A (2:08)

Where's it gonna go?

B (2:08)

Where's it gonna go?

A (2:09)

Tuck it into the waistband.

B (2:10)

Exactly. Pull it up. Yeah, 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 metabolic health, your cardiovascular health, your physiological health, and your hormone health. And so if those things are not in place, it doesn't happen. And so if someone's bragging about four hours of sleep at night and, like, they feel fine, they're doing great, they have no boners.

A (2:55)

You might have survived with the sleep, but your erection wasn't there.

B (2:57)

This is why I started talking about these things. We were 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, the 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 your body's not in a good shape.

A (3:50)

He's saying that nighttime erections are like the weathervane or the canary in the coal mine. That's an aggregate of a ton of other shit that's going on.

B (3:59)

Exactly right. Yeah. It basically is a representative marker, and you can't do anything about it. You can't go to the gym and work out your boners. Right. You can't pump iron, you go to sleep, and either happens or it doesn't. You have no control over it. So it's this really great marker.

A (4:12)

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. 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.

B (4:28)

Exactly right, 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.

A (4:34)

You can think of Lord of Rings all of you want. But it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.

B (4:38)

I mean like the company that does this, that makes this device, they've got a 20,000 nights data set. And my scores just trounce everybody in the dataset. And so we've worked very hard.

A (4:52)

Like, is that the thing you're most proud of?

B (4:53)

You know, 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'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, doing addictive things, nicotine vaping. So it really is 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.

A (5:42)

Great point. It's a weird trades like that. I think most people understand if you're smoking, particularly cigarettes, if you're drinking very regularly, if you are overweight, these are. There are visual markers right now that also suggest you're probably going to be pretty fucked down the line. 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. I guess it would be like a 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 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.

B (6:35)

It's like going bankrupt gradually and then subtly suddenly.

A (6:37)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're right to call out the fact that there's this sort of pedestalization of it. I think about 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 Tira or a Huberman. And I guess these guys all have their own pockets Right. Your hard longevity. Now moving into culture with limited balance on. I'm just doing what it takes to be as healthy as possible. 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. So we don't know that sleep's important. Matthew Walker comes out and says, should watch how much you sleep. That was the first time I ever learned about it. Right. And I think we'd 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 fucking important and it'll improve your performance right now. And now we' already gone back to like the next iteration of the hustle and grind culture, which is much more of a pushback against over optimization. So there was. This is important.

B (8:02)

Off.

A (8:03)

No, it's not Hustle and grind.

B (8:04)

Yeah.

A (8:05)

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.

B (8:11)

Yeah.

A (8:12)

Off. You're over optimizing. Like we can just do it ourselves. Do you know what I mean? It's like this ping pong, like it gets tighter and tighter and tighter.

B (8:20)

Yeah, it's like also thick. I mean, I'm waging memetic 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 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 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 thing where it's like, if you get four hours of sleep a 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 can also say, you know, if you're not well rested, if you don't have good nourishment, if you're not exercising, you have functional IQ 10 to.

A (9:47)

12 points lower, nearly a full standard deviation.

B (9:50)

So it's actually making you dumb right now. Like what, what do people care about more in that high status place than their intellect? Right. Their ability to, to actually maybe only.

A (9:59)

After that would be their erections.

B (10:01)

Yeah, exactly. I mean, like there's, it's so primal. It's like, how smart am I and like how sexually formidable am I a person?

A (10:10)

Right?

B (10:10)

Like that's, that's who we are as these animals. And so I'm trying to take those high status things, bump them to low status and invert the arc. Otherwise when you make these like, good natured, like sleep because it's good for you, no one gives a fuck. You have to hit the heart of power because unless you pick to speak to powerwalls 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 and the tribe, I don't want to be ostracized. I want a high status, I want high respect. I want high power as much as.

A (10:42)

I can get, which is, talk to me about power, wealth and status. Is there a hierarchy to you? Is the one which is more seductive than the rest? Is there a sequence that people seem to move through on their evolution to wipe themselves, rid themselves of the slime?

B (10:59)

Yeah, I mean, you can just jump in between groups and just see it so cleanly. Like, for example, I spent some time in D.C. recently. 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. That's like the ultimate objective. And so different communities have different levers. 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'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 their mimetic essence onto the world.

A (11:56)

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 span, health span predictions in there. Given that that's been going already for such a long time and has had a huge data set. Right. I think it's like 80,000, maybe even more. What's your perspective on that, given what you're interested in?

B (12:28)

I mean, there's probably some truisms on like humans respond favorably to having robust relationships. Like that's true long ago, it's true now. 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 that is a good retrospective study. I'm not sure all of it's going to carry over into the future. So in the coming years, if we figure out some of these new therapies to rejuvenate ourselves in ways we couldn't before, it may be an entirely different environment in which we look at long lived 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 being active are going away. But I do think we're at a moment in time where if you have that study going on and we were talking in 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.

A (13:26)

What are the specific differences that are going to have the most lever behind them?

B (13:30)

I mean, there's an open question like, what is AI in our lives? Is AI a relationship or not? Do we have human relationships? What are the contours of those things? What do longevity therapies do for us? If we start playing around with gene therapies, what does that alter? I mean, for example, you look at ozempic 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 timescale. This is not like next two or three years. But still we are in this open frontier where there may be some things that continue as universalisms, that just as a biological species, they're true. Also, it's a radical change and I'm more interested in what is gonna be different than what has been.

A (14:24)

Yeah. Morgan Housel's book, Same As Ever, 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. Yeah, it's quite nice. 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're going to go, but now.

B (15:09)

Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah. Like we, we. I've read. I just finished 1929, but the stock market crash, also tripping on Utopia and also History of Western Thought. I finished those three books last week. And like, the. The theme that comes through is that humans replay the same book, 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 where it's 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 I have to concede, probably 99% of my lived experience as NPC, I probably have one shot at a novel thought. Or it's just the state of play and it's very hard to get outside of that. But Once you realize that, it's somehow relieving that that's the case, but also challenging. You have to figure out, how do I pull myself out and try to find moments of sobriety to see what this moment is.

A (16:25)

Yeah. Again, speaking of the Christian piece, the meek, the sort of humility, the you're less special than you think you are. It's grounding in that way. I don't think British people need more of that. Maybe Americans do. We've already got.

B (16:37)

God, I love the Brits. I love how ornery they are and brutally honest and acrimonious. And I find.

A (16:49)

Sanguine.

B (16:50)

I do. I find those personality traits to be so charming.

A (16:53)

Well, I think everybody misses what they don't have. Right. 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. That's why I came over here. I was like, oh my God. It's like being. Taking a drink and not knowing I was thirsty. I was so nourished by this. And then for you. I've always wanted someone to tell me I'm a prick. Finally, these people will say it to me straight. I'm interested, sort of relating to the Harvard longevity thing. From the outside, a lot of what you're focused on seems to be kind of the raw physiological. But there's a huge emotional piece to longevity, regardless of how much AI is going to change things. And some of that will manifest in sympathetic stress, chronic stress, blood pressure, sleep, blah, blah, blah. But more than that as well is what is your moment to moment experience 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. And how are you looking at those two elements? Do you even conceive of them within your map framework?

