Bryan Johnson: New SHOCKING Science on How to Reverse Your Age by 31 Years & The Damaging Impact of 1 Bad Night Sleep

Summary

Podcast Title: On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Episode: Bryan Johnson: New SHOCKING Science on How to Reverse Your Age by 31 Years & The Damaging Impact of 1 Bad Night Sleep
Release Date: January 13, 2025
Host: Jay Shetty
Guest: Bryan Johnson
Produced By: iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In this riveting episode of On Purpose with Jay Shetty, host Jay Shetty welcomes Bryan Johnson, a pioneering figure in the field of longevity and health optimization. Known as the "world's most measured human," Bryan shares his extraordinary journey to reverse his biological age by 31 years and delves into the alarming consequences of even a single bad night's sleep.

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Bryan Johnson's Longevity Journey

Bryan Johnson introduces himself as a relentless explorer striving to extend human lifespan and enhance overall health. He has invested over $2 million annually into his personal health regimen, positioning himself as a real-life Benjamin Button. Bryan's commitment stems from a decade-long battle with depression and poor health, which motivated him to seek transformative solutions.

[02:26] Bryan Johnson: "I'm really the forerunner in trying to start that process of radically extending how long and how well we can live."

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Reversing Biological Age

Bryan details his ambitious project, Project Blueprint, which aims to achieve optimal health through meticulous measurement and data-driven protocols. By continuously monitoring various biomarkers and organ-specific ages, Bryan has successfully reduced his biological age, achieving the metabolic health of a top 1.5% 18-year-old and lowering his inflammation levels by 66%.

[05:37] Bryan Johnson: "We looked at every organ. So you can say, I'm chronologically 47 years old, but that's not really a useful number. We assign a biological age to each organ or process."

Bryan explains that his approach involves breaking down the biological age of individual organs, such as his heart being biologically 37 years old and his diaphragm 18, allowing for targeted interventions to reverse aging in each specific area.

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The Impact of Microplastics

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on the pervasive threat of microplastics. Bryan highlights the increasing presence of microplastics in the environment and their detrimental effects on human health, including neurodegeneration and impaired reproductive health.

[18:21] Bryan Johnson: "Microplastics have been this recent phenomenon because plastics are everywhere. The average male brain contains 8.2 milligrams of microplastics, and levels have increased by 50% in the past decade."

To combat this, Bryan's company, Blueprint, has launched the world's first at-home microplastics test, aiming to raise awareness and facilitate the development of therapies to minimize microplastic accumulation in the body.

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The Critical Role of Sleep

Bryan emphasizes the profound impact of sleep on overall health, revealing shocking statistics about the consequences of poor sleep quality. He states that just one night of inadequate sleep can reduce Natural Killer (NK) cells by 70%, significantly impairing the body's ability to combat cancer cells.

[24:59] Bryan Johnson: "One night of bad sleep reduces your NK cells by 70%. NK cells are what's killing cancer cells."

He further explains that chronic sleep deprivation leads to elevated levels of toxins like S100B in the brain, equating the effects to a traumatic brain injury and severely disrupting cognitive functions such as memory and willpower.

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Diet and Nutrition Protocols

Bryan shares his meticulously crafted diet aimed at optimizing health and reversing biological age. His regimen includes:

• Super Veggie Breakfast: Broccoli, cauliflower, black lentils, ginger, and garlic.
• Nutty Pudding: Macadamia nuts, walnuts, flaxseed, pomegranate juice, berries, pea and hemp protein.
• Third Meal: Varies daily but consistently includes vegetables, berries, nuts, and seeds.
• Supplements: Three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil daily, collagen peptides, pure cocoa, and a comprehensive stack of around eight specialized supplements from Blueprint.

[55:18] Bryan Johnson: "Every calorie I consume has a specific objective. If it doesn't achieve a goal, we exclude it."

Bryan underscores the importance of avoiding processed and packaged foods, advocating for whole, nutrient-dense foods complemented by scientifically-backed supplements to meet all bodily needs.

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Building Health Systems

Central to Bryan's philosophy is the establishment of robust health systems that minimize reliance on willpower. He likens these systems to algorithms that manage health decisions automatically, ensuring consistency and optimization without constant mental effort.

[75:49] Bryan Johnson: "Design systems. I put my health decisions into an algorithm that takes care of me better than I could myself."

By automating aspects of his health regimen—such as meal timing, sleep schedules, and exercise routines—Bryan ensures unwavering adherence to his protocols, thereby maximizing health benefits and minimizing deviations caused by fluctuating willpower.

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Perspectives on Death and Longevity

Bryan offers a profound perspective on death and the human desire for immortality. He posits that historically, the inevitability of death has guided human behaviors and societal structures. However, with advancements in technology and medicine, the possibility of significantly extending life challenges these foundational notions.

[69:08] Bryan Johnson: "We might be able to do something about death that we never could before, allowing us to reimagine what existence truly is."

He argues that moving beyond the acceptance of death could fundamentally transform societal priorities, shifting focus from resource accumulation and short-term gains to long-term existence and planetary health.

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Conclusion

Bryan Johnson's insights provide a compelling look into the future of human health and longevity. Through rigorous measurement, data-driven protocols, and the establishment of automated health systems, he exemplifies a path toward significantly extended and optimized lifespans. His work not only challenges traditional health paradigms but also invites listeners to reconsider their own approaches to health, sleep, diet, and the fundamental understanding of life and death.

[85:43] Bryan Johnson: "Don't die is basically meant to be the answer to what we need as a species moving forward."

Bryan's transformative journey serves as both inspiration and a call to action for those seeking to enhance their own well-being and contribute to the broader evolution of human health.

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Notable Quotes:

• Bryan Johnson [02:26]: "I'm really the forerunner in trying to start that process of radically extending how long and how well we can live."

• Bryan Johnson [05:37]: "We looked at every organ. So you can say, I'm chronologically 47 years old, but that's not really a useful number. We assign a biological age to each organ or process."

• Bryan Johnson [18:21]: "Microplastics have been this recent phenomenon because plastics are everywhere. The average male brain contains 8.2 milligrams of microplastics, and levels have increased by 50% in the past decade."

• Bryan Johnson [24:59]: "One night of bad sleep reduces your NK cells by 70%. NK cells are what's killing cancer cells."

• Bryan Johnson [55:18]: "Every calorie I consume has a specific objective. If it doesn't achieve a goal, we exclude it."

• Bryan Johnson [75:49]: "Design systems. I put my health decisions into an algorithm that takes care of me better than I could myself."

• Bryan Johnson [69:08]: "We might be able to do something about death that we never could before, allowing us to reimagine what existence truly is."

• Bryan Johnson [85:43]: "Don't die is basically meant to be the answer to what we need as a species moving forward."

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This episode offers a deep dive into cutting-edge science and personal experimentation for longevity, providing listeners with actionable insights and a visionary perspective on the future of human health.

Transcript

[Jay Shetty]

Spectrum Business knows that you put in unlimited effort to unlock the unlimited possibilities of your small business. Get Internet, mobile phone and TV services to connect all aspects of your business and see your business made limitless. Learn [e-mail] business are you scared of dying?

[Brian Johnson]

No. Yet that doesn't stop us from speaking with unbridled confidence on what we'll be. And to me it really shows that we humans, we don't want to die.

[Unknown]

He has spent millions of his own dollars to never die.

[Brian Johnson]

Maybe even cracked the code that limits the human lifespan. The king of longevity, Brian Johnson.

[Unknown]

What drives someone to spend $2 million to not die?

[Brian Johnson]

Let's just say we fast forward a few hundred years. That's when humans figured out they were transitioning from die to don't die. One night of bad sleep reduces your NK cells by 70%. Your NK cells are what's killing cancer cells.

[Unknown]

Heard that before.

[Brian Johnson]

My grandfather was full of lead, my parents are full of asbestos and now I'm full of microplastic. We think they're causing very serious health problems. It may be worse than we think. I had this general idea that there must be some system in place in America that's watching out for us. Not true.

[Unknown]

What age are you predicting to live to the number one health and wellness podcast, Jay Shetty.

[Brian Johnson]

Jay Shetty.

[Jay Shetty]

The one, the only Jay Shetty.

[Unknown]

Hey everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health and wellness podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one of you that keep coming back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now today's guest is someone who says they're not going to let themselves die. Brian Johnson is known as the world's most measured human. Brian spent four years creating Project Blueprint which is an endeavor to achieve humanity and and earth scale cooperation within self. As a 47 year old, he has the metabolic health of the top 1.5% of 18 year olds, inflammation 66% lower than a 10 year old, and reduced the speed of aging by 31 years. With a lifestyle that costs him $2 million annually, he is the real life Benjamin Button. Please welcome to On Purpose, Brian Johnson. Brian, it's great to have you here.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, thanks for having me here.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I wanted to dive in straight away and just ask you what drives someone to spend $2 million to not die?

[Brian Johnson]

I think it's very confusing to a lot of people. I think when you read the headlines and you view I'm just unintelligible by most people and I think if you look back, you know, let's just Say we fast forward a few hundred years and you live in the 25th century and you're reading the history books of this time and place. I think it'd be pretty obvious to them. They would say, like, oh, of course that's when humans figured out they were transitioning from die to don't die. Like, that's the big thing. Like, they had the technological and medical progress to say they could now begin extending their lifespans to some unknown degree. So I think it really just. We're on this inevitable trajectory towards radically extending how long and how well we can live. And I'm really the forerunner in trying to start that process.

[Unknown]

And how did you compute the amount of 2 million? How did it get to that? Like, what does that involve and include to get to that level?

[Brian Johnson]

So the 2 million is primarily spent on the research and the measurement. And so the actual what I do day to day is very low cost. I'd say the majority of people can afford it. Most things are actually free. So a lot of people see the $2 million headline and they think, oh, this can't be achievable or reachable for me. But actually is. And so what we did that was unique is when you're trying to do something to improve your health and wellness, it's important you can verify it does or doesn't work. Like, if you hear a story about, you know, doing, like, drinking this kind of drink is good for your health. It's a story until you can measure it and say it has this kind of change in the body, and either change increases your biological age or lowers it or does something else. And so I became the most measured person in history. And that's really expensive. So the really. The expensive portions have been measuring every organ in my body. The actual protocols are really low cost.

[Unknown]

What was the most expensive thing to measure?

