← The Dr. Josh Axe Show
The Dr. Josh Axe Show
Mold, Toxins, & Allergies: The SHOCKING Truth About Indoor Air Quality
01:00:19
Most of us focus on clean eating and water, but what about the air we breathe—10,000 liters daily?
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- [00:00]
A
So the Average person eats 3 pounds, 2, 3 pounds of food a day, drinks 2 or 3 liters of water or a gallon or so, and then breathes 10 to 20,000 liters of air. First thing we do when we're born, take our first breath. The last thing we do before we die, we take a breath.
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B
So when you went in to test the average person's air quality in their home, what percentage of the time did people have poor air quality in their home?
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A
100.
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B
100%.
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A
You can't detox your body if you don't detox. Your home. Said another way you can't heal if you're staying in the same environment that made you sick. You can go three weeks without food, three days without water, and three minutes without air.
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B
Literally. Bad air quality and mold have ruined lives.
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A
Now cooking is one of the biggest sources of air pollution in your home by far. This is like a new human thing we're doing. I'm sure that would have made it in the Bible if they had airtight homes back then. Thou shall not cook inside.
- [00:52]
B
Hey everyone. Welcome to Dr. Josh Axe show, where each and every week we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind and spirit and take your health and your life to the next level. Today we're going to be talking about how to cleanse your lungs and how to heal your body using air filters. Did you know that statistically 47% of people today have mold in their homes? And recently Europe actually went through a 10 year program to reduce air pollution and it decreased heart attacks by 20%. Most people don't realize you aren't just what you eat, you are what you breathe. And if you're breathing in toxins like mold and other chemicals on a regular basis, it's going to cause major health issues. Now, because of this, I've brought in one of the world's leading experts in air quality, it's Mike Feldstein. And we're going to talk through today how to cleanse your air and cleanse your body via the power of air filtration today. So, Mike, welcome to the show.
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A
Yo, thanks for having me, man. Well said. And that 47% stat is typically on like visible physical mold, where if you did a walkthrough, if you look at airborne levels of mold, then it's more like 90%.
- [02:07]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. Airborne's even higher. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's so crazy to think about. And we've had hurricanes, we've had flooding, and you Know, and I really experienced this as a physician when I first moved to Nashville, maybe about a year or two when I was in medical practice, I had. We had a big flood here in Nashville. And for the next year or two afterwards, I had so many patients coming in with mold toxicity. And I'm sure there's areas of the country like Florida, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and right now, people might have had some level of flooding, even if it wasn't really didn't get fully into their home. Still, that dampness and wetness can cause mold issues. Is that something you.
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A
You've experienced tremendously. So when you have. Mold is a renewable resource, which is why in the mold industry, like in the restoration space, they say mold is gold, and they also call it the mold rush. Unlike gold.
- [02:59]
B
Wow.
- [03:00]
A
Which. Which is actually part of the reason I got out of the mold business. But gold was a finite resource and mold is a renewable resource. So when you add increase of heat and you add an increase of moisture, the mold growth rapidly speeds up. And not only that, whether it was a flood or a fire, there would any, any pulmonologist or pediatrician or doctor I would know would be lined up down the door. And you never normally hear about this, and I got to see a little bit about the underbelly of this, but insurance companies work very hard after floods to have the alarms, not sound of how busy doctors are. Because if you had a flood and now you're in the now you can't move home for months because of mold levels and you're sick because of it, these insurance claims are going to get crazy. So I got to see it firsthand how much the doctors were silenced after floods and wildfires and mold events. And it wasn't just floods, believe it or not, because when a fire would happen, a big fire, water bombers bomb all the homes. So you actually get. When you hear about a big fire, it's also a flood because all the homes are water bombed by planes, and then all of them have tons of mold and then they've been sitting for a month. I've seen fish on roofs many, many times, which is something you don't think about. You don't think about. A fire is also a flood because of the water that gets dumped in the homes that get. But yeah, just general sickness, autoimmune breathing issues, respiratory stuff. Like everything just gets exasperated and the volume gets turned up. When you have smoke and airborne toxins, including M.O.
- [04:30]
B
I mean, most people don't realize that. It's not just the outdoor air, though. If you have an issue, it is more so the indoor air. I think, statistically, according to Environmental Working Group, they said that our indoor air is at least two times more likely, five times more toxic than our outdoor air. And that's everything from the VOCs coming off of the paint on your walls, the glue that's found in carpets and wood flooring. I mean, there are chemicals in our households, our cleaning products, and there are some people that maybe have switched and gone more natural and organic. But still our indoor air quality is almost always far, far inferior to what's going on outdoors. And so this is why I know myself and my wife, Chelsea, we've been really committed to having an indoor air filter almost since we were married. I mean, I've had an indoor air filter now for probably at least 10 years. And we live in the state of Tennessee and in Nashville. And a lot of people here have allergies as well. And so we're in the south, so there's a lot of mold issues. Again, there's a lot of allergy issues. And we've noticed we breathe better, we sleep better, when we're able to have a quality air filter in our house. And so the one that we've been using now is Jasper. This is a company that you founded. I mean, one of the things, by the way, I want to say about your filter that I love so much is, is that it actually tells you exactly these nanoparticles. It's giving you a real time reading of what's going on. And so we've had filters before and we thought, well, I think they're doing a good job. But the fact that yours is actually filtering the air. We had our. We overcooked something in the oven the other day, open it up, smoke was. A little bit of smoke was coming out, and then, you know, it went from green on the Jasper air filter unit to orange, you know, orange and then eventually red. And so, you know, we saw it picking up allergens, we saw it picking up smoke, we saw it picking up these things and then cleaning the air really quickly. And this is great for kids, too. A lot of kids with seasonal allergies are adults. And again, these mold issues. And so what, what inspired you to then go and become an expert in indoor air quality and filtration?
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A
So those are three things that I'll hit on all three. So indoor air, most recently, they actually say five to ten times dirtier.
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B
Wow.
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A
And the reason for that is the world's best air purifier is nature. But Our homes are built so tight that we've left that outside. So the best air purifier in the world is the wind, the sun, the rain and the trees. Because rain is this amazing thing that washes all the particles down. It basically is like a purge. It cleans everything. It does increase the mold spores for a day or two, but generally it's like it flushes everything out. You got the wind, which is disturbing things. It's like if you think about still water, like in a pond, versus a flowing current. Yeah, still water is dirtier water. So the wind naturally outside, the airflow is so good. Then you've got the sun, the greatest UV light in the history.
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B
That's right.