B (18:15)

Yeah, I mean, first, I don't really feel emotions, so. No, just joking. 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, 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.

A (18:38)

Was it like that when you first started?

B (18:39)

Yes.

A (18:40)

Really? So you saw the writing on the wall with regards to AI before normies.

B (18:44)

Like me did in 20. 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.

A (18:54)

What was the graph?

B (18:55)

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, it really does feel like this is like very much like a feel, 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 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 superintelligence, existence itself is the highest virtue. And so back to this book of the history of Western thought. Plato, Aristotle, medieval 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 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 language to communicate a new moral philosophy on what we do as a species in this moment before we continue.

A (20:40)

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B (22:51)

Yeah, it means that we are going to struggle to keep up and it's going to be so unnerving to us that 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, the. The focus was financial gain. You know, invest in the stock market, get credit to invest more. Like lever 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 and 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 the psychosis where like, can you keep your shit together? And so people focus a lot on AI. Like, is AI a threat? Should we posit like 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? Is, is the bottom falling out? The real risk of, you know, then humans do human stuff, right?

A (24:26)

Like we, what's the bottom falling out?

B (24:28)

In this scenario, 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, 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 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 now. This is not guaranteed. It's just as 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 like actually tied up by this, 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.

A (25:46)

If the mission of being alive is simply mortality, does that not 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. Um, but that's not how humans are wired. You know this.

B (26:09)

Yeah.

A (26:09)

Like power, status, money. Like, we are going to try and even if it's just I play pickleball on a week weekend with my friends, I want to become better at pickleball next week. If I'm not better at pickleball, there is this sense of lack that comes through. But on one side there is sort of enoughness. 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.

B (26:39)

Really? Yeah.

A (26:40)

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?

B (26:59)

As a vision versus, 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. 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 smallpox 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 an 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 a bigger game than capitalism.

A (28:32)

Can you flex it in the same way?

B (28:34)

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 again, like my entire game is to make death related things that are high status, make them low status. Right? That's my whole thing. And so in this case, you could start 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 toxins, like all those 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're actively introducing molecules into people's body that induce death versus more healthy ingredients. So that's an example where you start assigning a quantitative measure on what an entity, individual or company is doing into society.

A (29:34)

Like a carbon offset, but for longevity.

B (29:36)

Exactly. But defined at this really granular fashion. And 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.

A (29:55)

What have been the biggest changes in your approach or beliefs about health and longevity over the last few years? We, we, you came on the show maybe three years ago and then we got to hang out in Roatan a couple of years ago. But lots of research, lots of experimentation, self experimentation. What have been the biggest pivots?

B (30:17)

Yeah, I'd say one is do less. Like most things in health and wellness, 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, everybody has their thing, let's say somebody's thing is like they love skittles and they just, you know, can't help themselves to have a bag late at night, then 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 to compensate for that, they'll go to a gym, they'll go get red light therapy, they'll do a cold plunge, they'll do all this stuff that isn't the 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. Most people are doing that compensation. And even though 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 the reason why that's hard is because they're not sleeping. Not sleeping well just destroys your willpower. And they're not sleeping well because five other preceding things are the case. So I try to help people understand. Here's a five step 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.

A (31:57)

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?

B (32:06)

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 10pm, you wanna have your final meal of the day at 6pm So 4 hours. I personally do like 10 to 12 hours. Cause I really like that digestion time. It lowers my heart rate to like 39 to 40 beats per minute. So food four hours before, 60 minutes before bed, screens off. So that's very hard because we're all addicted to our phones. But hard cut phones off cause 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 are really bad for melatonin release. Um, you want to have a, like 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've 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 the 60 minute time window before bed is really precious in that you, 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's. So like Sleep Brian comes on duty at 7:30pm Cause my bedtime's 8:30pm and then all the Brian's line up and they want to talk to me.

A (33:47)

How many are there?

B (33:48)

Oh man, there's like probably a dozen. Like probably loud.

A (33:50)

It's like a Bonnie Blue meetup. Okay.

B (33:52)

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 fucking 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 gonna 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 stupid, anything, 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 2am and they're like we're back. And so you've gotta have some kind of reconciliation process to calm those voices. So like those are the big ones, like food, light, wind down routine, screens off that. Yeah, like, and then caffeine. So you wanna have your final caffeine around noon. Each day has a six hour half life. Those are the real big ones. So, but what you want is like for a man you want to be like 50 ish. 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. And once you get that nighttime routine knocked down, then you can start exercising very well. If you sleep really well, your willpower skyrockets. If you sleep poorly, it knocks your prefrontal cortex offline. You can't really have much willpower. So that's number one.

A (35:26)

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.

B (35:35)

But.

A (35:35)

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 hundred biomarkers and their team of expert physicians analyze the data and give you actionable advice to improve your health and lifespan. Seeing your testosterone levels and tons of other biomarkers charted over the course of a year with actionable insights to improve them gives you a clear path to making your life better. And unfortunately, getting your blood work drawn and analyzed like this usually costs thousands. But with function, it's just $499. And you can get an additional $100 off, bringing it down to 399 bucks. Get the exact same blood panels that I get and save a hundred bucks by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com modernwisdom that's functionhealth.com modernwisdom how do you avoid an optimal routine? Becoming a fragile superstition?

B (36:35)

Yeah, people try to. They come with that argument. That's great. Like, the body loves routine. Now, it does not mean that you have to always be in a routine, but the body is built for routine. So for example, if your bedtime is 10pm, your circadian rhythm is locked in to 10pm and your body expects sleep to happen at 10pm this is what jet lag is. Yes, exactly. And so like you have a garbage truck that rolls through your body at around 10:30pm and it's there to pick up all the trash.

A (37:13)

What is that?

B (37:14)

It's your, your basically your cleansing system of like your, your glymphatic system is cleaning all the trash from your body. And if you're not asleep at 10:30pm and in your deep sleep mode, it's going to not come. So you've got trash buildup 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, I'm going to go to bed at 1. That's okay, I'll sleep in tomorrow morning. Make 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 hormetic 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.

A (37:55)

I was going to say, do you. When it comes to prioritization, is duration more important than regularity or are they equal?

B (38:02)

Regularity by far is the best one.

A (38:04)

Yeah, more than duration.

B (38:06)

Oh. So I'm sorry, you said duration. I don't know. I'm not sure on that one.

A (38:12)

It's kind of like picking your favorite child.

B (38:14)

Yeah, yeah. Because you kind of need both. Mm. Yeah. Like the, the lesson here is because these are bad habits people have. You need to be on time, you can't make it up. You can't skip during the week and then make it up on the weekend. It doesn't work that way. So you miss a garbage truck every day, it doesn't come back. Like, sure, maybe in the weekend. But then you're so. You're so off on your circadian rhythm that like, now is the garbage truck even in service?

A (38:40)

Okay, so I understand what you mean with regards to the timing, but the 60 minute 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 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. And he had this 60 minute wind down routine which was blue light blockers on, and the mouth tape and the nose strip and the magnesium biglycinate and 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, lights come on, he's like, ah, he's blinded. He hasn't looked at light 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. 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.