[Brian Johnson]

It really is in chasing the cumulative measurement across the entire body. For example, I've spent more time in an MRI than anyone in the world. I think this new technology called DNA methylation, you're looking at these patterns of the body. I'm the most measured person with that DNA methylation in the world. And so doing this consistently, routinely, we do thousands of data points a week. And so I think it's just all these things adding up. It's just expensive to do the test, analyze the data, continually have that process. We need, like, a large team to do it.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Do any of the measurement tools have adverse effects on health?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. Mri, we think, is very safe. Yeah. But ct, I've Only did once. I just did a calcium score. And then we do blood draws. I've done a ton of blood work. We did ultrasound on my veins a while back and to see if we had scar tissue that had been building up. Because I've done so much blood draw, we couldn't find any scar tissue. So we do actively measure for negative repercussions of are we measuring too much to the extent of damage? So like we're even measuring, measuring the measurement. So in every way we can possibly interrogate the body, we're trying to acquire data.

[Unknown]

And how did you pick the areas to measure? Like, how were you able to say these are the five, eight, I don't know how many. There are metrics that I believe are the most important to longevity. How do we even know what are the things to focus on?

[Brian Johnson]

We looked at every organ. So if you. We have roughly 70 plus organs, depending on how you count. And so you can say like, I'm chronologically 47 years old, but that's not really a useful number. It's like a general approximation. Then if you measure the heart, you can say, okay, what is the biological age of the heart? And you can then dissect that and say, what is the structural age of the heart? And then what is the functional age of the heart? You can look at the functional age of what is the max heart rate. You could take 220 minus your age, roughly for a rough calculation. Then you look at the valves and you look at all the cell types. You can break each organ down into different ways to understand what is his biological age. For example, My heart is 37. My left ear is 64. My diaphragm is age 18. And so you can any part of the body, any organ or biological process, you can assign an age score if you've got data to show data to make that comparison.

[Unknown]

Your left ear is 64. Yeah, walk me through that.

[Brian Johnson]

I shot a lot of guns as a kid. And so I would, you know, aim the gun like this with this left ear exposed to the sound. This, this ear was more protected. And then also loud music. And so, yeah, so this is the thing is like now when I'm at social events, I have this app on my phone decibel where like last night I was at a social event and the room was 105 decibels. So anything over 80 can cause hearing damage. So just in a social environment with people talking at a voice that's like loud enough for the other person to hear, you've got sustained ear Hearing damage.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Interesting. I think it's something we don't realize. I saw my mom lose her hearing in one ear and the other one pretty weak. And it's been really sad to watch because it's completely changed her personality.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly.

[Unknown]

And it's completely changed her ability to connect in a conversation. She's super fun, she's bubbly, conversated. But as soon as she started losing her hearing, and the hearing aid technology's definitely not caught up with any of the technology you're talking about. We got her the best ones that I possibly could know about, and it's still so hard for her to engage. And it's such an underrated part of human life. Like, you don't think losing your hearing may be that impactful? It's. It's huge.

[Brian Johnson]

Entirely true. And we've. We've tried for the past few years. So we take all these measurements and we say, like, what is the biological age of blank organ? And then we say, all right, now, we've reviewed all the scientific literature that's out there. How do you either slow down that speed of aging or reverse aging damage? So, for example, with my left ear, we've said, can you take my left ear from age 64 to age 63 and 62 and all the way down to, like, age 18? And so in that case, we've had no success with hearing. There are a few stem cell therapies that are in research, but no effective treatment. So we've had no success at all. So once you lose it, right now, it's gone. Whereas other parts of my body, like my speed of aging and my heart and my lungs, we've had great success lowering that biological age, if you look at it anatomically or functionally. And so some things we've had great success. But this is the point where when people look at me and they say, you know, the guy is so busy trying not to die, he's forgetting how to live. And the flip side of that is when you lose function, movement, eyesight, hearing. Right. Your life begins to deteriorate to degrees like your mother saw, in ways you can't even imagine. And so it really is like this respect for our conscious existence and our biological capabilities. And so really, I think that's what I'm trying to do is I think the new virtue is caring for our conscious existence and not being whimsical and throwing it away with behaviors that just are not necessary.

[Unknown]

Yeah, it's so funny, isn't it? It's really interesting how we judge Intentionality.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And you only recognize how intentional you wish you were when you lose something and it's like that. I think there's that famous quote that says the best time to plant a tree was like a hundred years ago.

[Brian Johnson]

That's right.

[Unknown]

But otherwise it's today. Like, like the idea of like you're just never gonna. You will always feel you wish you started earlier. Yes, always.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes.

[Unknown]

But that only hits you when sadly something really bad goes happen, bad happens. And then you're like, gosh, I wish I thought about this when I was 25, 20.

[Brian Johnson]

Etc. Yeah.

[Unknown]

And, and yeah. So I mean when I, when I'm thinking about what you're saying, what is there an age or damage level from which you. There is no return? What parts of the body. Is there a specific age where you're like if you're this chronological age and you're your biological age of this body part is this. It's over.

[Brian Johnson]

I guess this is, I think the coolest question right now is that in previous time periods you were born and you died in predictable fashion. There was nothing you could do to stop the process. And so now what's different is that we are making progress on age related decline even before a baby's conceived. So now there's embryo selection. Right. So it's don't die is happening before conception. And then recent studies have shown that you can take a ma. A mouse and it's like last week of life and regenerate it and double the lifespan of that mouse. And so we have technologies that can extend life before conception, midlife and even at the end of life. And so now that's, I'm saying this is really, it's full spectrum that there is no point of no return at this, at this moment. I mean in this moment. Yes. But like increasingly it's becoming this open question. Is there? And I think that's the most interesting and exciting thing. My dad is 71. I think most of his friends are just like, we're getting close, it's almost time. But man, he's got this ferociousness to live life that I'm really inspired by.

[Unknown]

Yeah, that's brilliant. What age are you hoping or I guess you don't have to hope. Predicting to live to.

[Brian Johnson]

I don't think that any human can say anything intelligent more than one year from now. Like we might, we can say, you know, we think the earth is going to continue to orbit around the sun with a certain degree of stability. And in terms of like how long are we going to live how will cultural norms persist? What will be normal? What will not be normal? I think given how fast AI is developing, we cannot say anything intelligent beyond a year.

[Unknown]

Right, but your physical self, you still feel that?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, I mean, I think that like, if you look at some of the best AI companies, like Dario from Anthropic the other day wrote this blog post where he's imagining, and I agree with him, that it's possible we make a hundred years worth of progress in the next five years. That when we bring up these new AI models that we can do things that otherwise would take us 100 years to do. Now that does not mean that these therapies will be available overnight. Like, we still have to go through the process, but I do think that we are looking at this possibility. So it's like when I say things like we may be the first generation to not die, people are like, stupid. Like, no, I get that from like this vantage point, we can't see how the pieces of the puzzle come together. Like it's not clear to us which things do what and when. But that's not the point. It's really, you're trying to pattern match large macro scale trends. And if you say, how fast is intelligence moving and when you acquire intelligence, what can that intelligence do on a macro scale? I think it really is a robust hypothesis that we may be the first generation to not die.

[Unknown]

And what kind of compromise do you think that's going to take on a personal level or sacrifice? And you may not use those words, but if someone was looking at it and was thinking about it from that.

[Brian Johnson]

Perspective, if we just put this in context, let's imagine you and I traveled back in time a million years ago and we're with Homo erectus and we say Homo erectus, tell us about the future of intelligent existence. Like, what are we going to evolve into? Right now Homo erectus has models maybe of hunting, of like, you know, weather patterns or of like, danger. But Homo erectus is not going to be able to tell you that in this new science field called biology, we're going to figure out that there's molecules and we're going to. Or they're not going to be able to tell you that in this new world of quantum mechanics or in this new world of silicon transistors, they don't have any models to articulate what things could come about and why. And so they just lack any models to articulate anything intelligent. And so I wonder in this moment if we are just like Homo erectus, where if you say like, what will the future bring? What will the norms be? What will our proclivities be? What will we want? We have no idea. We don't have any models that help us understand. And so that's why I think that if you want to be a genius, lean into that. You probably don't know that everything we think we have known is now going to be called into question, and that the new genius is leaning into the unknown.

[Unknown]

Yeah. How bad was your health before all of this?

[Brian Johnson]

Awful. Like, the worst. So I started entrepreneurship as, you know, 21 years old. I started building companies, and the ethos is, you know, you would hear stories of, like, so and so stayed up two nights in a row, coding all night. They're amazing. They're a genius. They're so, you know, great. And so that story would be like a status symbol. Like, they're important. They have power. You should respect them. And those stories propagate. Then others are like, I want to have status, want to be respected, and I want to do cool stuff. And so you repeat these patterns of sleep deprivation and, you know, harming your health. Now, that's just foolishness like that. We know from the evidence that you stay up for over 24 hours, you're legally drunk. Like, you're just as intoxicated had you consumed, like, your.08 alcohol level. And so we've really bought into this myth. I did myself, and so I ran myself ragged, like, just awful. Terrible sleep, terrible diet. I was depressed for 10 years. So I was kind of obsessed with killing myself for 10 years. And it was the most awful decade of existence. So I was. That was my starting point. And so now, I mean, I arguably have the best biomarkers of anyone in the world. I've openly shared all my information. They're publicly posted, and arguably down the line, like, 10, 15, 20 measurements. And so it's been actually really motivating that if you can start where I was and then turn this hard, others can do the same. So to me, it's been a really motivating experience that the body is highly responsive to change.

[Unknown]

Was there a diagnosis or a particular day or event that happened that made you go, this is my turning point?

[Brian Johnson]

Like, I grew up on biographies. I understand the world through biographies. And I just love reading about people in time and place who are able to, like, snatch out of the ether the future. Like, the future is always present. It's just that it's very hard to see. And then over time, we look back, like, oh, of course. That was the future. In that moment. And like certain people saw it. And so I came obsessed with this question at 21, like, what is the future of existence on a timescale a few hundred years into the future? And I basically grappled with that problem for 20 plus years and I didn't know what to do. So I said, I'm going to go be an entrepreneur, I'm going to make a whole bunch of money and with that money then I'll try to do something interesting. So like it's, it's kind of been this like 25 year long journey for me to like try to identify something that would have the power of changing the course of humanity. And just in the past 12 months, I think it finally all came together.

[Unknown]

How old were you when you decided to make the shift to say, I'm going to start turning back the clock.

[Brian Johnson]

So I was 43, I'm now 47. So four years ago.

[Unknown]

So four years ago. Right. And at which age do you wish you started the habits they have today?

[Brian Johnson]

I, I wish I would have been an embryo selected based upon genetic markers.

[Unknown]

Walk me through that.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, I mean like now, I mean when you're going through fertility, you create a bunch of embryos and choose the best embryo, you know, along certain dimensions. And you know, I, I'm like most humans on the planet where I was just born through the typical process of. But now you can really go in that earlier stage. And so I wish it was happened before conception. And then I wish growing up, you know, like my, I grew up in Utah, which it was very much a culture of sugar cereal, you know, soda, excessive sun exposure without sun protection, terrible sleep. Like I just grew up in a culture that was extremely destructive to health and wellness. And so my entire life has actually been in this American culture and it's been really. And I was consuming microplastics, you know, from like the earliest of days, like all of us have been. And so I would say, yeah, I really wish it would have started before birth, if not before then very early in my childhood. I wish I wouldn't have been consuming sugar and things like that, which really has, those have long term complications that we just, I don't know, I'm not sure we're fully aware of them.