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A
So outside, and then trees, the bark is actually what acts as filtration. So you have this amazing natural air filtration system. The oceans, the whole thing inside. Especially since the 70s, our homes are built so, so tight. So it's, it's designed to be optimized for energy efficiency. So keep the heat in in the winter, keep the cool out in the summer. Especially office buildings, but homes, massively so. So what happens is, if you think about it, our homes are kind of like a Tupperware box. They're air, they're very airtight. They're designed not to breathe. So you have all the outdoor stuff, the mold, the pollen, the pollution, the rubber from the tires, the car exhaust fumes, the. Your neighbor's bounce sheet and Febreze that's coming out their vent. They're cooking. You're three, three blocks down, someone's doing a renovation, cutting a two by four. Everything outside comes into your house. And your furnace filter is not an air filter, it's a furnace filter. It's designed to keep large particles from getting into your H vac system. So you think of your home as this like, isolated unit. But no, the air in your home comes from outside. Then inside you have the mold from any humidity that's captive, you know, it's not able to breathe. You got the mold. Of course, you still have pollen that came inside and then gets embedded in your carpets, your clothing, your furniture. And then inside you got all your cleaning products, you have cooking, you have pets. Cooking is one of the biggest sources of indoor air pollution. So that's kind of the reason why the indoor is so much worse, is you have all of this off gassing and cooking and particulates inside and then no way to get it out. An analogy I like to use. It's like imagine you had a fish tank and you Instead of having a water filter or changing the water, you just scrub the perimeter of the fish tank. Or if you had a swimming pool, we use a pump and a whole giant filter system in our pool. Just simply scrubbing the perimeter of your pool, your water is going to be disgusting.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Or in your. So in your home, you got, you got the maid, you got the housekeeper, your wipe, your vacuuming, you're mopping, you're cleaning the counter, you're dusting the walls. This is the equivalent of rubbing that perimeter of the fishbowl while not filtering the water. In this case the air of our home. So dirty air just sitting in there and you're just scrubbing the perimeter and you're just stewing in this airtight box. So that's kind of the higher level why. And then the average American and Canadian are spending over 95% of our time indoors now. See, like talk about remove nature.
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B
Yeah.
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A
We build these little toxic boxes and nowadays homes are built so quickly and most people now live in a condo, an apartment or in a subdivision home. Like when you talk about them talking about America has a 5 million home, we're short 5 million housing units. When people are talking about houses as units, that doesn't exactly foster inspirational construction. You know, they're let's cut down the 3000 acres, build a master plan community, build 1500 homes as fast as we can with cheap materials. They're not sitting around saying how do we build healthy home abodes for families to raise their kids healthily? And it's like, so they're basically manufactured and every material in your home and the home itself, that material gets produced, coated, packed and then it doesn't really have a time to breathe till it's in your home. So your home is, is where all of the off gassing takes place because it doesn't really have an off gassing period. So generally that's just sort of an overview on outdoor pollution, indoor air pollution. And I'll get into the why I started Jasper, but I just wanted to take a minute to like double click on kind of why this is an issue in the first place.
- [10:47]
B
Yeah, I think again, most people today, I think when we're talking about toxicity, we're hearing a lot about glyphosate, which is a major toxin we're covering here on the show and all the health issues it breeds. I think we cover things like phalates that are found in a lot of personal care products or parabens or food dyes. I've talked about that bht all these chemicals in our food supplies that are so toxic and we think about ingesting these things but oftentimes we're not talking about what we're breathing in, which is again so important. You know another stat out of Europe was when they went from, I think it was 2010 to 2019 in Europe really focused on decreasing air pollution. The amount of strokes decreased by 25%. So we're saying, I mean most people wouldn't think that, okay, the air that I'm breathing can really increase or decrease my risk of a heart attack or stroke by 25 to 25%. I mean think about how many millions of people that means millions of people are dying because of air quality.
- [11:46]
A
Who which isn't as credible as they once were. But this is an old stat is that air pollution is the number one cause of death globally, potentially up to like so many millions of people.
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B
Yeah. I want to say right now they quoted in 2019, nearly between 4 to 5 million people just died because of air quality.
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A
And there's lots and I'm sure it's.
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B
Much higher than that.
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A
But that's because you know, you have like in Delhi and Mexico City and Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, there's some cities you can barely see the sky.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And it's not just that. Then there's the wildfire smoke, then there's the indoor stuff. So what caused me to want to create Jasper in the first place was so my background was in floods, fire, hurricane cleanup, huge toxic mold events. So we weren't your friendly neighborhood mold man that you'd call from if you had a kitchen leak. We were traveling all around the continent going to the place that need us most. So we only did catastrophes. So Hurricane Harvey, if this was now, you know, in last year, in 2024 there was the hurricane in Asheville and another, another one in Florida that did a lot of damage. We would have been there California wildfire season, Alberta, British Columbia. So we'd be going to the worst natural disaster. So I've literally done jobs where hotels had six story deep of underground parking lots and the water was filled to the top. Like massive disasters.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So I got to see like the worst of it. And at the same time I was also doing air quality consulting. So if people were sick at home, didn't know why, just not feeling great. They go on vacation, camping trip or something, they feel awesome, energy's up, what's going on, Go back home, sick again. Aha moment. Is my home making me sick. They google that we Were there. So we were like the MRI for your home. We'd come in, we test for mold, VOCs, air quality, potentially water, do a very physical assessment using moisture meters to look behind all your walls, check your attic. We were there for the whole day to do a really deep dive. And it was very frustrating because we would charge people $1500 or so and then almost always all roads led to. You need better air filtration because it works so good for mold. It works. So whether it's mold, it's like, I actually recommend people not to test their home water because there's no point. I'll tell you newsflash, it's not good unless you live in like Lake Tahoe. It's the only place I've ever seen half decent tap water. It's not good. So if you're gonna go pay like 4 or $500 for a good water filter water testing assessment, it's gonna tell you that you need a filter. So sometimes it just makes more sense. If it's cold at your house, are you going to do a temperature check or you're just going to buy a space heater? So I was charging people $1,500 and then there goes their solution budget.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. I am curious. So when you went in to test the average person's air quality in their home, what percentage of the time did people have poor air quality in their home?
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A
100.
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B
100%.
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A
I've done one or two homes ever that were like $20 million homes from someone who had cancer.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So about 99%.
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B
So basically every single person, every home. Yeah.
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A
It's like I've never seen a big city with good water. It's like we have like bacteria filled, really sick water that would make you sick tonight.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So the city kind of does the best that they can and dumps a bunch of chlorine in there so it won't kill you. It'll still hydrate you. It's like way better than not having water. And then the onus is kind of on the homeowner or the building to then filter out that stuff to have good drinking water. And the air, unfortunately, we get our air straight from the tap. Like, there's no. There's no filtration process that's happening. And outside it's not a big deal because we got nature there inside. This issue is tremendously, you know, exasperated. So it kind of reminds me of, I grew up in Canada. I only moved to Austin a few years ago. So I think it's the Same down here. But, like, if the doctor would do a blood test, by the way, it was just called blood test. Turns out there's not just one thing to test for, but it's just called blood test. And it's like, we'll call you if you're dying. Like, other than that.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I didn't know what they were testing for. I never got to understanding the data. And then I feel like the whole medical system was. They'd say, you're fine, and that just meant you were within a normal range, which is based on average. Normal didn't mean good. Normal meant average. So air quality is the same.