B (40:20)

Yeah, yeah. I mean people can find their happy balance. I think if you look at the various archetypes of people. Some people love that kind of regiment. They love to be 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.

A (40:55)

Yeah, yeah.

B (40:55)

So it's just like find your gem. But understand there are principles at play which you can't just override.

A (41:02)

Regardless of whether you like structure or don't. If you have a three hour swing between bedtimes across a week, your body doesn't work in that way. Okay, What are the things that people focus on for sleep that don't move the needle?

B (41:24)

I, I really, I guess I take 300mcgs of magnesium of melatonin just like so a third of a gram microgram milligram.

A (41:33)

Yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People, people way, way, way overcooked.

B (41:38)

Like 1 milligram, 5 milligrams.

A (41:39)

Like there's 30 and 50 milligrams.

B (41:41)

Yeah, exactly. I do a very tiny dose of melatonin. It's to offset the calcification that happens in my pineal gland. Like as you age, your pineal gland calcifies, you produce less melatonin. So like a little offset teeny bit.

A (41:52)

So in 10 years time, maybe you'll take 500 micrograms.

B (41:55)

Yeah, exactly. And so it's a very small touch. Otherwise I don't take anything for sleep. And so I'd so much rather build habits. And this is the same thing like Americans, just like we are, we take more antidepressants than any country in the world.

A (42:08)

Quick fix.

B (42:09)

We love pills like we love pills to solve fundamental problems and habits Gummy or a powder. Yeah. Habits are the strongest ones. So, like, that's why I focus on the. Just build your sturdy habits in the archetype you are. That's the tried and true thing that delivers the best. Now, if you want to try to amplify with whatever you take, cool. But generally speaking, it's really about habits.

A (42:30)

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 the amount of willpower that I'm supposed to have as opposed to however much is diminished. I'm a shit sleep from the night before I've arrived. Behold my litany of shitty habits.

B (42:56)

Exactly.

A (42:57)

Like a guy in a side alley going, would you care to peruse my wares of shitty habits? 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.

B (43:16)

Okay, so actually I'll show you mine, but I wonder if this resonates or not with people, but I had this issue where at 7pm I would overeat every night.

A (43:26)

Yeah. Evening eating for me is the only time. And no one ever overeats in a breakfast. Oh, yeah, it was just 9am and I gorged myself on Snickers.

B (43:34)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, maybe like in a weekend brunch where you order, you know, pancakes, you're like, oh, my God, it's a one off.

A (43:39)

Yeah, that was a bad idea. I don't want to do that again.

B (43:41)

Yeah, I feel awful. Yeah. So, like, your willpower goes down all day. It makes sense. Like 7pm like, you have stress, you're worn down. Like, you just want to, like, whatever. So that was my issue. I overate at 7pm and so I did it every day for years. And every night was the same battle, right? Like, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna 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, fucking 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 in jest, evening, Brian, you're fired. Like you, Brian, who occupied me from 5pm to 7 to 10pm you're an unreliable thing, like, every day. Yeah, steward, you basically Come up with these rationalizations, like, tonight's the last night. Tomorrow morning we're going to exercise really hard. It's one bite. Whatever your specific entry point is, you always convince me to do it.

A (44:40)

You're a slippery motherfucker.

B (44:41)

Exactly. And you basically make Morning Brian miserable. You make dad Brian less good. Less good dad, like ambitious Brian is hurting because of you. And so I said, you're fired. And so that means from 5pm to 10pm 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'm like, hey, evening, Brian. Like, how you doing, man?

A (45:13)

You.

B (45:14)

Yeah. And like, oh, you're going to use the we're going to 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.

A (45:29)

Yeah, you're selling yourself a lie about how you're going to feel after doing.

B (45:32)

Exactly. And so yeah, that was just, it was just a rule. And so like, 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.

A (45:58)

That's cool. And the reason that I like it is because of this most recent iteration of ah, the over optimizing. Can we not just fucking like, eh, how will lame how like, you know, the stress of trying to be perfect is killing you more quickly than your imperfections. 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. Your focus on these habits is a kind of fragility 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 resolution. Because by design, they're living by fucking Vibe, so nothing's being tracked.

B (46:57)

Yeah, yeah, but you've.

A (46:59)

I've never even thought of it before, but you've fucking nailed it. Which is the I just live by moderation dude is not living by moderation. It's living by extremis. Like, you end up the moderation you put. I always use this example because I like biscuits. Cookies. I like biscuits. If you tell me, pack of Oreos, there's one outside, you can eat none of them or you can eat all of them. I'm like, done.

B (47:23)

Exactly.

A (47:23)

Right. But you can eat two of them.

B (47:26)

Exactly.

A (47:27)

Fucking Superman.

B (47:28)

No, I can't eat two of them.

A (47:29)

No. If you give me a start, maybe, I don't know, maybe some people aren't like this, I'm a eat all of them or eat none of them kind of guy. So you're what, on the surface, like, first order looks like 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 like, okay, show me how every so often. Your every so often is.

B (47:55)

Yeah, exactly.

A (47:56)

It's not that every so often. It's actually most of the time, 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, 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. And sometimes it's getting wider.

B (48:18)

Yeah.

A (48:19)

So, yeah, I think I've never thought of it before, but the. Everything in moderation is not done in moderation.

B (48:25)

Exactly.

A (48:26)

Right.

B (48:26)

Yeah. So this is like, again, a medic. Moral philosophy of warfare. So the person who's arguing for moderation is attempting to take a. A drive towards health and make that low status and make their moderation high status. So this. If you. If you really. 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. That is like, literally everything that's happening at Any moment in society ever. It's just like humans want to feel superior in high status.

A (49:14)

Okay. Do you know the inner citadel idea by Isaiah Boleyn?

B (49:19)

I don't.

A (49:19)

Allow me to teach you. I think this may be useful to you. Isaiah Berlin says, when the natural road toward 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. And a 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 announce that the desire for legs is misguided and must be subdued.

B (50:04)

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. Is pometic and moral philosophy of warfare.

A (50:13)

To feel superiority because nobody wants to feel inferior.

B (50:16)

Yeah.

A (50:16)

It's like you looked at Adlerian stuff much.

B (50:19)

Yeah, yeah.

A (50:19)

And a lot of that is driven by this. I can't be inferior.

B (50:23)

Yeah.

A (50:23)

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 than 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 fucking way ahead or yours is way ahead, there's going to be tension. 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 and tension. It's not even necessarily a pulling apart. It's, I'm going this way and you're going that way and.

B (51:16)

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 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, a couple hundred. This is what I'm saying. Like when you look, it's the highest.

A (51:50)

Status game, raw wealth. What about renowned popularity recognition? Because you look 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 think this is true. Be 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, recognition, that should be more deeply rooted and therefore less easy to satiate than money because money's more novel and money is not direct access to the thing that you need, right? Money without status can make you live and status without money can make you fucking 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 fucking infinity money do always continue to pursue status. Do you see an asymmetry here? I'm interested with your perspective on money and status.

