sleep that don't move the needle H I I really uh I guess I take 300 mcgs of magnes of um melatonin which is like so a third of a gram a microgram milligram. >> Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. People people [ __ ] weigh way way overcooked >> like 1 milligram 5 milligrams like >> there's [clears throat] 30 and 50 milligram out there. >> I do a very tiny dose of melatonin. Uh it's to offset the calcification that happens in my pinal gland. Like as you age your pinal gland calcifies, you produce less melatonin. So like a little offset, teeny bit. >> So in 10 years time, maybe you'll take 500 micro. >> Yeah. Exactly. And so it's it's a very small touch. Otherwise, I don't take anything for sleep. Okay. >> And so I'd so much rather build habits. And this is the same thing like Americans just like we are, we take more anti-depressants than any country in the world. >> Quick fix. >> We love pills. Like we love pills to solve fundamental problems and habits. >> A gummy or a powder. >> Yeah. Habits are the strongest ones. So like that's why I focus on like just build your sturdy habits in the archetype you are. That's the triedand-true thing that delivers the best. Now if you want to try to amplify with whatever you take, cool. But generally speaking, um it's really about habits. Okay, give me your formula for behavior change. If behavior change is so important, let's assume someone's taken the first red pill, which is sleep, and I now have access to uh the amount of willpower that I'm supposed to have as opposed to however much is diminished. I'm a [ __ ] sleep from the night before. >> Yeah, >> I've arrived. He'd look at behold my litany of shitty [laughter] habits. >> Exactly. Yeah, I'm >> like a guy in a side side alley going, "Would you care to peruse my wares of shitty habits?" Um, >> someone has a shitty habit. Maybe it's the Skittles. Maybe it's whatever. Pick whichever you think is a good one. >> Talk me through your James Clear approach to the Brian Johnson's James Clear retirement. >> Okay. So, actually I I'll show you mine, but I wonder if this resonates or not with people, but I had this issue where at 700 p.m. I would overeat every night. >> Mhm. Yeah. Evening eating for me is the only time. And no, no one ever overeats an a breakfast. Oh, yeah. It was 9:00 a.m. and I gorged myself on Snickers. >> Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like maybe like in a a weekend brunch where you order, you know, pancakes. You're like, "Oh my god, >> it's a one-off." Yeah, that was a bad idea. I don't want to do that again. >> Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, like your willpower goes down all day. It makes sense. Like 7 p.m. like you have stress. You're worn down. Like you just want to like whatever. So, that was my issue. I over ate at 7:00 p.m. And so, I did it every day for years. And every night it was the same battle, right? like I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I do it. And then like you know my the top button of my pants I can't be buttoned up and I'm like [ __ ] hate myself. Like this is so tight. I'm so uncomfortable. So I tried so many things to stop that and I couldn't. And so the one thing that I did is one day I just kind of said inest evening Brian you're fired. Like you, Brian, who occupy me from 5:00 PM to 7 to 10 p.m. You're an unreliable thing. Like every day. >> Yeah. Steuart. Like you basically um come up with these rationalizations like tonight's the last night. Tomorrow morning we're going to exercise really hard. It's one bite. Like whatever your specific entry point is, you always convince me to do it. >> You're a slippery [ __ ] >> Exactly. And you basically make morning Brian miserable. You make dad Brian less good. Let's go, Dad. Like, ambitious Brian is hurting because of you. And so I said, "You're fired." And so that means from 5:00 p.m. to 10 p.m. you do not have authority to eat food no matter what. Like, I don't care what's happening. You cannot eat food because you're so shifty. And so I just made that rule. And so I gave him a name. I wrote down his arguments. And so he would come into my mind. He'd be like, "Hey, I'm here." And I like, "Hey, evening Brian." Like, "How you doing, man? >> [ __ ] you." >> Yeah. and like, "Oh, you're gonna use the we're gonna work out hard tomorrow morning argument or like tonight's last night." Like, I see you and I know what that is and I've done this a hundred times. I've never in my entire life felt satisfied with myself after doing this ever. I've never felt proud of myself. I've never felt good. >> Yeah. You're selling yourself a lie about how you're going to feel after doing this. >> Exactly. And so, yeah, that was just it was just a rule. And so I guess that the rule is something like none is better than some that we do like to rationalize that oh just like every once in a while is fine moderation is a principle of life I want to play by we have all these very clever catchphrases to justify our inability to actually do what we want >> and so yeah that was a really clean hook for me that's cool and the reason that I like it is because of this most recent iteration of ah the overoptim optimizing. Can we not just [ __ ] like how lame, how like, you know, the stress of trying to be perfect is killing you more quickly than your imperfections. >> Um, moderation, man. And there is a kernel of truth in it. And this is why like a slower, more gentle approach to I see you. I think there's something there. The I see you. I think there's something there >> is, hey man, um, your focus on these habits is a kind of fragility. uh and it is destroying the enjoyment of life by obsessing over how you live it. Right? So I get the angle on that. >> The problem is that nobody scrutinizes the just live by vibes man approach >> with the same like level of uh resolution because by design they're living by [ __ ] vibes so nothing's being tracked. >> Yeah. But you've I've never even thought of it before, but you [ __ ] nailed it. Which is um the I just live by moderation, dude. Is not living by moderation. It's living by extremis. Yeah. Like you end up the moderation. You put I always use this example because I like biscuits. Cookies. I like biscuits. Um if you tell me pack of Oreos, there's one outside. >> Uh you can eat none of them or you can eat all of them. I'm like >> done. >> Exactly right. >> But you can eat two of them. Exactly. >> [ __ ] Superman. No, I can't eat two of them. >> No, if you give me a star and maybe I don't know, maybe some people aren't like this. >> I'm I'm a eat all of them or eat one of them kind of guy. So you're what on the surface like First Order looks like >> that you be very bureaucratic dictatorial Nazi policy. Like how can you do this to yourself? Like ah you're not balancing life. Like it would be much better if you just allowed yourself to treat like every so often. It's okay. Show me how every so often your every so often is. >> Yeah, exactly. >> It's not that every so often. It's actually >> most of the time. >> Yeah. >> Uh, you know, I just like I'm a bit more flexible with my sleep. You know, sometimes I let myself sleep in, sometimes I give myself I go to bed a little bit later. Like it's like, >> okay, let just look at when you're going to bed. It just keeps on shifting later and later and there is no trend over time. It's just w and sometimes it's getting wider. >> Yeah. Um, so yeah, I think I' I've never thought of it before, but the um everything in moderation is not done in moderation. >> Exactly. Right. Yeah. So, this is like again a medic moral philosophy of warfare. So, the person who's arguing for moderation is attempting to take uh a a drive towards health and uh make that low status and make their moderation high status. So this if you if you if you look at the world through this lens, you realize everybody at all times is trying to take their position and they're like assessing the battlefield and they're saying anything that makes me feel low status, I'm going to invert and make that high status thing low status and my thing high status because I inherently want to feel superior to people at all times. And then that is like literally everything that's happening at any moment in society ever. It's just like humans want to feel superior and high status. >> Okay. Do you know uh the inner citadel idea by Isaiah Berlin? >> I don't. >> Allow me to teach you. I think this may be useful to you. [gasps] >> Uh Isaiah Berlin says, "When the natural road to one human fulfillment is blocked, human beings retreat into themselves, become involved in themselves, and try to create inwardly that world which some evil fate has denied them externally. If you cannot obtain from the world that which you really desire, you must teach yourself not to want it. If you cannot get what you want, you must teach yourself to want what you can get. This is a very frequent form of spiritual retreat in depth into a kind of inner citadel in which you try to lock yourself up against all the fearful ills of the world. The different way to look at it is if your leg is wounded, you can try to treat the leg and if you can't then you cut off the leg and denounce that the desire for legs is misguided and just be subdued. >> That's right. Yeah. I mean that's it. That's I mean basically