- [15:54]
B
What are the biggest symptoms you see with people? If somebody says, hey, I've got these symptoms, you tend to know this is. This is a likely an air quality issue. Could be mold or allergies or something like that.
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A
So everything that you already know about food and water directly applies to air. So if you eat McDonald's today for lunch, you might feel awesome for 10 minutes, maybe not so great tonight. And then if you did it every day, you would chronically feel more tired, less. Well, if you drink tap water every day or like pond water versus spring water, you know, your skin, your hair, kind of everything quickly. So it's. There's no different than air nutrition. So if you're breathing, like wildfire, smoke kind of level air, like deli, like, heavily polluted, your lungs are gonna burn. If you go for a run, your eyes are gonna hurt. Like, everything's gonna be acute. For the average person, though, in a normal setting, it's just like eating a bad fast food diet with a bunch of dyes. So, you know, the sleep gets massively affected. People's. The ease of the average breath, you know, people are. It's. They're breathing harder than they need to be. Skin stuff, you know, So I can't say it's the cause of eczema or it's the cause of the psoriasis, but I can say when I see people dialing in their air myself included my psoriasis symptoms, which are like, they've been way worse. And I'm traveling right now. They usually get worse when I travel. But. So skin stuff for sure. Dry eyes, itchy eyes. But if I had to say the biggest stuff, it would be sleep.
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B
Yeah, yeah. In working with thousands of patients with mold issues and air issues, again, being in Nashville here, I mean, I get questions about allergies and mold constantly, and I have found that brain fog is one of the biggest symptoms.
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A
Yeah, you got it.
- [17:36]
B
Brain fog. Yeah. I would say brain fog is maybe the biggest one, followed by sleep being very, very common. Skin issues and respiratory. What you just mentioned, as we talked about with these studies, mold or a lot of these airborne toxins, they affect the lungs. In Chinese medicine, something that I've studied a lot of, they'll say it starts to cause what's called a lung Qi deficiency. And really, that also then affects every organ in your body, because if you can't get good quality oxygen to the rest of your organ, again, your lungs are, like, supplying this chi, this energy, this oxygen to every organ, cell and tissue in your body. So it really starts to affect the entire body. I wanted to bring something else up. We've talked about some stats in some of the scientific studies around poor air quality and what that does to our health. It actually is talked about in the Bible. This is something not a lot of people are talked about. This is in Leviticus 14:45. Here's what it says. If you have mold in your home, the house must be scraped all around and the plaster must be removed and dumped outside in an unclean place. Then other stones are to be bought and put in the place of where those were removed and additional plaster applied. But if the defiled mold reappears in the house, after the stones have been torn out and the house scraped and replastered, the priest is to go and examine it. And if the mold has spread in the house, it is to be persistently defiled. Mold, the house is unclean. And then later on, it talks about, essentially, the house should be deconstructed or burnt down.
- [19:10]
A
Wow.
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B
And so this is Leviticus. Everybody can go read it for themselves. It's in Leviticus 14. Okay, Leviticus 14. And I remember reading this years ago. And so all the way back to the Bible, we're talking about this probably verse is probably. Probably almost 4,000 years old. And they're already talking about at that time in homes, if you had mold, burn it down. Now, there are some people who think, oh, I've got mold in my home. What's the big deal?
- [19:36]
A
Yeah, yeah. So. And, you know, not all mold is the same. There's thousands of species of mold. Unfortunately, nowadays it's black mold tends to go ahead. Yeah. So nowadays mold is painted with, like, a black and white brush. And it's just like. And honestly, one of the bad things that's going on right now is a lot of people are like, I kind of call mold the new line. You know, at the same time, it's very Serious at the other side. There's a big issue going on right now. If you look at the search volume on Google right now of mold, it looks like hockey stick growth. It's like Nvidia over here. It's going nuts. So if you think about what the average path that I see a lot of people going down, which breaks my heart, another reason why I moved into this business instead of being in mold restoration. So someone is feeling unwell, they hear that it might be the mold. They go to a naturopath or they do an air test at home, positive for mold. Then they go and get a urine test or a blood test. You got mycotoxins.
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B
Ha.
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A
The mold's in me, the mold's in my house. Panic. Then they call a few restoration guys over, maybe just one. They go, yep. You know, they do an ermi test of their dust. It's very alarmist test. So often what ends up happening is someone goes, they get checked. And a lot of functional medicine docs and stuff are doing their best, but they're managing clinics, practices, patients, everything. They can't be an expert on everything. And by the way, when I got certified in mold removal, it's a two day course.
- [20:55]
B
Yeah, two day course.
- [20:57]
A
Home inspector, one week. Asbestos, four days, flood and fire each two days. So no, A certified mold restoration person, the trusted guy with the badge. This doesn't mean anything. You learn it in the field. You, you, you, you, you learn it like anything else by doing it. So mold is a big deal. But I feel for people right now who are playing whack a mold at home. They're gutting their homes, they're looking for the mold. And I always tell friends, if you ever want to break a lease, call me. I'll come over and I'll find the mold. And I've yet to find the mold. Like mold is something that we have to understand is naturally occurring. That's why when you, the way you should do a proper mold test is you test the outdoor air, you test the indoor air and you look for the different. The differential of the indoor mold and the outdoor mold. Outdoor mold. So a lot of people, they just come check the indoor mold. And you know you're not supposed to do a mold air test two or three days since after it rained. No one. I've never heard of anyone who follows that protocol. How could you? It's like you cancel the job, the customer is not going to want to pay you for not coming. Your employees aren't going to be happy to not get Paid, so nobody does it. I've seen a couple companies not test the day of rain, but like, it messes up everything. You got a whole schedule.
- [22:05]
B
Yeah. Vibrant Wellness, this is a company that does tests external or, I'm sorry, that does it for your body, but also looks at your home. I mean, you know, what are your thoughts about some of these mold tests? This is something I know a lot of functional medicine practitioners do. And again, a lot of it's also internal. If you've got issues there with your microbiome and lungs, I totally agree with that.
- [22:29]
A
Like, I've seen family of five. Two of them feel nothing, two of them feel meh, and one of them is like hives and rashes everywhere. And then when they dealt with the mold, that all came down. But like, so most people have airborne mold. This is similar to having polluted water. And it's something to deal with. Now if you have like visible physical black mold, if you really have mold, I always recommend calling three restoration companies. And just because one company quoted you three grand and the other one quoted you 60, like you really want to deep dive 60,000 might mean it's a way bigger scope of work that's required. It might also mean there might better at selling fear.
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B
That's right.