B (52:57)

Absolutely right. I mean, I think basically I think that's correct. I think 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 you remember two games, one is what is high status, and then two is who's winning within status. And so my comment on money is that that is within context of that is high status. But if you look at broader status of what is high status, right? Like religion has played status, right? Like you look at Christianity where Jesus is like, look guys, I've got a new status game for you. And it's not what you're being told. Like I'm going to tell you a whole new rule set. And so any religion's 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 thing, and I'm trying to say this is the thing, that might lead us to make a terrible error in judgment on what we do in this moment. And that the the flip is existence itself is high status.

A (54:15)

Interesting.

B (54:16)

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.

A (54:28)

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B (56:00)

Yeah.

A (56:00)

There are physics within the system and one of the physics is one of the physical laws is status. Yeah.

B (56:06)

So really the master game in society, 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 game, the function and the reward system. Like I'm playing. They won't think about it, they won't realize that the game's been set up for them. They'll just play it.

A (56:26)

That's interesting. Yeah. So rather than trying to convince people not to play the game, you just change what the game is pointing out.

B (56:33)

Exactly. And they'll have the same fundamentals. They'll apply to the new game. So when you say existence is the Highest virtue. The same human behaviors that are stamped out throughout time. Same archetypes, same play, same direction, same stuff every single time. Just get the game right. And that's what I'm saying. Like, if this moment is so simple, just get the objective function correct.

A (56:54)

It's like some sort of judo throw that uses your opponent's momentum against them.

B (56:58)

Yeah, exactly.

A (56:59)

So to speak.

B (56:59)

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

A (57:00)

Okay, tell me about your sauna experiments. Yeah, I was watching those unfold with intrigue.

B (57:06)

So we really did. We discovered quite a few things that I didn't. I shouldn't say discovered. Um, we found out a lot of quite. Quite a few things. So one is, for those who are new to sauna, 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 will basically burn you at the temperatures you need. So dry sauna is the right traditional dry sauna. Yep, yep. 20 minutes a day at 200 degrees Fahrenheit. 83. Is that 83 Celsius? 93 Celsius. All right, 200 Fahrenheit. So three things we found. One is I was in LA during the LA wildfires when, like, 20.

A (57:46)

Yeah, that if you go.

B (57:47)

Yeah. So I was measuring my toxins in my body 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 and be like, this chemical's used in PVC pipe for housing. This chemical is like a countertop. This chemical is. You can literally see the burned houses.

A (58:15)

Breathing in Teflon and whatever else you.

B (58:17)

Could, like, down the list, you could look at the industrial solvent.

A (58:20)

There's a Kia Sorento.

B (58:22)

Yes, exactly. So my body was full of all these houses and cars that were burnt, and the sauna annihilated the toxins. It was remarkable. So that was cool. Two is, we have been trying to get my microplastics down because microplastics live in the body and the brain. And we were measuring microplastics in my blood and also my semen. And so microplastics 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 have over a 90% reduction in my blood and. And my semen microplastics. And that was A first in world demonstration of. No one had ever done that before.

A (59:03)

So. Because the microplastics test is actually kind of hard to do. Right?

B (59:06)

Exactly.

A (59:06)

Yeah.

B (59:06)

Test is hard. And no one had done semen before. No one had repaired blood and semen.

A (59:10)

Yeah, yeah. Intro, just hold. This is fascinating. But you know why kitchen detergents say 99 point kills 99.999% of bacteria?

B (59:21)

Why?

A (59:22)

It's not because they don't. They're unable to kill more bacteria. It's the testing tolerance only goes.

B (59:27)

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

A (59:28)

Then this kind of feels like too dissimilar of the same.

B (59:31)

So one is, we showed that sauna is a really efficacious detox protocol. Number two is we showed, well, we think sauna was the reason why my microplastics went down so dramatically.

A (59:46)

We relatively controlled across everything else.

B (59:48)

Exactly. It was very controlled. Like we didn't do any of therapy in that timeframe that were meaningful. And then three is 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 vascular markers. It increased my vegf. This is like you want VEGF in your body because it helps produce more capillaries and blood vessels. Like you want a higher level. It increased it by 400%, which was amazing. I had a dramatic drop of P tau, which is a, a protein in the brain that leads to Alzheimer's. So if that dropped dramatically, we also I did a test on looking at. 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 three weeks with ice, then I went two weeks without ice. In that two week window, I got smashed. So my fertility markers went down by 50%.

A (60:58)

The prices that you pay to uncover this stuff for the rest of me immortals.

B (61:02)

So I went back on ice and I've been back on ice for six weeks now and I got these results on my drive here. Okay, cool. Yeah. So I'm going to go by memory.

A (61:11)

Yeah.

B (61:12)

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 the chart numbers, like 6 to 10 times the level of like, normal fertility.

A (61:32)

So what do you think's going on there? Is that just straight vascular changes?

B (61:35)

We're not sure. I need.

A (61:36)

What do you think's going on? Come on, ballpark the mechanism for me. Have a play around.

B (61:41)

Yeah, I mean, I really need to deep dive into this more. Yeah, I. I don't know. It's. It's a really big jump. And I've been doing hyperbaric oxygen therapy. We've been doing the sauna. We haven't done really any other meaningful therapy that could boost it.

A (62:02)

Okay, so let's go through the protocol for the sauna. You said 200 degrees dry, 20 minutes? Yeah, dry. The traditional SAA ice pack on the balls?

B (62:11)

Yeah.

A (62:13)

Does time of day matter? Okay, does. What did you go for as a solution for ice pack on the balls?

B (62:21)

Yeah. So you can buy these from Amazon. They're like 8 bucks BPA free, no toxins, reusable. So yeah, they're blue. 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.

A (62:41)

The shorts in between the two.

B (62:42)

Exactly, yeah. And then like, so just have two of them in there. But yeah, if you keep them chilled, like, we wonder whether the chilling actually has an improvement. Like, we, we can't.

A (62:52)

That could be so interesting. If it's got nothing to do with the sauna, should you put an ice pack on your balls for 20 minutes?

B (62:57)

We know sauna destroys, but we wonder, like, is, is the icing because we.

A (63:01)

Saw get out of the sauna, put the ice back on.

B (63:03)

So, like, yeah, if you're, if you're working now. So we actually were going to do another experiment after this completed. I was gonna 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 three weeks of, of doing ice. And we were trying to figure out, like, why did like, 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 is.

A (63:26)

Collaboration of the two. Okay. What else have I got to ask? Are you taking any binders, like a charcoal, a cholestyramine, a nac flush type scenario, Something to Capture the heavy metals that are coming out of you.

B (63:40)

None, right? No.

A (63:41)

So it was just two pairs of cotton shorts, an ice pack and a sauna.

B (63:46)

And like a cotton towel. Wipe yourself off as you're sweating, jump in the shower.

A (63:50)

Why? To wipe yourself off.

B (63:52)

If the toxins are being excreted via sweat, just snag it when it's like hanging out your skin so it doesn't dry.

A (64:00)

Shower straight after.

B (64:01)

Yep, that's it.

A (64:03)

That's the entirety of the program.

B (64:04)

Cool.

A (64:05)

I'm gonna guess you were doing that seven days.