that's the exact articulation of what we've been discussing. Yep. It's pimemetic and moral philosophy of warfare to feel superiority >> because nobody wants to feel inferior. >> Yeah. It's like >> you looked at uh Adlerian stuff much. Yeah. And a lot of that is driven by this I can't be inferior. >> Yeah. >> This is why getting into a relationship with too much of a power imbalance. One person is significantly busier than the other. One person is significantly better looking the other. One person has significantly more attention than the other. The power imbalance is so great that unless the second person is happy to only ever sing harmony and never sing lead and is there like in service and the service becomes their reward, if you have two people, you can't have two people singing lead. >> Like one person has to sing harmony and if your lead singing and their lead singing and theirs is [ __ ] way ahead or yours is way ahead, there's going to be tension. You know, I think about um I think about those bridges that you see during earthquakes and they sort of >> do this. They like flex like that. And I think about that's the kind of visual. It's this sort of flexing in tension. It's not even necessarily a pulling apart. It's I'm going this way and you're going that way and >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly right. Yeah. I mean 100% like what what is society? I mean, I guess like there's two macro games happening in society like in that tension is um what is what is high status and then within that game of who is high status, right? That's it. And then you've got everyone else playing to try to take the high status, make it low status, but like right now the highest status game is wealth, right? Capitalism. And this came from Adam Smith couple. This is what I'm saying. We look >> is the highest status game raw wealth. What what about uh renown, popularity, recognition? Because you look at uh at somebody who already has lots of wealth and a lot of the time they continue to pursue status. I spoke about this with Naval and his I I think this is true. Interested to get your perspective. Money is evolutionarily novel and yet it's a proxy for status and it gives you things that status can't. But we should have raw status for status's sake, prestige, dominance, access, it's like uh recognition. >> That should be more deeply rooted and therefore less easy to satiate >> than money. Yeah, >> cuz money is more novel >> and money is not direct access to the thing that you need, right? Money without status can make you live, but and status without money can make you [ __ ] miserable and kind of on the street in a way. But it seems like people who get lots of status rarely continue to pursue money whereas people who get the [ __ ] infinity money do always continue to pursue status. Do you see an asymmetry here? I'm interested with your perspective on money and status. >> Absolutely right. I mean I think uh basically I think that's correct. I think uh money has more raw power >> just from a transactional >> just just raw power like the ability to to do things in the world like to move the world money is in so in this current context now behind that so again like remember two games one is what is high status and then two is who's winning within status and so my con my comment on money is that that is within context of that is high status status. But if you look at broader status of what is high status um right like religion has played status right like you look at Christianity where Jesus is like look guys um I've got a new status game for you >> and it's not what uh you're being told like I'm going to tell you a whole new rule set and so any religion has done that and so this is the game I'm trying to play I'm trying to basically say like right now capitalism is status like it is if we said like this is the And I'm trying to say this is the thing that might lead us to make a a terrible error in judgment on what we do in this moment. >> And that the the flip is existence itself is high status. >> Interesting. >> And never to the exchange of anything else. It never is never worth trading existence for anything else. Wealth, power or status. Existence itself is the highest virtue. In other news, if you're feeling tired, you might not need more sleep. You might not need more caffeine. You might just be dehydrated. 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I usually care about the box more than that. Drinkle.com/modernwisdism. >> Yeah, I I I do understand. And I think what I like is that you are not trying to upend the game of status itself. Yeah, >> that's locked in. It's like >> it's like saying well you know rather than trying to work out a more efficient rocket to get us off this launch pad we can just defeat gravity and you go >> no >> there are physics within the system and one of the physics is one of the physical laws is >> yeah status. >> Yeah. So really the master game in society like the ultimate game is determining what is status like what is highest status and then of course you have billions and billions of humans will play within the game. They'll just be like oh this is the this is the game and the function the reward system like I'm playing they won't think about it and they won't realize that the game's been set up for them. They'll just play it. >> That's interesting. Yeah. So rather than trying to uh convince people not to play the game, you just change what the game is pointing at. >> Exactly. And they'll play they'll have the same fundamentals they'll apply to the new game. So when you when you say existence is the highest virtue that the same human behaviors that are stamped out throughout time, same archetypes, same players, same stuff every single time. Just get the game right. And that's what I'm saying. Like this moment is so simple. >> Just get the objective function correct. It's like a I know some sort of judo throw that uses your opponent's momentum against them, so to >> speak. That's right. >> Okay. Tell me about your sauna experiments. >> Yeah, >> I was watching those unfold with intrigue. >> So, we really we discovered quite a few things that I didn't I shouldn't say discover. Um, we found out a lot of quite quite a few things. So, one is for those who are new to sauna, um, dry sauna has the most evidence because you're trying to get your core body temperature up. And so infrared does not get hot enough and wet sauna uh will basically burn you at the temperatures you need. So dry sauna is the right >> traditional dry sauna. >> Yep. Yep. >> Uh 20 minutes a day at 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Uh 83 is that 83 Celsius. 93 Celsius. Sorry. 200 Fahrenheit. Um so three things we found. One is I was in LA during the LA wild wildfires when like 20 >> Yeah, that'll heat you up if you go close. >> Yeah. I was measuring my toxins in my body uh when before the fires happened and then after the fires happened and I was absolutely baked in toxins. So I was in like the 99th percentile as I'm sure other people in LA were too of toxins. You could like go down the list be like this chemical is used in PVC pipe for for housing. This this chemical is like a a countertop. This chemical is like you you like literally see the burned houses >> breathing in teflon and whatever else >> like you could like down the list you could look at the industrial solvent >> as a Sarrento. [laughter] >> Exactly. So my body was full of all these houses and cars were burnt >> and the sauna annihilated the toxins. It was remarkable. So that was cool. Right. >> Two is we have been trying to get my microplastics uh down because microplastics live in the body, in the brain. >> And we were measuring microplastics in my blood and also my semen. And so microplastics uh hang out in the testicles and that has all sorts of negative effects on testosterone, on fertility. You just don't want them hanging out there. So I had over a 90% reduction in my blood and my semen >> of microplastics. And that was a first in world demonstration of no one had ever done that before. >> So because the microplastics test is actually kind of hard to do, right? >> Exactly. Yeah. The test is hard and no one had done semen before. No one had repaired blood and semen. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Uh just hold this is fascinating. But you know why um kitchen detergents say 99 kills 99.999% of bacteria? >> Why? >> It's not because they don't they're unable to kill more bacteria. It's the testing tolerance only goes down. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. >> Then this kind of feels like it too dissimilar if the same. >> So one is we we showed that uh sauna is a really efficacious detox protocol. Number two is we showed well we we think sauna was the reason why my microplastics went down so dramatically. >> Okay. >> Um >> we relatively controlled across everything else. >> Exactly. We it was very controlled like we didn't do any of the therapies in that time frame that were meaningful. Um, and then three is, um, I had really great changes, improvements in my vascular markers. So, it actually improved. Even though I'm in really good health, it still had a measurable increase in my, um, vascular markers. It increased my veg F. This is, uh, like you want VEGF in your body because it helps produce more capillaries and and blood vessels. Like, you want a higher level. It increased it by 400%, which is amazing. >> Um, I had a dramatic drop of pile, which is a a a protein in the brain that leads to Alzheimer's. So, if that drops dramatically, um, we also I did a test on looking at, uh, when you're in that kind of environment, you want to put ice packs on your testicles because otherwise it annihilates your fertility markers. It'll take down your count, your morphology, all the above. And even men who say like, I don't care, I'm not trying to have a baby, there's really negative feedback loops. So, if you have smashed fertility markers, then it has negative effects on your health overall. So, I did uh 3 weeks with ice and then I went two weeks without ice. In that two week window, I got smashed. So, my fertility markers went down by 50%. >> The prices that you pay to uncover this stuff for [laughter] the rest of me immortals. >> Yeah. So, I went back on ice and I've been back on ice for 6 weeks now and I got these results on my drive here. >> Okay, cool. Tell us. >> Yeah. So, um I'm going to go by memory. >> Yeah. Um, so it's the highest sperm count I've had ever, >> right? >> It's the highest motility count I've ever had. It's the highest morphology I've ever had. So like they bounce, not only do they bounce back, it's the highest I've ever been. And if you look at these are like off thechart numbers, >> like six to 10 times the level of like normal fertility. So >> what do you think's going on there? Is that just straight vascular changes? >> We're not sure. I need >> What do you think's going on? Come on, ballpark the mechanism for me. Have a play around. Yeah, I mean, um, I really need to deep dive into this more. Yeah, I I don't know. It's it's a really big jump. And >> uh I've been doing hyperbaric oxygen therapy. We've been doing the sauna. Um, we haven't done really any other meaningful therapy that could boost it. >> Okay. So, let's go through the protocol for the sauna. You said 200° >> dry, >> 20 minutes dry, the traditional sauna, >> ice pack on the balls. >> Yeah. >> Uh, does time of day matter? >> Okay. >> Um, does what did you go for as a solution for ice pack on the balls? >> Yeah. So, you can buy these from Amazon. They're like eight bucks. BPA free. Uh, no toxins, reusable. So, uh, yeah, they're blue. Uh, you get a pack of like four. And then you want them on the balls in the sauna. So put on cotton underwear and then cotton shorts and then slide them underneath the shorts >> in between the two. >> Exactly. Yeah. And then like so just have two of them in there. But yeah, if you keep them chilled like I we wonder whether the chilling actually has an improve like we we can't >> that could be so interesting if it's got nothing to do with the sauna. Should you put an ice pack back on your boards for 20 minutes? >> We know sauna destroys, but we wonder like is is the icing cuz we saw >> get out of the sauna. put the ice back on. >> So like yeah, if you're if you're working now like so we actually were going to do another experiment after this completed. I was going to start icing the testicles during the day like just when I work like because we saw a like a 30% jump in my fertility markers in the first 3 weeks of of doing ice and we were trying to figure out like why did they did the sauna increase it and then the ice just protect the protected the increase or so we're still trying to figure out what the cause >> collaboration of the two. Okay. Um what else have I got to ask? Are you taking any binders like a charcoal, a colostyamine, uh a a NAC flush type scenario? Something to capture the heavy metals that are coming out of you? >> None. >> Right. >> No. >> So, it was just two pairs of cotton shorts, an ice pack. Yep. >> And a sauna. >> And like a cotton towel, wipe yourself off, you know, as you're sweating, jump in the shower. >> Why wipe yourself off? >> Oh, just if if the if the toxins are being excreted via sweat, just snag it when it's like hanging out your skin so it doesn't dry and Uh, shower straight after. >> Yeah, >> that's it. >> That's it. It's >> the entirety of the protocol. >> Yep. >> Cool. Um, I'm going to guess you were doing that seven days. >> Yeah. Every day, >> right? >> And I do it after working out. So, I go work out for an hour. >> I immediately jump into the sauna and so I'm already really warmed up. >> As opposed to spending the first seven minutes getting up to >> Exactly. >> temperature. Also, there seems to be from Rhonda Patrick, there seems to be some pretty good evidence about well, you kind of extending the sessions benefits somewhat. So, you're stacking a few things together. Exactly. Right. >> But I do like the idea of >> um that we talking about behavior change earlier on. Stacking habits. >> Yes. >> It's very strong. Exactly. It's like look, if I'm going to train and I know that when I get home from training, my training session is an hour, but I'm actually going to book an hour and 40 in and that gives me 10 minutes to get home and then I'm going to get in the sauna for 20 minutes or wherever. I'm going to go to this maybe the sauna is the gym or whatever. And then it's going to give me 10 minutes for my shower and then I'm done. And I've done both of these things and I've done them in the right order. I've done that for anything else on sauna. Anything else? >> I mean, initially I did sauna in the morning. So, in the first like 2 weeks, it absolutely wrecked my sleep >> like destroyed it. >> And then doing it in the morning. >> Well, I think just doing it period like it's it's a like 200° is a lot. >> Like it's really really warm. I had never done sauna before, so I think it was just the adaptation time period. I'm fine now. But just like note that there's initially an adaptation time period and then two is I tried at night initially it wrecked my sleep but then I tried it after I had the adaptation period and it boosted my sleep. So I found that there is some virtue in doing it before bed. So you just have to run the experiment. You have to see for you if it's going to improve sleep or not. >> Yeah. That also means that you're going to have to be training later in the day which is not always necessarily >> Yeah. Exactly. If you pair those two things Exactly. Because you don't want to exercise within four hours before bedtime. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. HBOT, talk to me about that. I was messaging you the day that I started my HBO. >> Yeah. >> Was the day that you put your video out and I'm in there and you were like, >> I can't remember what the [ __ ] you [laughter] you replied with a a a >> 20 20 and five. >> Yeah. >> Uh 83% with natural blah blah blah. just cuz I'm in this big [ __ ] metal dildo and the guy that's there from Beam Hyperbarics in Austin. If anyone wants to go to a great hyperbarics place, it's [ __ ] sick. Book it by the hour. Vance is great. And I'm like knocking on the little this [laughter] tiny little portal out of my submarine and comes in and I just showed my phone. I'm like [laughter] I couldn't be bothered to use the radio to get outside. Like is Brian Brian messaged you are we doing this? and you sort of went, [laughter] >> "That's so funny." >> Yeah. Put his thumb up like that. So, uh >> yeah, >> hyperbaric pill. I was when you messaged me, I was worried about you because uh like a week before somebody had blown up in Arizona. >> So, yeah. So, >> what does that look like? >> Well, so in in hyperbaric, the idea is you pressurize. So u you're actually so at atmosphere at sea level we're about 15 lbs per square in of of concentration of oxygen. >> At two atmospheres you're at 30. So you you pressurize and some hyperbaric chambers they pressurize and then they just push 100% oxygen into the chamber. So you're just hanging out and breathing the oxygen. But if you're doing that, you're sitting in a pressurized chamber and you're basically a flammable >> bomb. If you're you're bomb like, so if something if if there's a spark of any type, >> Yeah. >> you just blow up >> your phone or some device that you've got with you or whatever the [ __ ] Okay. No, no, no, no, no. I This was I was not I was I had the >> I was breathing the mask. I was doing stuff. >> Great. Okay, cool. Yeah. Um yes, hyperbaric oxygen therapy uh I think to date it's fair to say has been the single best performing therapy we've ever done and the this is both good news and bad news because bad news is that it's expensive it's inaccessible it's timeconuming >> super inconvenient >> so it sucks because I hate sharing this because people it's very exciting but then it sucks because people can't do it like >> I mean if you're already to say I've got to find a sauna to use and most people don't have a sauna in their Oh god, now you're telling me I need to produce my own oxygen. This thing weighs [ __ ] two tons. It's I don't where does it fit? >> Totally. Yeah. And like who has 90 minutes in a day to go do this thing? So I would just say for for people who have a serious condition and there's a variety of conditions that that uh this could address like even cognitive decline or you know um wounds for diabetes. >> What would be on the list? uh like so there's a lot of emerging evidence for uh cognitive decline that if you're entering the