[Unknown]

Yeah. For those that don't know, walk us through the microplastics because I feel like that's been a trending term right now. People are becoming more and more aware. Walk it through. For someone who's unaware of what's happening there.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, I mean like On a large scale, like my, my grandfather was full of lead, my parents are full of asbestos, and now I'm full of microplastics. Right. Like every generation has kind of had their environmental toxin that has been a very, a scourge in the world. Now microplastics have been this recent phenomena because plastics is a very low cost and high quality material. And so they're everywhere. And so microplastic is less than 5 millimeters in length. And we get them in our bodies either by inhaling them, by ingesting them, or through our skin. Like in the average male testicle, there's 8.2 milligrams of microplastics in the average brain. There's 50% more microplastics now than there was 10 years ago. So it's increasing really, really fast. And so my company, Blueprint, we just launched the world's first at home microplastics test. Like we were realizing, like, this is a major problem and the difficulty is we don't have any data. Like no one knows what these levels are in their life. And without that data, how do you know what things are working? Like if you stop drinking water out of plastic bottles, what happens? What happens if you change the clothing you wear, what happens if, et cetera, et cetera. And so, yeah, I have my levels measured. My whole team did it. Mine came back lower than anyone on my team. And we have reasons why we think that's the case, but we're not quite sure. So we're excited that we'll have the world's largest data set of microplastics in the next month. And then as a community we can start saying, like, now let's all start running these tests and let's build therapies so we can start doing things to minimize microplastics in the body.

[Unknown]

And what are the adverse effects of microplastics?

[Brian Johnson]

I mean, for example, women that have higher levels of BPA have, or had fewer eggs retrieved. So it affects, you know, very, the fundamental processes of the body. It's been tied to all kinds of things, neurodegeneration, all. I mean, basically every health malady is potentially related to microplastics. Now, like the science is still emergent and we're still figuring it out. But it's like, it's not a situation where we're saying microplastics are a good idea and you should consume more. It's a situation where like, we are consuming an enormous amount of them. We think they're causing very serious health problems. It may be worse than we think. So it's really an area that we need to understand better. But I think minimization is probably the most important step right now.

[Unknown]

So what are three simple steps that someone could take right now to minimize their influx of microplastics?

[Brian Johnson]

Water is one of the worst offenders. So don't drink out of plastic water bottles. Number two is have a water filter at home. So I have a reverse osmosis system at my house. It's very good. Mine reverse osmosis.

[Unknown]

Is there a brand, A bunch of.

[Brian Johnson]

Brands who make it.

[Unknown]

Who do you recommend?

[Brian Johnson]

Mine's custom made. So on my website I have my water filter system listed out of every component. So if you go to blueprint.brianjohnson.com and my protocol, I have it listed there. And if you're in the United States, the guy who set it up for me, I have his number and name. If you want to just call him. There's other systems that are better, that are like comparable, that are like $300. So it's a very common technology, it's easily accessible. But have that in your home is water filter because microplastics are in water. And so that's why when people, they say like well I get my food at a farmer's market, therefore, right. But they don't realize that the, the water that is, you know, coming there to for the farm is like, could be filled with microplastics. So there's just, there's no safe place anywhere for microplastics. Number two is for example, canned soups. In one study they showed that a person who consumed canned soup for one week increased their, their levels by 20 fold just in one week.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Brian Johnson]

Gigantic. Yeah. Also be aware of clothing. So try to use like hemp, cotton, silk, et cetera. Use a HEPA filter when you're vacuuming because they can be airborne in the house. Don't handle receipts. That has a lot of plastic microplastics. Using cookware that have the stainless steel or cast iron instead of non stick is really helpful. But those are the kind of the big, big ones to be aware of. If you go through your, your house environment, just say like where is plastic? You might find you have a plastic cutting board, you might find you have plastic kitchen utensils, you might have plastic plates. So just be plastic aware and once you have that mindset, you're going to realize that plastic is like everywhere. So just slowly make progress and trying to replace that with stainless steel, aluminum, things like that.

[Unknown]

What's Fascinating is you have no idea how it's entering the system.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes.

[Unknown]

Because it's not a physical, tangible experience. You're not like, feeling something exactly merging into your skin.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Walk us through the. What I was thinking about as you were talking is this idea of what happens to water in a plastic bottle versus a glass bottle.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. I mean, you're getting leaching from the plastic. And so I think the average plastic bottle has, I think, 200,000 microplastic particles, something like that. So it's a very large amount. And so generally speaking. So I've just made this rule. Like, today I brought my stainless steel. I just carry this around with me everywhere I go as my primary container for liquid. But, yeah, so just try to avoid plastic as a water bottle, generally. And the thing is, most on a bigger scale, the things which we can't see are now humanity's biggest threats. We're evolved to say, is there a lion in the bush or not? You know, can we sense it? Can we smell it? Can we see it? Whereas now the dangers of, like, CO2 build up in the atmosphere. We can't see it, we can't smell it. Like, we don't. We don't know it exists. So the only thing we know, how it exists. If we see a. Like, a number on a screen that's like, this is bad, because this number, we're like, what does that mean? We can't see it. There's no real threat. The same issue with microplastics. It's like this unknown threat. We can't see it, we can't feel it. And so that's why, like, what I've been doing is I've been trying to say, like, we. The reason why we measure everything is to basically give your body superpowers of awareness. It's like, now we understand, like, what's happening when you ingest fast food. We understand what happens when you ingest microplastics, what happens when you ingest. When you don't sleep well, like, you see the whole system effect. And so it's really cool in real time to see, like. Actually, yes. Like, for example, one night of bad sleep, can, I think it's four hours or less, reduces your NK cells by 70%. Your NK cells. NK cells are what's killing cancer cells. So, like, your army of defense systems, like, 70% of your army is wiped out after one bad night of sleep. And so it just has these really catastrophic effects.

[Unknown]

I'd never heard that before.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, yeah. Or like, there's this thing called S100B. And so you want these levels to be like in between 20 and 100 minus 63.8. When you don't sleep well, it's a toxin that gets inside the brain because the blood brain barrier breaks down when you have a bad night's sleep. It's the same level as a traumatic brain injury. And so like the body is responding as though you had a traumatic brain injury from one bad night sleep. So these things accumulate over time. And that's why sleep is so critical. It's why this culture of entrepreneurship is like, oh, sleep when you're dead is so lethal to your wellness.

[Jay Shetty]

Hey, I'm Jack Beast Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of black literature. I'm Jacques Peace Thomas and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Blacklit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands. For those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom and refuge. Between the chapters, from thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black lit is here to amplify the voices of black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Essie Cupp and I have spent the last 20 plus years knee deep in politics. In the news, I've covered some really tough subjects, from war to genocide to six presidential elections. Way too much Trump. And you know what? I need a break. Like a mental health break from the news, from the triggering headlines. And I kind of suspect some of you listening out there might need a break. So my new podcast is going to be just that, a fun and loose space where I talk to my famous friends and people I admire about all the stuff that consumes us when we're not consumed by politics.

[Brian Johnson]

I did not really rebel in the 60s. I had no sex in the 70s.

[Jay Shetty]

What?

[Brian Johnson]

I made no money in the 80s. So when true crime came along, I missed that trend too.

[Jay Shetty]

So many great guests are joining me, from Josh Mankiewicz to Larry Wilmore to Molly John Fast to Josh Gad.

[Unknown]

I'm so excited that you have this platform and I am just like, hoping.

[Jay Shetty]

That I don't destroy the platform in its Earliest stages. Listen to off the cup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. What's up, y'all? This is Questlove. And, you know, at qls, I get to hang out with my friends Sugar, Steve, Laia, Fontiguello, Unpaid Bill, and we, you know, at Cuslov supreme like to nerd out and do deep dives with musicians and actors and politicians and journalists. We give you the stories behind all your favorite artists and creatives that you have never heard. I'm talking about stories behind their life journeys and their works of art. I love QLS because of the qls Team Supreme.

[Brian Johnson]

They're like a second family to me.

[Jay Shetty]

You're a fan of deep diving into music, everything. Almanacking your musical history and learning things about hip hop artists and things you never thought then. You're a lot like me, but you're also a fan of Questlove Supreme.

[Brian Johnson]

One of the things I love the.

[Jay Shetty]

Most about this show is that we get to learn from the masters. I look at being on this show.

[Brian Johnson]

As my graduate program in music.

[Jay Shetty]

Listen to Questlove supreme on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Suprema.

[Unknown]

I'm so glad you're. You're talking about it. And I love the. You know that idea that it's almost like the worst prison that you can be in is one where you don't know you've got handcuffs on.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, there you go.

[Unknown]

Like, you don't realize it. And, I mean, social media is kind of like that. Like, you're in this prison of a world and you don't even realize you're being trapped. And our health's the same way. I was. My friend's dad was in town from London a couple of weeks back, and he has this app on his phone that shows the air pollution. I don't know what it's called.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, IQ Air.

[Unknown]

Right, okay. And he had it on his phone. And he lives outside of the city of London, so he's not really in the heart of London. And he said that pollution score, where my friend grew up, where my wife grew up, is around 2. Like, I think it's on a scale of 0 to 100, unless I'm wrong. And he did it here in LA, and it was 60.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes.

[Unknown]

And I was like, I have no to me. When I wake up, I feel like the air's like. I mean, everyone knows LA is polluted, but I don't feel that.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly.

[Unknown]

I don't Know that. Whereas, like, if I go to a certain country in the world which is known for its horrific air pollution, I can somewhat tell the difference.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

But it was like, I could tell no difference from this between where my wife grew up in England yet.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly.

[Unknown]

It's extraordinary different.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, that's right, yeah. On the air pollution, I agree with you. I live in LA as well, so I have a air measurement device in every room of my house and filters. And so we measure the air quality in every single room 24 7. So you're right, like LA air quality is typically around the 60 mark, which is like, kind of bad. But in my house it's perfect, it's zero. And so I'm always aware of where the air quality is outside and inside. So, yeah, I wish LA had better air quality. I love LA for so many reasons. I really wish the air quality was better. But, yeah, I agree with you. It is a significant health threat and it's not a good idea to have a lot of exposure to bad air.