B (64:08)

Yeah, Every day, right? Yeah. 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.

A (64:16)

So as opposed to spending the first seven minutes getting up to temperature, also, there seems to be, from Rhonda Patrick, there seems to be some pretty good evidence about, well, you kind of extending the session's benefits somewhat. So you're stacking a few things exactly right. But I do like the idea of that talking about behavior change earlier on. Stacking habits. Yes, it's very strong. 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's in 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 them like together in that format. Anything else on sauna?

B (65:02)

Anything else? Initially, I did sauna in the morning. So in the first, like two weeks, it absolutely wrecked my sleep, like destroyed it.

A (65:11)

And doing it in the morning, well.

B (65:12)

I think just doing it period. Like, it's. It's a like 200 degrees 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.

A (65:42)

Yeah. That also means that you're going to have to be training later in the day, which is not always necessarily.

B (65:46)

Yeah, exactly. If you pair those two things exactly. Because you don't want to exercise within four hours before bedtime.

A (65:50)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Hbot, talk to me about that. I was messaging you the day that I started my HBOT was the day that you put your video out and I'm in there and you were like, I can't remember what the fuck you replied with 20 and 5, 83% with natural. Blah, blah, blah. Just because I'm in this big fucking metal dildo. And the guy that's there, Vance from Beam Hyperbarics in Austin. If anyone wants to go do a great hyperbaric Eric's place, It's fucking sick. You can book it by the hour. Vance is great. And I'm like knocking on the little. This tiny little portal out of my submarine and comes in and I just showed my phone. I'm like, I couldn't be bothered to use the radio to get outside. Like, Brian messaged are we doing this?

B (66:39)

And he sort of went, that's so funny.

A (66:42)

Yeah, put his thumb up like that. So, yeah, hyperbaric.

B (66:47)

I was. When you messaged me, I was worried about you because like a week before somebody had blown up in Arizona. So, yeah.

A (66:55)

So what does that look like?

B (66:56)

Well, so in, in hyperbaric, the idea is you pressurize. So you're actually so at atmosphere at sea level, we're about 15 pounds per square inch of. Of concentration of oxygen. At 2 atmospheres, you're at 30. So 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.

A (67:31)

Candleweight.

B (67:32)

You're bomb. Like. So if something, if, if there's a spark of any type, you just blow.

A (67:37)

Up your phone or some device that you've got with you, whatever the fuck. Okay.

B (67:42)

So.

A (67:42)

No, no, no, no, no. This was. I was not. I was. I had the. I was breathing the mask. I was cool, Great. Okay. Cool.

B (67:49)

Yeah. So, yes, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, I think to date, it's fair to say, has been the single best performing therapy we've ever done. And this is both good news and bad news, because the bad news Is that it's expensive, it's inaccessible, it's time consuming, 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.

A (68:13)

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 house. Oh God, now you're telling me I need to produce my own oxygen. This thing weighs fucking 2 tons. Where does it fit?

B (68:27)

Totally. Yeah. And like, who has 90 minutes in a day to go do this thing? So I would just say for people who have a serious condition and there's a variety of conditions that this could address, like even cognitive decline or, you know, wounds for diabetes, what would be on the list? So there's a lot of emergent evidence for 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. It is used for diabetics who can't heal very well. It's used for healing. So people who've had surgeries to accelerate the healing process. If you have some kind of injury you're really trying to overcome, that can be great. So there are some telling me that.

A (69:08)

Some athletes post surgery are in 90 minutes three times a day.

B (69:12)

Exactly.

A (69:13)

They're trying to hit that 98 session number. Number within weeks.

B (69:16)

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 at exclusion. Yeah, it makes sense. So like, but yeah, 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, a full blood panel, 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 broad spectrum improvement. So we saw like the, the cognitive Decline marker, P Tau217 drop. We saw my microbiome. I had zero dysbiosis in my microbiome. Like no signatures at all of dysbiosis. We saw. I had no detectable inflammation in my body. So my H CRP came back zero, the 99.99.

A (70:16)

We like, he's beaten the test exactly.

B (70:17)

Like it just like it was really remarkable across the board. And so it was really efficacious. I did 60 sessions over 90 days and I've continued to 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. You want to be careful not to do it too much because you're. You'll have oxygen toxicity.

A (70:38)

Yes.

B (70:38)

So you want to have something.

A (70:39)

But that's why the five minute break is so important, right?

B (70:41)

Yeah. And I also take like a week long break. I'll do a sprint than a week long break. So you just need to be careful because you can overdo it and cause.

A (70:47)

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B (71:55)

Mask off, 20 minutes on, five minutes off.

A (71:58)

Cool. Yeah, I was doing that. The one super fucking annoying thing there is it's very relaxing to be in. It can be very relaxing to. Once you've pressurized. But you can't sleep.

B (72:10)

Yeah, because exactly. You're busy.

A (72:12)

Gotta take this thing on and off. 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 part?

B (72:24)

Yes.

A (72:24)

So much fun.

B (72:25)

Yeah, it is so much fun.

A (72:27)

There's 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. All fucking hell would break loose. But it's basically a resonance breathing 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. So you don't need your phone, you don't need anything else. That's brilliant. But Elite HRV is what I was using with the strap. I'm gonna guess you'll have seen 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.

B (73:04)

Yeah.

A (73:05)

The button that you use to press to turn it on has a tiny little air pocket around it. So I got into the fucking H Bart and by the time I'd pressurized to get down, the button had been smashed and I couldn't. There was no air to press the button.

B (73:20)

Yeah.

A (73:21)

And then I was like trying to press it and it's just.

B (73:23)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

A (73:24)

SpongeBob when he gets outside of the water.

B (73:26)

Yeah.

A (73:27)

So anyway, HBOT, couple of questions on this. 60 sessions as quickly as possible basically with to start to accumulate. It's not like a. A one and done type thing. Yeah, I think I asked you this at the time. I'm interested if there's any more information going from state change to trait change. Like is this the sort of thing that locks in and where 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 certainly know in me if I look at a therapy or a modality or whatever and I find that there's no carryover. Yeah, I feel despondent.

B (74:18)

Yeah, exactly.

A (74:19)

I'm like, fucking hell. Like I've just found this new thing. Here's another. Another thing I have to do. Does that make sense?

B (74:25)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's because both you and I are on the other side of the entropy curve. You know, like the deal you want is youth. Right. Like when you're 12. You just keep on getting better, but once you cross over into your au, slow down. 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 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.

A (74:58)

Red light, better than microneedling everything.

B (75:00)

Like, better than the vampire facials, better than any laser. It is because if you look at the data on the biopsies of rebuilding collagen, elastin and reducing senescent cell, it basically remodels your entire skin. It's not just face. Like, every layer of skin you're remodeling is really remarkable. Like, if you look at people, like, if I see people now, I can tell a signature of HBOT skin. Like, it's very. 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, you know, who really care a lot about skin. Hbot. Getting the fucking hbot.

A (75:38)

Yeah.

B (75:38)

I mean, then you, if you pair like, the best banger protocol is to first skin is to pair the best devices with hbot. So you basically, you do like a surface level like a 1550 nanometer to resurface the skin for spots, wrinkles, stuff like that. Then you do HBOT and you can accelerate the healing.