latter parts of your life and you're really struggling, this could have a meaningful impact on that. Um it is used for diabetics who can't heal very well, it's used for healing. So people who have had surgeries uh to accelerate the healing process. If you have some kind of injury you're really trying to overcome, that's that can be great. So like there are >> telling me that some athletes post surgery are in 90 minutes three times a day. >> Exactly. D they're trying to get they're trying to hit that 90 session number within weeks. >> Yes. So like there are some specialized applications where and people where it makes sense for the person to do but I just want to be very sensitive. I understand like it sucks to hear something's really efficacious and you can't get out of exclusion. >> Yeah, it makes sense. So like uh but yeah, we we we basically like we do with all things, we measured we had this we cast this really wide net. We measured everything we could. my brain, my microbiome, um a full blood panel, um saliva stool, metabolomics, proteomics, like you name it, we measured it and we just found improvements across the board. It was really because most therapies will improve like this particular marker or that marker, but rarely do they have this broadspectctrum improvement. So, we saw like the the cognitive decline marker pile 217 drop. We saw my microbiome. I had zero dispiosis in my microbiome. Like no signatures at all of disbiosis. Um we saw I had no detectable inflammation in my body. So like when my HSCRP came back zero >> the 99.99 we like he's beaten the test. >> Exactly. It just like it was really remarkable uh across the board. And so it was really efficacious. I did 60 sessions over 90 days and I've continued to do it. I've now done something like 200 sessions over the past year or something like that. So I just have it as part of my routine. I do it um you you want to be careful not to do it too much because you're you'll have oxygen toxicity. Yes. So you want to have some >> But that's why the 5minute break is so important, right? >> Yeah. And I also take a like a week long break. I'll do a sprint then a week long break. So you just need to be careful because you can overdo it and cause harm. If you struggle to stay asleep because your body gets too hot or too cold, this is going to help. Eight just released their brand new Pod 5 Ultra which includes the world's first temperature regulating duvet. 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That's ei.com/modernwisdomd and modernwisdom at checkout. What was the protocol of mask on mask off? >> 20 minutes on, 5 minutes off. >> Cool. Yeah, I was doing that. That what the one super [ __ ] annoying thing there is it's very relaxing to be in. It can be very relaxing to once you've pressurized. Uh but you can't sleep. >> Yeah. >> Because >> Exactly. Yeah. You're busy. >> Got to put this take this thing on and off. Um, one of the things that I really enjoyed doing was HRV resonance breathing while I was in there. Have you got into resonance breathing yet? Have you been doing it in the H pot? >> Yes. >> So much fun. >> Yeah, it is >> so much fun. Um, >> there's a a a product that I got sent. I think I'm the first person outside of the company to have got it. It's this little lamp. I wouldn't be able to take it in. It would all [ __ ] hell would break loose. But it's basically a resonance breathing uh stone and you pick it up and it's got an FDA approved thing in it and the lamp goes up and down. You put it back and it's done. That's um Elite HRV is what I was using with the strap. I'm going to guess you'll have seen >> um one thing that I noticed about that niche niche issue, the strap that came with the Elite HRV thing, which you put on so that it can detect like real high fidelity high hertz heart rate thing. >> Yeah. >> Um the button that you use to press to turn it on has a tiny little air pocket around it. So, I got into the [ __ ] HBO and by the time I'd pressurized to get down there, the button had been smashed and I couldn't there was no air to press the button and then I ke I was like trying to press it and it's just >> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] >> Spongebob when he gets outside of the water. >> Um, so anyway, HBO, >> uh, so I mean, couple of questions on this >> 60 sessions as quickly as possible basically with uh to start to accumulate. It's not like a a one and done type thing. >> Yeah. >> Uh I think I asked you this at the time. I'm interested if there's any more information >> going from uh state change to trait change. Like is this the sort of thing that locks in? I'm aware you haven't then tested coming off and seeing what the tail of this is. But the same thing goes for sauna. Are you just fighting entropy with this? Is it something that you just need to do or is there anything because I think there's a I I certainly know in me if I look at a therapy or a modality or whatever and I find that uh there's no carryover. >> Yeah. >> I feel despondent. I'm like [ __ ] hell. Like I've just found this new thing. Here's another another thing I have to do. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. It's because both you and I are on the other side of the entropy curve, you know, like the the deal you want is youth, right? Like when you're 12 >> Mhm. >> you you just keep on getting better. [laughter] But once you cross over into your >> Exactly. Like they just every day they get up and like shit's just better, you know? So like but yeah, you and I are both on the other side where it we're on this irreversible decline. And so yes, you've got to keep it up. But like one thing people are not aware of with Hbot is it's the best skin rejuvenation therapy in the world. So a lot of people >> better than red light, better than micro needling, >> everything like better than the vampire facials, better than any laser. Uh it is because if you look at the data on the biopsies of it rebuilding collagen, elastin and reducing scinesscent cell uh it basically remodels your entire skin. It's not just face like every layer of skin you're remodeling. It's really remarkable. Like if you look at people like if I see people now um I can tell a signature of Hbot skin >> like it's ve it's very very clear to me what it looks like and so it just it happens. So yeah, that's the other thing is like a lot of a lot of women uh you know who are really care a lot about skin HBOT >> getting the [ __ ] HB. >> Yeah. I mean then you if you pair like that the best banger protocol is to for skin is to pair the best devices with HBO. So you basically you do like a surface level like a 1550 nanometer to resurface the skin for for like spots, wrinkles, stuff like that. Then you do HBO and you can accelerate the healing. >> Is that micro needling? Is that what you're referring? No, it's just a laser like a 15 nm laser whereas like uh it's a very uh very benign laser uh if you do it right has lower risk of like pigmentation issues >> um >> for wrinkles spots uh just like for texture >> and then you can do a deeper device like a soft wave sof wav where it's ultrasound where it's 1.5 milliliters below millimeters below the dermis so you have top layer and underneath the dermis so you're rebuilding collagen and like the entire scaffold in the skin and then You do agebot and then you accelerate the healing. So you basically do more sessions in this. Yeah. So that's like >> you do an acute like skin rejuvenation thing and then [ __ ] up. Are you still here? >> She's outside. I think I did soft wave cuz I went to your dermatologist in LA. >> Which one? >> Uh [ __ ] I can't remember the lady's name. It was in That was why I had a mustache. I grew a mustache cuz I needed to get rid of my facial hair because they needed to do that in order to be able to I'm pretty I'm almost certain it was soft that that I was >> um Yeah. Was it like um It felt like a >> cigarette burn that never actually got to a burn. >> Exactly. Yeah. Like you're like you're being singed by like a a hot metal iron. >> Yeah. But it never actually peaks to the It was a really interesting lesson in uh and the [gasps] >> Yeah. >> blowing the [ __ ] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Um >> it was a really interesting lesson in pain. Uh that because what you realize is you ride this crescendo. For the people that haven't seen, it's literally as if someone was to put something really hot out on you. And when that happens, there is a swelling. There is a crescendo, but it usually peaks at you can almost hear it, right? If you ever put alcohol in an open wound, that's >> it like goes like that, but it doesn't ever get above a six or so. >> So, if if she did uh if she set the settings to 3.5 jewels, which is the lowest setting, >> then it gets pretty tolerable. If she goes to 4.2 two top end because basically it's it's a total energy per area. >> I think I had it at around about 3 point I think she had it at 3.6 3.7. So I was on I was being a weenie. >> Okay. Yeah. So like if you have the 4.2 where basically like it cuts down the number of pulses by 30%. If you want to like zip through it. God damn that >> that is so painful. Thank you. Oh man. It does it just feels like uh a red hot iron. >> I'm all right. Send the face. >> No. No more. Thank you. Uh we you mentioned there about