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A
If you're more scared. So if you have like a piece of drywall that you want to get removed, you have like a thousand dollar budget. If you have a piece of drywall that has mold on it and you're scared it's harming you and your family, you might have an unlimited budget. So think about a contractor who's normally getting paid a couple grand to demolish a bathroom. Now you add a zero to the end of the price. If it's mold does not add that much more labor. As someone who's remediated hundreds of homes from mold, you know, you contain the room like it's a very surgical process. The setup typically takes about six additional hours. Then you know, we're leaving our scrubbers there. We're using our antimicrobial, we're double bagging the mold, we're taking it out of the house. We're having air filters, commercial grade air filters in the affected area and outside. So you're talking a couple thousand dollars worth of equipment and a few days of air scrubbers running. It doesn't need to add a zero to the price. Maybe 50% more, 60% more. Now you should always follow the source of the water. So if you have a mold issue, finding the source, whether it's a roof leak, a foundation leak, like find the water and then you want to remediate all the affected areas, but just doing like investigate. Unless they walk through your home with a thermal imaging camera and found moisture behind the wall, in that case, you should be able to drill a 2 inch hole there and use a borescope, which is a camera that looks like a snake with a light on the end and peek behind the wall. I can't tell you how often they take remove half the wall to look for the mold. You see where the moisture is on your thermal imaging camera. We can use a moisture meter and then we can do a 2 inch hole and insert the camera. So a lot of people are really just, you know, Charlie Munger, show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome. Unfortunately, a lot of the, the investigation and now what do you got to do? You got to repair it.
- [24:48]
B
I mean, this is very similar to going to your doctor. It's like how often do you go, I mean, do people go to the doctor? In fact, when I ran my functional medicine practice and now we have got a. I see a lot of people online at the health institute and so I have people come to me with type 2 diabetes and hypothyroidism, autoimmune disease, and we put together a program for them and actually find out what the root cause is of their issue. We take their history and we look at their symptoms and really figure out this is what we need to do. I really believe in a personalized approach, but probably only 1% of doctors do that. I mean the majority of doctors today, it's, you go in there, it's like herding cattle. Hey, you've got these issues, okay, here's a drug we'll see in a year, right? And they're never getting the root of the issue. And so I love what you're saying here is, is that and somebody shouldn't be doing more. It's like, it's kind of like the Hippocratic oath of first do no harm, first don't destroy the house and run up a big bill for the person if it's not necessary.
- [25:41]
A
What is more heartbreaking than seeing a family spend $60,000 to play whack a mold, move out of their house for six months and then I come over, run a 20 mold test of their error and the house they moved into is moldier than the house they moved out of and other families in a little apartment.
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B
That's right.
- [25:57]
A
What the heck? This is not cool. So it's not to downplay the severity of actual mold issues, but just understanding like, like you said with the test. So you got. The two big ones are the aerosol tests and the ERMI tests. So ermes typically skew false positive and aerosols typically skew false negative. So if you are a restoration company, you love Hermes because you're going to get to do a reclaim if you're a functional medicine doc. Not that they even know about all this, but you love ERMI too. You're going to have a whole detox protocol coming for sure. And even the way that the, the user interface is of the test, it's more alarmist than it needs to be. So the funny thing is, after I tested maybe 500 homes from old, even after 50, honestly, I always talk to a lot of these like environmental inspector folk. You typically know in the first two minutes of walking through the house if there's mold or not. All the testing stuff is just to quantify it for the customer and substantiate how much you charge.
- [26:52]
B
Let me ask, you know, one of the things I've noticed, and I see this more often in hotels in certain buildings, probably even less in homes, but there is a mustiness to the airport. I mean, right. You know, and I'm curious, what are the. Give me your top. You know, three places or so that are worse are the worst for mold that tend to be of places that you go.
- [27:14]
A
So hotels are horrible. Okay. Kind of abstract here, but basements, like. Yeah, places that have basements are really bad. Like if I'm building a custom home, even if I'm in like Canada or something, where there's basements or wherever. I live in Austin now, and no one has a basement because it's like limestone.
- [27:32]
B
Mm.
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A
How do people have basements here?
- [27:34]
B
Almost never. Same thing. Nashville's mostly limestone. I mean, on occasion. But they're never fully in. They're only, they'd only be part of a hill. So.
- [27:41]
A
So basements are like really moist areas. You know, you're living subterranean. They're way more wet. So if you have a basement, you really need great ventilation. Hotels are horrible. And I like this, you know, they're, they're penny wise, pound foolish. So you ever stayed at like a resort and they have that room key in the door and as soon as you pull it out, the power turns off. You gotta like come in your room and put that room key and that. Oh my God, this is the dumbest thing ever. So hotels, first of all, they turn off the H VAC system in between guests and for anyone out there, H Vac basically means furnace and air conditioning. It's the stuff, it's. It's heating, ventilation and air conditioning. So it's your furnace and your air conditioner. They turn that off in between guests. They do it for energy efficiency, to save money. Well, and unfortunately, saving $10 a day cost them tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in remediation. I was recently at talking to these old heritage hotels in Fort Lauderdale and Miami. So now they're gonna start putting jaspers in all their rooms. It's cheap because to put that in, it's gonna delay the deconstruction of the hotel because they're dealing, they're not dealing with the root cause, but now they're dealing with the symptom at the very least. So what happens is they turn off the H Vac system, now there's no airflow. So even in Arizona. Arizona is very moldy too. Yeah, people move there. I've seen more mold toxicity probably in Arizona than anywhere. And the reason that I believe that is a couple. Number one, because the humidity is so low, the natural occurring outdoor airborne mold is very low. When people do have a mold exposure event, it's very severe for them. So you still get roof like leaks in your home, like from, from your water. Not going to be a roof leak because there's not much rain. But you get the contrasting temperatures because you have a really cold house inside, a really hot home outside. So you get the condensation. I was recently at a hotel in Scottsdale. I talked to people, was at a health event. People were on their third and fourth rooms because they were so moldy. And then if you think about it, all the desert sand used to be underwater. So there's ancient mold and all of that mold and all that sand. So when people get their like blood and urine test, the same species that they typically find in their dust is the same species they typically find in their bodies. Yeah.
- [29:44]
B
You know, I lived in. I'll just say this, I think Florida would give Arizona a run for its money. I mean, maybe being the worst. And in Florida. So I lived there for a period of time. My brother lives there, my parents lived there.
- [29:53]
A
Way moldier. Way moldier.
- [29:55]
B
Yeah. And I know a couple doctors. These are actually some of them are, I'm gonna say he's semi famous, really well known. He had insomnia from living in a moldy house and literally almost went crazy. I mean, I mean it destroyed his life for five years, him and his wife. She thought she had Lyme disease the whole time. So she's treating Lyme, doing all these things for years. Never got better. Later on they found out they had moles and he had to go to like different clinics because he wasn't sleeping and everything else. And so, I mean, we literally. Bad air quality and mold have ruined lives of people. I mean, I've seen people lost millions of dollars in business, in their homes because of mold.
- [30:33]
A
And just to fix my stat about Arizona, that's basically like in contrast to expectations.
- [30:39]
B
Understood.
- [30:40]
A
So a lot of people, I don't want to say Arizona is the moldiest place just to fact check myself. It's because so many people move there to get away from mold.
- [30:47]
B
Yeah.