A (75:56)

Is that microneedling? Is that what you're referring to?

B (75:57)

No, it's a laser, like a 1550 nanometer laser, where it's like. It's a very, very benign laser, if you do it right, has lower risk of, like, pigmentation issues for wrinkles, spots, just like for texture. And then you can do a deeper device like a soft wave S O F W a V E, where it's ultrasound, where it's 1.5 milliliters below, millimeters below the dermis. So you hit top layer and underneath the dermis. So you're rebuilding collagen and the entire scaffolding the skin. And then you do age bot, and then you accelerate the healing. So you basically do more sessions in this. Yeah, so that's like you do an.

A (76:33)

Acute, like, skin rejuvenation thing and then up. Are you still here? She's outside. I think I did software because I went to your dermatologist and which one? I can't remember the lady's name. It was in. That was why I had a mustache. I grew a mustache because I needed to get rid of my facial hair. Because they needed to do that.

B (76:51)

Yeah.

A (76:52)

In order to be able to. I'm pretty. I'm almost certain it was software.

B (76:54)

Yeah. Yeah. Was it like. It felt like a cigarette burn that.

A (76:59)

Never actually got to a burn?

B (77:00)

Exactly. Yeah.

A (77:02)

Like you're.

B (77:02)

Like you're being singed by like a hot metal iron.

A (77:06)

Yeah. But it never actually peaks to the.

B (77:08)

Yeah.

A (77:09)

It was a really interesting lesson in. And they're.

B (77:12)

Yeah.

A (77:13)

Blowing the cold shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a really interesting lesson in pain that. Because what you realize is you ride this crescendo for the people that haven't seen it, 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.

B (77:37)

Yeah. Yeah.

A (77:38)

It, like, goes like that.

B (77:39)

Yeah.

A (77:39)

But it doesn't ever get above a six or so.

B (77:44)

So if. If she did. If she set the settings to 3.5 Joules, which is the lowest setting, then it gets pretty tolerable if she goes to 4.2, top end. Because basically it's the. It's a total energy per area.

A (77:56)

I think I had it at around about three point. I think she had it at 3.6, 3.7. So I was on. I was being a weenie.

B (78:02)

Okay. Yeah. So, like, if you have the 4.2, where it's basically like. It cuts down the number of pulses by 30% if you want, like, zip through it. God damn that. That is so painful.

A (78:10)

No, thank you.

B (78:11)

Oh, man. It does. It just feels like a red hot iron.

A (78:16)

I'm all right.

B (78:17)

Send you the face.

A (78:18)

No more. Thank you. You mentioned there about sort of vascular health and blood flow. Obviously, we started talking enough about erectile. Nighttime erectile stuff for guys to improve blood pressure, vascular health. And then I guess downstream from that, the impact on erections, erectile dysfunction, beyond, like, nighttime stuff.

B (78:41)

Yeah.

A (78:41)

What have you come to learn about that?

B (78:43)

What's the.

A (78:43)

What's the. The protocol for a guy to improve that?

B (78:46)

Yes. I guess, like I would say to people listening, 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 canned foods. I was, I did the entrepreneurial grind, right? Didn't sleep, I was depressed for 10 years. I was overweight. Like I did all the stuff starting behind the eight ball, 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'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, five years now. My markers keep on getting better and so we still like I've aged, you know, a past five 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 telomeres. Like all these things are improving as age, as time has passed.

A (80:15)

Doesn't seem to be a ceiling.

B (80:16)

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'm a very clear headed, 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 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, consistency. And then the 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. 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. And I hope they, yeah, I hope they walk away feeling like, damn it, I can do that. Like I'm gonna do it and I can't do that.

A (81:15)

What are the big moves? We've already said sleep and you've given a good break 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?

B (81:31)

Yeah. So I would. First, I would frame this in a moral philosophy. So I'd say if believe yes first, like, 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 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 motherfucker who's trying to get you to do something that is not in your best interest. Fuck 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 gonna eat that fucking bag of Skittles, right? Like, I'm not gonna eat the fast food that's it's poison. They're gonna trick me into thinking it's something you like. But that's. I think for me, the boundary conditions of, like, how you create the kind of 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 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 too. Like, I have the willpower to do it.

A (83:09)

Okay, now that we've got the moral framework, what are the tactical things?

B (83:11)

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 window team is, you want to set strict rules. You want to 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 justification, realize those not doing that are 10 to 12 points stupider than you. Like they're actually dumb. So they take a retardation exercise for them. You're actually gonna be smart once you do that exercise. Cause that also is going to boost your willpower. So boost it with sleep, boost it with exercise, and then once you get those two down, then tackle food. Because food is the most complicated. Food is where we go to like soothe ourselves to do like the self therapy. So only tackle, then try to start just having a bit more good things for you and a few less bad things, like slowly walk your way into it. Radical change is hard for a lot of people, but it's like slow walk into. And then if you again have that in the back of your mind like 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 meal 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.

A (84:35)

When it comes to exercise for longevity, most people are already doing. Almost everybody that's listening is going to have some sort of training regime. I would imagine the vast majority of them are going to be something like.

B (84:49)

A push per leg split.

A (84:51)

And maybe other people are runner boys and runner girls. 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?

B (85:08)

Yeah, I mean I. Because everyone's got their jam. Well, there's pilates, weights, whatever, just do it. Like just be active for roughly an hour a day. Do cardio to strength, do balance, do flexibility. Everyone's got their own preferences. But I think I don't go after the details here because there's like endless material to go after. Just be active and commit to being active.

A (85:28)

Some people like chicken, some people like salmon, some people like kale, some people like spinach.

B (85:32)

Exactly. Like just. And I. Same thing with food. Like I don't 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 as a. 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. Outside of that, like, do your thing. Like, just eat what you want. Just measure your body, make sure you're good.

A (86:04)

Right. Okay. Bethlehem blue. How'd you get on with that?

B (86:07)

You know, I stopped it because I started 25 milligrams a day and then. Oh, it was conflicting with. We started a therapy, doing altitude training. So you take your blood oxygenation down to 80%. So 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 methylene blue to do some therapy.

A (86:26)

So, okay, is methylene blue it's like nicotine derivative, Right? Or it's something to do with nicotine.

B (86:30)

I mean, it's a synthetic diet. Initially, it was built because surgeons wanted to see, like, where they're actually in the surgical body, but it was actually FDA approved for. What was it? I forgetting now. Yeah, FDA approved quite a while ago. But overall, on. We don't think that's really. We don't think it's worth it as a therapy. Yeah, it's more. More for, like, mitochondrial health.

A (86:53)

Okay. Testosterone. Yeah, testosterone, the. The hormone of the 21st century.

B (87:01)

It is.

A (87:01)

What have you come to learn about testosterone?

B (87:04)

Yeah, so I'm in like the 700s, naturally. So just by doing all the basic.

A (87:09)

Stuff, what were you when. When you started? Do you know?

B (87:11)

Um, I. I guess, like, hmm. When I was 42. I don't know. 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, good one to watch after.