[Unknown]

How do we go about purifying air inside of our homes? Obviously, we can't control the air in the city we live in.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, there's. There's quite a few filters. I'll get you the names of the ones I use, but I just have one filter per room and it does a great job taking down multiple contaminants. So if you're just mindful, like, for example, I never leave my windows open, so it's always a pretty tight air block. I do go outside, you know, when the air quality is nice, I try to be mindful. But also, like, if we're going to play a basketball game with friends, I'll also do that. So I kind of have like some flexibility. But, yeah, you can actually maintain near perfect air quality in the house. And so if you go to my house, like, I'd love to have you come see it. Like, it's basically, we have perfect water, perfect air. It's the optimal state for health across all the spectrum.

[Unknown]

And when you talk about water too, have you changed the water you're showering in as well? Because I think that sometimes that's something me and my wife have been talking about. We have a reverse osmosis machine for water that we drink.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes.

[Unknown]

But recently we were talking to a skin health expert and he was talking about the water we shower in having a different effect. And I literally tested washing my face with the water I drink and washing my face with shower water and he could immediately tell the difference using the tools and devices. He was measuring just with how it affected my skin.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes. Yeah, that's very true. And so we actually did the same measurements where I took water that was from our filter system and water, tap water. I put it into a humidifier in my room, I turned it on and then I measured the air quality based upon humidified tap water and filtered water. The tap water set off all the alarms. It was like, danger zone. Something bad is happening. So we're doing the analysis now. But I agree, like, they cause a lot of harm on skin inside the body. So. Yeah. And they're. They have to be practically managed.

[Unknown]

Yeah. What I find fascinating about so much of this stuff is in. You said you were going to India soon and you'll see it there. Like when I grew up and when I used to visit India when I was young and even when I lived there for some time, we always used stainless steel to drink in. Like that was the norm. And it's almost like now it's like all these new, you know, now everyone's using stainless steel in the Western world. But now if you go back to India, lots of plastic bottles everywhere. And so it's such a, like, weird thing as to how we went away from tried and tested wisdom that we already had. Like in my home, every cup for drinking water growing up would be stainless steel.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Because it was the Indian way to do it. And I always didn't like it because I didn't like the clanging. It felt weird because when my, when I went to friends houses, they didn't have stainless steel cups and things. It felt a bit awkward and strange. Now when I think about it, I'm like, well, that was the right way to do it.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, that's right.

[Unknown]

Yeah. And somehow, somehow we, we went away from that because I guess cost, it was cheaper to produce, cheaper to scale. I wonder how much human health has been sacrificed over saving and making money.

[Brian Johnson]

That's exactly. I think you nailed it. Is like the, the biggest game in the world right now is capitalism. That's what drives the majority of what exists in the world today. Like, religious adherence doesn't really affect the effects of capitalism all that much. Right. It's a very moderate effect. Capitalism is the absolute dominant effect in the world. It's more so than democracy, more so than any religion. It's the primary game we're playing. So I think, yeah, and that's my primary objective in life is I'm calling it a question. The capitalism no longer answers the questions that are imminent for us as a Species.

[Unknown]

It's funny, though, because a lot of people will say that all of these new health trends are just disguised capitalism, but they're really simple and accessible. Like, you're saying, like, I loved how you started off by explaining that the $2 million isn't on the protocols, which we'll get to, but the 2 million is actually on the research and the measuring so that you can prove that the protocols work.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly right.

[Unknown]

And so it's actually accessible to everyone. But often people are like. Like, I remember when. When celery juice was the thing, which has helped me a lot in my life, for sure, at least from a story, anecdotal point of view. But I remember everyone being like, oh, my God, they're just trying to make money off of celery farms. And I was like, I don't know. I don't think everyone. I don't think there's one person that owns every celery farm. So I don't think that's working. What's your take on that, if that's making any sense?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, it does. Yeah. When I entered this world four years ago, I thought there's so many patterns that were similar to religion, where, like, you take the King James version of the Bible and you can support a hundred different denominations, right? And they all fight like, we're the true religion because of, like, this scripture, that scripture. So then you walk in the world, you're like, how do I even know, like, what's going on? It's all in the same book. And so health and wellness was very similar. If, like, take your guru, take your charismatic personality and, like, do this thing. And we wanted. I wanted to say, like, we're going to be strictly science and strictly data, and we're going to open source, publish everything I do. There's no gatekeeping involved here. And so that's what we did, I think, to carve out uniqueness is that we just said, like, we don't care about story, we just want to see the data. And so I think that's really been successful, is that we are impartial. We don't care what the answer is, we just want it to work.

[Unknown]

Yeah. And you're doing it to yourself.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown]

So that's the greatest test. So, yeah, your sleep score has been 100% for the last eight months. What does that require?

[Brian Johnson]

I mean, I wanted to, like, Amelia Earhart flew a plane across the Atlantic. You know, people went to the top of Everest, went to the bottom of the ocean. Shackleton was trying to do A pole to pole. I was like what would a modern day explorer do? Like what is like an epic thing? I thought no one has shown, no one has mastered sleep in human history, right? Like we have no quantified like a gold medalist of sleep. There's no like world record of sleep. And I thought I'm going to set a world record of sleep. And so eight months of perfect sleep. And I wanted to demonstrate you can achieve high quality sleep every single night if you try it. And so I rebuilt my entire life around it. So yeah, I mean I became the world's best sleeper.

[Unknown]

And what does that require to become the world's best sleeper?

[Brian Johnson]

I mean really five simple things which everybody can do. It's so funny. I tried hundreds of things and I just landed on five. So one is you have to reframe your identity that you are a professional sleeper. So just like you take your professional job seriously, you, you show up on time, right? You learn, you grow. Like you have a lot of self respect on what you do. The same is true for sleep right now. Like we sleep when it's convenient or when we're done watching our show or when we're finished like having friends over. But sleep is actually a profession. Like you need to become really good at it and to respect it. Number two is the last time of the time of your final meal. Today is really important. So at least two hours before you go to bed is your final meal. Then start three hours before and then four and five. Mine is currently nine hours before. So I go to bed at roughly 8:30. That's not true. I go to bed at 8:30 on the dot. So then I. My last bill today is around 11:30am and so I do that and my resting heart rate at that point is 44. And when my resting heart rate's 44 I'm guaranteed to have a perfect night's sleep. If I ate two hours before bed, my resting heart rate is gonna be like 56. Cuz your body's still working hard to digest. And that will reduce my sleep quality by 35ish percent. Just like clockwork, it's very predictable. So last meal of the day and then what you eat is really important. If you have like a big pizza or pasta or breads or alcohol, you're going to disrupt your sleep. So final meal, eat earlier and lighter and the right kinds of Foods. Uh 3 is you want to be aware of light, so knockout blues, no screen time. Uh, there's an app called Flux F L U X that knocks out blues on your screen even before that last minute. Uh, so an hour before bed, no screen time, take lights down in the house and then also use red lights, amber lights. Uh, four is consistency. So whatever your bedtime is, it's 10:30, be in bed plus or minus 30 minutes every night. Now if you want to get more precise, like five minutes, that's kind of hard for some people, but 30 minutes is a pretty good one. Your body will give you a super power of assistance if you're consistent. Like when I was going to bed on time, when I do my eight months of perfect sleep, I was in bed plus or minus one minute of my bedtime. And my body would, when I 8, 29 would arrive, my body would just like knock out. It was unreal how powerful my cycle was. So if you can harness that consistency, your body will be more powerful than any sleep pill, any other intervention. It's really good. And then the fifth, and this is really important, is a wind down routine. So one hour before bedtime, you switch from work mode to sleep mode. And so it's really a mind game because when you slip into your sleep mode one second later, your brain's gonna say, oh, what about this idea? Or what about this concern? Or what about this problem? Or what about this thing I forgot to do? And your body, your head just gonna, your mind's gonna ping you with all these things you'd have to say, like, thank you, ambitious Brian, for the new idea on what to do. We really appreciate you, you're doing a great job in life. Also, tomorrow we have all day long to address this. Right now we're in sleep mode. So I do this self talk. Like, you know, like, oh, you had this conversation today when you're with Jay. You said this thing, you probably offended him. Now he probably doesn't want to hang out with you anymore. You know, like, you have to cycle through all these, all these anxious thoughts. And so you have to do this self talk and be like, I hear you, it's okay. I've heard your concern. Because what you're trying to do is when your head hits a pillow, you want to be somewhat reconciled with reality. Otherwise you're going to all night long, just loop through those thoughts all night long. And you'll be in light sleep and you'll be just being the same thought space and you're missing your deep and your rem. So, so then the Widener routine, you switch to sleep mode, but then you also want to do things like read a book, go for a walk, do breath, work, meditate, you know, have that. Have a nice, nice conversation with a friend. Like, don't fight with your partner in that window. Like, don't create an arousing situation. So those five things will give you the best sleep of your life.

[Unknown]

Yeah. It's almost like we wait for our head to hit the pillow to reflect on the thoughts that we didn't choose to reflect on before we got into bed. Because we don't have that reflection time before getting into bed. Because that's what I was going to say. I think for most people, they can get into bed, but then they sit there for an hour.

[Brian Johnson]

That's right.

[Unknown]

Worrying and stressing and they're feeling anxious or nervous or overwhelmed. But you're saying that's going to happen. You just got to do that before you actually get into bed.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly. Like, you have to go through this decompression time. You kind of have to let yourself, like, air out all of its grievances, all of its ideas, like all of its reconciliation. And you have to talk to, like, talk through it with yourself. Like, hey, Brian, like, and be soft. Like, I hear you, like, and it's okay. Like, tomorrow we're all right. But otherwise, yeah, you're right. Like, you really people, most people think you lay down and that's the time to do the reconciliation and it just leads to disaster. But there's like, there's five metrics to pay attention to. Or I guess four, your sleep is good if, when you, if your head is on the pillow, you're asleep within a few minutes. If you're longer than that, then you need some work. Uh, two is you want to be up less than 30 minutes per night total. So if you're up for one bathroom break, you know, back to sleep quickly. Uh, three is like roughly two hours of REM, roughly two hours of deep. There's variance there. People are different on that one. But like, those are roughly the sleep stats. If you're in that category, your, like, early 20s, like in your sleep quality. As you age, it's harder to get sleep. And that's especially true for women. They have to spend much longer time in bed than men do. So it's really important that these habits you cement otherwise, like, you're really fighting against multiple fronts.

[Unknown]

And do you think that for people who are waking up often when they're asleep or. And they're awake for longer than just a few moments, what should they be looking at? Like, what metrics should they be pushing towards to be like, that's what's causing it? How do they deduce that?

