← The Dr. Josh Axe Show
The Dr. Josh Axe Show
The SHOCKING Science of Daily Red Light and Sauna Use
00:52:48
Imagine a therapy so simple and accessible that it improves detoxification, supports longevity, sharpens cognition, and mimics a moderate cardio workout—all without leaving your home.
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- [00:01]
Commercial Narrator
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Connie Zak
Go ahead.
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Commercial Narrator
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Connie Zak
A lot of people think that heat is just like a simple thing. You get hot and you sweat. What we're learning is infrared heat and light, it impacts the cells. The minute you expose your body to infrared energy, it starts to move everything inside. And that movement is what starts to increase the blood flow significantly. It is not a mild flow change. It is a significant flow change. Yeah, I mean, it can be up to three times more blood flowing in your body instantly. It doesn't take a lot of time.
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Dr. Josh Axe
What's been your experience since kind of that cold therapy?
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Connie Zak
Huge difference between men and women when it comes to cold. A lot of times men, it'll help increase their heart rate variability, it'll help decrease their resting heart rate, and it'll improve their sleep measures. But with women, if they do cold sometimes that same night, the research shows that the they won't sleep as well.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah. Let's get into those five hallmarks of aging, because I think that's really interesting for people. I mean, most people want to start to reverse organ age, reverse the aging process. And maybe a lot of people don't even know what the hallmarks of aging are.
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Connie Zak
Yeah, let's talk about that.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Hey, everyone. Dr. Josh Axe here. Welcome to the show. Today we're gonna be talking about the healing power of red light, heat, cold, and so much more. And I've brought in one of the world's leading experts, Connie Zak. Connie is the co founder of Sunlighten. And today we're gonna be diving into mitochondrial health, how to heal using cellular energy. We're gonna talk about healing your thyroid, fighting cancer, a number of topics today. And also she brought some cool new technology that's actually not even released yet. It's going to be releasing here in a week or two. I didn't know if this looked more like a mask that Iron man would wear or from the Tron movies, but pretty cool. We'll talk about kind of the newest and latest things in the regenerative medicine and biohacking world. So, Connie, welcome the show.
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Connie Zak
Thank you so much. It's great to be here again. I love coming to Nashville.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Well, I know this is the second time you're on the show and excited to talk about all things sana. And what's interesting is I first heard about you through one of my best friends, Jordan Rubin. And I remember I would go to West Palm beach when I first started meeting Jordan, and he would always be in his infrared sauna there in the area.
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And actually, what's interesting, too, when I first met Jordan, very first time, went to his house in West Palm beach.
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And he was doing some really advanced things. Nutrition. I remember thinking, wow, this guy's really hardcore, because he was eating while we were there. Every meal was. He was eating raw salmon and green vegetable juice and avocado. I mean, that was almost it. And. And then he told me a little bit later that he was actually on his. On the back end of beating cancer. Naturally, he had a cancer diagnosis, but he would also get in the sauna every day. And. And so that was part of his therapy and protocol. And so, anyways, that was the first time I'd heard of you and your. You know, what you've done with saunas over the years.
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What got you into the sauna space, and how has using a sauna regularly impacted your own life?
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Connie Zak
So we got into the sauna space over 25 years ago. That's so crazy. And soon thereafter, I met Jordan. But I got into it because my brother was chronically ill, and nobody knew what was wrong with him until his dentist diagnosed him with heavy metal toxicity as a result of his mercury in his fillings leaking into his body. And dentist said thank goodness that he had read about a technology called infrared that could potentially pull out the mercury from his body safely and naturally in the comfort of his own home. And he's like, I'm in. So he did some research, and he bought an infrared sauna, and it changed his life. I saw the transformation. Aaron saw the transformation. And Aaron's my business partner and husband, and we thought, oh, my goodness, we have got to bring this technology, you know, to the. To the world.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
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Connie Zak
And we left our corporate jobs at Procter and Gamble on the pharmaceutical side of the business and decided to invest the rest of our life. And everything. Everything we had. We mortgaged our home, we mortgaged our cars, we mortgaged everything. There was no plan B, and we had to make it work. And so we just every single day did more research and figured out how to Bring the most effective, efficient infrared product to market. And so we've done.
- [05:29]
Dr. Josh Axe
I always love these stories of people like yourself that were in this conventional medicine space in pharmaceuticals, Procter and Gamble. And then your life changes, a family member's life changes, and you're like, wow.
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And you now have a purpose. I mean, something that's super meaningful where you're helping so many people heal. And I can't tell you how many people I've recommended use infrared saunas. And I started using this partly because my mom's diagnosis with cancer and me looking at what are the best therapies for detoxification, for healing. And my mom in particular had hypothyroidism, she had cancer, she had a number of things. And there's so many studies now showing the overall benefits of circulation and mitochondrial health and things like that when it comes to sauna therapy. It's so funny because I remember when I first started recommending saunas, I saw a few people in the medical space question, oh, well, there's really no literature or research showing that it supports detoxification. But of course, now more and more studies are coming out showing that it does.
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Connie Zak
Right? I know when we started Dr. X.
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It was like people thought we were promoting something that was so foreign. In reality is infrared has been around for a very long time and. And light therapy has been around for a very long time. Even the sun has been around for a long time. And infrared comes from the sun. But people kept thinking we were talking about a microwave. They just did not understand the wavelength. And the only type of sauna that anybody had ever heard of was the Finnish sauna, the high heat sauna. And so.