A (87:31)

What are the ways to intervene naturally? Well, what are the biggest needle movers that you've.

B (87:36)

Yeah, I mean, all the basics. Right. Like, sleep. Like, I think poor sleep, four hours of sleep a night will knock you down something like 10 to 20% on testosterone. So, like, really big drop.

A (87:49)

Less of a man again.

B (87:50)

Again? Yeah. Like high sassal status. So then sleep, exercise, nutrition, like, all the basics. There's. I don't think there's a lot of proven supplementation that can move the needle. I think people.

A (88:02)

Without getting into pharmacology.

B (88:03)

Yeah, I think people have played a bunch of stuff. 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 intervention.

A (88:21)

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. The relationship between. It's such a fucking like balance beam of lh, fsh, testosterone free T. Yeah, shgb it is. There is no, it seems to me, total fucking white belt. It seems to me like one intervention is not one intervention. It's. It starts to roll away into this domino effect.

B (88:53)

Yeah.

A (88:53)

So talking about I want my testosterone higher, it's like, well, do you.

B (88:56)

Yeah, yeah. Do you.

A (88:57)

Maybe your FSH needs to. I mean, people that go on enclomiphene or HCG chronically.

B (89:02)

Yeah.

A (89:03)

What is it like 20% or some big percent of them talk about that inducing depression. You go, okay, so you were worried that you had low energy because of your low testosterone and you tried to take a non 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 you a fucking low. Forget low energy, you got low mood now. And so, yeah, be careful how you intervene with that.

B (89:36)

I think that's very true. Yeah. I guess the way we thought about it is we approached this holistically. We just said 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, hbot, 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.

A (90:14)

They'll come online.

B (90:15)

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. The same is true with toxins. So like that's. When we talk about testosterone, we don't talk about microplastic intervention which then 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.

A (90:51)

Talking of daily practices, what's this 15 second phone call thing you're doing?

B (90:54)

Oh, yeah, with my friends. Yeah. So a friend of mine introduced this to me. So he, I became friends with this person and he's very powerful. And 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 15 second friendship. And it was like. But it was like this deep. And I guess I imagined in my mind, like, I imagined what his day must be 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. And so I appreciated his model of friendship so much because before I was stuck in this idea, like, hey, Chris, you want to hang out?

A (91:59)

You know, it's a big deal. It's fucking Airbnb. I'll book a week off work.

B (92:03)

Yeah, it's like a four 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, right.

A (92:11)

I mean, the. I did this series Life Hacks on the show when I first started, and we do one every year now at Christmas and back in the day when that was one of the big thrusts of the show, we'd often get asked, okay, what five hundred or a thousand life hacks that you've done? What are the highest impact ones? The first one is always sleep with your phone outside of your bedroom. But it's an instant 10 to 15% improvement in quality of life in that one thing. So that's actually before sleep, let's take the charging cable outside of your bedroom and put it in the kitchen. But the second one was text your friends when you think of them.

B (92:49)

Yes.

A (92:49)

And this is my equivalent of the 15 second friendship.

B (92:53)

Yeah.

A (92:53)

And it's just, hey, man, like, thinking of you. Hope, hope you're well, like, whatever, or a Photo that you think about your friend and you find an old photo and you send it and it really speed runs friendship. You become tighter friends with people.

B (93:08)

Yeah.

A (93:09)

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.

B (93:13)

Yeah.

A (93:13)

And I really loved it and it really brightened my day and it felt like I was doing something good for someone 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.

B (93:27)

Exactly.

A (93:27)

And the other thing it does, which is, I guess, a hack from my world of running nightclubs. It's an idea of assume familiarity.

B (93:36)

Yes.

A (93:37)

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.

B (93:49)

Yeah.

A (93:50)

Hello. Dear Brian, I hope that you are in the family are well, I must congratulate you on the da da, da, da da. As opposed to like funny meme.

B (93:57)

Yeah.

A (93:57)

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 like sharp, expectant. But if I'm like, dude, love the YouTube video, by the way. I'm an age bot. How long am I supposed to breathe it for? Like, that's. Oh, thank you for consuming my shit and for the respect, by the way. Here's a thing. I don't need to. We don't need foreplay.

B (94:22)

Yeah.

A (94:22)

Right.

B (94:23)

Let's get, let's get.

A (94:24)

Let's get into it.

B (94:25)

Yeah. I mean, since we hung out and prosper, we've been doing that. Right. Like, and it's bullshit.

A (94:29)

No talk for three months and then talk for three months then.

B (94:34)

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 decide to tap in each other's lives. It's like most of my friends. Actually, I'm really surprised. Most of my friends who are powerful and successful and famous are lonely. Right. Like, 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 and time is not your. You can't use time. You have to use something else.

A (95:13)

Yeah. It needs to be a Longer lever to go. Exactly.

B (95:16)

And so I've just been surprised that people have this perception that 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. If you feel lonely. Right. Understand like your pattern is pretty similar to other people's patterns. Independent of resources or position or power.

A (95:37)

Status, the people at the top of the tree are struggling with the loneliness.

B (95:40)

Exactly. And so I mean, and this is the cool thing is like when I've talked to my friends and like they'll disclose that and like it's a really. Yes, we. It's a, it's a scary thing.

A (95:50)

Shameful thing.

B (95:51)

Yeah, it is to, to actually disclose that. It's like I don't have any friends. Like I had a, a friend of mine connected me with a celebrity today, 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 people, come on over and like I'll do this whole thing. And explained it. And they said, I don't really have any friends. And yeah, it was like just such a shocking moment because like they are epicenter celebrity. And 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 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.

A (96:37)

Notes, quick calls, 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.

B (96:48)

Yeah, exactly.

A (96:49)

Whatever. Doesn't think you're cool or they're too busy or whatever the fuck. They're not on the. They're not ready to be friends.

B (96:54)

Yeah.

A (96:55)

You haven't invested anything.

B (96:56)

Yeah.

A (96:56)

You know, you sent, you tried to, you met somebody, you sent him a few texts like whatever.

B (97:00)

Like.

A (97:00)

Yeah, I would just loop back to that thing I said about the emotions piece before. So I understand what you mean with regards to sort of creating a philosophy, 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 and how you come to think about how to say it off spreadsheet markers. Of longevity and well being.

B (97:38)

Yeah. So in 2025, we did five don't die summits. We 1500 people, they were all sold out. We brought people together and we did, we experimented with different formats, but we brought them together. We did education courses, we did raves, like at 7 in the morning. It was amazing. We had so much fun. We did 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 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. First we take a shot of olive oil, ritualistic. And then we each go around and we apologize to our body for something we did that week.

A (98:25)

Okay.

B (98:26)

And so it's kind of funny.

A (98:27)

Perilously close to a religion here.

B (98:29)

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, alcoholic, synonymous. 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 Don't 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 something like a sovereign fund where we have a cat, we pool our capital and we start funding things together. So we're sorting on community, connection, emotional, social. In 2026. The 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 wrapper. So it's just like the next stage of where we're at.

