August 10, 2017

Podcast from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2017/08/372-fringe-longevity-secrets-best-minimalist-exercise-plan-calm-stress-much/

[00:00] Introduction

[06:47] News Flashes/Things On Anti-Aging

[15:52] Most Valuable Personal Trait

[17:35] Special Announcements

[18:33] Atrantil/Blue Apron/Bone Broth

[25:17] Podchaser Contest

[26:20] Ben’s Schedule

[29:41] Listener Q&A/A “Minimalist” Exercise Plan

[45:27] How Guys Can “Get It Up” Better

[56:15] How To Calm Down After Stress

[1:03:34] Why So Many Products Have Caffeine

[1:08:57] Giveaway

[1:09:44] iTunes Review

[1:11:51] Tip From Paul Chek

[1:16:11] End of Podcast

Introduction:  In this episode of The Ben Greenfield Fitness Show:  Fringe Longevity Secrets, The Best Minimalist Exercise Program, How To Calm Down After Stress, How Guys Can Get It Up Better, Why So Many Nutrition Products Have Caffeine, and much, much more.

Ben:  Brock, I'm looking very, very sexy right now.

Brock:  Uhhh, (laughs) okay?

Ben:  Kind of awkward.  We're actually recording this podcast at a strange time of day.  Usually, we record at the butt crack of dawn.  I don't know where everybody listening in is in the world, but it's like 6:40 here.

Brock:  Yeah.  I'm half asleep and half drunk.  This is going to be crazy.

Ben:  I know.  Wait 'til you hear, actually you know what?  I'm going to save this for the end of the podcast.  I am not drunk, like I mentioned in the last episode I believe, I've been very careful with alcohol of late.

Brock:  Like careful not to spill it, you mean?

Ben:  Yeah.  My hands tremble when I drink because I need it so badly, so I have to be careful not to spill it.

Brock:  Oh, you turned that sad.

Ben:  I know.  I was with Paul Chek of the world famous C.H.E.K. Institute.  If you don't know about him, I'll link to all of his stuff, you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/372.  But he taught me this amazing little technique that I'm doing as we're podcasting right now.  I'm going to save that…

Brock:  Which is why you're looking sexy?

Ben:  No.  I'll explain why I'm looking sexy in a moment.

Brock:  This is very confusing.

Ben:  Wait for the end of the podcast 'cause it's blown my mind what he showed me, he showed me a lot of stuff.  I did a big podcast with him.  But one thing blew my mind, I'll tell you about it at the outro.

Brock:  I can't wait.

Ben:  See how I did that?  See how I hooked all of you into listening until the very end?

Brock:  Totally.  You're a genius.

Ben:  Like the very end.  Like after we give away stuff, I'll mention it.  But no, I'm wearing my tighty pants.  I have the tightest pants in the land on right now.

Brock:  Are they called tighty pants?

Ben:  They're called 110% Compression.  You've seen these before?

Brock:  Oh, yeah.  I've got some of those.

Ben:  Yeah.  They're the big, long tight pants with little sleeves that you can fill with ice 'cause I went for a ride tonight on my elliptical trainer, and my knee's been bugging me a little bit since that West Virginia Spartan race because the whole race was pretty much straight downhill….

Brock:  West Virginia!

Ben:  Or straight uphill.  Oh, that is a song.  Take me home.

Brock:  Take me home.

Ben:  110% Compression Pants.  I'm wearing those, they're stuffed with ice, and I have what's called an eng3 NanoVi device.  If you hear a little like bubbling in the background, that's not a bong.

Brock:  Okay.

Ben:  Okay?  That's this thing called a NanoVi.  Have you ever heard of this?

Brock:  Yeah.  It bubbles sort of a mist at your face and you're breathe the ions…

Ben:  So it bubbles, well, yeah.  So we all know that cell damage occurs, and one of the ways that cell damage can be mopped up is by the formation of good reactive oxygen species.  We often hear about bad reactive oxygen species, but DNA damage and cellular damage can actually be cleaned up by reactive oxygen species that are vibrating at a certain frequency.  And there's a specific electromagnetic wave that has the same wavelength as these excited reactive oxygen species in our cells, and it's just basic what's called redox signaling.  And so what this machine that I have sitting here does is you fill it with water, and before it emits the water out this little tube that you just kind of blow it yourself basically while you're working at your desk or whatever, you breathe it in, but it emits this electromagnetic frequency onto the humidified air, so you're basically breathing in the type of reactive oxygen species that heal tissue.  And you feel amazing when you suck this stuff into your lungs.  It's crazy.

Brock:  I’ve tried it, and honestly I didn't feel anything. I felt like a weirdo 'cause I was standing there like with…

Ben:  How long did you use it?

Brock:  Maybe not long enough.  It was only like 10 minutes.

Ben:  Oh, okay.  I usually use it for 30 minutes and I get it straight into the mouth.  So I'm just like breathing it right in.  And I'm serious, if you want to check it out go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/ENG3.  You need to like to own nice things 'cause this thing is frigging expensive.  However, it is amazing for cellular repair and recovery and for being able to essentially turn your entire day at the office into just like a “make me live longer routine”.  One other thing I want to mention before we jump into a whole bunch of tips on how to live longer, all of our news flashes are about longevity actually.

Brock:  They are, yeah.

Ben:  You know who just left my house?

Brock:  I know.  Where would I even start?

Ben:  A guy that's like bigger than an orangutan.  He got here last night and he trained me for about the past 18 hours in kettlebells and qigong.  He's like this eastern mysticist, he's the strength addition coach at Cal Poly, and he specializes, he's a doctor of qigong and one of only 12 RKC kettlebell instructors with his level certification in the entire world.  And he basically spent the day with me and my boys podcasting, teaching us, qigong and kettlebell swings route.  It was amazing.

Brock:  Wow! It sounds like a good day.  So who is he?

Ben:  It was a very interesting day.  His name's Chris Holder, and we're going to have a really good podcast.  If you want to look him up, he has a bunch of stuff on the Dragon Door Publications website.  If you guys go to the show notes, I'll put a link to everything I just talked about the top of the show notes.  Go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/372, and that's where you can access all of the goodness.  There's plenty more goodness coming up in a special announcement.  But for now, why don't we jump into the keys to bad ass track record breaking longevity, shall we, Brock?

Brock:  I think we should.