- [30:48]
A
Thinking it's a mold haven. And it's not necessarily that it doesn't. It's not like a super humid environment. And like, people don't realize just to build on what you were saying before. So the Average person eats 3 pounds, 2.3pounds of food a day, drinks 2 or 3 liters of water or a gallon or so, and then breathes 10 to 20,000 liters of air.
- [31:06]
B
Wow.
- [31:06]
A
And also 10 to 20,000 breaths per day. Recent stat I heard was 69 of all detoxification in the body occurs in the lungs, which I did not know that at all.
- [31:15]
B
It's gonna be pretty high.
- [31:16]
A
I didn't know that body stuff. I know the, the home stuff. And like, you can't detox your body if you don't detox Your home. Said another way you can't heal if you're in staying in the same environment that made you sick. You can go three weeks without food, three days without water, and three minutes without air. And I believe that people, people talk way more. It's like how crazy is we talk about food that we're eating. We don't talk about the active eating. A little bit about chewing, but we talk way more about food. We talk a lot about water, not drinking. People talk more about breathing and breath work than the actual air that they're breathing. So I call air filtration step zero to any breath work journey. Because you're doing your holotropic breathing possibly in a moldy, allergen filled house.
- [31:57]
B
Yeah. So it's.
- [31:58]
A
For me, it's just wild that it's like the one thing. And if the first thing we do when we're born, take our first breath, the last thing we do before we die, we take a breath I call air sleep fuel. It's the only thing that keeps us alive all night. Long while we're talking right here. So I believe that because it's so core and fundamental to our existence is the only thing we never stop doing because if we did it'd be game over. And that's even when you go into like a smelly building or a house. I was in a mall before we came here to get my little daughter some toys. And you ins I instantly smell the fragrances.
- [32:30]
B
Oh yeah.
- [32:31]
A
But within 10, 15 minutes I kind of forgot. And then when I left them all I'm like oh I stink like fragrances. So I believe that we're really good at adapting to uncomfortable situations and I believe generally that's why our air awareness is so low and we pay no attention to it because like if you're hungry you go get food, if you're thirsty you go get water. But because air is present despite the lack of quality of it, I just kind of to me my whole mission here, like if I can do something on, on my, my life on this planet, it's increasing air awareness period. Everything else is secondary.
- [33:04]
B
Have you ever experienced yourself airborne illness due to mold due to you know, the worst allergy? Okay, the worst.
- [33:11]
A
That's kind of. You asked why I started Jasper so I'd be in these flood, fire hurricane zones, man. When I was 26 I was at the Fort McMurray wildfire. Biggest fire in Canadian history. In northern Alberta it's five hours to the closest city oil town. So it already had all the oil stuff going on and then had this huge fire where thousands of homes burnt, a hundred thousand people evacuated for a month. So the hexavalent chromium was everywhere that the heavy metals, pah polysilic aromatic hydrocarbons. So normally in that like we were every home we would test, we would have to test for ash, soot, hex, chrome and ph. That was like the standard big four things we were testing for. So the local, like it wasn't the YMCA but the local gym there it had about a hundred person sauna at the local gym and it was filled every day and it was filled with all the engineers who knew what they were breathing that were going every day to sauna and detox every single day. So yeah my situation came in like I literally went. It got a little bit better after now age it's doing its thing. But I almost went like totally gray when I was 26. My skin got bad, my sleep got bad. So for me it was a combination of mold. I don't think it was the asbestos because that doesn't Usually give you like short term symptoms, but definitely demoed a few basements that were. Ended up having asbestos that we thought didn't and then. Yeah, heavy metals, man. Heavy metals got me bad.
- [34:31]
B
I mean airborne we're talking about here.
- [34:33]
A
It was in the whole city. So what the reason I really started Jasper, there was a lady named Tanya. We remediated her whole house. We tested the air, the family moved back home. Awesome. We get a call a week later, baby's in the hospital. Shit. What happened? We go to their house, we test the air. Very contaminated again. Oh well, because when you test indoor, you test outdoor. We're like, oh, whoa. The outdoor air is still incredibly contaminated. So I've studied other wildfires. The air can stay like really contaminated for at least three months after a wildfire. Especially if there's not a lot of rain. If there's a lot of wind and a lot of rain, especially in a coastal place, it clears through faster.
- [35:09]
B
I mean, it's so hard. Because what's happening, Mike, is a lot of people are thinking, thinking like, I remember seeing this sign in Tennessee and this rarely happens here in the summer for that type of air quality. But it said, you know, stay indoors. Air quality is poor today. And I know when you're in LA it's like, you know, every day. But then people are going indoors and it's even worse, likely or at least just as bad. Unless you're filtering your air. I want to go through some stats here just for people who are. It might be interested in this on the top 10 states with the worst mold infestation in ranking order. If you've been doing everything right, eating clean, exercising, but somehow you're still not feeling your best, your energy's dragging, your memory is slipping and it's frustrating because you know there's more to your potential. Well, what if the issue isn't just in your routine, but it's deep down inside your cells? You know you're investing in the best supplements, working out regularly and sticking to a clean diet. But if your cells are stuck in what's called cell danger response, all the hard work might not be paying off as it should. Think of your cells like a house under renovation. You can bring in the highest quality materials like the best supplements and clean foods. But if the workers inside the house or are on lockdown because of a storm, nothing gets done. The materials just pile up unused. That's what happens when your cells are in cdr. They can't fully use the good stuff you're giving them. Getting out of cdr. The Cell Danger response is the key to unlocking your body's full potential. When your cells are no longer in protective mode, they can finally use the nutrients, hormones and energy you're working, working so hard to provide. That's when everything starts to click. Your energy improves, your workouts become more efficient, and you start to feel like yourself again. Go to BeyondBloodwork.com to learn how to break free from Cell Danger response and make the effort pay off. Number one, by far, not even close. Florida. High humidity and frequent rainfall create ideal conditions for mold growth. So Florida is very high. Number two is California. If you're on the coast in California, then Texas is very high. Areas like Austin, where it's more humid. Ohio is very high. Hawaii, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina and South Carolina. And so it's a lot of the south, you know, more chumo.
- [37:49]
A
Ohio is probably surprising you the most.
- [37:52]
B
Yeah, well, let me tell you, the only reason it's not. I grew up in Ohio.
- [37:55]
A
Okay.
- [37:55]
B
And so I was sort of aware of this because I'm always interested in the health things going on in Ohio and some of the air quality, the water quality actually in some of the areas. So I wasn't shocked because I'd known plenty of people. It's still higher than I thought though, because it's the one that stands out. Everything else is south except for why would that be?
- [38:12]
A
So I grew up in Toronto area and Toronto has more mold. If you like Google search volume. If you search for like mold testing, mold removal, it outpaces almost any city in the world.
- [38:24]
B
So I wonder if it for that area. Again, I do know Ohio, it actually sits in the valley. They call it the Ohio Valley. So it sits lower. And so I think that pollen and mold tend to fall there. And I think Toronto, it's by all these Great Lakes, right? I mean, there is a lot of humidity.