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Every day was such an uphill battle because nobody knew what we were talking about. And they were, you know, they were not familiar with the infrared wavelength. And the interesting thing is, back then, there was already research in Asia. There was significant research already done on the heart and showing improvement into endothelial function and improvement with patients with congestive heart failure and coronary artery disease. But it wasn't, you know, there was no pharmaceutical company behind it. There was nobody behind it. It was just research that had already been done. And so when I saw that, I was thinking, oh my, that's really good research. And that was really good, statistical, significant results. If somebody like us could take that data and bring it to the United States and do some more research, then we could really help people shift away from treatment towards prevention and just incorporating infrared into their daily lifestyle to heal naturally, to help our Bodies heal themselves with an energy that is safe and natural.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. You know, I'm also a big fan of the finished saunas. I think that's a, you know, it's a great product as well. How would you say that? The infrared saunas. And I'll share my thoughts on this as well, but how infrared saunas are different than the, you know, the, the former traditional, you know, finish saunas.
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Connie Zak
Yeah, infrared heats the body directly and is absorbed into the body. And the finished saunas heat the air and that's how you get hot. So they go at higher temperature. And you, when you walk in, you can feel the heat in the air because the heat is much hotter. Yeah, infrared is more like energy medicine versus heat medicine because it's a wavelength of light and there's four different wavelengths and they connect with the body two by heat, two by light. And so infrared is multidimensional. There's four different parts that impact the body in completely different ways. Where traditional is heat and it's great heat. Absolutely. I agree with you that it's nice to be able to have high levels of heat. It just works with the body in a different way.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah, yeah. So from my understanding, and by the way, I tend to recommend infrared more because my patients, I think, tend to. Or if I'm seeing somebody with a medical condition, again, a lot of hypothyroidism, a lot of diabetes, a lot of people that maybe have metabolic or even mitochondrial dysfunction, I like to be able to, I believe in a more gentle way as well, use the infrared and red light there in that way. Now there are studies showing the finished saunas really have a lot of benefits, even especially with the heat shock proteins. And so I think when we're looking at something like hormesis and challenging the body, I think that it is more challenging. And so for some people that are already very physically healthy, especially men might be in their 20s, they might respond even better to the finish onas. But I think overall, if somebody has got a medical condition and they're looking to heal, I tend to prefer the infrared light saunas and have seen benefits with so many patients, especially with hypothyroidism. You know, issues like chronic infections like Lyme disease, long Covid. I mean, any of those sort of issues with the mitochondrial dysfunction, that's where I tend to really like the infrared and the benefits. And there's some great, great research on that as well.
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Connie Zak
There's great research with mitochondrial dysfunction with cellular energy, with the five hallmarks of Aging. Yeah, there's excellent research.
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Dr. Josh Axe
I mean, yeah, let's get into those five hallmarks of aging, because I think that's really interesting for people. I mean, most people want to start to reverse organ age, reverse the aging process. And maybe a lot of people don't even know what the hallmarks of aging are.
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Connie Zak
Yeah, let's talk about that. So I'll list the five hallmarks of aging that infrared impacts, and then we can talk. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. So mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the reasons for accelerated aging. Cellular senescence, which is essentially like the zombie cells that stay around. And then there's inflammation. That's the number one cause of aging. And then there is gut dysbiosis, gut health, and then stem cell vitality. And each one of those infrared makes a significant impact. And what like, I'd love to talk about today is just the. The impact. A lot of people think that heat is just like a simple thing. You get hot and you sweat. Right. And what we're learning is infrared, heat and light, it impacts the cells. So at such a deep level and really helps your cells be healthier. Yeah, right. And clean. It cleans up the cells. It helps repair the cells. It helps the stem cells. I mean, decreases inflammation. The molecular chaperones, the heat shock proteins. That helps with that. It helps with your mitochondria. We have, we're like, our bodies are like. There's so many. Was it like multi billion mitochondria? You probably know the number better than I do.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Trillions.
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Connie Zak
Trillions, yeah. In our body. And infrared helps to connect with the mitochondria and make it. Make more engines when it's needed and make them more functional so that your body is healthier and can repair itself.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah, yeah. It really is powerful. So these hallmarks of aging, you know, there was a study done, a landmark study first, they did nine hallmarks of aging. The number keeps going up. We're like, well, maybe there's 12, maybe there's more than that. But overall, it's a way of looking at the body and saying, hey, here's some warning signs that the body is aging too quickly or some signs that the body might even be younger than. Much younger than the average person. And so when we look today at. You can do a biological versus chronological age test. So somebody might be 40 years old, but biologically they're actually 30 or they're actually 50. So. And we've all seen people like this, right. We look at people and we think like, oh, wow, that person's 40. But they look like they're in their 60s, especially after going through something like chemotherapy or. You know, we see this with presidents, right? When they get really stressed out and how their hair turns gray. And then you'll see them and they're like, wow, that looks like they age 20 years. And. And then vice versa. You have someone like, I'm thinking like RFK Jr. And other people who are like, wow, that person looks 15, 20 years younger than their age. And so there are ways that we can actually reverse organ age and actually improve these hallmarks of aging. And just to go through a few of those, by the way, there is one other called proteostasis, that I was reading a research paper on, which is another hallmark of aging, which basically is connected to mitochondrial health. So there's no doubt infrared saunas help a lot. But I really like the mitochondrial dysfunction because we know that these are the engines, the power plants of the cell. Most people think that cells have one mitochondria. In some cases, they have hundreds or thousands. And certain tissues in the body have more mitochondria than others. Like your heart and your muscles and brain tissue have a lot. And this is important for cellular energy. But anytime anybody has low energy, like chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism, there's a really, really deep connection with mitochondrial dysfunction there. And that's why, again, there's some. I saw a study not too long ago that showed red light therapy directly on the thyroid was great for hypothyroidism and helping reverse it. Pretty amazing. And so, but, yeah, the hallmarks of aging for everybody, these are ways of looking at your body and saying, okay, here's how old your body is functioning, essentially, are you younger biologically or older than your actual age? And infrared sauna is one of those things that can impact five or six of those. So. And in a powerful way.