[Brian Johnson]

Sometimes it's the last meal of the day. So if their body still robustly digesting, then you have. You basically you'll miss your deep because when you go to sleep, you fall into a deep sleep window very quickly and then if you miss it, you can't get it. So last week I was at a conference and everyone went out for this big party and I wanted to try to accommodate like I wanted to be with everyone. So I went to bed at 7pm, I woke up at 9pm So I got my two hours of deep sleep. Then I went out with everybody, we had a great time. I came back home, I went to bed I think at one or two and then I got my remaining six hours of rem. You know, I get two hours of REM but six hours of sleep and I still had a great night's sleep and I felt wonderful the next day. But if you wait and go to bed like at midnight, for me I would just miss my deep sleep. It would be gone. And so like I'm trying to functionally be adaptive to societal norms while it was still logging those metrics. But yeah, you have to be mindful of like if you build your life around it, then you can make these adjustments. But you really have to make a professional effort to do this because it takes like structurally just get it right and then you'll win.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I feel, I feel a big difference. So I'm, I'm pretty disciplined in my sleep times as well have been for a long time. I maybe haven't measured it for as long, but I'm thankful and grateful to have great sleep. But the. I found that when I'm sleeping after midnight, it doesn't matter how many hours I sleep for, I never feel as good in the morning.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly.

[Unknown]

It's so significant. Why is that? What's happening when we're sleeping consistently after 11pm or midnight? What's actually happening?

[Brian Johnson]

I mean your body has a production line so like you have a rhythm and you can get your deep sleep. So if you go to bed at 10:30, your deep sleep's gonna happen. Between 10:30 and 12:30 you may have a bit more deep sleep like at 2 or 3 in the morning, but the majority is going to be front loaded. So if you miss that front window, you just miss it and you can't pick it up.

[Unknown]

Why is that front window so much more important than the later window?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, because you have a few sleep types. You've got R.E.M. you have deep. You have light and deep. So many restorative processes are happening in rem. You've got a bunch of memory reconciliation, whatnot, but deep. You just have this restorative building process. So you basically miss out on all those restorative processes if you miss it. Which is why, like, the brain hurts when you don't get it. You can't do, like, garbage collection. Like, you miss a garbage truck.

[Unknown]

What about. Oh, yeah, that's a great way of looking at it, to miss the garbage truck. That's. I've never heard that. I've heard the dishwasher analogy before, but the garbage truck one's even better, actually.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

The idea that if your garbage didn't get picked up and it's still outside your house or your apartment or even.

[Brian Johnson]

In your home, you're stuck with it the next day.

[Unknown]

That's pretty terrible. And you're stuck with it for another week.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Unknown]

No one's coming to collect it. No one's coming to collect it. That's great. Great analogy. Yeah, that. That feels really, really true. And I feel like what we don't realize because we often say, I know so many people will say, but I do my best creative work at night.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes, exactly.

[Unknown]

I know a lot of people who say, oh, yeah, but I need to go to that party or whatever it is. Right. Or I feel left out or FOMO or whatever it is, or people who just go, yeah, I just can never get to sleep, so what's the point?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And what would you say to someone who says any one of those three?

[Brian Johnson]

So I've learned to be, in doing this for four years, I've learned to be very humble. I. I don't know how much we know and how much we don't know. Like if maybe, for example, like we actually know 2% of what we will know in 10, 20, 30 years. And so we are very humble. Like, for example, I am vegan, I'm caloric restriction. And yet, you know, if you hear those stats, and I also do low protein. And so if you hear those stats, the, the cultural norm would be like, oh, he for sure is broken, weak, not capable, not athletic, not strong. But in every category, like my cardiovascular fitness, my actual physical strength, all my metrics are top 1%. And so we've defied the cultural norm of what is good health, how you achieve good health. And so I know this is probably true for others as well, is many of the things we believe are probably not true. And so I'm soft also. That I've learned that people have a justification for everything. There's just no way around it. That's, that's humans. And so I don't try to resist it. Just say like, great, do your thing. Just measure your data because we know the stats. Like for example, if you're not sleeping well, your other markers are going to be off. Like your SB100. Like all these different, all these markers are going to be off. I invite just look at the data.

[Unknown]

What are the data driven insights of poor sleep? Like what really is going to happen to you? You already told us what happens after one night of sleep. What does it look like when you have seven nights, seven months of bad sleep?

[Brian Johnson]

I mean like if you notice, like I did this, my company kernel, we built this brain interface, this wearable fmri and we were measuring the effects on my brain of willpower with deep sleep and without deep sleep. So with deep sleep my willpower was significantly high. Without deep sleep it significantly dropped. And so like if the next day after deep sleep you're trying to decide do you eat the brownie or not, do you work out or not, do you have a drink or not? Like right. The chances of you caving in that moment are significantly higher if you've not had deep sleep. So then it has this cascade effect. So if you don't sleep then you're also going to bad thing, which also leads to poor sleep, which also leads to doing more bad things. So it has this domino effect where it really cements bad habits and it becomes harder for you to come out from underneath it of actually making meaningful changes.

[Unknown]

I can so relate to that. I only, I see myself craving sugars when I've had bad sleep.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly.

[Unknown]

And when I haven't and I've worked out and everything, I feel great.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes.

[Unknown]

And as soon as I had a bad night's sleep the next day I know all I want is some sugar. And it's the only way to get through. And you're so right. It's just a repeating cycle.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly. It just devastates your willpower and like all these other cascading things. And so that's why like I think in even like five or 10 years, I think that health is going to, it will become the zeitgeist. And I think we'll look back and we'll be like what? Like we used to just sleep, deprive ourselves and like we had no idea what it was doing for these follow on effects like I wanted. Actually what I'd like to do is tie Sleep to iq, you don't mess with someone's iq. Right. Like, if you can show that IQ drops post a bad night's sleep, it basically decimates these ideas of, like, genius person does blank without sleep. So the ultimate argument is data. So it's a study I want to do is take these patterns, measure IQ throughout the day, and if you can show that drop, like, there's very few things that will be more effective than showing that you basically become dumb when you don't sleep.

[Unknown]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're gonna have to find a way of convincing people.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

That sleep's a good investment. And it's hard, Right. Because it almost feels like I think we don't look at our part. That part of our health as something we can be good at.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes.

[Unknown]

And that's why your whole idea of becoming a professional sleeper, like, I think we do think about, I want to be a professional runner. I could be a professional bodybuilder. Like, these are parts of our health that becoming good at seems aspirational.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly.

[Unknown]

But becoming a good sleeper or even becoming a good meditator to some degree, aren't seen as professional accomplishments or pursuits because they don't have this competition and not nor should it be a competition. I don't think it needs to be. But this idea of competing against yourself, which is what a sleep score is, seems like the healthiest way to do it.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly. I did this as well with. So when this endeavor went viral, people were confused. And so I got a lot of name calling. So people would be like, you're an eccentric billionaire, rich Patrick Bateman, Prometheus, you know, like, all the possible things they could call me. And so they were just confused. And so I'd say, like, okay, LeBron James spends $1.5 million a year on his health. Right. And you see him play in the court, you're like, Good job, LeBron. Like, you're doing a good job. But someone like myself, if you work really hard at health and wellness, I'm weird and an outcast and should be an eccentric. And so I had to clarify for people that actually I'm a new category. And I came up with this idea that I'm a professional rejuvenation athlete. It's a new sport. It's a new game. And they created a leaderboard. So looked at speed of aging. So there's a clock inside of our body that tells you how fast or how slow you're aging. And then I said, all right, world, let's compete. Because right now you have all these health gurus who are saying, like, do this, do that, but how do you know what thing works? And so I was like, all right, just show us your data. So now we have a leaderboard. And so same thing, just like a professional sleeper. There's now a professional rejuvenation athlete, and we have a leaderboard. People compete. So it's like, it helps humans understand, like, what the game is and how to win and how to score points.

[Unknown]

Yeah. And I think we underestimate how much we do function like athletes. Like, athletes are playing three or four big games a week. If you're playing basketball, if you're playing soccer, it's probably like two to three. American football. I don't know, maybe it's a game a week or a couple of games a week, but it's like, we don't realize, like, that tough conversation at work, that presentation at work, that beard, that sale, like, whatever it is, like, all of that is taxing us in a different way. Like, we're not pushing our bodies that far, but we are pushing our brains, we are pushing our guts, we are pushing our minds. And I wanted to talk to you a bit about food because you brought up a few interesting things there about eating that much earlier before bed. But I wanted to start with the low protein. So I'm vegan too. So that's why I was listening to you. So I was like, I'm vegan to measure caloric intake. But hearing you talk about being low protein, that's something I'm always told to do the opposite for. So walk me through that.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. What's your protein intake?

[Unknown]

So I've been told, or I've been told to try and do, like, my body weight. Right. And so that's impossible for me. My gut does not enjoy that. And so as I tried to increase my protein intake, I found that it was harder and heavier on my gut, if I'm honest. Right now I'm probably doing like 80 grams of protein a day. And that's good if I get there, like, realistically. And my gut can handle that, whereas I saw my gut health struggling as I tried to get to 120 grams of protein.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

140.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. See, I'm in the same range, so I'm roughly 120.

[Unknown]

Okay.

[Brian Johnson]

So I weigh 174. Yeah, yeah. And so I say that's low protein. So it sounds like for where you're at, that's about where you're at. But most men I know are typically in like the 200, 250 range, they have an idea that just there's no upper bound of too much protein and so they just pound it. And so yeah, I guess my 120 is generally speaking on the lower side of how most men think about protein consumption.

[Unknown]

Right, right, right.

[Brian Johnson]

Especially with, you know, an hour every day working out. It's like a really rigorous schedule. So most people just assume you have to have more protein.

[Unknown]

So it's. So I'm, I'm vegan, I work out an hour every day. But yeah, just when I was being told to eat like 160, 170 grams of protein, I couldn't go beyond 100. I was like, my body just does not like it.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And I'm about to destroy my gut to try and get a protein goal, but then my gut health's going to suffer.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, yeah. So we look at it. So we say like basically you can look up blood biomarkers and say cuz once you get too much protein it has a negative effect on the body. You can tease out those biomarkers. But then we've used MRI to say what is my total muscle mass, what is my fat? You know, liver fat, like throughout. So for example, on my latest MRI scan, I'm in the top 1% for ideal muscle and fat. And so by every marker and then my cardiovascular fitness, I've topped 1.5% of 18 year olds. So like that's the end point. So if you say what is the protein intake? It's not solely based upon a dietary recommendation, it's what is happening in the body. And what is my muscle status, what is my cardiovascular status, what is my energy? And so like those are the end points where again you move away from story and you move to data and let data resolve the debate.

[Unknown]

What's your body fat percentage right now?

[Brian Johnson]

Around 10.

[Unknown]

Okay, and was that a goal you had?

[Brian Johnson]

It was like an approximate goal, but we were really trying to say if you're taking every organ in the body, we're trying to make every organ in my body age 18. That's kind of a ridiculous idea in this moment, but it may not be in five or 10 or 15 years. We've been successful in slowing down my speed of aging and then reversing the biological age of semi organs. Not all. Like for example my left ear. It's really this methodical progress to say can you measure age and then move the organ back?