- [38:38]
A
Great Lakes are massive.
- [38:39]
B
Yeah.
- [38:39]
A
The other thing is, I mean, in the south, we go from hot to really hot or like warm to hot. So the homes are kind of built that way. Whereas in Toronto, for example, it gets quite cold and then quite hot. So homes have so much expansion and contraction from the hot and cold. And then homes that aren't venting properly, they get a lot of humidity in the attics. But because the homes are designed for cold weather, they're so tight, they're so insulated. So I, I would say from personal experience, 90 plus percent of Toronto addicts have mold. And I would say it's the same in Ohio, at least. Near the lakes.
- [39:17]
B
Yeah. You know what they do a lot in Ohio is a lot of people have basements, and a lot of. Almost every home has a crawl space.
- [39:22]
A
Yeah. Basements and attics. And crawl spaces are moldy.
- [39:24]
B
Yeah. And addicts like, I remember this growing up. Here's another interesting one. These are the top cities for allergens that people have. Wichita, Kansas. Virginia Beach, Virginia. Greenville, South Carolina. Dallas, Texas. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Tulsa, Oklahoma. And then you got Raleigh, North Carolina. Fayetteville, Arkansas. You guys, like Nashville, Tennessee. I mean, these are areas very, very high.
- [39:47]
A
Austin's super and all.
- [39:48]
B
Yeah. I mean, these are a lot of overlap here. So if you're in a city that has a lot of. You're in the south, have a lot of humidity, those are gonna be major issues. And it really is interesting that you shared that there are the way that homes are built today. You know, I never really. Honestly, it never jumped into my head until you said it. That when you try and make them energy efficient, there's a downfall there.
- [40:15]
A
Huge.
- [40:16]
B
Right? Because. Yeah, it's less circulation, it's less movement.
- [40:20]
A
Energy efficiency is exactly at odds with environmental health because you want your home to breathe and be more connected to nature. The tighter you build it, the more suffocated it is. So you got all the toxic chemical stuff inside. So when we test carpets and couches and soft materials in a home, there's typically more allergens and pollen inside than outside. So you think about, like, oh, the allergen levels are high today, just like you said. Go inside. The good thing about outside, the wind clears through the pollen. The rain washes it away. If it's been a month since a pollen day, but your dog's walking around or you're vacuuming, that pollen is still deeply embedded inside your home. That's why allergies are so persistent. And honestly, I'm so proud of Jasper for the reason I never saw this coming. Right. I made Jasper specifically for Wildfire Smoke. That's why I designed the product.
- [41:05]
B
Oh, wow.
- [41:05]
A
I made it to handle wildfire Smoke. And. And I'll finish that story with Tanya. So the baby was sick. Outdoor air was contaminated. I called the insurance company, like, hey, guys, can we re. Can Tanya's family move out for a month, and then we'll retest it, re clean it, and bring them back in? And they said, no. They're like, yo, we don't pay twice. We don't clean twice. The homeowner signed off. You did your air test. We're paying you, and it's done. Shit. This is horrible because, you know, I have a family who's now sick and I'm kind of responsible still. Now these regional wildfires were unprecedented. It used to be like a kitchen fire, a house fire. These like city wide fires is kind of a new thing. So the protocols aren't, aren't there yet.
- [41:44]
B
Yeah.
- [41:45]
A
So what did we do? We left three giant commercial air scrubbers in her house and within about three hours the air quality was good again. It's fine. So a few weeks later, three, four weeks later, we retested the air, pulled out the machines and they were good to move home. But this kept happening. So we'd finish the remediation job and then we would have to leave our equipment behind for a while until the air quality would, until the outside air was better again. But this was a problem because we were running out of air scrubbers and we needed them for the next job. So I went to like Best Buy, Home Depot, Walmart. I bought every brand you can think of between 100 and $400. And I would just be like, you know what, these machines that I have, they rent for like $200 a day. I'm like, let me just buy them four or five air purifiers, put them in all the rooms and let them keep it as a gift. Well, didn't work. A few hours later, the air was bad again. Baby was sick again. So this was my big aha air moment of whoa. All these little air purifiers at the store don't do very much. So the analogy I like to use is they're like trying to heat a bathtub with a kettle. So the kettle, wonderful tool. If you're trying to make a cup of tea, trying to make a little, little cup of water hot. You can't heat a bathtub with a kettle because the water is cooling down faster than you can heat it up. So it's too small to get the job done. And a lot of people, they go on Amazon, they go on Walmart, they click large purifier, they click cheap, they buy it, they check the box. I think they're good. And 70% of people never change the filter once because they're not even sure if the thing works.
- [43:11]
B
Wow.
- [43:11]
A
So I was approaching air purification from an industrial side. I was like, how do I make an air scrubber style machine with the esthetic and performance that people will leave in their homes? Because I remember this lady named Angela, she's listening. I went to her house, she had a sick kid And I got there to check the air and the air scrubber was unplugged. I'm like angela, what are you doing? Like your kid's still all messed up from the fire. She's like I know Mike, but it's so loud and it's so ugly. Like we had people.
- [43:38]
B
There are many air filters. I remember the first one Chelsea and I had and like we couldn't hear each other talk. I mean that's a little bit of over exaggeration but it was very loud to where we didn't want to have it on that often unless we were gone because it was.
- [43:51]
A
And you can't just filter your water once. Air filtration is something that you're doing 24 hours a day for the rest of your life. Like when I go on vacation I recommend this for you massively. When you're all leaving, turn your air, turn your Jaspers on full speed. Yeah because the energy cost is almost nothing. The noise won't bother you. And now your home is like a clean air sanctuary being deep cleaned the whole time because often you know, we turn off, we turn our heating cooling down to be more efficient when we travel. But then you come home and it's the stuck effect, you know, there was no filtration, it was a, your house was a still pond. So this was a breeding ground for stuff. So if you're going to be efficient on the air heating cooling side, fine. But let those air purifiers scrub so there's no dust accumulation. And if you think about dust, where does it come from? It doesn't come from the table, comes from the air. Yeah and so yeah, that was kind of the big moment when I'm so my vision was like okay, we need something that was inspired by an industrial air scrubber that people are proud to put in their homes. What does that mean? Well first of all I needed to be metal, not plastic, all commercial grade parts. So I basically took apart the air scrubber. Like what makes this thing 50x the power of a portable air purifier. And how come these little air purifiers haven't changed in so long? And the air sensors that we, that I like, that little particle counter I have there, well that one's expensive but the air sensor that's on the Jasper 10 years ago that might have been like thousands of dollars. Now it's not. Sensor technology has come down in price so the vision is like it has to be steel, all commercial grade parts. It has to have a really responsive sensor. It has to be quiet and pretty because I saw firsthand if it's ugly, it's just like you could buy a kettle for $19 at Walmart. And if you're a student, I get it, but like it's ugly. So when you're done using it, you hide it. But if you get the hundred dollar kettle, the $80 kettle, it's glass, steel, it's better materials, you leave it on the counter. It's like functional art.