News Flashes:

Ben:  Alright.  So the first thing that I tweeted out this week, if you follow me at twitter.com/bengreenfield, what I do is I wake up in the morning and I spend about an hour reading research journals, reading articles, reading books, and then I tweet the most amazing things that I find.  I've been tweeting a lot.  Thank you, Brock.  Sound effects…

Brock:  Actually, I'm doing that with my mouth.

Ben:  Fade away.  That's very impressive.

Brock:  Thank you.

Ben:  Hold yourself back.

Brock:  That's all I wanted you to say.

Ben:  Okay.  101 year old breaks world running record and says, “I missed my nap for this.”  Her name is Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins.

Brock:  Hurricane Hawkins!  I love her.

Ben:  She did a hundred meters and, now remember she's is pretty old.  She's 101, so don't laugh.  But she did in 40 seconds a hundred meters.

Brock:  That's awesome!

Ben:  I told everybody not to laugh, and I laughed.  Anyways, that's like the world record.  So here's what she says.  A.) she skipped her nap to do the run.  She's a voracious napper.  So there's one thing that we can learn from a person who lives a long time.

Brock:  Done.

Ben:  And her two favorite sports, aside from running obviously, slash walking a very fast hundred meter, and cycling, is gardening and spending a lot of time outdoors.  So it turns out that one of the keys to bad-ass, track-record breaking longevity is naps, time outdoors, and gardening.

Brock:  Perfect.

Ben:  And that's what we learn from Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins.  But then there's this other dude…

Brock:  Wait.  I want to bring up the way she trains for stuff.  Did you read that part?

Ben:  No.

Brock:  She basically, she always leaves her telephone inside the house.  So every time it rings, she has to run as fast as she can into the house, and that's basically how she trains for these hundred meter dashes.

Ben:  That's brilliant for two reasons.  Number one, that she has to run inside the house.  Number two, I was with Drew Canole, the guy who makes all these green juice powders that we talk about in San Diego.

Brock:  Drew Canole!

Ben:  We went to work out at his gym in San Diego, and I don't go to gyms very much anymore.  It's like a freakin' nightclub, dude.  Everybody's walking around Snapchatting, and Instagramming, and the girls are all like dolled up to the tee, and the dudes are wearing camo pants, and sunglasses on their head, and shorts with the shoelaces kind of untied, like stylish high tops, and their hair's all slicked back.

Brock:  So basically it's the '90s all over again.  Beautiful.

Ben:  Yeah.  Or the '80s.  I don't know.  But everybody's just like working out on machines.  I know this is California.  Not every gym is like this.  I know Crossfit gyms are a little bit more rough around the edges, for example.  But everybody's on their phone.  And I'm with, I'm not going to call out any names, but I was working out with people and they were on their phones.  And I told them, “What in the hell are you doing? Put the phone down and do a freaking workout.  We're at the gym.”

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  Right?  Anyways…

Brock:  They're apparently very important.

Ben:  You got to maintain your Instagram status.  Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, Shigeaki Hinohara, longevity expert…

Brock:  That's pretty good.  That's got to be pretty accurate.

Ben:  [speaks Mandarin] I can speak a little Mandarin.  This guy's Japanese though.

Brock:  Yeah.  I was going to say…

Ben:  Yeah.  He's a longevity expert, and he recently died, but he lived to 105 years old. This article on him was fascinating.  He dished out a boatload of tips.  But some of his biggies was he always took the stairs and he always did it two steps at a time.  And that's my rule.  I don't care how heavy the bags are that I'm bringing through the airport, I always take the freaking stairs.  When I get to the hotel, not only do I turn down the bellhop for carrying my luggage, but if my floor is any lower than the 10th floor, I take the stairs.  And I'll leave my luggage downstairs, go back and get the second bag if I need to.  But that's just my rule.

Brock:  It's a good one.

Ben:  Yeah.  Exactly.  He says, “Don't ever retire.  But if you must do so, a lot later than age 25.”

Brock:  65.

Ben:  I'm sorry…

Brock:  Way later than 25.

Ben:  Don't underestimate the beneficial effects of music and the company of animals.

Brock:  I love that one.

Ben:  Both can be therapeutic.  His diet was very Spartan-esque, coffee, milk, and orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil for breakfast, milk, and a few biscuits, and I'm sorry folks, but they probably weren't gluten free, for lunch.  Actually, it was in Japan.  They're probably rice biscuits or something.  And then vegetables with a small portion of fish and rice for dinner.

Brock:  That sounds awesome, yeah.

Ben:  Amazing.  He was also among 130 hostages in 1970 who spent four days trapped in a hundred degree heat in North Korea, or captured by radical communists somewhere armed with swords and pipe bombs.  I think that, and this is actually something Paul Chek told me, sometimes getting close to the brink of death during life is one of the best ways to live a longer time.

Brock:  That's where you get your super power from.

Ben:  Yeah.

Brock:  Always.

Ben:  Also, interestingly, he worked up to 18 hours a day.  So so much for the work can kill you concept.  And he took at least 2,000 or more steps a day, which isn't a boat load, but a few little tips from that dude.  That's an intriguing article.  That one was in the New York Times.  Now he got put to shame though by this other man, and I don't know if this is true or not…

Brock:  Yeah, I have trouble with this one.

Ben:  Li Ching-Yuen.  Li Ching-Yuen apparently lived an astonishing 256 years old, and the article about him, and it was on the internet, so I know this is true, says, “This is not a myth or a fictional tale.”

Brock:  Oh, there you go.

Ben:  But apparently he began an herbalist career at the age of 10.  I think he's dead now, like recently died.  In 1749, he was 71, he joined the Chinese army as a teacher of martial arts, he was an herbalist.  So for like 40 years, he survived on like wild plants, and goji berry, and ginseng, and gotu kola, and a little bit of rice wine.  So he ate from the Earth and it looks like he actually consumed alcohol, a little rice wine.  He says that he had once encountered an even older 500 year old man, which frankly I believe.  But it's also interesting when we look at like Peter Diamandis and the longevity product that we're often taught that aging requires all these high tech devices that I admittedly just mention at the beginning of the podcast.  But I also like this concept of, like what I was doing this morning, going out, gathering wild nettles and wild mint from the forest, bringing them back, making some tea, doing a little bit of intermittent fasting.  And the way that he says it, his secret to long health, I love this quote, I want to put this on my wall, he says, “Keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon, and sleep like a dog.”  Ain't that amazing?