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Connie Zak
Correct. And it's also good to know, like with the mitochondria, you can test. There's tests, and we partnered with a company that. To test the quality and the function of your mitochondria. So that's something that, if you're listening, I would recommend doing it because it's very eye opening and you can see how your mitochondria are functioning and then take action. And both far infrared and near infrared and red light, all of them have been shown to improve the function of your mitochondria and give you more energy. And I always wondered, back in the basement, I always call it back, when we first Started the company, I always wondered why I had more energy after using my sunlight sauna. You know, I thought, God, this is so wild, because intuitively you think of heat because back that was before we introduced near infrared light and red light. At the time we were really focusing, all we really knew was far infrared, which was heat. And after a session, I just had so much energy. And intuitively I always thought sauna is more like a day at the beach when you're done, you're exhausted. And I do get tired after a traditional sauna. And so I'm like, why am I. And now I'm learning, you know, so much about, you know, your water molecules and the change in easy water and. And mitochondrial energy.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
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Connie Zak
Producing more mitochondria and cellular, you know, senescence and getting rid of those zombie cells and cleaning everything up.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
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Connie Zak
I'm like, oh, that's what's happening.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah. You know, one of the things that's, that's interesting is there's a Bible verse reminds me of, and it basically says something like, healing is in the blood. And you know, when you look at many practices when it comes to healing, the mechanism of healing is increasing blood and oxygen and nutrients to the area. Because if you're, you know, think about something like acupuncture, what acupuncture is doing when you're putting those little instruments or needles into the area, what it does is there are areas where of our anatomy or our external body that are connected to organs. So, like, if somebody has a heart attack, they'll feel pain in their left arm, gallbladder attack, right shoulder. Well, there's areas where you could kneel around that right shoulder and help send more blood to the gallbladder or different areas of the body or. I remember first I used to work with the Olympic swimmers and they would get cupping done. And I've been involved in doing cupping for a long time, and I've had it done a lot myself. And what's that doing cupping? It's bringing blood to that areaand that's part of the benefit of that infrared light is we're sending blood to these areas of the body. And that's why it's helping the mitochondria, because when you get more blood and nutrients, and there was a study on this showing basically when you're bringing blood to that area of the body, you're also increasing the nutrients being brought, like L carnitine, coenzyme Q10, a number of nutrients there, more oxygen, so it allows for greater healing and regeneration.
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Connie Zak
Yeah, that's why there's been such positive impact on brain health. Specifically because you're getting more oxygen to the brain because you're in. You're. You're significantly increasing the flow of your body. That's one of my favorite things about the minute you expose your body to infrared energy, it starts to move everything inside.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
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Connie Zak
And that movement is what starts to increase the blood flow significantly. It is not a mild flow change. It is a significant flow change. I mean, it can be up to three times more blood flowing in your body instantly. It doesn't take a lot of time. And that activation and increase in blood flow gets everything going to your brain. And that's why when I'm in my sauna, I can think clearer and I. Any type of mind chatter goes away. And when I'm done, I just. My brain feels so much clearer and my body feels so much lighter. I have so much more energy. It's because all of that flow is happening. It's like exercise.
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Dr. Josh Axe
That's right. Yeah.
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Connie Zak
It's an exercise mimetic. And you get a lot of the benefits of exercise. And there's studies that weigh on therapy, studies on exercise capability and, and exercise tolerance and how people, after using infrared, they are able to, in six minutes, walk faster and farther than they were prior to using infrared. Or the people that didn't use infrared.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
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Connie Zak
So I'm talking about so many different things, but I love. It gets me going when you talk about blood flow and the benefits of blood flow and how specifically it connects with the brain and. Cause I'm really passionate right now about mental health and brain health and just protecting your brain and protecting your brain and training your brain for your future self.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah, I love it. That's so good. You know, one of the things I've explained to patients too, and I've been very involved in the supplement industry too. It's been a passion of mine is I love formula and I love studying and looking at some of these ancient formulas used in Chinese medicine, Ayurveda. I love reading about the herbs used in the Bible. We talk about brain health like Solomon talks about saffron, which is probably the single greatest herb for brain health and mood that's out there today. So anyways, I love studying and researching this. But the way that I would describe infrared light, infrared sauna is this is a supplement that is to the sun. We know the sun is something you should be getting a lot of. We get just a fraction of the amount of sun we should be getting on a regular basis. I mean, most jobs throughout history, there were so many that were agriculturally related. People were outdoors. If you were going somewhere, you weren't in a car, you were walking. So there's a lot less blood flow and a lot less sunshine that we're getting directly in our body. And I think that's why people are responding so well to things like sauna, because there's a major deficiency. And sometimes people take supplements and they don't really notice a difference. And the reason is, is that your body might be already good in that area. I mean, if you're taking vitamin C, but your vitamin C levels are normal, you're not gonna notice a difference. However, if your vitamin D levels are in the teens, you start supplementing and get it up to over 50, you're like, wow, that was a miracle for me. And I think that's why so many people are like, wow, I did infrared. And that felt like a miracle for me because one, they're not getting enough sun. And in some areas, especially if you're living up north, it's really hard to get enough sun. Now, that's not to say I still know plenty of people in Florida, California and Texas that aren't getting enough sun there as well. But, you know, this is something I want to touch on. I'm going to totally switch gears here.