- [45:34]
B
So true.
- [45:35]
A
So if the, the Jasper is beautiful and it's quiet, so you leave them on smart mode in your home, the ones in the bedroom people typically leave on fan speed too. On the dark setting, a little natural white noise. People use white noise machines in the room. So it's an EMF speaker to create fake air noises.
- [45:50]
B
Yeah, it does double. And I'll say this, Chelsea, have been using your Jasper air filter and it's the best air filter we've used in for several reasons. One is you can tell it's removing more. I mean by. Because one, it's sitting there and it actually tells you the amount of particles in the air. Yeah, it's looking at it right there. And so I mean, how many of you have ever had an air filter and it doesn't tell you currently the air quality? This one does and actually changes color based on the air quality. That's one reason it's amazing. So again, there's two there. One, it's the strongest. Number two, it tells you what your air quality is. Number three, it's quiet and you can turn it up to where it functions as a, as a white noise machine, you know, and so like we have one that we've used in a room with our infant, 11 months old and it's sort of, you know, using it instead of a sound machine. So it really, it really is incredible.
- [46:48]
A
Babies. Let's talk about babies for a sec. So I got Aria, she's four and a half. My other daughter Adele's two and a half. And when Aria was about six months old, we were living in Kelowna, British Columbia. And we were using one of those diaper pails and it stunk like poo real bad. And I was like, you know, I pointed this out to Rachel that, hey, I think we should, we should start taking the diapers like outside directly. Because, you know, first of all, as an air guy, when there's poo in the air, the bacteria is off the charts, off the airborne bacteria. If you're smelling poo, it's because you're ingesting poo. You're inhaling poo, and then you have these little diaper pails that are supposed to be airtight. If they were airtight, you would not smell anything. So this was my suggestion. She disagreed because she was like, yo, I'm the one mostly doing it. And like running outside and inside like this. There's like 18 diapers.
- [47:37]
B
Yeah. Every time you had a newborn, you're going outside every. You know. Yeah.
- [47:40]
A
So I was like, how about tonight has a rite of passage. We put the diaper pail in our bedroom so we see what it's like. But I'm sleeping on the couch tonight. And she was like, no. And then the good thing was it clicked for her because she didn't really realize as soon as she realized she wouldn't sleep with the diaper pail in our bedroom, obviously we couldn't put in Arya's room. So babies, by the way. So adults are breathing 10 to 20,000 times a day. Young children are breathing like 50 to 60,000 times a day, infants a hundred thousand times a day with weaker immune systems. So we got this cute little baby just came out of the womb. Welcome to the world. And we put them in an airtight home, in an airtight room with a poop pail, with a brand new crib that's still off gassing, a bunch of new toys, a new carpet, and a fresh coat of paint. So I like to give people actionable free tips because as much as buying a high quality air filter is important, there's stuff that you could do immediately. So number one, take the poopy diapers outside. Number two, if a baby's on the way, I highly recommend either a a secondhand crib or a secondhand nightstand dresser. Because now the off gassing is already done and I get the new the dire for new pretty things. So another thing you can do is paint the nursery six months before the baby as soon as you can. Don't wait till the end.
- [48:51]
B
Yeah.
- [48:51]
A
Because then. And then leave that window open as much as you can. Just let the off gassing occur. Close the door to your house if you can. Even better would be closing the vents in that room and leaving that window open.
- [49:01]
B
And when you are painting it six months before, use a low or no VOC paint. That's another, you know, good.
- [49:06]
A
Yeah, I think it's a good tip.
- [49:07]
B
I don't think they're perfect because I know they're not.
- [49:09]
A
So some people are like, I had an OVOC point. So, like, what's adhering it to the wall. There's something, there's other stuff in there. So but it's still way better for sure. So I would highly agree with that suggestion. And then just like all the new stuff you have in there, it's all off gassing. So just be mindful. It's just pretty crazy how we have babies, put them in an airtight box with a bunch of off gassing stuff. So just being mindful there. Now, cooking is one of the biggest sources of air pollution in your home by far. So when you take high heat and you take protein, it creates pah. So when you and a bunch of other things, pah being at the top of list, massive cancer causing chemical. So and then that all the stuff from cooking is now in. So anything porous can absorb air. So anything that's not porous. So for example, a sealed countertop, your granite countertop, your marble countertop, you pour water on there. It doesn't absorb in, it's just sitting on top so you can just wipe it off. But your carpet, your clothing, your furniture, your insulation, anything that can get wet from water absorbs air and then it's trapped in your home. So a big low hanging fruit for people. And just because you can eat something, it doesn't mean you want to be breathing it like cooking. We only invented these airtight homes recently and we cook in them. This is like a new human thing we're doing. I'm sure that would have made it in the Bible if they had airtight homes back then. Thou shall not cook inside. It's just a bad practice. So if you are more than 50% of vents or range hoods, I'll use those words interchangeably. It's the air vent above your stove. They don't work. So do an air test immediately, a tissue test, hold up a Kleenex or a paper towel and make sure it's sucking up. If it's not pulling it up, that vent is not working. Also clean that once a year it gets all caked up. Clean that. Now once you've done your vent test, if it's not working, get it fixed. If it is working, make sure it vents outside. A lot of people are venting in the counter above, in their wall cavity or in their attic. Same goes. And then on the cooking front, use the back burner if you're boiling stuff. Because the back burner, way more of the airflow gets captured by the vent than the front burners. And bathroom fans too. Do the tissue test. The bathroom fans are more for humidity than they are for poop smells. So when you shower, I would recommend one of the switches that have like a two hour timer on it. Run your fan for a while, tissue test, make sure it works and then make sure that that bathroom fan is venting outside. So in Toronto, all that mold, most bathroom fans are venting in the attic and then the attics weren't breathing. So of course we were getting mold in our attics. So I just want to give people a couple, like low hanging fruit. Of course you have a very educated audience. So less toxic stuff in the home. I know you've talked about that a lot. Better cleaning products, better stuff. So I'm not gonna be bang on that drum. But making sure your home. So if, if you had a fish tank or pool, you know, you want fresh water and you want clean water with the home, you want fresh air and you want clean air. So the combination there is air filtration and then opening windows when you cook, using your vents, making sure the home is breathing.
- [52:03]
B
It's great advice and just want to encourage everybody to remember you don't have to make a million changes at once. Sometimes when we talk about toxicity, I think people can get overwhelmed. But remember just a few key things. One, you want to detox what you're eating on a regular basis. You want to make sure you're getting clean water, and you want to make sure you're getting clean air. Right? Food, water, air, these are all essential for survival. And one of the things Mike has done such a great job with is traveling the country teaching people about air quality. And it probably of those three that I mentioned, it's the one that's the most overlooked. But it's equally as important to something like water or food in terms of your overall health. And so remember, your indoor air on average is at least two to five times. And Mike has seen other research saying could be five to 10 times more toxic than our outdoor air. And so you want to make sure that you are breathing in that your family, that your babies, that they are breathing in good clean air. And as he talked about, there's some ways to do that. Listen, if you are building a home in the future, try and make sure it can be open and there is good ventilation and it is going outside.