Brock:  I like that.  That's a t-shirt right there.

Ben:  I think that means you got to move your back leg around a lot and yipe in your sleep.

Brock:  Yes.

Ben:  I'm pretty sure.

Brock:  Pee on the carpet every once in a while.

Ben:  Yeah.  Pee on the carpet everyone.  I don't know how a tortoise sits.  And I don't really know how a pigeon, I guess kind of a pigeon walks by thrusting its neck forward, back and forth.

Brock:  Yeah.  Something to do with your neck kind of poke…

Ben:  Yeah.  So I'm going to kind of poke my neck as I walk like a pigeon until I'm 256 years old.  Okay, bengreenfieldfitness.com/372 again for all these articles.  Here's one, brain cells that control aging have been discovered.  They found stem cells in the brain's hypothalamus that govern how fast aging occurs in the body.  And what I thought was most intriguing about this, that like the center of aging in the body, you know what also happens in the hypothalamus?

Brock:  Pretty much everything.  The hypothalamus controls your temperature, your heart rate, your respiration.

Ben:  You can't just cheat and say everything.

Brock:  I tried to listen a few things and then I ran out.  So three things.

Ben:  That's the main part of the brain that controls the stress response.  It releases corticotropic releasing hormone and vasopressin, and those activate what's called your hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis.  I've written some articles about this, but it's very intriguing that the area of the brain that carries the stem cells responsible for allowing you to live a longer time, the stem cells that control aging, that area of the brain responds directly to stress.  And it is interesting that we know that mild amounts of stress, so called hormetic stressors can extend life, and that too much stress can cause accelerated aging.  I think it's very interesting that they've actually found cells in the brain that show that that area the brain is responsible for longevity.  Isn't that interesting?

Brock:  It does make sense in a very sort of circuitous way.

Ben:  Yeah.  It's very interesting.  Anyways, that one, I just found intriguing.  It made me think, again, about controlling stress.  And then finally, speaking of controlling stress, science points to the single most valuable personality trait.  Like if there were one personal, and I read this in, a long time ago, I interviewed the author of a book called “Why Does Olga Run?”  You should go to bengreenfieldfitness.com and listen to that if you're interested in longevity.  And in that book, “Why Does Olga Run?” the author goes into the one characteristic that Olga held most important above all.  Do you know what it is, Brock?

Brock:  

Ben:  Conscientiousness.  How many syllables?  It's a lot of syllables.  Conscientious, five.  Five.  And I know a lot of people thought a lot of people thought I'd probably say gratitude 'cause I just wrote a gratitude journal.  I know I've been kicking that horse to death.

Brock:  A little bit.

Ben:  Yeah.  A little bit.  But hey, I'm grateful for it.  Anyways though, conscientiousness, the state of being thorough, careful, vigilant, or as I think a lot of people say these days, mindful, it's basically that idea that you have self-discipline, and carefulness, and thoroughness, and self-organization, and the tendency to think carefully before acting, and just about the opposite of everything you do when you're holding a smartphone.

Brock:  Pretty much.  That's a good way to sum it up.

Ben:  So conscientiousness, if you want to study up on conscientiousness, go read this article.  I'll link to it and all these other articles over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/372.  But that's it, dude.  Conscientiousness.

Brock:  So sit like a tortoise, walk like a pigeon, be conscientious, suck some brain cells out of your hypothalamus, don't retire when you're 25, and what else did we learn?  Oh, take naps!

Ben:  Sleep like a dog and put your tight pants on.  Tight pants on!

Special Announcements:

Ben:  Before I tell you about some pretty amazing, some new sponsors that have some cool things…

Brock:  Yeah.  I was shocked by these sponsors.

Ben:  I need to mention that we have bunch of gift packs available.  So what we do is we hand pick 300 bucks worth of biohacks, and supplements, and fitness gear, and books, and we mark them down 50% and send them to you.

Brock:  Sweet.

Ben:  I don't think I need to say anything more than that.  That's it.

Brock:  Well maybe tell people how to get it.

Ben:  Oh.  Go to greenfieldfitnesssystems.com/giftpack.

Brock:  Nice.

Ben:  That's greenfieldfitnesssystems.com/giftpack.  We have seven available right now, seven of those bad boys available.  That's not a lot, but…

Brock:  Make that six.

Ben:  Considering 90,000 people listen into this podcast, I know it's not a lot.  Seven will go fast, but check that out.  Anyways, this podcast is brought to you by Atrantil.  Atrantil?

Brock:  Atrantil?

Ben:  Atrantil.

Brock:  Which has the best URL we've ever had from any sponsor ever basically.

Ben:  Really?  What's the URL?

Brock:  lovemytummy.com/ben.

Ben:  I like that.  lovemytummy.com/ben.  Okay, so here's the deal with this stuff.  I've been giving it to a bunch of my clients who get bloating, and gas, and have all these issues with what's called small intestine bacterial overgrowth, and I used it for like two months 'cause I've dealt with this before as well and I wanted to see if it works.  Dude, you don't fart at all.  When you take…

Brock:  What fun is that?

Ben:  I know.  Exactly.  Kiss your Dutch ovens goodbye, baby.  So what they have is it's peppermint leaf which, and I'm going to get these guys on the podcast at some point to go and take a deep dive into this.  But peppermint leaf that calms your small bowel, and then they have this South American hardwood tree called quebracho extract, and that soaks up the hydrogen that archaebacteria produce.  It weakens the cell walls of those bacteria.  And then it's got horse chestnut, a natural antibacterial from horse chestnut which shuts down the methane production in these achaebacteria.  So it reduces unwanted bacteria and all the gas that they produce.

It was designed by a gastroenterologist, I've actually met him, he's a gastroenterologist who also looks like he's a freakin' beast.  He's like this big ol' weight training dude.  I was actually just with him at a conference down in San Diego.  Cool guy, Dr. Ken Brown.  They've got two published clinical trials showing that it works in like 85% plus of the people who try it.  If you're in the other 15% that fart after you try it, worry not they have a 100% money back guarantee.  And it wasn't designed as like an anti-fart thing.  It was designed for people with bloating, and SIBO, and IBS, and leaky gut issues, and it's really cool.  The stuff, again, it actually works.  And I don't let anybody just advertise in this podcast.  I tried it for two months and it's cool.  Also the quebracho, that's a macromolecule.  That means it doesn't get absorbed and then cause systemic side effects and it stays in the small bowel.  It just does its little job down there.  So lovemytummy.com/ben gets you 15%.  Atrantil!  This podcast speaking of Dutch ovens, is also brought to you by…

Brock:  Where are you going with this?