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Connie Zak
I'm good with that.
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Dr. Josh Axe
I had a family member who, for Christmas last year, she wanted red light therapy mostly for her face. So I ended up buying her a whole panel and she started using on her whole body. But this is something I think for a lot of women specifically, they're going to love. This is an infrared mask.
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Connie Zak
Correct.
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Dr. Josh Axe
So walk us through any research on skin health and in red light therapy and talk to me a little bit about this amazing, you know, futuristic looking.
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Mask here.
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Connie Zak
Yeah. So, so excited to introduce this. This is cutting edge. It hasn't been released yet. And so, you know, when you're listening or looking, it's brand, brand new. And the benefits of near infrared and red light, which we have in our panel that I love so much and we also have in our saunas, is it works with your collagen and your elastin to increase that in your skin to help your skin look more youthful and glow. I always say it gives far and fur gives your skin the glow from the inside out because you're detoxifying and you're purging and so you're cleaning your body and you glow because you look radiant. And then near infrared and red light help from the Outside in physically repair your skin and accelerate cell turnover so that you're getting youthful, more youthful, skin faster. So we brought to market the sunlight and red light therapy mask. And it has five different options. It has auto mode, which is you put it on and turn it on and then it will just rotate through red light with near infrared. And that's an important point that I want to make sure. And call out because there's a lot of conversations about red light and red light is fantastic. But near not. But, but. And near infrared is. Penetrates deeper and it's important to have the two together.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
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Connie Zak
So you don't want red light alone, you really want the two together. And that's just an important factor. And what we have done in this is essentially we've been studying near infrared and red light for, you know, 20 years. And so we brought the technology that we already use in our sauna to the mask.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah, makes sense.
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Connie Zak
And we use the depth that we use the deepest penetration wavelength versus a lot of things that are on the market aren't as medical grade and therapeutic.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah, yeah. I think it's an important distinguishing fact is if anybody has ever been, you know, in an area and you just felt hot, maybe you're even outside, you weren't in the sun and you just felt hot, versus if you ever laid out for a period of time, let's say it's 70 degrees out, but you just feel like your body is being heated, like there's a depth happening. There are so many benefits of that and we know that that's what the sun does. It starts to really penetrate even deeper into the body. So Connie, one of the things I'm super excited about and I'm going to tell you what my wife Chelsea, Dr. Chelsea Ax is going to be super excited about is this mask, this red light mask. You know, my wife is so.
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Just conscious of and I'm so grateful for this as her husband, so conscious of just her own health, our kids health. And so her and I together always thinking about like our kids of okay, we need to make sure Arwen's getting her DHA with epa. We need to make sure she's. We did this whole genetic test on our kids as well. Looking at. On Arwen, specifically on. Okay, does she have the MTHFR gene? What's she doing? And just doing everything we can to. But Chelsea also has this whole skincare routine at night where she's doing things to support stem cell production. She does like everything from Gua Sha, if you're familiar with that to like micro needling. She does this herself micro needling with prp. But this is something she's going to. Because she's been kind of like holding up a red light for a few minutes sometimes. But this is going to be so much better and easier for her. So she will be again, a huge fan here. And this looks like something between, like a cross between. I didn't know if this was like an Iron man mask or something from the Tron. The Tron movie, but you can see.
- [26:09]
Connie Zak
Out of it because it doesn't look like you can see out of it.
- [26:11]
Dr. Josh Axe
Wow.
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Connie Zak
Yeah. You can put it on.
- [26:13]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah. Let me.
- [26:13]
Connie Zak
You know what, Put it on.
- [26:14]
Dr. Josh Axe
I'll put on here real quick here.
- [26:16]
Connie Zak
Oh my gosh. That's awesome.
- [26:18]
Dr. Josh Axe
Oh, yeah.
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Connie Zak
See? And then you just attach it in the back. Yeah. And then you press the power button on the side and then it rotates through the different lights. And what's nice that women will really like is it's really easy to use and it's comfortable and you can see out of it and there's no cord. So it's really easy. You're not attached to anything. It's super, super comfortable. And you could. You only have to use it if you want to use one of the programs for three minutes.
- [26:45]
Dr. Josh Axe
Oh, wow.
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Connie Zak
Yeah.
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Dr. Josh Axe
That is great. So talk to me. What are the benefits of using this type of red light and infrared light therapy for the skin specifically?
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Connie Zak
Yes. The benefits are firming your skin so you look younger, helping with wrinkles, helping to boost collagen and boost elastin.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Oh, wow.