- [53:07]
A
The RVs are going to change.
- [53:09]
B
Yeah, exactly. Great things. And so all of you just mentioned that here at the end. And then also remember this, everybody, you know, get an air filter. You know, I've used many air filters and I've used the top of the line right now I'm thinking of probably I've used the top three brands, Jasper of that being number one in terms of filtering air and air quality. So I want to encourage everybody. Check out Jasper. It's actually spelled J A S P R, no G, no E J A S P R Jasper. And these air filters, you know, I mean they're like a talking beast. I had somebody walk in my home, they're like, what's that? I'm like, that's our air filter. Like, wow, that's, you know, it's modern, it looks great. You know, it's almost like a.
- [53:51]
A
People have an innovation and it's frustrating. So whenever you see something that's been the same for, it's like the air is getting worse and air awareness staying flat and the air purifiers are staying the same.
- [54:01]
B
So, and I want to say this too, if you go almost any biohackers home, you know, or, or somebody that is a health nut or expert, this is the most common filter you will see in their home.
- [54:12]
A
And it takes willpower. Right? Like eating healthy is so important, but it can be annoying sometimes. This guy Dean Jackson called Jaspers or air filtration the laziest way to be healthy. Because usually it's the gym, it's the food, it's hard work. It takes willpower. At least when I lapse on my food I can be like, at least I breathe good air today. Yeah, like it's, you know, often the most addictive foods are the worst ones for us. But the nice thing is water and air, clean water and clean air are much nicer.
- [54:40]
B
I mean, think about it. If anybody's ever gone and hiked in the mountains or you've spent time outside, you feel different, you feel refreshed, you feel detoxified, you feel more energetic, you feel like you can think more clearly. And I just want to say this again. The biggest symptom I've personally seen in my functional medicine practice when people have been exposed to poor air is issues related to not being able to think clearly. Some people call it brain fog, but it's just not. If you ever just kind of feel like your face is a little, you know, just. Or your head is a little fuzzy, that can be an issue. Again, insomnia, not sleeping well, those are some of the biggest issues. Respiratory issues, if you constantly notice you're getting sick with a cold, flu, these are all issues there. So let us know where can people find more out about Jasper? And I know one of the things you were Kind enough to do is giving everybody a discount on their first purchase of a Jasper as well.
- [55:33]
A
Yeah. So a couple things like Jasper, we're not at, we're not at Best Buy, we're not at Walmart, we're not at Amazon. And the reason we're not in those places is because Jasper's core values is to world's best air purifier. That's why we only make one model and world class education. That's why the Jasper is designed to be an educating tool. If we sold at Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, we wouldn't be able to educate like this. That's why we've chose podcasts like, let's just raise air awareness, teach people stuff.
- [55:58]
B
Yeah.
- [55:59]
A
And then also support. Right. Like if something doesn't work from Amazon, you just return it. The people at Best Buy don't know anything about the products. So if somebody sends us a message about their mold issue, about their allergies, whatever, they're gonna get a five minute voice note back with detailed stuff like my back. We didn't have E Commerce for the first three years. If you wanted to buy a Jasper, you had to call me. Our website said free consultation and you would call and we would just, I would bring my restoration hat, my air consulting hat to the table. So like we don't have a sales department or a customer support department, we only have an air education department. Whether you have a Jasper or not, we'll talk to the exact same. So. And also our lifetime warranty is something I'm the most proud of. So.
- [56:35]
B
Wow, lifetime warranty.
- [56:37]
A
So dude, Jasper used to be two grand and now we've got it almost down to a thousand. Because we used to, we used to be called Jasper Medical and we only sold to doctors and dentists during COVID So we then the dentist started to recommend it to their patients and then we've been able to get our price down, down, down, down. And I never thought we'd be like, I made it for wildfires. We ended up selling doctors during COVID and now it's like a health and wellness sleep biohacking tool. Very excited about that. But the way the lifetime warranty works, I'm the most proud of this, of anything. Because if a great product doesn't have great support, what's the point?
- [57:07]
B
Right?
- [57:07]
A
So why do, why does almost every air purifier have a one year warranty? They wish they could say three years or five years or 10, but they're not confident that it's going to last. More than a year where they would say five year warranty, it'd be great for business. So the way the lifetime warranty works for us is let's say your Jasper breaks. And it can happen. It happens one out of 50 times, maybe even two out of 50. We ship you a brand new one in the box. You take the new one out of the box, you put the old one back in the box. In there is a prepaid UPS shipping label and we pay to have UPS come to your front porch and pick it up. Because I hate when I have a product with a warranty. It breaks. I got to talk to customer support for hours, take pictures, take videos, find my receipt, buy an obscure shaped box, go to the FedEx. There's no point in even taking them up. So we made a warranty that, like, is world class. And I encourage other companies, including other air purifier companies, to do the same. So what we're doing this episode comes out on today, January 28th. So we have code AXE, just AXE. And it's $400 off between today, January 28th and February 10th. So about two weeks. And the reason we can't afford to do this is because we're not selling through all these big box stores.
- [58:12]
B
Yeah.
- [58:12]
A
So we're able to go talk to educated audience. So code axe between January 28th and February 10th at the website Jasper J A S P R dot co. And this is only available for about two weeks just to honor your most loyal listeners who listen early and want to take advantage to anyone else out there. The code will stay live forever, but It'll only be 10 off. This is almost 40% off. It'll be 10 off for perpetuity. We'll never take it down. You know, not every day or week is air purifier buying day. But, you know, I just wanted to come here today, educate your audience, increase air awareness. Because the reason why I like talking to health conscious audiences is because we need our clean air army to get the word out and, you know, tell your friends and tell your family. Think about it. There is one downside, though, to buying a Jasper. One big downside. You will become an air snob.
- [59:02]
B
That's true. Yeah.
- [59:03]
A
All of a sudden you will smell fragrances, you will smell chemicals. You'll stay at friend's house, family's houses. It will smell. So if you don't want to become an air snob, I highly recommend not buying one. But for everybody else, code axe between January 28th and February 10th will be 400 off. And then the more you buy, we have additional bundle discounts on our website. So 2, 3, 4, you get bigger discounts. So it starts at 400 off and they get even bigger. If people want a whole home solution.
- [59:26]
B
Well, we appreciate it, Mike and everybody, I just want to encourage you, take care of your lungs, take care of your air quality. Again, it's as important as your water quality, as your food quality as well. And again, Mike was so generous to come on here. Just share his wisdom today and just want to say hey, thank you to all of you who tuned in today and also thanks to all of you who are sharing this podcast, who are commenting, who are liking. We're so grateful for you and wanted to say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axio. Remember, each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind and spirit and take your health and your life to the next level. Again, take care of your lungs, take care of the air quality for you, for your family. I want to say thanks so much for listening and watching. I'll see you on the next episode.