A (99:39)

Very cool. When we first ever spoke, however long ago that was, I asked you a question about. I didn't use this word, but the grief of not starting earlier, the potential resentment that you can place at your caregivers and your friends and your culture of this didn't happen earlier. And the entropy, you started on the other side of the rollercoaster, right? You're like, oh, fuck, 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 younger 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. Where have you come into land with. You said before, and I think it's a really good point. It's not too late. You can reverse or you slow down. You can really, really make great progress no matter where you are. But the emotional connection to what could have been had I started earlier, what I've done to my body, the grief, that stuff, what's your relationship with that like now?

B (100:59)

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 I'm in a low status position because of these preceding events, you know, that I didn't, I didn't have parents that knew health and wellness when I was a kid. I didn't understand health and wellness 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 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 you're, you don't want to sit in negative emotions. It's just not good for you. You don't want to beat yourself up. And so you can either take 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 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 Viktor Frankl'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 I would invert it and be like, this is the most interesting time in the history of four 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 pretty. I'm pumped about the situation.

A (103:29)

My shoulders have relaxed a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember you tweeting a while ago, do you think you're gonna die in a super ironic way?

B (103:36)

Of course. Guaranteed? Yeah. How's that not possible? It's for sure. I mean, like, so this morning when I was coming here, like, I was opening a glass jar of 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, I hope it's spectacular. I hope it's really something epic and not something lame.

A (104:08)

Sauerkraut would be a cool way to go.

B (104:11)

I mean, I guess, like, you tell me what would be like an epic.

A (104:15)

Oh, wow.

B (104:15)

Yeah. What hits the timeline where you're like.

A (104:17)

Okay, like, ready to go with that? Ah, that would be cool. I mean, sort of car action, 70s action movie rolling down a huge cliff would be. That seems like a pretty cool way to go. 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. Right into a mountainside. 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 gonna go up in flames, like, you know, hit by a bus, but the bus goes on.

B (104:48)

Yeah.

A (104:48)

Like.

B (104:49)

Yeah, yeah. Like, caught in the action, caught in the act of adventure. Right. Like, 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 going through the Antarctic and their survival through that whole, like, you know, they were all ready to have a noble death. Like, we wouldn't have found out about. They would have been gone to history, but still, you know, they were. I like that kind of.

A (105:18)

I love those stories. There's 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 wonderful one called the Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart. British soldier, Scottish, captured by the Japanese bridge over the River Kwai. Forced labor, Hiroshima, bomb blasts, like, everything, everything, everything, everything. And then I read Unbroken, Unbroken. Louis Zamperini. So I only. I never even know because I'm not American, right? So I would get Shackleton and I would get Alistair Urquhart, but I'd never get Zamperini. I didn't even know he existed. And he, like, meets Hitler at the fucking Olympics and he goes through all of this stuff. So if you, like, unbr. Dude, the forgotten Highlander will take your head off.

B (106:05)

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 hit by sharks, back on the raft of bullet holes. Like. And that's, like, on day 142 of not eating food. Like, it's.

A (106:20)

Yeah. And the dude's eating all the chocolate.

B (106:22)

You're like, your best mate.

A (106:24)

Yeah, the chocolate. Yeah. Dude. Those stories, to me are wonderful. I ruptured in Achilles 2020 playing cricket, fully British, and asked a couple of friends that had been through some sort of similarly traumatic injuries, big, fuck off, severe thing. And they said, the Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart. Ross Edgley's book the Art of Resilience, which is about his swim around. He was the first person to swim around the uk.

B (107:01)

Oh, yeah, I heard about that.

A (107:02)

Six hours on, six hours off, and then Amazon prime documentary called Resurfaced with Andy Murray. Andy Murray's tennis player, Scottish tennis player, load of Scots, and he gets a hip replacement. That lateral movement means that hips really get tested in tennis Players and he's aging out a little and 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 a ceramic socket with a steel joint. But it's not meant for high impact sport. It's very smooth 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 not going to last that long. Maybe it's not. And it's just this journey of him going through it and he's working in his house, just obsessive, just so like unrelenting. And those sorts of stories I think are really empowering and really enlightening 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'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.

B (108:28)

That's right.

A (108:28)

I need to be able to switch it off. If I can't switch it off, then I am pressing the accelerator, driving downhill.

B (108:36)

Yes.

A (108:37)

I'm giving myself more of the thing that I already have too much of.

B (108:39)

Yes.

A (108:40)

So playing with that tolerance, like a dose dependent inspiration in that way, if that makes sense.

B (108:46)

Yeah, it's a U shaped curve.

A (108:47)

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.

B (108:54)

Probably the skill set society needs the most help on right now because everyone is right up to the red, actually in the red zone and just there constantly. I think it's probably like a chronic thing of our society.

A (109:08)

Brian Johnson, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, you're great. I really appreciate you. I appreciate your friendship. What can people expect next, however long of years, months, what's coming up?

B (109:18)

Well, this is my prediction. AI is center stage already for society. It will continue to be center stage. I'm not talking about timeframes of 6 months or 12 months, but 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 resident ideology 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. So we, it's 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 above all I hope I'm a positive influence in people's lives that when they find themselves in moments of struggle or weakness, they've got somebody in their court saying like, you can do this. And yeah, so I'm just really excited about what's happening. I feel like I've been working my entire life at this moment and I'm excited to play the game.

A (111:12)

I'm excited to see what happens, man. Just don't do the fucking. Don't start wearing white robes. Grow your hair out. Like, I don't want to see the cult leader pivot. But what I do think is cool is the like sanguine self awareness thing. I think that's really important to like. Yeah, just read it out. You mentioned a couple of resources, like a food guide or something. Are there any cool lead magnet y bits that people can snag that.

B (111:37)

Yeah, so I'll give you, I'll give you the food guide. I'm also, I'm publishing. I have a website, protocolrianjohnson.co.com and hopefully in the next couple weeks I'll repost all my updated stuff. So if you wanted to see my journey and what I'm doing now and why, I'll have it there for you. So like a free guide. And I'm also writing a book. So yeah, don't die. So I'm halfway through and it's basically going to be like hopefully a guide and then. Yeah, I'm trying to make this easy. I know it's a lot. And then also we just raised 60 million for Blueprint and so.

A (112:09)

Oh yeah, what's going on with that? What is that?

B (112:11)

Yeah, so basically 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 me what streets to go down or where's the construction, where's 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. I just follow a practice where we measure me, we get the data, we look at evidence and we say, do this, do this, do this, do this.

A (112:45)

Doing this at scale exactly.

B (112:46)

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.

A (112:57)

So hopefully like that's like the exciting time, sir. It feels like 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, ooh, 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.

B (113:20)

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 Plato, Aristotle, Renaissance, they'll say a new era was born of a new status seeking thing. And that's otherwise the entrepreneurship stuff, 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 and existence.

A (114:03)

Yeah. Ryan, I appreciate you man. Until next time, I'm looking forward to the book.

B (114:06)

Thanks man.

A (114:08)

If you are looking for new reading suggestions, look no further than the Modern Wisdom reading list. It is 100 books that you should read before you die. The most interesting, life changing and impactful books I've ever read with descriptions about why I like them and links to go and buy them. And you can get it right now for free by going to ChrisWillX.com/books that's ChrisWillX.com books.