sort of vascular health um and blood flow. Obviously we started talking off about erectile nighttime erectile stuff uh for guys to improve >> blood pressure uh vascular health and then I guess downstream from that the impact on erections erectile dysfunction beyond like nighttime stuff. >> Yeah. >> What have you come to learn about that? What's the what's the the protocol for a guy to improve that? >> Yeah. cuz I guess like I would say to people listening um like maybe the the thing I that's most interesting is when I started this when I was 42 I was pretty beat up like I had eaten sugar cereal as a kid soda like you know downed 70 grams of sugar like daily uh canned foods uh I was I did the entrepreneurial grind right didn't sleep I was depressed for for 10 years I was overweight like I did all the >> starting behind the eightball >> like all the bad things right And so I'm 42. I'm pretty beat up. My my aches hurt. Losing my hair. And so I didn't really know what could be done. I'm I'm really shocked by how efficacious this entire thing has been. Like I I'm just really stunned that the body really has this capacity to bounce back no matter how bad things are. And so one for anyone listening who like who needs hope in their life, it really like the body is >> too far gone. totally like I just like don't give up. The smallest of things can have the biggest yields and so have hope. And then two is I've been jamming on this for you know 5 years now. My markers keep on getting better. And so we still like I've aged you know past 5 years in time but I'm still hitting new record highs in in like nighttime erections in fertility markers in my speed of aging in my DNA and my TMI telomeirs. Like all these things are improving as age as time has passed. to be a sailing. >> So like I mean on the grand scale of things I suspect these are like I'm this is not going to get me to 200 years right like it's not on that kind of scale but still like in how I feel as a person like I do feel extremely energetic I feel very clearheaded I feel my mood is very stable I don't get irritated like I'm just kind of cool with existence which is like for me that's the marker of health you know like that so one hope two is uh it's I think it's really worth the investment of this stuff like just paying your your like paying the discipline to do it consistently. And then the the th last thing is you don't need to do what I do. Like you don't need to chase these expensive therapies. You don't need to do hbot. Uh like the basic stuff has the dividends. And so I don't want I want people to feel hope and not discouraged. I want them to feel empowered, not like damn it, that's out of reach. Because it really is like it's within people's reach. I hope >> intimidated. >> Yeah. I hope they walk away feeling like damn it, I can do that. Like I'm going to do it. I I can't do that. >> What are the big move? We've already said sleep and you've given a good breakdown there. If there was a top three, top five, however many you need for Okay, the Pareto 80% of the results come from these things. What are those things? >> Yeah. So, I would first I would frame this in a moral philosophy. So I'd say if >> believe [laughter] I guess first like um your most prized possession is agency. Nothing values more than your agency. And right now most people's agency is compromised. That they are not the architects of their life because they compulsively scroll. They compulsively eat fast food. They compulsively uh do all these addictive behaviors. And then when pressed on it, they rationalize it as virtue because they're trapped. And so I would challenge everyone here to say like reclaim yourself. Don't do anything you don't want to do. And that the enemy is the [ __ ] who's trying to get you to do something that is not in your best interest. [ __ ] them. That is the enemy. And so like that gives you real moral power. Don't be puppeted. Now, once you have that principle, like, I'm going to set my bedtime. I'm not going to doom scroll. I'm not going to eat that [ __ ] bag of Skittles, right? Like, I'm not going to eat the fast food. That's it's poison. They're going to trick me into thinking it's a treat or something. You like, but like that's I think for me the boundary conditions of like how you create the kind of um energy state of like I can do this and I have a moral will to do it. Not just because of self-help, but I'm like fighting an enemy. I'm overcoming adversity. I am a man standing on my agency or woman. Like that to me gives it the juice to like I have the the willpower to do it. >> Okay. Now that we've got the moral framework, what are the tactical things? >> Yeah. So you once you have agency, you want to reclaim your willpower. You need to have juice in the tank to say like I can make decisions that I can do it. So one is you want to master sleep. You want to build your entire life around sleep. That's very counterintuitive, but you want to plan when you go to bed, when your windout team is, you want to set strict rules. you want to um plan your lighting, like again like you can choose your archetype whether you're really regimented, whether you're like more flexible, like whatever your thing is, but just build your entire life around sleep. And if you need uh justification, realize those not doing that are 10 to 12 points stupider than you. Like they're actually dumb. So they're like a retardation exercise for them. You're actually going to be smart. Once you do that, exercise because that also is going to boost your willpower. So boost it with sleep, boost it with exercise. And once you get those two down, then tackle food because food is the most complicated. Food is where we go to like soo ourselves to do like the the self therapy. So only tackle then try to start just having a bit more good things for you and a few uh less bad things like slowly walk your way into it. Radical change is hard for a lot of people but like slow walk into and then if you again have that in the back of your mind like uh a rule you will never ever eat fast food ever again. Like none is better than some. So there's no moderation. There's no once a day. Like the cheat the idea of a cheat mill is the worst idea in history. Like don't do cheat days, don't do cheat meals, don't do cheat weeks, don't do cheat anything, don't cheat. [clears throat] >> Uh when it comes to exercise where for longevity, most people are already doing almost everybody that's listening is going to have some sort of training regime. Uh, I would imagine >> yeah, >> the vast majority of them are going to be something like a push per leg split and maybe other people are runner boys and runner girls. Um, if you were to design the minimum effective dose, this is where I think the blind spots are for people. What would you say exercise-wise? >> Yeah, I mean I because everyone's got their jam, whether it's Pilates, weights, whatever. just do it. Like just be active for roughly an hour a day. Do cardio to strength to balance to flexibility. Everyone's got their own preferences. But I think uh I don't go after the details here because there's like endless material to go after. Just be active and commit to be. >> So some people like chicken, some people like salmon, some people like kale, some people like spinach. >> Exactly. Like just And I same thing with food. Like I don't uh get into the game of carnivore versus vegan versus paleo versus whatever. They're abstractions which are irrelevant. Eat what you want, measure your body, make sure you're good, and then fine-tune yourself. Like I have a don't die food guide. We tried to look through all the scientific evidence to say what are the very best foods in existence the highest value evidence that you can put into your body. So we just said by a power law perspective, here's what I'd put on so I can share that as a plate. Yep. >> Outside of that, like do your thing. Like just eat what you want. Just measure your body, make sure you're good, >> right? Okay. Bethleene Blue, how did you get on with that? You know, I stopped it because I started 25 milligrams a day and then oh, it was conflicting with we started a therapy doing uh altitude training. So, you take your your blood oxygenation down to 80%. We did it and the two have conflicting mechanisms of action and we realized it on day three. So, we're like we better stop methylane blue to do therapy. So, >> okay. Is methylene blue it's like nicotine derivative, right? Or it's something to do with nicotine. >> I mean it's a synthetic synthetic diet. Initially, it was built because the surgeons wanted to see like where they're actually in the surgical body. Uh, but it was actually FDA approved for um what was it? Um, I forget now. Yeah, it's FDA approved quite a while ago. But overall on we don't think that's really uh we don't think it's worth it. >> Okay. >> As a therapy. Yeah. It's more more for like mitochondrial health. >> Okay. Uh >> testosterone. >> Yeah. >> Testosterone the the [ __ ] hormone of the 21st century. It is. What have you come to learn about testosterone? >> Yeah. Um, so I'm in like the 700s naturally. So just by doing all the basic stuff. >> What were you when you started? Do you know? >> Um, I I guess like hm when I was 42. I don't know, >> right? >> Need to look at my data. Um, yeah. But if if if a man is