[Unknown]

And from a diet perspective, what helps you get to age 18?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, we've tried to construct a Perfect diet. So every single calorie I consume has a specific objective. If it doesn't achieve a goal. Like, we basically tried to just stack superfoods across the board. And so there's nothing I eat which is like, cool or fun or culturally in. It has to have rigorous scientific evidence, and we have to measure it in the body that's actually working. And so, yeah, I eat a lot of broccoli, cauliflower, lentils, hemp, pea protein. Hemp protein, berries, nuts, seeds.

[Unknown]

Could you walk me through your exact meals? Like a rough day? Because I'm gonna try mirror these meals.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, so my, my first meal of the day is called super veggie. And it's. It's broccoli, cauliflower, black lentils, ginger, garlic. Yeah, that's the first meal. And the second meal is called nutty pudding, which is macadamia nuts, walnuts, flaxseed, pomegranate juice, some berries, and pea and hemp protein. And a third meal of the day varies every day. So it's like some vegetables, some berry nut seed, but a total of 2,500 calories. And then I do one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil with each meal. So I do three tablespoons a day, drizzled on top. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Raw. So I never cook with it. And then I do collagen peptides. So that's the only thing that's non vegan is the collagen peptides. And that's 2,250. Oh, they also do some cocoa, 100% pure cocoa, 6 grams a day. And then I take around 50 pills. So there's. There's no diet? No, no vegan diet, no carnivore diet can satisfy the body's entire needs. So you have to supplement if you want to be ideal. And then if you want to be on the frontier of like, really slowing down your aging, robustly addressing the body's needs, you need to supplement the. Some things just cannot be acquired through. Through diet. And so these are like, this is just scientific fact. It's very hard to have this conversation. Like, the moment you bring up diet, people just go crazy. Like, war breaks out between the vegans and the carnivores, between this and that. It's just. So I just, I. I don't talk about it much because people get so triggered by it. And so I just try to, like, say, like, do your thing. Like, whatever it is, do your thing. Just measure and then follow your market.

[Unknown]

But it's like, no processed foods, no Packaged foods that you're not eating anything. Anything out of a pack, it seems.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. Let me actually. So all blueprint food. So basically when I started doing this, we started measuring everything I was consuming, all foods, all supplements. And as you might expect, the supplement labels are not accurate. Companies are not truthful, and the food is terrifyingly toxic. We know the food system's dirty, but I had this general idea that there must be some system in place in America. They're like watching out for us. Not true. So unless the food is killing you on the spot, there's like this gray area of like kind of just do whatever. And so we were finding these foods I was eating were very toxic. And so we basically spent the past year sourcing food from all over the entire world. The very best foods, lowest levels of toxins. And so we've made it out into a product. People are like, I want to do this, but it's way too complicated. So we just made it easy for everybody. But it's like, I think we've created the most scientifically robust product out there. Plus the cleanest, all third party lab results posted.

[Unknown]

So wait, what can people buy?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, so this is my company, Blueprint.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Brian Johnson]

So, yeah, so when, when the company went viral, when this endeavor went viral, people are like, love it. I want to do it, but it's way too hard. Like, no way can I put this all together. And so I thought, okay, I'll do it. So we put together the whole thing in this low cost, easy to consume package. Olive oil, protein, eight pills a day, and then a bunch of other stuff. But we're trying to basically say, like, you can get every calorie you need from us.

[Unknown]

Got it.

[Brian Johnson]

And so we're trying to do most scientific, scientifically rigorous and cleanest and then transparent. Like, here are the lab results. So I think we've built the best thing in the entire world.

[Unknown]

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Every January, Lab Life hands us 365 blank pages. A fresh start, a chance to write something new. Maybe this is the year you introduce a plot twist or finally revisit that chapter you've been meaning to write. But here's the Life isn't about resolutions that fade by February. It's about realizing you're the author of your story and deciding how you want it to unfold. Think of therapy as your trusted co author. It's there to guide you, challenge you, and help you create a story that's full of purpose, growth and meaning. Therapy helps you uncover patterns, navigate challenges and build the tools to live the life you truly want. Write your story with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com Jason top three to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp h lp.com Jstop3 get emotional.

[Brian Johnson]

With me Radhi Devlukia in my new podcast, A really Good Cry, we're going to talk about and go through all the things that are sometimes difficult to process alone. We're going to go over how to regulate your emotions, diving deep into holistic.

[Jay Shetty]

Personal development and just building your mindset.

[Brian Johnson]

To have a happier, healthier life. We're going to be talking with some of my best friends. I didn't know we were going to go there.

[Jay Shetty]

I'm not people that I admire.

[Brian Johnson]

When we say listen to your body.

[Jay Shetty]

Really tune into what's going on.

[Brian Johnson]

Authors of books that have changed my life.

[Unknown]

Now you're talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy, right?

[Brian Johnson]

And basically have conversations that can help us get through this crazy thing we call life. I already believe in myself. I already see myself.

[Jay Shetty]

And so when people give me an.

[Brian Johnson]

Opportunity, I'm just like, oh great, you see me too. We'll laugh together, we'll cry together and find a way through all of our emotions. Never forget, it's okay to cry as long as you make it a really good one. Listen to A really Good Cry with.

[Jay Shetty]

Radhi Devlukia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple.

[Brian Johnson]

Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jay Shetty]

Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jamae Jackson Gadsden. We're the hosts of let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and I Heart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions, like how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes, each week we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Sanner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like? You miss 100% of the shots you never take. Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to. Let's talk offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Unknown]

And you don't think that's different from getting your calories from whole foods and real foods?

[Brian Johnson]

You can. Yeah, so I eat whole foods and that.

[Unknown]

Right, right, right, right. So this is a, this is more of like a. A supplementary package. It's not a replacement meals.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, I mean, so like protein. The protein is a replacement mill.

[Unknown]

Got it.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. Like you need to get pea and hemp protein somewhere.

[Unknown]

Yeah. And what does your supplement intake look like? What? You said 50 pills.

[Brian Johnson]

I do 50. Yeah. But the. Our blueprint stack has eight. So it's like if you want the best longevity stack in the world, we've put it together. Eight pills.

[Unknown]

And what do those eight include?

[Brian Johnson]

About 62 or so health actives. So they're some of the best molecules known to anti aging science for the body.

[Unknown]

Amazing. I can't wait to try it out.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. Yeah. I brought it here for you today.

[Unknown]

Oh, very cool. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. And wait, so what time are you eating then? Because if you're finishing eating at 11:30am what time are your meals?

[Brian Johnson]

6Am is my first meal.

[Unknown]

Okay.

[Brian Johnson]

And then I finished by 11:11.

[Unknown]

So you're eating everything within five and a half hours. What does that do to the body?

[Brian Johnson]

So far the data says it's good. Like if you look at my speed of aging or like any other marker is, in my gut, it seems all fine. So I really. This protocol is built around sleep more than anything else.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Do you have any cheat days or any.

[Brian Johnson]

I don't know.

[Unknown]

Not a single one.

[Brian Johnson]

No. Now the idea of eating a piece of pizza or a whole pizza or like a donut or something just makes me sick. Because I'm going to do it. There will be like five seconds of maybe enjoyment and then you've got like an entire day of misery. You feel sick, you feel lethargic, Your sleep is going like, I've just ruined my sleep. I feel awful about myself. Like the cost is so high. I just don't want to do it. The other day I ate a potato chip. My friend was like, just have one. And it tasted like gasoline. Like, I'm so surprised. Like we're just so normalized to this. These processed foods, we can no longer taste it. But it was just wild to go back in time and experience it new.

[Unknown]

It is interesting how quickly your Taste buds rewire.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

When you kind of disconnect from some of these foods. I've definitely done like long, refined, sugar free fasts for, you know, I don't know, the longest one I've ever done, but definitely a few months.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And I feel like after that, as someone who grew up addicted to chocolate, what you were talking about when you grew up in a family where.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Sodas and drinks, it was like for me, I grew up in a family where all we ate was chocolate all day.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And so for me to go back to, there are days when I'm like, that does not taste anywhere near as I thought it was going to taste. Something that I loved and adored before has kind of lost it. And you just notice how quickly. Do you have any data on how quick it takes to rewire your taste buds? Because I feel like that is such a interesting feeling because now it's not like you're even fighting it. Like you said when you taste it, you're like, God, I didn't even want that. That's a really fascinating place to be at. So have you seen any dare on how quick we can rewire our taste buds within days?

[Brian Johnson]

Days, yeah. It's very, very fast.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Brian Johnson]

That's, that's the thing about being human is like if you take any given circumstance and you say like what do I abhor? What do I, what am I repulsed by? What do I find unimaginable? What. You know, take any kind of vector and you imagine that that is an impossible thing for you to be or do. And then if you actually got in that circumstance and you did it for a few days, you may find yourself renormalized to the exact thing you just found unimaginable. Like we humans can adapt to anything and almost instantaneously. It's just crazy. And so like most of the time the realization is just like we're trapped in this idea that we found how we somehow found truth and that anything else is non true is not truth. But like it's like we can adapt to any reality like that. It's like we've seen that again and again. So do you.

[Unknown]

Are you someone who gets stressed if you walk into the room and you sense that the moisture's off or the air quality's off or you ate something like, how do you react to that?

[Brian Johnson]

I've had enough cycle times now with measurement where I can feel things intuitively. I can feel my hrv. I absolutely know my heart rate at any given moment. Yeah. So I definitely. My sensory awareness has dramatically increased.

[Unknown]

And then how do you react to that? Because you can't control the humidity in every room or wherever you are, for example.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, it's okay. Yeah.

[Unknown]

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So you're not. You're not. You don't. You're not like, oh, my God, like, this is going to set me like, you don't. You don't have that reaction.

[Brian Johnson]

I'm playing the power laws.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Brian Johnson]

So that's why, like, last week when being with friends, I wanted to try a new thing. Go to bed early, get your deep sleep, stay up and have fun. To go back to bed. Like, it's okay. So really trying to be adaptive.