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Connie Zak
Yeah. And then there's also a mode for acne if you struggle with acne.
- [27:07]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah. Wow, that's amazing. Okay, so collagen product, you know, increasing collagen production, that's important fighting acne. And I guess part of that is going to be when we're doing red light therapies. You talked about, we talked about those hallmarks of aging. We're talking about reducing inflammation. Inflammation, which is going to be so great for acne, whether it be a teenager or a lot of people even in their 40s have those sort of issues. So the sort of anti aging for the skin. And I love that you can do it anywhere from probably 3 minutes to 10 to 15. What's the max people typically do with that?
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Connie Zak
The max would be 12 minutes if you did three minutes on each program.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Okay. Okay. So three to 12 minutes.
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Connie Zak
Three to 12 minutes. But I love the fact that you just. It's only three minutes because everybody can. You Know, take three minutes. You can do it while you're doing so many other things. Right. And so you can have it stacked. It's. It's great. And red light and near infrared really do make a difference on your skin, helping your skin glow more and just having your skin feel, like, more firm and younger, and you just. When you feel better, then you radiate that from the inside out as well.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah. One of the other things I just want to say that I think is important and pretty incredible about this one in particular, is that you created a mask here that does not only red light, but it's doing far infrared, it's doing near infrared, it's doing these different types of red light, which we talked about how that impacts the body. But this is important as well for skin health, that you're going deeper and you're covering the whole skin. Because some of these masks that I've seen, they're just not great quality. And they're actually not even hitting the whole face. The lights are so small and sporadic. They're only hitting parts. So it's not even the entire skin. Versus, I noticed with yours, they're much wider, bigger, and so you're gonna be hitting the full face with. With doing that. So I.
- [28:57]
Connie Zak
Maximum distribution with the prism. So you're. You're. You're out your entire face just exactly like you just said.
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Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
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Connie Zak
Is covered, which is great.
- [29:05]
Dr. Josh Axe
That's so powerful. I love it. I love it.
- [29:07]
Connie Zak
Super excited to launch it, and it's nice to be able to have something that you can just strap on, forget about for three minutes. You can do it inside your sauna if you want.
- [29:17]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
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Connie Zak
You know, and then you're done and you feel like you've done something. You know, your wife is gonna love it because you feel like you've done something great for your skin. Like, I love when I do dermaplaning. I don't know if she does that. Dermaplaning and microneedling. And you just feel like you're stimulating your cells, and so you're increasing back to flow. You're increasing the blood flow in your skin, which is great.
- [29:41]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I see a lot more, A lot, a lot of celebrities. I mean, we see this now more than.
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You know. It's funny. I was. I was. See, I saw this thing on Instagram, and I was showing people what they look like in their 30s back in the 90s versus some people today in terms of, like, you have a woman in her 50s and 60s today, and they look much younger sometimes than maybe somebody did quite a few years ago. And part of it is dietary changes, taking the right supplements and doing these types of therapies. Now, of course, Botox is part of it too, with some people, which I don't recommend. I don't think is ideal long term, probably.
- [30:23]
For various reasons. Again, I'm not saying it's terrible. I think it's probably fine a little bit to do here and there, maybe not the worst thing. But overall, I think that if you can produce your. Support your body in creating more collagen itself and doing these sort of natural therapies, of course, that's even better.
- [30:38]
Connie Zak
Yeah. And any type of movement, both externally as well as internally, because I always think with infrared, it really helps facilitate that movement and flow with your body. That helps your skin look better and you get. And you do it in a natural way. It's again, mimicking exercise because you're increasing that flow and you're increasing the circulation.
- [31:03]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
- [31:04]
Connie Zak
And you're benefiting the, the, the look and texture of your skin.
- [31:10]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah, that's so great. You know, I'm currently writing a book on cellular healing and medicine. Yeah. I'm excited about. And one of the chapters we get to in the book is getting a lot of sunshine. But then if you're not getting sunshine using things like red light therapy and infrared sauna and similar thing with the cold, you know, we used to spend more time in the elements. You know, more time in the rain, more time in the cold, more time in the heat. Now, sometimes for some people throughout history, that wasn't necessarily the best thing if they were immunodeficient or in a state of weakness, because that led to more things like pneumonia and more acute illness. But at the same time, it makes people more resilient if you're doing it the right way. It's like weight training. It's like, okay, your body's used to this amount of cold, let's go a little beyond that and make it more used to a little bit something one step colder and then your body recovers from it and it can actually get stronger from it. And so this is where I've seen a lot of these different trends like cold plunge, where I've appreciated elements of them. I've also not been a fan of the general population, how they're doing it. And the reason I say that is in my study in Chinese medicine, also looking at the medical literature, if I've got a patient that has hypothyroidism and they're cold plunging, that's terrible for them, you know, versus if I've got a, you know, a male in their 20s doing CrossFit and training for something and then they're doing it on occasion. That's great, you know, because one, they're producing a lot of heat and a lot of yang energy. And so cooling it down brings their body back more into homeostasis, which is imbalance, and that's good for their recovery. But if you've got a patient and they have hypothyroidism or Lyme disease or, or any immune deficiency or body temperature is low and then they're doing cold plunge and getting it colder, that's really not good for them. Now, I do like people challenging their body. So for that person, they would have probably been better off with hypothyroidism, getting in an infrared sauna every day, all the time, warming the body, doing those sorts of things. So I think it's also important as we talk about heat therapies and cold therapies that you understand that you are unique. You need to do what's best for your body. For most people, they're better off doing that red light and that sauna because most people's body temperature's too cool. They need more circulation, more movement. However, there are some people who can benefit from cold plunge. I see this more with men, especially with low testosterone. And I know this is something that you guys have gotten into recently is doing more with educating people and, and.