Ben:  This amazing, amazing bed with soft breathable sheets, and an adaptive pillow, and the ability to keep you cool as you sleep.  Because as we've talked about before, your central nervous system needs to be kept cool as you sleep.  And this particular mattress gives you free delivery, they give you free returns.  Do you notice how I'm talking kind of sexy now?

Brock:  Mhmm.  You're making me sleepy.

Ben:  They give you a 100-night home trial.  And it combines memory foam with this award-winning sleep surface.  Like I mentioned, free shipping, you can try it 100 nights risk-free, it's designed, developed, and assembled in the USA, if you care about that, which can be important.  I don't know.  Some things in the USA break.  These don't.  I have one in my house.  It's actually, it's a pretty good mattress.  And you get 50 bucks off it.  You go to casper.com/ben.  I shouldn't say it's a pretty good mattress.  That doesn't make it sound pretty good.  It's an awesome mattress.  Go to casper.com/ben, and you get 50 bucks off any of their mattresses.  casper.com/ben.  So check that out if you're in the market for a mattress.  And then…

Brock:  That's not all, folks.

Ben:  This podcast is also brought to you, why do I have to do this at night?  Now this is going to make me hungry.  Okay.  What do heirloom tomato, lamb, and beef burgers, chicken with cherry tomatoes, dates, and couscous, and spicy lemon grass salmon all have in common, Brock?

Brock:  That sounds like Blue Apron, baby.

Ben:  Along with chilled Hiyashi Chuka ramen.  Blue Apron.  They send all these fresh ingredients to your home along with all the recipe cards that you need to actually make said ingredients into an amazing, shockingly good meal.  It's like forcing yourself to learn how to cook.  Or forcing somebody in your house to learn how to cook for you.  They have a freshness guarantee.  And the meals are actually really good, they really are.  And they're extremely thorough.  Like everything you need, the spices, the sauces, the actual food.  They don't ship you the pots and pans.  Those bastards.

Brock:  Do they clean them?

Ben:  The meals?

Brock:  The pots and pans.

Ben:  No.

Brock:  Duh.

Ben:  Yeah.  You need a personal assistant.  Or yourself.  Go to blueapron.com/ben and you get your first three meals free with free shipping.  blueapron.com/ben.  Blue Apron, a better way to cook.

Brock:   I'm busy trying to figure out if they actually deliver in Canada 'cause I want to try that.

Ben:  I don't know if they do.  Go to their website.  Find out.

Brock:  I will later.

Ben:  blueapron.com/ben.  A better way to cook.  Did I say it's a better way to cook already?

Brock:  A better way to cook.

Ben:  A better way to cook.  Okay.  Finally, speaking of cooking, this podcast is brought to you by the most nutrient dense superfood that you can get delivered straight to your front door.  I've got a freezer full of it upstairs.  Do you know what it is?  Kale, acai berries, green tea?  Guess!  Guess, guess!

Brock:  I've no idea.  I thought it was going to be bone broth.

Ben:  Aw, you could show off your knowledge and say like spirulina or something.  But it is!  It's bone broth.  With all the vitamins, and the amino acids, and the collagen that you get from animal bones and you get from connective tissue.  They make it from organic chicken, 100% grass-fed cattle.  They slow simmer the bones for 20 hours with a whole bunch of organic vegetables and herbs.  They've got one brand that they have a bunch of mushrooms, magical mushrooms.  Not like trippy magical, but lion's mane and stuff like that.  They slow simmer it, which extracts insane amounts of protein to get 10 grams of protein per serving.  I've done a podcast with them, with no preservatives.  They can store it in the pantry for up to two years, and that frees up valuable refrigerator space.  Although I keep it in the freezer 'cause I like to use it as like a frozen slushie for my smoothies.  Put a little lemon juice, a little bone broth in there.  It's amazing.  It's actually so amazing, I've invested in this company.  Let me tell you that.

Brock:  Is that why your face is all over this web page?

Ben:  Is my face on their front page?

Brock:  It is.

Ben:  Wow.  Well, I love it.  I love it.  Frankly, I like my wife's bone broth, but she can only make so much bone broth to keep up with my bone broth addiction.

Brock:  Yeah.  It sounds like you've got it bad.

Ben:  You get 20% off.  You go to bengreenfieldfitness.com, well you get 20% off their chicken bone broth.  I'm going to have to twist their arms to get the beef.  But go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/chickenbroth, and you get 20% off your order.  bengreenfieldfitness.com/chickenbroth.  And then a couple other things.  First of all, there's like this new contest going on where you rate podcasts.  Anybody listening in, please, please, please go rate and review The Ben Greenfield Fitness Show if you want good karma, and if you don't want to have nightmares, and not sleep like a dog and walk like maybe a hawk or an eagle instead of a pigeon.

Brock:  A bald eagle.

Ben:  You go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/podchaser.  Remember that.  Please don't just quit listening to the podcast and forget about this.  It's good karma.  Go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/podchaser, bengreenfieldfitness.com/podchaser, and it might make you enter a code.  Here's the code to enter, and I'll tell you the code and I'll also put it in the show notes over are bengreenfieldfitness.com/372.  The code is “Patreon”.  “Patreon”.  The Patreon contest at Podchaser.  So check that out.  It's worth supporting this show.

Brock:  And there's some other really good podcasts on this list too, so I think you're going to need the help. (chuckles)

Ben:  Okay.  Two other things.  Where I'm going to be in the world.  I will be in LA racing the LA Stadium Race, August 18th through 20th.  Come join me there.  It'll be a blast.  I'm also going to be in West Virginia racing the last race in the Spartan World Championship Series before Lake Tahoe on August 26th.  We'll be racing down in West Virginia.  Come out there, we have a Big Ben Greenfield fitness meet-up at the race.  Come see me covered in barbed wire wounds, and see me all grumpy, and angry.  And we do have a Q&A.  We actually did a Q&A, a big Q&A outside the big black Spartan Protein tent.  Usually we do 'em around 10 AM after the race ends, which is my carrot at the end of the stick to actually be done by 10 AM 'cause I have to be there for everybody.  The Who Wants To Live Forever Conference in Iceland is September 8 through 11.  There's still time to get tickets for that.  That's going to be a blast.  And I'm leading a bike ride there, which will be a ton of fun.