[Unknown]

So I love that. Let's talk about that. Because I think that what's interesting is to live a highly intentional life, but then to be adaptable and know where the wiggle room is. Yeah, that seems like a great way to live. And it also seems like something that isn't usually possible. What we usually see is. And this isn't just to do with health, but with anything. We usually see people who are control freaks. We're like, everything has to be super controlled. And as soon as one control is off, they freak out. And that's not a great way to live. Whether it's business, health, marriage, whatever it may be, or you see the opposite, where someone has no rules whatsoever. They just do what they want, when they want, and life kind of goes on, and we all know where that ends up. So how have you managed to create that mindset that allows you to have space, have time, and then live a really regimented, disciplined life? Because I like that a lot.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah, I mean, my. My mentality is that I'm really motivated by being respected by those that exist in the 25th century. Like, when they read about this time and place, I. I would like them to say that I saw something that was invisible, that was incredibly hard to do, that the. The predictable pushback from the status quo was, you know, pretty violent. And so I'm really trying to demonstrate the future of being human. I'm not trying to be normal. I'm not trying to bow to status quo. I'm not trying to fit in. I'm not trying to soothe. I'm trying to say the speed at which technology is traveling. We're basically probably evolving like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years equivalent in months of time. Our speed of evolution is increasing rapidly. And so I'm trying to anticipate where we want to be and not be a lagging indicator of status quo. And so in my mindset, I really don't care what anyone right now who lives has to say about this. I don't. I just really am entirely in that future headspace. And so that really I find to be liberating because like so much of our society, you're tethered to social expectation and the punishment of what accompanies violating that expectation. And I just found it. I had to come up with a mental model to like, try to fully explore this without that tethering.

[Unknown]

Are you, are you scared of dying?

[Brian Johnson]

No.

[Unknown]

What's your relationship like with death? What are your thoughts about it?

[Brian Johnson]

For me, it's kind of an interesting conversation because we humans do not know what happens after death. No one knows. Now you can imagine what happens. You can tell a story about what happens. You can, you can hypothesize what happens. Like all those things are true, but it's an unknowable thing. And yet that doesn't stop us from speaking with unbridled confidence on what will be. And to me, it really shows that we humans, we don't want to die, like, desperately we do not want to die. And we want to try to address this omnipresent concern of what exists after life, what is death? And so I try to be very sober minded to say, like, I don't know. And no human knows. Therefore, the thing I value most is that that existence is the highest virtue. Whereas before be. When death is always inevitable, you just naturally soothe yourself with these stories. And what I'm saying now is like, actually we might be able to do something about this that we never could before. And therefore we can have a reimagination of what existence truly is.

[Unknown]

Yeah, yeah. The, the Eastern perspectives always fascinated me with how our consciousness is eternal and the body is temporary. And therefore that desire to live forever comes from this very innate truth that we are eternal, we're not limited in the way the body is limited to some degree, I guess. And it's always been fascinating to me how the desire to live is a very natural one, actually.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And, and it's uniform.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

But it's almost one that we are scared to ask. There's a lot of fear around even talking about death. It feels morbid. It feels. When it's the most. It's, you know, guaranteed and the most common thing that will. It's the number one thing that will happen to everyone who's born.

[Brian Johnson]

So if you tell, like, let's just take an entrepreneur and say, like, if you, like, show up to do this thing and you're just present and do like some minimal amount of work. You're going to become a billionaire, like that's the prize. But in reality you have to be an entrepreneur that's like to defy all odds and work a crazy amount to achieve some level of success. And I feel like the death narrative that we have as a species is it's kind of the same of like you get this afterlife with this minimal set of effort. And so basically it sacks people of inviting them to work hard for existence because it's already guaranteed. And so to me it has this really negative consequence where it's like, oh, taken care of. Therefore you can have poor health habits, you can risk your life, you can do these things. So I think we're really on this bigger timescale. We're wrapped up in this moment where our, we should be working a lot harder. And I care a lot more about our existence, about the planet's health, about our kids health, about societal's health. And we're lackadaisical because we have some sort of idea that somehow in the afterlife things are sorted. So I think it really weakens us as a species.

[Unknown]

From the point of view of data, what's different about what men need to do for longevity and what women need to do for longevity?

[Brian Johnson]

We have much more in common than we do differences. So a lot of people immediately jump to, they'll see my protocol and they'll say, well certainly there has to be personalizations that are done from you versus me or whatever. And I would draw their attention back to say we have much more in common than you think. Instead of saying what are the major commonalities? They immediately go to differences. And so what we have in common is sleep works great for men and women and eating vegetables also great for men and women. And again you can look at the data. Exercise. Great. And so there's nuances on the exercise of like around a woman's cycle. So yes, there's nuances, but generally speaking the basics of health, of life, health practices are good for both males and females. And so then the nuances like you on my protocol, I have a protocol I've published publicly. There's nuances of a woman's cycle, what to do around that for both food and exercise. So yeah, those are details I've listed out. But generally speaking the benefits are in the power laws of health and wellness, of getting the basics right and less so the tail things which people focus on.

[Unknown]

Yeah. And how does someone lower their inflammation, which is known as like the silent killer.

[Brian Johnson]

So my body, for example, has barely levels of any detectable inflammation. It's almost entirely gone.

[Unknown]

I want that. That sounds amazing.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. Do you know your inflammation level?

[Unknown]

I don't know my level. Recently, I've got a blood test coming up again, so I need to check it out with Darshan. So. But yeah, it's always been one of those things that's been hard for me to manage.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So you're looking probably at your hscrp. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it has to do with diet a lot. Sleep. Yes. Like, again, like back to the basics of life and then stress. Yeah. So it kind of always comes back to the basics.

[Unknown]

Yeah. And. And what are people getting wrong in their daily schedule with stress that they could easily change to kind of lower that? Because like we talked about earlier, not everyone's in a position to take care of their own schedule.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Build their thing. They may be working a job in a certain way. Like, what are some things people can do to manage that throughout the day?

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. First is sleep. So, like, sleep is a superpower to manage stress. I know that when I'm well rested, if a stressful event happens, it just kind of I can brush it off. If I'm not well rested, it feels very painful and I react very strongly. So sleep is probably the most powerful thing to manage stress. Two is, you know, if you're exercising and feel well. Also lowers, like, stress response than a balanced diet. Every single.

[Unknown]

Yeah, same thing.

[Brian Johnson]

Same stuff. Like you get those power laws in place. Agreed. A lot of people, like, when they can't get those power laws in place, they want to take a pill. And so I realized that's how a lot of people think. I do want to urge people, like, get those habits in place.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Brian Johnson]

They are the most robust, highly performative things you can do.

[Unknown]

What does your one hour workout look like?

[Brian Johnson]

It's cardio weights, balance and flexibility.

[Unknown]

Okay. Yeah. Very balanced.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Yeah. What I love about everything you're saying is that it's. It's things that it's almost like. Some of it we know, some of it we're aware of. The biggest challenge, I guess, when it comes to all of this is discipline. Like, discipline. If there was one word, what word would you choose? If there's one thing that you said is at the core of everything you've.

[Brian Johnson]

Talked about today, it's systems.

[Unknown]

Systems.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. So, like, if you design. If you say, like, I go to bed at this time of day, every single day, you build your life around it if you say I work out in the morning, right. I wake up every day, I never change it. So the thing that most people do is they leave the decision to their willpower. They say, do I feel like it or not? And then in that moment it's like, nah, I'm going to skip today because like, I've been working really hard, I need to rest anyways, like you rationalize it in whatever way. So just build systems. I basically when I started doing this, like when I came here today, I put your address in to my navigation system and I was like, take me there. I didn't like memorize the streets, right. And so I trusted the algorithm that had more data than I had. And so I proposed this four years ago when I started, I said, can we build an algorithm that takes better care of me than I can myself? Like just measure my body, put it into a computational system and pair the science. Can it then tell me what to do? I want it to do like navigation for my body. And that's what we've done. So I basically, I do not make decisions with my mind.

[Unknown]

Yes.

[Brian Johnson]

The algorithm does all the things for me. And so that's just like, I feel like inevitable that we humans will not do this weird thing of make decisions on a daily basis of what to eat, when exercise. It'll just be done by an algorithm and we'll be like, this is amazing because like it just does what's right for me. I feel amazing. I was scared of it before and now it's the best thing ever. It's like, it's just inevitable if we're going to be in that path. Now a lot of people, when they hear that, they will think it's dystopic, which like, I get it from where you're at. But like we have said yes to algorithms everywhere and it's entirely reasonable that we'd say yes to our health.

[Unknown]

Yeah. I think the systems point is so true. And a big part of systems is focusing on how you feel after the system is complete, not before.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes.

[Unknown]

Like I have a, I have the same system. I know it works days I work out and what, what times I work out. And it's still hard before one of those days to feel like I really want to do it.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes.

[Unknown]

But I know for a fact I'm going to feel great. So even when I'm in that moment to message and be like, oh, I don't want to work out today, I know I'm going to regret that later.

[Brian Johnson]

Yes.

[Unknown]

And I'm Actually going to appreciate later that I got that workout in even when I felt tired, even when I felt sluggish. Yes, that's actually going to be the best time. And so I love the answer of systems, but I think it's kind of programming the mind to be committed to the feeling after you complete a system. Never how you're going to feel before.

[Brian Johnson]

That's true. And like, I. I learned this when I was depressed. You know, my mind was like, hey, you should commit suicide. Like, life is awful. You're never going to feel hope again. Die. Like it was just on repeat saying that. And I learned, like, it was the biggest breakthrough in my depression was when I learned I am not my thoughts. Such a simple concept, but, like, you see it land. It's like, okay, this came from somewhere, but it's not me. And so even now, like, do I want to work out or not? I don't care what my brain says. It is an unreliable source of information. Systems are a more reliable form of information. So, like, set up your system and like, you're saying, you know, if you do the system, you're going to be happy and just never trust my mind to tell me what I. What I do and don't want to do.

[Unknown]

Yeah. And what's interesting about that is a lot of people will say, well, are you just not ignoring your emotions and how you feel? What I find is the opposite, that the system makes you better at dealing with any emotion that then comes up.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly right.

[Unknown]

So it's not that you don't have emotions and you don't have feelings and you don't experience stress or anxiety, but the system being in place actually just gave you all of this willpower, going back to your point. And I think that's where we go wrong because I think we've kind of got to this place in society where it's like, well, how you feel is the reality is the truth. And it's like, whoa, if I just listen how I feel all the the time, I'll probably never do anything that's good for me. Yes, I'll probably eat lots of stuff that's bad for me and I'll never choose the thing that's right for me and I'll keep doing what's wrong for me because it's easier.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly.

[Unknown]

And my mind is constantly trying to get me to do what's easier.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly.

[Unknown]

And what's easier is really good for me.

[Brian Johnson]

Entirely.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I find that to be the. I mean, that feels like it's. It. Like what's good for me is not easy. And what's easy is not good for me. And what's uncomfortable is probably the right decision. And what's comfortable is probably the wrong decision. What did it take you to program yourself to say yes to that algorithm?