- [33:43]
Having products that are cold plunge related. What's been your experience in kind of that cold therapy industry?
- [33:50]
Connie Zak
Yeah, great question and I'm so glad you framed it the way you did as far as how everybody is an individual and they really need to do what's best for them. It's really important because there are a lot of people doing cold plunge extreme in extreme conditions. For exact, for example, people doing it really extreme temperatures. And the, the research shows that extreme is not better. Longer is not bad.
- [34:19]
Dr. Josh Axe
That's right.
- [34:19]
Connie Zak
And more frequent. I just read an article. Great, great article. Great study that said three, less than three times per week is the ideal if somebody wants to do cold therapy. And then you have people that are trying to do it every day.
- [34:35]
Dr. Josh Axe
Every day.
- [34:36]
Connie Zak
So we recently, we. This happened since last year when I was on. We didn't have any involvement with cold then, but we did acquire the assets to a cold plunge company called Ice Barrel.
- [34:48]
Dr. Josh Axe
Oh yeah, Ice Barrel. Yeah. Well known company.
- [34:51]
Connie Zak
So we are, you know, really heavily now involved in that category, learning I'M doing it all as much research as possible. What I'm finding that I think is really interesting to support what you just said is that men and women, like, not only is everybody different, but there is a huge difference between men and women when it comes to cold, which is different necessarily than infrared. And women need to pay attention to their cycle. Women need to pay attention to what's going on in their body. Women should take it at wet, higher temperatures. So definitely more towards 59 and 60 degrees.
- [35:29]
Dr. Josh Axe
That's right.
- [35:30]
Connie Zak
Versus men can take it down to 50 degrees and they definitely should not.
- [35:37]
Be staying in there for a really long time, more than three minutes. And also found that some of the benefits, such as.
- [35:46]
Increasing your heart rate variability that's been found with cold therapy as well as decreasing your resting heart rate can change with women. And sleep is another thing. A lot of times men, it'll help increase their heart rate variability, it'll help decrease their resting heart rate and it'll improve their sleep measures. But with women, this, if they do cold sometimes that same night, the research shows that they won't sleep as well. So it takes them longer to rebound from it. So it's just really interesting and you should pay attention to that. Look, you know, at your wearables.
- [36:20]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
- [36:20]
Connie Zak
Monitor your monitor and do what's best for you.
- [36:25]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah. And what I would say, if you are interested in doing cold plunging as a woman, well, once start taking a one minute cold shower, have it hot, turn it down to one minute cold and then you work on your breathing for one to two minutes and then turn it back up. That's a great place to start. And then if you're going to cold plunge one to two days a week, get in there around 60 degrees, two minutes to three minutes total. And then the other days a week think about maybe I need to get in a sauna some of these other days or do some things to sort of warm my body. But even when you look at this sort of medical, philosophical idea behind Chinese medicine, men are what we call more Yang energy. Women are more yin. Yang is hot, yin is cold. And so oftentimes men who are already really hot bodied, they getting their bodies cooler because I know I sleep hot at night. And so part of that is due to that Yang energy. And so bringing it down on occasion can be good. Versus women. They need to be warming their body up more. And even when I think about fertility especially and the way God created women's bodies, you want to keep a lot of warmth and circulation moving in that Body as well. So anyways, I'm glad we had this nuanced conversation because I am a fan of both for the right people at the right time in the right way. And so it's important.
- [37:42]
Connie Zak
Beautifully said. Yeah, that was absolutely perfect. And I 100% agree with you.
- [37:47]
Dr. Josh Axe
And one other thing that I've done is sometimes I've recommended and even myself use contrast therapy where I'm doing hot and cold together. And this is good for. If somebody sprains an ankle, for instance, at first you want to ice. They tell people for 24 to 48 hours. But what I found is the most beneficial is after that first 24 to 48 hours doing that contrast therapy in certain areas. So people with low back pain getting in and doing contrast therapy, people with just general joint injuries. Because what happens is that contrast therapy is where you've got your body sort of tightens up with the cold, opens up with the heat, and acts as a pump for pumping in and out blood and oxygen and nutrients to help heal quicker. So for injuries specifically, alternating hot and cold, I think can be a good therapy for some people for that use. You know, I wanted to jump into stress.
- [38:38]
Connie Zak
Yeah.
- [38:39]
Dr. Josh Axe
You know, I'm always a person that's trying to look at what is the root cause of a health issue and how do we start to fix it. And I think the master hormone of the entire body that impacts everything the most is cortisol, because cortisol impacts insulin, and then insulin impacts estrogen and then thyroid hormones and testosterone and all those different things. So balancing out and improving cortisol is so important. Talk to me about how red light therapy and maybe even sauna use actually impacts cortisol levels and stress.