The conference I might look forward to more than any conference I think of the year, the Biohacker Summit in Helsinki, Finland, which I'm going to bring my wife and my kids to this year 'cause it's so, Finland is so freaking amazing.  We do like this three day kind of like thing after the conference and go off into the hills of Finland and camp, and go wild plant foraging.  It's like this perfect blend of ancestral wisdom and modern science all mashed together, and it's amazing.  So get your tickets to that, those are still available.  I'll be at the Weston A.  Price Conference in Minneapolis, November 10th through the 13th.  And then finally, the last two ones that you should really look into if you want to go on an amazing adventure with me, both of these are open to the public, I'll put all the details in the show notes, Kauai, Hawaii, December 7th through 9th, we're doing what's called the XPT Experience with me, and Kelly Starrett, and Laird Hamilton, and Gabby Reese.  We're going to do breath work, and underwater workouts, and outdoor workouts, and biohacking, and just about everything all these pro athletes do who are living life on the fringe bleeding edge of performance.  We're going to teach all that to everybody in Kauai, which is an amazing place to go by the way, if you haven't been to Kauai.  It's one my favorite…

Brock:  I have not.

Ben:  Favorite islands.  And then also, in addition to that, Runga in Panama.  And Runga, you get to choose when you want to go.  You can arrive as early as December 11th, you can depart as late as December 23rd, and that's basically two times a day Bikram yoga.  Have you ever done two times a day, 90 minutes of Bikram yoga?

Brock:  No.  I think I'd break.

Ben:  You feel pretty amazing, actually.  Like I did it last year, and you feel like a rock star.  And all this amazing organic food, you do adventures, we have night fire dancing, and parties.  There may or may not be substances down there as well that we have lots of fun with.  It's a digital detox, meaning there's not a lot of cell phones.  You don't have to drop your cell phone in a bucket and have it smashed by staff while you're there, but you do have the option of getting it taken away, and not a lot of people use cell phones, there's no computers and other technology around.  It's a really good time.  And you get a discount, and you get a gift, and a whole bunch of other stuff if you go check it out bengreenfieldfitness.com/372.  So come with me down to Panama, baby.

Listener Q & A:

Ralph:  Hello, Ben.  I am stuck and can really use your help.  I exercise a lot every day.  I do Crossfit everyday, and then I do a lot of heavy weight lifting everyday, spending hours in the gym.  I do heavy squats, and heavy deadlifts, and other things for my arms.  I have a lot of knee pain and I know that this is also a waste of time, but I would like more time in my day.  My question for you is how to responsibly reduce the amount of exercise that I do everyday without gaining weight.  My diet is pretty reeled in.  I follow a ketogenic diet, and my food is Paleo and Whole30.  I eat pretty cleanly and don't splurge a lot, and I enjoy eating this way.  So if you have suggestions on how to responsibly reduce the amount of exercise I do every day without gaining weight, I would really appreciate it.  Thank you for everything that you do.

Ben:  You'd be surprised at how little exercise you need to do to not gain weight.

Brock:  Would I?

Ben:  Assuming you're tricking your body into living like a hunter-gatherer-gardener-esque lifestyle and not having your butt planted in a chair all day, you're getting up, you're following this concept of greasing the groove, which I do.  I'll do five pullups every hour, and for every hour that I sit, I do a hundred jumping jacks.  I have all these little rules that I follow during the day.  The icing on the cake is the exercise.  And you don't have to spend a lot of time in the gym, and I've got a few good tips for you.  Should we start the really expensive stuff you could buy or should we start with the practical exercise recommendations?

Brock:  Let's start big.

Ben:  Alright.  We'll start big or go home.  You ever heard of Vasper?

Brock:  Yes.  I've used one a couple times.

Ben:  Some of the most efficient productive dudes on the face of the planet, some of the richest dudes I know, they all own a Vasper and they use it like twice a week.  And I've interviewed the folks at Vasper.  It's a combination of cold therapy compression packs that you put all over your body and this strange looking full-body exercise machine that just destroys you in about 20 minutes, so you get about two hours worth of exercise in 20 minutes.  The compression concentrates the lactic acid, which gives you a big release of growth hormone, the cooling effect allows you to work at a much higher metabolic rate, it's grounded with copper plate, so you get this grounding effect 'cause you do it barefoot, and you can buy this for your house.  You can also do a Google search for the name of your town plus the word “Vasper”.

And if I could probably add like one cool exercise toy to my house right now without my wife killing me, so I unfortunately can't at this point, it would probably be a Vasper or this other thing.  And by the way, I'll link to the podcast I did with the folks at Vasper.  Just go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/372.  But the other one is the ARX.  And the ARX is a computer-controlled unit that you do a rep against, and it develops a force curve as you press against it, and then it presses back against you as hard as possible.  And it's very similar to the super slow routine outlined in the book by Doug McGuff called “Body By Science” in which he has about five different exercises that you go to extremely slow, and smooth, and controlled.  And I love this style of training because it increases peripheral blood pressure, it gives you a cardio and a strength workout at the same time, it is not impact based, so you're able to do it and do it for life with very little amounts, well you're sore, but you're not breaking down the joints.  Don't get me wrong.  You're sore as hell after this thing for like three days.

Brock:  You're really sore, yeah.

Ben:  But you don't have joint pain.  And so the computer, you do this one rep, it generates a force curve, and what you do is for about the next four to six reps, you just try and beat or match this force curve, or keep yourself from going I think lower than 80% under the force curve.  And as soon as you're unable to go anymore and you're completely exhausted, that's it.  That's that one rep.  It's a 12 to 15 minute workout.  Or that's that one set.  It's a 12 to 15 minute workout, chest press, row, pull down, shoulder press, and my favorite, because it makes me feel like I'm having a baby, the leg press.  And this machine is amazing.  They make one called the Omni that does all this stuff, and I may or may not be getting one this year.  I might have to build a special house out in the forest putting all this stuff into.

Brock:  That's a good idea, actually.