low on testosterone and the natural approaches are not addressing it, it probably makes sense to do something about it. Like being low in testosterone just has really negative consequences. So >> yeah, [clears throat] good one to watch after. >> What are the ways to intervene naturally or what are the biggest needle movers that you >> Yeah, I mean all the basics, right? Like sleep like I think poor sleep uh four hours of sleep at night uh will knock you down something like 10 to 20%. On testosterone uh so like really big drop >> less of a man again >> again. Yeah, like high sle status. So then sleep, exercise, nutrition, like all the basics. Uh there's I don't think there's a lot of proven um supplementation that can move the needle. I think >> without getting into pharmarmacology. >> Yeah. I think people have played with a bunch of stuff. Uh I don't if I'm not mistaken I'm not sure the clinical evidence is very strong there. I need to look at it. I guess I have never had low testosterone. So I've never had to look at supplementation as a means to do it. So I guess I would be cautious and my knowledge is limited in terms of like the true evidence for clinical interventions. The thing that's interesting around sort of male hormone and I imagine it's the same for women but I don't I don't know anything about them. Um the relationship between it's such a [ __ ] like balance beam of LH FSH testosterone free sh >> There is no It seems to me total [ __ ] white belt. >> It seems to me like one intervention is not one intervention. It's it starts to roll away into this domino effect. Yeah. So talking about I want my testosterone higher. It's like well do you >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Do you maybe ref need to I mean people that go on uh enlomophene or hCG chronically >> uh what is it? So like 20% or some big percent of them talk about that inducing depression. >> Yeah. You go. Okay. So, you're worried that you had low energy because of your low testosterone and you tried to take a non like exogenous solution to create that. So, I'm going to kickstart my own production by using these compounds. And in the process of doing that, I've made myself have depression, which almost certainly made your [ __ ] low if you get low energy, you got low mood now. >> Yeah. >> And so, yeah, be be careful how you intervene with that. I think >> that's very true. Yeah, it's like we I guess the way we thought about it is we approached this holistically. We just said um our frame entirely is scientific evidence just like what does the body of evidence say to do and we took the most powerful molecules in the form of foods, supplements and then lifestyle, sleep, diet, exercise and then therapies, sauna, agebot, you know, and we just said like take the very best high performer ones, put it all into one package and do the entire package. And it makes sense like if you if you're taking care of the entire body on every level, you have these systematic effects online. >> Exactly. So I think people approach these things very narrowly, but like our hormones like is a very like you see like microplastics, right? Like microplastic in the testicles has a negative feedback loop for fertility and hormones, right? Uh the same is true with toxins. So like that's uh when we talk about testosterone we don't talk about microplastic intervention which leans back to sauna which then leads back to so like we've tried to just be holistic like give me the whole thing and let me build that into one daily practice >> so I don't have to then try to figure out like this and that thing. >> Talking of daily practices what's this 15-second phone call thing you're doing? >> Oh yeah with my friends. Yeah. So um a friend of mine introduced this to me. So he I became friends with this person and he he's very powerful and uh he would call me and he'd be like, "Brian, like blank statement." I say something to him and like, "All right, man. I love you. See you. That's it." And I was like, "That is amazing." It was so clean. It feels so good. And we just did that through like a couple months and we built this amazing friendship. and um >> 15-second friendship. >> And it was like it but it was like this deep um and I guess I I imagine in my mind like I imagine what his day must be like. Uh like he's juggling all kinds of crazy things. He clearly does not have time for like sit down, hang out, do this and that, but yet he does such a great job of maintaining really meaningful like deep relationships. >> So when he says he loves you, it's like you feel it. It's like he's not like just saying it. Yeah. >> And so I I appreciated his model of friendship so much because I before I was stuck in this idea like, "Hey Chris, you want to hang out?" You know, >> it's a big deal. Let's [ __ ] give [ __ ] Airbnb. I'll book a week off work. >> Yeah. It's like a 4-hour thing, right? Versus calling you like, "Hey man, like what's up? How you doing?" And like you you can answer because you know I'm not going to be on the phone for 20 minutes. >> Yeah. I I mean the uh I did this series life hacks on the show when I first started and we do one every year now at Christmas and uh >> back in the day when that was one of the big thrusts of the show we'd often get asked okay what have 500 or thousand life hacks that you what are the >> you know highest impact ones. The first one is always sleep with your phone outside of your bedroom. >> Yeah. >> Um but it's an instant 10 to 15% improvement in quality of life on that one thing. Uh, so that's actually before sleep. That's take the charging table outside of your bedroom and put it in the kitchen. Uh, but the second one was text your friends when you think of them. >> Yes. >> And, uh, this is my equivalent of the 15-second friendship. >> Um, and it's just, hey man, like thinking of you, hope hope you're well, like miss, whatever. Uh, or a photo that you you think about your friend and you find an old photo and you send it and um, it really speedruns friendship. you become tighter friends with people >> Yeah. >> who you've known for less long than people that you've known longer that you don't do that with or don't do it with you. >> And um I really loved it and it really brightened my day and it felt like I was doing something good for someone at the at a very low cost. It was like high impact. It was high leverage friendship, right? Like very very low investment, very very high impact. Little bit of a giggle and it keeps it going. Um and the other thing it does which is I guess a hack from my world of running nightclubs is an idea of assume familiarity. >> Yes. >> So assuming familiarity >> in this context is most people that don't know each other particularly well have this sense that any text has to be super verbose. Hello dear Brian. I hope that you are and the family are well. I must congratulate you on the duh duh duh duh as opp as opposed to like funny meme >> or whatever. Hey man, thinking of you. Hope all's good. Whatever, right? Like not even you can take it a little bit too far and it sounds a bit entitled or a bit like brisk or or or like um sharp uh expectant, but if I'm like, "Dude, love the YouTube video. By the way, I'm an ageb for like that's oh, >> thank you for [ __ ] consuming my [ __ ] and for the respect. By the way, here's the thing. I don't need to We don't need foreplay." Yeah, right. Let's get [laughter] let's get let's get into it. >> Yeah. I mean, since we hung out in Prosper, we've been doing that, right? Like, and it's >> [ __ ] No talk for 3 months and then no talk for three months then. >> And I and I feel as fluid with you as I feel with any friend I've had for any duration of time. Like, we get each other. Like, we're on the same wavelength. We tap into each other's lives. Like most of my friends, I'm actually I'm really surprised most of my friends who are powerful and successful and famous are lonely, >> right? Like they um they work all the time. They have work relationships, but the amount of time they have to be down and hanging out is so small. And so if you don't have some mechanism to create deep friendships like and time is not your you can't use time. Yeah. you have to use something else. >> Yeah. It needs it needs to be a longer lever to be able to >> work. And so I just I've just been surprised that u people have this perception that uh they always perceive others like they must have it all. But loneliness is a real thing. And so I guess again I say this for those who are listening uh if you feel lonely right understand like your pattern is pretty similar to other people's patterns independent of resources or position or power status. the people at the top of the tree are struggling with the loneliness just so I mean and this is the cool thing is like when I talk to my friends and like they'll disclose that and like it's a really you have to be >> it's um it's a scary thingful thing >> yeah it is to to actually disclose that it's like I don't have any friends like I I had a a friend of mine connected me with a celebrity the day like one of the A-list celebrities in in Hollywood I said talked to this person I said why don't you come over to my house we'll do a don't die dinner get 10 or 15 of your favorite come on over and like I'll do this whole thing and I explained it and they said I don't really have any friends and yeah it was like just such a shocking moment cuz like they are epicenter celebrity >> and uh one it was cool they just said that and two I was like amazing so like I will put the group together for you come on over we'll have a great time but yeah just like so people realize it's a very common thing in in our modern society so nothing to feel ashamed about or feel bad about like you can make these corrective actions by doing like small things like voice notes, quick calls. >> Yeah. And also by by making the bar so low, if you swing and whiff it and this person doesn't actually really want to be friends. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> Whatever. Doesn't think you're cool or they're too busy or whatever the [ __ ] They're not on the they're not ready to be friends. >> Yeah. >> Um >> you haven't invested anything. >> No. >> You know, you sent you tried to you met somebody, you sent them a few texts like whatever. Like it doesn't matter. Um I just want to loop back to that thing I said about the emotions piece before. So I I I understand what you mean uh with regards to sort of creating a philosophy. Um but I am still interested in what the practices are and how you look to prioritize the emotional well-being, >> the social element, if there is a spiritual element to this too. um and how you come to think about how do I say it um offspreadsheet markers yeah >> of of longevity and well-being. >> Yeah. So in 2025 we did five don't die summits. We of 1500 people they were all sold out. We brought people together and we did uh we experimented with different formats but we brought them together. We did education courses. We did raves like at 7:00 in the morning. It was amazing. We had so much fun. Uh we did um group exercises. We did group therapy stuff. So I think 2026. So we learned a lot by doing this. We're going to do this in 2026 where I've been uh actually piloting a don't die fam in my neighborhood. So I've got several friends and we had this format where we get together every week. Uh first we take a shot of olive oil. >> Okay. >> Uh ritualistic. >> Yep. [laughter] And then we each go around and we apologize to our body for something we did that week. >> Okay. >> And so it's kind of funny >> close to a religion here. >> It's kind of funny. It's kind of fun. And then we go around and each person talks about like what's on their mind, what they're struggling with. And so it's a very like open floor supportive >> alcoholics anonymous longevity. It's like YPO AA. It's like it's a very similar format that's kind of stamped out through various organizations, but it's basically like small intimate trusted group where you can be vulnerable and there's a specific approach where you're you're focusing on don't die, but really it's about human connection. It's about sharing and what you're struggling with. So whether it's that or something else, we're trying to figure out how if Die is to become the fastest growing ideology in history. like we're trying to figure out what is the path for that to happen. And so it can happen in small clusters from around the world. We could even have physical locations. We could have uh something like a sovereign fund where we have a c you know we pull our capital and we start funding things together. So there's we're we're sorting on community connection emotional social in 2026. The f past couple years have been like how do you create something novel, >> sticky, distinct >> and create a structure around it. and now we're going to create the rapper. So, it's just like the next stage of where we're at. >> Very cool. When we first ever spoke, however long ago that was, I asked you a question about um I didn't use this word, but the grief of not starting earlier. >> Mhm. the potential resentment that you can uh place at your caregivers and your friends and your culture of this didn't happen earlier and the entropy you you started on the other side of the roller coaster right you're like oh [ __ ] like I'm fighting against it as opposed to improving it you know like I can't get younger in the same way as I could have gotten you or at least slowed it down or whatever >> I'm interested in your relationship with that dynamic now a few years hence more time to think what could have been but also to think well I can't by focusing on that I'm losing the very time which I'm claiming is now being more limited that seems like a very stupid way to spend my life. >> Yeah. uh where have you come into land with you said before and I think it's a really good point you it's not too late you can reverse or you slow down like you can really really make great progress no matter where you are but the emotional connection to what could have been had I have started earlier what I've done to my body the grief that stuff what's your relationship with that like now >> yeah I mean as you might guess you know I now I view this question through the moral frameworks right like basically the premise of the question is that um I'm in a low status position because of these preceding events, you know, that I I didn't uh I didn't have parents that knew health and wellness when I was a kid. I didn't understand health and wellness my myself in my 20s. I fell prey to cultural norms that say that said destroy yourself, right? And so the way I'd evaluate any person answering your question is how skilled are they in taking a low status position and converting it to high status. Like how do you flip the question for me to find virtue in my place and attribute you know charity to what's preceded because really it never makes sense for a person to wallow in grief. Like yes, it makes sense to reconcile, like be honest, like we can acknowledge that may have been a mistake. You know, we can contemplate, you know, we wish it wouldn't have happened, but really uh you're you don't want to sit in negative emotions. It's just not good for you. It's you don't want to beat yourself up. And so you can either take a a a step where you say, "I'm reconciled. I'm neutral. Like, I'm I'm fine with it." Or you can say, "I'm going to invert it." But that's what I've really learned uh more than anything in my life. This is what I try to train my kids is don't be subject don't lose your agency and be subject to pain. That is self-induced. You can choose how you feel. This is kind of like Victor Frankle's man search for meaning, right? He's in the concentration camp and he's like, I'm not going to let these conditions determine my state of mind. I'm going to choose that state of mind myself. But that's really ultimate agency. And so I'd take your question and and I would invert it and be like, um, this is the most interesting time in the history of 4 point whatever billion years that we've been on this planet. I am so fortunate to be alive right now and I'm like in my 40s where I'm still like in my prime and I can have a meaningful impact on what happens to the human race. Like that is a possibility. So, I wouldn't trade anything under any circumstance to trade the position I'm in right now because it's the coolest moment in the history of the human race. And so, like quick inversion and now I'm like, damn, pretty cool. I'm I'm pumped about the situation. >> My shoulders My shoulders have relaxed a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I remember you tweeting a while ago, do you think you're going to die in a super ironic way? >> Of course. Guaranteed. Yeah. [laughter] How's that not possible? It's uh for sure. I mean, like, so this morning when I was coming here, I I was opening a a glass jar of uh sauerkraut, fermented sauerkraut. I popped it and it sliced my fingers in three places, bleeding all over the place, and I was like, you know what? If I die from like a glass bottle of fermented sauerkraut, like, wouldn't that be just like beautifully ironic? So, yes, like, uh, I hope it's spectacular. I hope it's really something epic and not something lame. >> Sauerkraut would be a cool way to go. [laughter] I mean I guess like uh you tell me what would be like an epic like >> oh wow >> what hits the timeline where you're like okay like like >> ready to go with that. Ah that would be cool. I mean we sort of car action a 70s action movie rolling down a huge cliff would be that that seems like a pretty cool way to go. Uh certainly not being the passenger of a >> a plane where the pilot decides that he's sick and he just wants to crash it into a >> into a mountain side. That would suck. Something something that's just me. Something that I don't want to take anybody else with me if it's if I'm going to go up in flames. >> Like, you know, hit by a bus, but the bus goes on. >> Yeah. >> Like uh >> Yeah. Yeah. Like like caught in the action. Caught in the act of adventure, >> right? Like >> like you're on you're doing your thing. You're pushing the boundaries. You're in your happy state >> eating fermented foods. >> Yeah. You know, like I I think of Shackleton, you know, and I think of his uh going through the Antarctic and their survival to the whole like, you know, they were all ready to uh have a noble death. Yeah. Like we wouldn't have found out about it. They would have been gone to history, but still uh you know, they were I I like that kind of uh >> I love those stories. There's a a book that you