- [39:09]
Connie Zak
Yeah, both significantly impact cortisol. And what I love about far infrared and red light and near infrared, as far as impact on the body is they do it quickly. And the research shows that when you are in that fight or flight state, you need to as quickly as possible get your body into the parasympathetic state. So many people are living in the sympathetic state and it is messing up their nervous system. And that's why they're heart rate variability is low and they're getting used to being stressed and their body is responding. And what infrared sauna specifically does, as soon as you get in there with far infrared, that energy immediately starts to relax your body. You can actually feel your shoulders drop and you can feel the energy being absorbed and the cortisol comes down, you know, the flow starts to happen. You get more oxygen that oxygen helps to just regulate everything so that you will notice over time one of the things. And you can, you can do this, your own experiment. Your heart rate variability will go up if you use infrared sauna, for sure.
- [40:28]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah, yeah. I mean, and that's a huge longevity indicator, hrv. You know, I have a friend of mine who HRV has been very, very low for a long time. And part of it is every moment of every second of the day, things are scheduled out and just busy. And so doing everything we can to increase that HRV is really, really a big deal. It's one of my favorite indicators again, for overall health, longevity, how you're healing. And so I wear an OURA ring. And so I'm constantly. This morning I was looking at what's my HRV score in Chelsea. So we just had this past week where our daughter came home with the cold. She's in preschool and it's like, gosh, they come home with stuff all the time, which is fine. Her immune system's growing, it's getting better. And so we're like, hey, teaching her how.
- [41:12]
God created her body to heal. All that being said, I could tell I had a low grade sort of virus last week and so did Chelsea, because our HRVs drop and you could even tell your body temperature on the ring. But my point is that I was glad this morning. I woke up and my HRV had jumped back up close to around 60, which I was glad to see because that's kind of, for me, my physiology kind of where I want to be in the 60s or so. So anyways. But HRV is a great. I mean, I would say overall, some of my favorite.
- [41:46]
Ways to monitor someone's health are hrv. I love continuous glucose monitors as well. But being able to look at those two, two things regularly, sleep scores, I.
- [41:57]
Connie Zak
Mean, so beneficial, and that's that. So sleep score is a great way to monitor if you decide to do sunlight and sauna. Because we have received so many people, they've shared their sleep scores with us after they started using it. It is phenomenal. It is this big, huge. The HRV goes up. The decrease in cortisol. People who do their biomarkers and measure their hormones, the cortisol comes down and resting heart rate comes down and sleep scores always are improved. And you just feel, just feel so much better. You feel, you feel like you have so much energy. So one of the first things I do when I wake up too, I don't have Aura, I have a Garmin, but I do all of My scores. And I will notice if I'm starting to come down with something.
- [42:51]
It'S indicative.
- [42:52]
Dr. Josh Axe
Well, and what's interesting too, a lot of people don't know this, but if you're getting the cold or flu, if you want to shorten the duration, the most important time to take a supplement or go get a immune IV or just make a change is on the front end. Because if you can, if you see someone sick in your family and you feel like, oh my gosh, I have something coming on, you want to do everything you can on the front end. Because it's not that taking something on the back end or the middle of having a cold or flu doesn't make a difference. It doesn't make as big of a difference though if you do it early. So that's the thing is I can tell, okay, my body temperature's up a couple degrees or it's down or something's going on, starting to fight something. I will run out. I'll go to like, I did this this past week. I went out and got a nutrient, a nutrient IV with vitamin C and lysine, glutathione and all that and then just started taking my elderberry echinacea and vitamin D and everything else and. And hardly had any symptoms at all. It was like bam. It was gone really quickly. But anyways, that's sort of the benefit. But sauna therapy. So I have a.
- [43:54]
I have a family member who's got high blood pressure and so we just got her a sauna. Actually sunlighten, I was emailing Vic on your team and so we just got her a sunlight and sauna to kind of help get her blood pressure down because it's great for that too.
- [44:10]
Connie Zak
Yeah, we actually did a study. Gosh, this brings me back. A long time ago, University of Missouri Kansas City did a study that measured blood pressure reduction with infrared. It was using our product. It was amazing study. It was double blind, placebo controlled randomized trial, which essentially means there were two products that nobody knew which one was using which product and it's completely randomized. And we had used the sunlight and solo and then something that looked just like the sunlight and solo, but it didn't have our infrared, it had a different infrared. And that result of that was significant, statistical. Significant reduction in blood pressure and increasing quality of life scores as well as detoxification.
- [44:53]
Dr. Josh Axe
That's amazing.
- [44:53]
Connie Zak
Yeah. So blood pressure, any really thing related to heart is impacted positively by infrared and it is the most studied out of all the different parts of the body. It is the most extensively researched part of the body, which is the heart health. And it dates back, I mean, before, before we started the company. So, I mean, that's how long that infrared research has been done. There's also a study, while I'm on that, about morbidity and mortality. 50 over 50% reduction over five years. People with congestive heart failure, those who used infrared over five years, had a 50% reduction in hospitalization and death.
- [45:38]
Dr. Josh Axe
Wow. I mean, it's powerful. And you look at the studies on just circulation too, how important that is, of course, for heart health. Of course, more than anything. But the whole body, it's so powerful. I want to walk everybody through how to use different types of red light therapy and infrared light therapy. And for some people, they may go get a sauna themselves. I know that Chelsea and I have one and have used it regularly. And I know I've recommended this for a lot of patients, but also things like the mask and other red light. And again, and let me say there's a lot of ways to do this. I think that, you know, I think that, you know, I think an infrared sauna is one of the best investments you could ever have. If you're able to get. Get one. I tend to recommend three days a week, start with 15 to 20 minutes and maybe work your way up to 40. Sometimes people think more is better. You know, when Chelsea was this last time we had our daughter Aylin, she got in several months after she kept getting in, or she got in, I'm sorry, two weeks after giving birth. And so she would get in for just 15 minutes. She would go until she just started sweating and get out. Because you didn't want to stress her body too much, but we just wanted to get a little bit of warmth and supporting her blood. And so again, depending on who you are, what your health goals are in life, I think that three to four days a week, for most people, 20 to 45 minutes is typically what you want to do or what are your recommendations?