[Brian Johnson]

Like, two things. Like, one, when I built my previous company, Braintree Venmo, we would build version one of our software and then version two and version three. We never showed up. And the software was like, guys, nah, I don't feel like doing my work today. I'm not going to perform like the software just performed in its most robust way possible. It's very reliable. Now there are bugs and we could fix the bug. But then, whereas me as a system of intelligence, just like software, I would make all the same errors every day, go to bed late, eat the wrong foods, maybe have alcohol, like waste time on things I didn't want to do. Like, I would just be this walking disaster of errors and I would do the same behaviors every single day. And I thought, this is crazy. Like this form of intelligence, I can just program to be like this great robust intelligence, whereas I can't do anything reliable. And I thought, I wanna build myself in a way where I can reliably be robust as an intelligent system. So like, this is kinda cool. Like we can now can imagine this as human. So I wanted to build systems. And like, I know a lot of people will be like, that's so weird, you're not a computer. But like, so I get it. But I guess like I would say two things. One is that when I talk about these things in these terms, people will say, but you're not happy. Like I find that I find happiness in life and spontaneity of like staying up all night. And like they have all these elegant explanations about, you know, why they love to the following things, which is fine. So there's like two ways to look at this. One is say like, what does your health look like? What does my health look like? What does your happiness look like? And what does my happiness look like? And like, quantitatively I think this system is superior. Now, it doesn't mean you have to do a specific thing. You can still have flexibility and you can have spontaneity. But generally speaking, people are very reluctant to release the status quo of like, do they just like do whatever they want whenever they want to a more rigorous stance of like, you can be happier with these systems in place. But it's just like I've had this conversation so many times. I know, like the deep, deep Resistance. People have to just shut this down. But I'm suggesting like this is really the reality of the future of being human. I'm prototyping it right now and it actually is a superior system to whatever we're doing as humans. Now.

[Unknown]

What's holding us back from thinking health can lead to happiness?

[Brian Johnson]

God, what a good question. Honestly, that, that is like a bullseye in capitalism. You're, you're fighting for resource accumulation, for wealth accumulation and for status and you're willing to sacrifice everything to achieve that goal. Because health is not the goal. Like resource accumulation is a goal, power is the goal. I guess you can kind of map everything back to status, power, sex. Yeah, it's, I guess it's like the goals that society has and the, if the imagination is that if existence is the highest virtue, like we want to hold on to this with everything we have, those other objectives become secondary considerations but, but subject to our own well being and we just haven't made that transition yet. Yeah, but, but yeah. What do you think?

[Unknown]

I always try and think about it from, from, you know, my knowledge base of, of Eastern literature and philosophy and it's, there's, there's four archetypes in Eastern philosophy and they all have different goals within a society. And one archetype aims for knowledge, one aims for power and control and influence, one aims for resources and wealth, and one aims for comfort and stability and security.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And I think that in times like these you become pretty much only two of them, which is you either aim for security, stability and comfort, or you aim for resources, accumulation, power and control. And the thirst and pursuit for growth and evolution and improvement has become kind of bottom of the pile. It's the hardest and it's the most powerful. But it requires so much. And like you said, because we've been wired to either want to remain the same or want to achieve in a very external way, growth becomes something unseen. Right. Like right now, as I see you, I can't see that you're 18 years old. I can't see that you're any of these things. And so then I'm like, well that's not important then because life's based on what I see.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And that's obviously not a healthy way to live or the right way to live or maybe it is for some people, but it's definitely not an accurate way to live.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Because what you see is not necessarily what's true. And so I think we've become a very visible surface level society and growth and focus and discipline or systems are such unseen parts. It's like. It's almost like the idea that everyone wants a successful business, but people may not want to do the work to build a successful business.

[Brian Johnson]

That's right.

[Unknown]

And so the work is unseen. The foundations of the building are unseen. The bottom of the iceberg is unseen. And we still are figuring that out.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. Yeah. I think. Yeah. To build on your answer, I'd say, like, when. When death is inevitable, humans choose games within the selection options so you can pursue those four archetypes. If death doesn't. Is not inevitable, it changes the underlying structure of society. Everything changes. And that's my primary hypothesis, is that's what this moment is about. Like, that is the only thing happening right now for humans is like, we. We knew we're going to die before, and now there's this open question of will we be the first generation to not die? If that's true, everything we've imagined we care about changes.

[Unknown]

And I'm really happy that you're putting yourself out there as someone who's not trying to appease or not trying to keep the status quo, because I feel like when we see human brilliance in sport, music, drama, film, tv, whatever it may be, the truth is we love it, but we can never be it or do it because there is a certain distance between you doing what LeBron James does. And yes, there may be a distance between what we can do and what you're doing to the extreme and the top 1%. But the thing is, the possibility of us getting closer to that is probably higher.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

So everyone who's trying to get good at golf. Yeah. Chances of you being Tiger woods is pretty impossible.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

But for us to actually reverse aging is probably more likely and helpful to us in the long run as well.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. Everyone. Yeah. If you look at this from like the. The biggest timescales, like a quick review of history, Buddha was like, hey, like, there's some suffering with life. And the best way to approach this is to detach yourself, you know, this Eightfold path. And then Confucius had this idea of familial relationships within community. Muhammad said, we should submit to God. Jesus said, I am the son of God. Adam Smith said, there's this invisible hand of markets and capitalism and these systems that can emerge. And then America was like, we the people. And Karl Marx was like, actually, it's class warfare. And it's like we have these big ideologies that have shaped our reality, but really, humanity is run by a very small number of things. Political structures, Economic structures, ideological structures. And in this moment, we're experiencing a radical change of technology. And when that happens, we humans want to find things that are useful to our objectives. And so we say, like, hey capitalism, can you help out? Hey democracy, hey Christianity, hey Islam. Like we kind of search and say, who has answers? And right now, every system society has fails to answer the fundamental question, what do we do as a species? Like what? What do we do as individuals? Like, when AI is emergent, when we're building super intelligence, what do I do and what do we do? And no existing structure can answer that. That's true. Like you look throughout history, these ideologies largely emerge in response to technological change. It happens. And we say, like, we need help with a new ideological structure. And so that's what don't die is. Don't die is basically a meant answer to be the answer. And that's why I think it can become on par with the major ideologies in a few years time that this is the new way we structure society.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Brian, thank you so much for your time today. It's been really illuminating and fascinating to talk to you and I'm hoping that we get to hang out more because definitely share a lot of values and share a lot of desires for humanity and for each other, for ourselves. And so I hope I get to learn a lot more from you. You truly. Yeah, likewise and very excited to learn from you. We end every On Purpose episode with a final five. These questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum. Although I know I'm going to break the rules because I'm fascinated. But Brian Johnson, these are your final five. The first question is, what is the best health or longevity advice you've ever heard or received?

[Brian Johnson]

Build habits.

[Unknown]

Second question, what is the worst health or longevity advice you've ever heard or received?

[Brian Johnson]

Cheat Days.

[Unknown]

Why are cheat Days bad for us?

[Brian Johnson]

They teach you bad habits. They are. They inflict damage upon the body. They set unrealistic expectations. It's a bad memetic all the way down.

[Unknown]

Question number three, what do you do for fun?

[Brian Johnson]

I love outdoor adventure. So I drove a dog sled in the Arctic. I raced in the Moroccan desert, I went to a volcano in Iceland. So I'm rich with irony where I'm the most don't die person in human history. And I also love to play in adventure.

[Unknown]

I love that. I'm gonna add a 3B. Do you drink coffee?

[Brian Johnson]

I do not drink coffee.

[Unknown]

Why don't you drink coffee?

[Brian Johnson]

My emotions and intellect now are so steady from high quality sleep and a good diet and routine exercise that anything that creates a roller coaster of change, I avoid. And so I don't do caffeine, I don't do nicotine, no stimulants, and my mood is just stable all day long and it's beautiful.

[Unknown]

Should people avoid drinking coffee?

[Brian Johnson]

Some people do very well with it. So I'm just sensitive to caffeine. So I think a lot of people do well. Do your thing. Again, all my responses, do you? And follow the data.

[Unknown]

Question number four. I recently invested in a company called Function Health because I was upset about the idea that getting great data was hard and I wanted to make it more accessible to lots of people. And so the tens of thousands of people that are using Function and Health now have access to 200 data sets that they didn't have before through a blood test. Made really simple. What other great data tools do you believe in that you recommend to other people to get more data? Because I think a lot of this is because you just never know.

[Brian Johnson]

Exactly. Yeah, we. With blueprint, we have, I think, the most robust measurement protocol in the world. It's. It's blood, it's your speed of aging, 11 organ ages, full body scan and microplastics. So it's basically a measurement profile that gives you the same value as like a $25,000 executive physical in a fraction of the price. So we've tried to make full body measurement the most affordable and best in the world.

[Unknown]

Fifth and final question. We ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow.

[Brian Johnson]

What would it be to not follow laws?

[Unknown]

Which ones are you? Which laws are you taking out?

[Brian Johnson]

All laws.

[Unknown]

Wait, wait, how far does that, how.

[Brian Johnson]

Far does that go to reframe it from don't do to how to. So society would be instructions on how to. We would have enough alignment within us and among us that not do would be a thing of the past because we just wouldn't be motivated to do bad behaviors to self and others. And it would be a relic of the past that we'd be amazed, looking back, that humans did things that would be un. That would be harmful to self or others.

[Unknown]

You host Don't Die Dinners. You've had a friend and guest of the show, Kim Kardashian, at one of the dinners. What does a Don't Die dinner look like? What happens at these dinners?

[Brian Johnson]

We can't tell you crazy things. Yeah, we. People who attend will say it's the most consequential conversation of their life. So we spend two hours, we do a bunch of age tests to just introduce the idea that you can measure biological age. Then we serve everybody food and then we have a two hour discussion led by five thought experiments. And everybody participates. So everybody talks, everybody engages. I'm the moderator. And so it's very snappy, but people leave. Even years later, people still message me and say, I just can't stop thinking about these ideas. So it's really a transformative time together.

[Unknown]

Yeah. So you do get to eat.

[Brian Johnson]

I don't eat.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Everyone else.

[Brian Johnson]

My guests eat. I don't. Yeah.

[Unknown]

Amazing. Brian, thank you so much for tuning in. Please recommend where our audience should find you, where you'd like them to discover your work so that they can get more data, get more insight and transform their health.

[Brian Johnson]

Yeah. I'm on all social platforms and Blueprint provides the supplements, nutrition, health. My endeavor is about the future of the human race. I'm trying to do a world of solid in providing every calorie, every test for, for the best health in the entire world. So if that interests you, great. If not, my objective primarily is the future of the species.

[Unknown]

Brian, thank you so much.

[Brian Johnson]

Thanks.

[Unknown]

Appreciate it. If this year you're trying to live longer, live happier, live healthier, go and check out my conversation with the world's biggest longevity, Dr. Peter Attia, on how to slow down aging and why your emotional health is directly impacting your physical health. Acknowledge that there is surprisingly little known.

[Brian Johnson]

About the relationship between nutrition and health.

[Unknown]

And people are going to be shocked.

[Brian Johnson]

To hear that because I think most.

[Unknown]

People think the exact opposite.