may love if you like Alfred Lansing's Endurance, which is the best retelling of Shackleton's Crossing. I think there's a a wonderful one called The Forgotten Highlander by Alistister Urkard. uh uh British soldier, Scottish, uh captured by the Japanese, Bridge Over the River, Quai, Forced Labor, Hiroshima, Bomb Blast, like everything, everything, everything, everything everything. And then I read um Unbroken, >> Unbroken, >> Louis Zampirini, so I only I never even know cuz I'm not American, right? So I would get Shackleton and I would get Alistister Ukart, but I'd never get Zampirini. I didn't even know he existed. and he like meets Hitler at the [ __ ] Olympics and he goes through all of this stuff. So if you like Unbroken, dude, >> uh the forgotten Highlander will take your head off. >> Yeah, Unbroken. That broke me. I mean like he's like on his raft getting shot at from the Japanese airplanes underneath the raft getting eat by sharks. Back on the raft of bullet holes like And that's like on day 142 of not eating food. Like it's >> Yeah. And the dude's eating all the chocolate and you're like >> your your best mate. Yeah. All the [ __ ] chocolate. Yeah, dude. I those stories to me are wonderful. I I ruptured in Achilles in 2020 uh playing cricket, fully British. And um asked a couple of friends that had been through some sort of similarly traumatic injuries, big [ __ ] off severe thing. >> Yeah. >> And uh they said The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. Uh uh Forgotten Highlander by Alistister Urkart. Um, uh, uh, Ross Edgley's book, The Art of Resilience, which is about his swim around. He was the first person to swim around the UK. Oh, yeah. Six, six hours on, six hours off. >> Um, and then a Amazon Prime documentary called Resurfaced with Andy Murray. Andy Murray's tennis player, Scottish tennis player, lo Scots. >> And, um, he gets a a hip replacement. That lateral movement means that hips really get tested in tennis players. and he's aging out a little and uh they try and do rehab, they try and do surgery, they try and do surgery. It's just not working. And really the only solution I think is maybe uh ceramic socket with a steel joint. Um but it's not meant for uh like high impact sport. It's very smooth and and very reliable and the outcomes are great, >> but not if you're pushing it to the sort of steel up against ceramic like porcelain or whatever it is. It's not going to last or maybe it's not. And it's just this journey of him going through it and he's working in his uh house like just obsessive just so like unrelenting. And those sorts of stories I think are really empowering and really enlightening and and very inspiring. And it's the ability what I'm really interested in playing with now is the ability to take that kind of inspiration, be like, "Fuck, like I' I've been kicked in the nuts a good bit this year. >> All right, you got this. Like you can lean in. You can do this thing." >> And then being able to switch it off. >> That's right. >> I need to be able to switch it off. If I can't switch it off, >> then I am >> pressing the accelerator driving downhill. I'm giving myself more of the thing that I already have too much of. Yes. So, uh, playing with that tolerance, like a dose dependent inspiration in that way, if that makes sense. >> Yeah. It's a U-shaped curve. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You need just in like too little, you're not doing anything. Too much, you're wide but tired, like just about the right. >> It's probably the skill set society needs most help on right now because everyone is right up to the red actually in the red zone and just there constantly. >> It's I think it's probably like a chronic thing of our society. M Brian Johnson, ladies and gentlemen, dude, you're great. I really appreciate you. I appreciate your friendship. Uh what can people expect next however long of years, months, what's what's coming up? Well, I this is my prediction. Um AI is center stage already for society. It will continue to be center stage. Uh I'm not talking about time frames of 6 months or 12 months, but like over the next few years, it's going to just continually to be evolved to be the primary thing of our attention. And as that happens, we are going to want the stability to understand the world in ways that makes us feel safe, that we have meaning and purpose, that things are stable. And I think this is where Don't Die will step in. It will be a structurally sound, coherent, emotionally resonant ideology and and moral philosophy that actually answers the most important questions for us as a species individually, collectively with AI, with the planet. >> Like we're just due for a revolution. So yeah, in the coming years, that's what I hope to bring to the world is like that we actually can find coherence >> in our existence and realize the spectacular nature of this moment, the most precious thing that's ever existed and it's like really ours. We I guess an invitation to like sober up, realize how special this is. And for us like we we need to prove ourselves worthy of the future. We oftentimes don't think about like we we want to be we want to demonstrate our value to our peers, to our to our co-workers, to our family, to our partners. I think that same relationship exists to the future that it really does ask us to rise up. And so I hope um above all I hope I'm a a positive influence of people's lives that um when they find themselves in moments of of struggle or weakness, they've got somebody in their court saying like you can do this and um yeah, so I'm just uh really excited about what's happening. I feel like I've been working my entire life for this moment and I'm excited to play the game. >> I'm excited to see what happens, man. Just don't do the [ __ ] don't start wearing white robes, grow your hair out. Like I don't want to see the cult leader pivot. But, uh, what I do think is cool is the, um, like sanguin self-awareness thing. I think that's really important to like, >> yeah, >> just read it out. Uh, you mentioned a couple of resources like a a a food guide or something. Is there any are there any cool lead magnety bits that people can snag that >> Yeah. So, I'll give you I'll give you the food guide. Um, I'm also I'm publishing I have a website protocol.brijson.co co um.com and I'm hopefully in the next couple weeks I'll repost all my updated stuff. So if you want to just see my journey and what I'm doing now and why I'll have it there for you. So like a free guide. Yep. >> And then I'm also writing a book. So uh >> Holy [ __ ] >> Yeah. Don't die. So I'm halfway through and it's basically going to be like hopefully a guide and then um yeah I'm trying to make this easy. I know it's a lot. And then also I'm I we just raised 60 million for blueprint and so >> Oh yeah. What's going on with that? What is that? >> Yeah. So basically uh blueprint is don't die in action >> and so in the same way where you say if I want to go to this destination I put in an address go and it tells him what streets to go down or where's the construction where's the the crashes blueprint is going to be basically like AI for your health. It's like you say I want to be healthy and we say come on in we got you and so it will take us some time to build that but that's what I have today with my team of doctors like I just follow a practice where we measure me we we get the data we look at evidence and we say do this do this do this do this >> doing this at scale >> exactly so I don't have to chase all these esoteric hard things so blueprint is basically like autonomous health for humans where I just say like I want to be healthy and you get into a system and now we just run the data evidence repeat again so hopefully like that's like the >> exciting times so It it feels like uh I know you're going back to where you started back into founder mode. I hope that you >> don't take your eye off what the ball is supposed to be with regards to that like the temptation man to be we could build it more this is time it's good this time it's for humanity. >> You go well yeah service is good but so is looking after like serving you first. >> Yeah. You know like the the one thing I care to accomplish in life like everything else can go by the wayside. The one thing is what is high status? That's the only game I care to play. And so from specifically from the frame of from the perspective of the year 2500 when they look back at this moment and they're looking at moments to say uh Plato, Aristotle, Renaissance like they'll say a new era was born of a new status seeking thing. >> Okay. >> And like that's otherwise like the entrepreneurship stuff like I really enjoy it. It's been my jam, but that's not where I want this to work. I want to be successful. It's actually a practical manifestation, but I have one objective in existence is that >> [ __ ] yeah, Ryan. I appreciate you, man. Until next time. I'm looking forward to the book. >> Thanks, man. >> Thank you very much for making it to the end of an entire episode. You are not sufficiently Tik Tokrained that you've switched off during it. Uh, and that's something to be proud of. Maybe maybe that's the best thing you've achieved [music] today. And I'm here with you. Um, why not go two for two and watch one of my favorite episodes right here.