- [47:01]
Connie Zak
That's perfect. And since I just talked about the infrared studies in Asia, the hospitalization reduction and hospitalization and death, those Studies were only 15 minutes.
- [47:12]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
- [47:14]
Connie Zak
So you can get the benefits in only 15 minutes. So don't stress out about not being able to do 40 minutes. Yeah, it's better to do 15 minutes more consistently than one session at 40.
- [47:29]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
- [47:30]
Connie Zak
Consistency is key. So. And I love the starting low and slow and doing it until you break, break a little bit of a sweat and then you can get out the other thing we should talk about real briefly is the habit stacking. This is something that I have been leaning into extensively. And when we talk about stress and cortisol and you know, staying in that the, the sympathetic state, a great way to get into the parasympathetic state and help your nervous system is to get in your sauna and then do other things while you're in there. So then you can meditate, you know, you can do breath work, you can do intention setting.
- [48:08]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
- [48:09]
Connie Zak
You can just be still. And you know that those. Combining those habits is so powerful for your brain, it's so good for your mood, it's so good for stress. You will come out feeling so supercharged and energetic and ready to go.
- [48:25]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
- [48:26]
Connie Zak
So I don't need to add on a red light. I will add. As far as protocols, what's great about that red light panel is it comes with an app that is pre programmed and it tells you everything you need to do so you don't have to think about it. For example, I'll just use a skincare one because it's one I use frequently. For the red light panel is, you know, wake up, it's right by my bed. And I will do the. There's three programs. There's the beginner, there's intermediate, and there's the advanced. And I'll do the advanced skincare program and it's 10 minutes and I'll also do meditation with it. I'll stack it and it, it goes by so fast and it's. You turn it on, you do advanced skincare and it goes. Cycles through and then it turns off. Yeah, it's so, it's so easy. And there's, there's lots of different programs. There's immune program, you know, there's, there's anti aging, there's sleep, so you don't have to think about it. And then if you're a beginner, choose the beginner program. And it also tell you the other thing that's great is it'll tell you exactly how far you should be from the, from the panel. For the red light panel and then for the mask, it's super easy. You just turn it on and you could just sit there until it turns off or if you want a specific wavelength, specific color, then you just press the button on the side and you'll see it change and then it'll turn off.
- [49:44]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah.
- [49:44]
Connie Zak
So it's three minutes per program or eight minutes if you cycle through.
- [49:48]
Dr. Josh Axe
Yeah. Well, I love it. Well again, I love all the new technology and devices I love. Obviously, as we've talked about infrared saunas and red light therapy and cold in certain instances for some people and so lots of benefits here. Well, Connie, thanks so much for coming on today. I've really enjoyed again our conversation here and again I've really enjoyed again your products now because even using Jordan's, Jordan San almost 20 years ago, which is crazy and all the benefits there. And I wanted to mention that Connie was kind enough for anybody who is interested in getting a sauna or one of these masks or red light therapy. By the way, the masks were way less, I mean expensive than I thought they were going to be. All that being said, you can go to sunlighten.com axe just type in the code axe and you'll get a discount on any of these products that you're interested in. This can be great for the holidays and Christmas gifts and those sort of things as well. So anyway, Connie, thanks so much for extending that big offer to my entire audience again@sunlighten.com Axe the code is AXE. If you want to get a discount on any of the Sunlighten products and just want to say, hey, thanks everybody for tuning in here. I want to encourage you guys, check out sunlight and saunas. This is a sauna I personally use. I've got family members using them and so many patients using them and they're seeing great benefits and I hope you will experience great benefits too from using red light therapy, infrared therapy. And listen, if you can't get a sauna, here's my best advice for you. Get a lot more sunshine, get out in the sun, lay out, listen, you never want to get burnt, but go and just get direct sunlight on your skin as much as possible on a regular basis without getting burnt and you are going to get quite a bit of good red light therapy that way as well. So again, thanks so much for tuning in here. And remember, each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually and take your health and your life to the next level. Also, don't forget to subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show. That's how I bring on so many incredible high profile, profile wise guest like I had here today. And if you're watching on YouTube, let me know. Hey, what's the biggest piece of advice that you walked away with or thing you didn't know that Connie might have shared today where we got into all the benefits of infrared and we'd love to hear. Hey, have you used an infrared mask or do you use infrared sun or red light therapy? We would love to hear from you as well. And don't forget to share. There's so many people that don't know the truth about how red light therapy and infrared light therapy can lower blood pressure, improve hypothyroidism, support detoxification, cancer protocols and so much more. Thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks, Connie, for being on the show today.
- [52:24]
Connie Zak
Thanks so much for having me.
- [52:25]
Dr. Josh Axe
Thanks again. It was so great. And we'll see you guys on the next episode.
- [52:34]
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Connie Zak
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Connie Zak
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