Ben:  But ultimately, that's pretty cool too.  And I interviewed those guys, or one of the guys who introduced me to that, Keith Norris.  It's called, the name of that episode is “Why Strong People Are Harder To Kill”.  Keith's pretty strong, and this is like one of his favorite ways to get massive amounts of strength.  Now if you didn't want to buy this expensive machine, you could also do what I consider to be of one of the most efficient ways to strength train, not the only way you want to strength train, I'll get into why in a second, but it would be this “Body By Science” type of program by Doug McGuff.  So that's called the ARX machine.  But even more detailed than that, what I recommend, if you were going to put together like the perfect exercise program, and I have kind of a whole article about this called “How To Look Good Naked And Live A Long Time” over at bengreenfieldfitness.com, I'll link to that in the show notes, you want to hit just a few things each week.  And if you choose each of these things that I'm talking about, then you will be able to get away with the minimum amount of exercise necessary for health, for performance, and for longevity.  Because they have studied this.  After about 450 minutes per week, the longevity benefits of exercise plateau.  And another way to look at that is once you exceed about 60 minutes a day of vigorous intensity exercise, or about 90 minutes a day of like moderate aerobic exercise, you don't get anymore benefits from exercise.  And in many cases, you could increase some of the things we talked about in our last Q&A episode, the potential for a little bit of plaque formation, excessive inflammation, or in the case of this caller, knee pain, that type of thing.

So anyways though, first thing you want to do is every single week, you should do something, and they've actually shown you can maintain this by doing it once every two weeks, that targets VO2Max, the maximum amount of oxygen you can utilize, your lung capacity, the ability of your cells to extract oxygen from the blood stream as oxygen rushes past, and the ability of blood to actually carry oxygen, like iron, hemoglobin, stuff like that.  So the way that you target VO2Max, the gold standard for this that I like is four, very, very easy to memorize, four to six, four to six minute hard efforts with four to six minutes of recovery.  That's it.  You could bicycle, running, elliptical trainer, swimming, whatever.  But four to six minutes long, four to six efforts, really hard, as hard as you can maintain, maximum sustainable pace with four to six minutes of recovery.  Now of course you need to take care of yourself from a nutritional standpoint, right?  If you're vegan, you need to be eating spirulina and chlorella for iron, and lots of dark leafy greens, you need lots of good sunlight exposure to activate the water inside your body to help the blood actually get carried throughout the body.  You need, if you are carnivorous, do more than fish and eggs.  Try and get a lot of red meat down the pipeline.  I red meat about once every three or four days, and I go without it on certain days of the week 'cause I think excess red meat, it can cause a build-up in what's called TMAO in the intestinal tract, and that might cause some sugar and inflammation issues, that's a whole different rabbit hole that we can go down later.

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  But anyways, you take care of your iron, and your blood, and eat red things like beets, and watermelon, and get nitric oxide precursors like arugula into your system.  But ultimately, from an exercise standpoint, four to six minutes, four to six efforts, four to six minutes of recovery.  Okay?  So uhmm, Pellegrino, baby.

Brock:  I thought something happened to you.

Ben:  No, no.

Brock:  Is it beverage time?  I'll have sip of my drink too.

Ben:  Normally by this time of night, I drink a little elderberry wine.  Or a little FitVine wine, the hangover free, organic red wine that I drink.  Go listen to the episode I did with them.  It'll blow your mind about how many…

Brock:  I've had their stuff.  They throw amazing parties, those guys too.

Ben:  I think you're thinking of the folks from Dry Farm Wines.

Brock:  Oh, yes.  I am.

Ben:  They're also cool.  Hi, guys.  Wine people.  Okay, so the next part would be your mitochondrial density.  So the VO2Max, try and do that once a week, the four to six thing, the four to six minute thing.  Next would be mitochondrial density.  Now for that, for mitochondrial density, the very best way to train it is very short intense 30 second efforts all out.  As hard as you can freaking go, deep into the pain cave with four minutes of recovery.  That's it.  So you do about four to six of those too.  See?  Easy to remember.  Four to six, 30 second all-out efforts with four minutes of recovery.  And that's once a week.  That's for mitochondrial biogenesis, okay?  And again, you need things to also help you out, like access to good sun, breathing good air, the type of things that I'm doing with like biohacks with my red lights, and infrared sauna, and this humidified air thing, all of those things add up too.  But ultimately again from an exercise standpoint, all out 30 seconds, four to six of those, four minutes of rest, and that also is something you try to work in once a week.

Now the final two things from a cardiovascular standpoint, number one, would be lactic acid tolerance to get that growth hormone release and to get the ability to be able to tolerate the burn.  For that, what you'd want to work in, again, and this one would be two to three times a week.  But don't worry, it's short.  What is called the Tabata set.  So two to three times a week, you do a Tabata set which is four minutes of 20 seconds very hard using anything you want, burpees, bicycling, swimming, whatever.  20 seconds hard, 10 seconds easy.  Okay?  You warm, do that four minutes, you cool down, that's it.  And you only need to do that two to three times a week.  And you can lay this all out into a program on whichever days you want.  Tabata set Monday, Wednesday, Friday, your VO2Max set on a Tuesday, your mitochondrial density on a Thursday, let's say.  And then the other things worked in that I'm about to talk about where you can work them in.

So the next one being stamina.  I like this one for the weekend.  Stamina is what's neglected by, say, Crossfitters, who if you drop them in the middle of the forest, in many cases, would probably die because they can't go for about a mile without pooping out, at least according to my calculations during Spartan races where they lead the whole race for like the first mile, and then you're at mile 12 and they're still at mile five.  I love Crossfitters.  I don't want to like, I realize I've done that twice now.  Crossfitters, I actually like that form of exercise, if you're listening in.  I think it's one of the better ways to work out.  However, this component is missing for a lot of you, and this is stamina.  Stamina, endurance, the ability to just go without a lot of fuel for long periods of time.  Now what I like to do is a fasted workout, so you learn how to utilize fatty acids efficiently as a fuel, at an aerobic pace.  This could be a hike, it could be biking to a coffee shop in the next city over, it could be a very long walk, like a nature walk or a neighborhood walk.  Neighborhood walk.  You could be swimming, it could be a combination of any of the above.  But ultimately, I like that fasted, like on a weekday morning, and that works out really, really well for a stamina session.

Brock:  Wait.  A weekend morning?

Ben:  Weekend morning.  Yup, weekend morning.  So that would be the stamina component, the endurance component.  And I know everybody's asking what about the strength?  Well, once a week…

Brock:  That's where the Crossfit comes in.  [0:41:59] ______.

Ben:  No, no, no.  Once a week, we're talking about like, and some of you could do anytime, any place, no box required.  Once a week, you do this super slow strength training program, you could use one of these ARX machines, and you could look for one of them in a city near you, or a Vasper.  Or you could do, actually Vaspers aren't really strength.  That's a category all on it's own.

Brock:  It's more like Tabata, but not even.

Ben:  Yeah.  It'd count as maybe like a Tabata set.  Actually, it'd be closer to like one of those VO2max sets.  You could also get Doug McGuff's book “Body By Science” and just do his training protocol in there which you can do with just dumbbells and free weights or machines, but it takes about 12 to 20 minutes, super slow strength training routine, once a week.  If you really want maximum gains, twice a week max.  That's it.  Okay?  So we've got our super slow strength.  Now the thing is that when you look at satellite cell proliferation and longevity, the eccentric load from that super slow strength is important.  But when you look at power, and athleticism, and explosiveness and the ability to develop small wirey efficient muscles, you still need to do explosive training.  And I like explosive training one to two times a week.  This could be a kettlebell routine, this could be playing a sport that has a load, like swinging a tennis racket, or even golfing could count in many cases.  But something that has some explosive, some power in it, some element of moving your muscles quickly.  Probably one of the best things to do if you wanted to is just go to that article I wrote.  I'll link to it at bengreenfieldfitness.com/372 where I talk about this body weight only exercise program that they studied, and it's a simple seven minute workout, and you do 30 seconds hard, 10 seconds off, and it's like jumping jacks, and squats, and dips, and you're supposed to do it as explosively as possible.  And you do that anywhere, airport, hotel, wherever.  But 30 seconds on, 10 seconds off, and you just do each exercise for 30 on and 10 off.  And if you really glutton for punishment, you could do two or three circuits of it.  But if you do that once a week, or even twice a week if you really wanted to, and this super slow strength training once or twice a week, you're looking, with everything I just described, at working out, let's say you split it into two-a-day with your warm up and your cool down, you're looking at maybe working out 40 to 60 minutes a day, and hitting like every parameter that I think is necessary to hit in an exercise program.

Brock:  Yeah.  The way that you listed it, it really sounded like it was going to be not that different from what the caller explained of being like hitting Crossfit, and then going and doing a bunch of weights.  But each one of these workouts is quite short.

Ben:  Yeah.  And honestly, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, if I wasn't training for Spartan and racing professionally, 'cause I'm racing for Reebok, and I have to show up to these races, and do these very long races, and train a lot, what I just described to you is exactly what I would do and what I will do once I hang up the Spartan jersey, so to speak, or I'm not doing Ironman triathlon, or whatever.  This the type of exercise program for me to do for life.  So there you have.

Brock:  I'll tell you a secret.  That's pretty much exactly what I'm doing these days.  I'm doing a little more of the heavy lifting just because I'm vain and I like having a bigger chest for the first time my life.  But other than that, this is pretty much exactly what I'm doing with my time now.

Ben:  I love it.  That's why you're so fit and sexy.  Lookin’ good naked.

Brock:  Creepy.

Ben:  A long time walking like a pigeon.  Alright.  Let's move on.

Marvin:  I am 30 years old and I have a hard time getting an erection.  I think it’s because I work a lot.  I’m not sure but most about this situation.  I’m mostly work on a daily, lifting heavy things, most likely not eating the proper foods, I do party a lot and I’m trying to stop.  Then, I smoke.  I do things that I know I shouldn’t been doing that probably would affect my performance in bed.  But I am hoping you can give me some pointers that’ll enlighten my performance.  Please feel free.  Thank you.

Ben:  I was talking with Chris Holder about this.  This qigong master on the podcast I did today.  A lot of times you’ll read that erectile dysfunction is the canary in the mind and the precursor to heart disease because of lack of endothelial function or a loss of nitric oxide or anything that would involve blood flow or nitric oxide or cardiovascular function.  And that can often be the case but he described how many in people it’s not.  It’s more of lower dantian issue.

Brock:  Can you explain what a dantian is?

Ben:  Yeah.  It’s like the core center of your lower belly where all your sexual energy is stored and a lot of guys get what’s called stagnant chi down there.  And you can actually breathe energy back into that area and you can do specific exercises.  Like a perfect example is a kettlebell swing while breathing into that lower core section, and he took me through a few sessions.  Actually last night before we had dinner, he took me through a few sessions where he was showing me how to activate my lower dantian.  Yeah, and I’m just gonna be straight up here.  Earmuff for the kids if you don’t want to explain this to ‘em, use like what are your goals for this session? I’m like, you know what? ‘Cause I like to throw stuff out there, just to see, like I wanna have hot sex tonight.  He’s like, alright, we’re gonna wake up your lower dantian.  And dude, I had like an amazing sex last night and I slept like a baby, and I’d got it up pretty dang fast and probably the best book that outlined the type of things that he kinda went to with me, it’s really a good book.  It’s called “The Multi-Orgasmic Man”.

Brock:  (chuckles) That’s a bestseller right there.

Ben:  Yeah.  It’s a great book and one of the things you’ll learn is how to breathe into your crotch.  You don’t know these other crazy things too like self-testic your massage and the weird stuff like sticking your pinky in your asshole and yeah, that book gets into a lot of stuff.

Brock:  Wait.  So where are you breathing through to get the air into your crotch?

Ben:  So you’re basically putting your hands over kind of your lower abdomen, right? Below your navel and you’re focusing on breathing into that area.  Just inhaling, expanding, exhaling, and relaxing as you breathe into that area.  And you can close your ice and almost imagine any Taoist, sexual practitioner qigong master probably gonna want to jump to the microphone and throttle me for describing this such simplistic terms.  But you imagine you’re breathing life force or energy or chi or you can almost imagine kinda like a whitish-orange light that you’re breathing into that area as you inhale into your lower stomach and you feel your lower dantian feel and out and I mean, this works for women too.  I asked Chris about this and it really works for blood flow, for orgasm, for sexual performance, and for sexual health.  And again, there are some very interesting twist on this that you can do during sex that the author of The Multi-Orgasmic Man gets into in that book.  But basically it’s this idea of studying up on this element of qigong called the lower dantian and learning how to breathe into it.  So that’s the first tip I would give you before I throw out fringe supplements and all that jazz that you or going to one of these GainsWave clinics and doing like acoustic sound wave therapy for your crotch which works and makes you know how to breathe into that lower dantian first.  That’s one thing.

Another thing would be as I just mentioned, this acoustic sound wave therapy.  It works! I’ve done it.  I’m going back at the end of this month to do it again, and you basically get it up like a freakin’ 16 year old boy for a good solid 2 months.  So I did there.

Brock:  Straight?

Ben:  Solid 2 months.  And it works! It’s 20 minutes of sound wave therapy like a jackhammer [jackhammer sound] like all around your crotch.  I have an article on Playboy and an article on Men’s Health.  It’s about my own experience with it which is pretty intense and I’m going back there at the end of this month to not only do that but to also do the platelet rich-plasma injections right into my ding-dong.

Brock:  Right into your junk.

Ben:  And that activates stem cell proliferation and you follow that up, and again earmuffs for the kids if you don’t want to explain this.  I with my kids, I just talk about this stuff and they’re pretty cool with us.  They walked in on mom when I’m havin’ sex once and they just basically stood there and ask what was goin’ on, and so I got up and I told them pretty much the whole story of sex and how it works and just basically laid it all out to them and then they said, “Okay” and I said, “So next time you hear music or you hear mommy and daddy shouting in the room, just don’t come in if you don’t wanna see that” like, “Okay” and they walked out and were back to bed.  So, we’re pretty open with our kids about this stuff just you guys know.

Brock:  I don’t see why not.  Like I don’t have kids but I’d like to imagine that that’s how I’d handle it too ‘cause… why? Why not?

Ben:  Well, when I was with Paul Chek, you know, I get like he and his wife had sex and I just noticed ‘cause he’s told me ‘cause he gets up and he’s like, he keeps his little 17 month old kid in the crib right there at the base of the bed and the kid just stands there and watch, and giggles, and laughs ‘cause they do a lot of co-sleeping and just like getting on.  I don’t know that I’m against the child being pretty aware of how babies are made and how love is made.  I mean, yeah, there’s to a certain extent that could get awkward with an audience but at the same time, I like to be pretty forthright with my children about this kind of stuff.  So, you know what, I’m gonna quite saying earmuffs.

Brock:  Yeah.

Ben:  So anyways, acoustic sound wave therapy.  You can go to any of these GainsWave clinics.  I should know our code for this.

Brock:  Uh, it’s gain…

Ben:  GainsWave.

Brock:  No, I think it’s just gain.

Ben:  Just call up any GainsWave clinic and told ‘em you heard it about in the podcast.  They give you like your first treatment for I believe like 150 bucks off or something like that.

Brock:  Yeah, it’s huge.

Ben:  Yeah.  Just mention the show.  So that works, and then you know, I subscribed to this thing called the Examine Research Digest.  Do you read this one, Brock?

Brock:  I do.  It’s a great, great research.

Ben:  Yeah.  One of the best.  It breaks down every supplement and herb by whether or not there’s actually research prove efficacy behind it and when you subscribe to it, you have the option like an upsell to get what they called their stack guide and they have a whole stack guide that shows which supplements actually work for drive and erectile dysfunction.

Brock:  (laughs)

Ben:  It could be estrogen dysfunction.

Brock:  It could be.  It doesn’t have to be.

Ben:  So, drumroll please, the core supplements that they list as the primary options are, in the following order: the most effective for erectile dysfunction and for drive: number 1, maca, M-A-C-A, maca.  You can get organic maca root powder, freakin’ anywhere and there’s no difference with the red and black or the yellow by the way.  One and a half to three grams, once a day with breakfast of maca.  That’s what shown to be most efficacious according to research.

Brock:  So you’d say the powder?

Ben:  Yeah.

Brock:  I use the tincture for quite a while.  Is there a big difference?

Ben:  Probably pretty similar, yeah.

Brock:  Alright.  It taste like crap though.  Oops, it was not pleasant.

Ben:  Yeah.  Uh, but put pretty big ball pants on.  It will survive.

Brock:  I’m wearing my tight next to it now.

Ben:  Low nitric oxide, vessels…. (chuckles) They cause blood vessels to narrow speaking of tight pants.  Free ball when you can seriously, that helps.  But cacao is number 2.  Cacao.

Brock:  Cacao.

Ben:  Easy enough.  The same flavonoid you find in grape seed and pine bark and all the expensive supplements, you can get from cacao polyphenols.  Dark chocolate, about 40 grams of dark chocolate.  So like a chocolate bar basically.  Dark chocolates are one of the best things you can eat before sex.  We used to know this when I was a bodybuilder.  Backstage, watermelon, dark chocolate, and red wine.  And they actually don’t you drink some of that like the red wine and eat the chocolate backstage now because it’s so potent for bodybuilders and they considered it as a performance enhancing…. (laughs)

Brock:  Oops, what’s going on there?  What are you breakin’? Everything okay?

Ben:  My stool.  I’m seating with the Mogu Upright Stool and I slipped on the carpet.  So, they don’t let you eat some of that stuff backstage because it’s actually so potent.  They considered it to be a performance enhancing drug.  So not milk chocolate, not white chocolate, but dark chocolate.  That’s number 2.

Brock:  White chocolate is not chocolate.  [censored] those lies!

Ben:  It’s good drink.  It’s good with peppermint, like in Christmas.  Yohimbe is the next one or yohimbine.  You know that? It elevates your heart rate and it cause a lot of anxiety.  So be careful.  You’re prone to a heart attack or anxiety, stir clear of this stuff.  It’s an alkaloid that you’d find in the bark of this African tree called Yohimbe, usually you’ll find that in the market as a fat burner but it is a reliable treatment for erectile dysfunction and for that one you take, figure out your age with your weight in pounds.  It’s about 0.1 milligrams per pound of body weight.  Pretty easy to remember.  It takes 0.1 milligrams per pound of body weight.  There are a whole bunch of other things that they talked about in the Examine guide but the top 3 are those 3: maca, cacao, and yohimbe.  There’s your erectile dysfunction stack.

Brock:  I think the yohimbe is kinda funny though cause you’ll be able to get an erection but you’ll be having an anxiety attack so you won’t wanna have sex.

Ben:  That’s right, baby.  And finally, go read my article.  I don’t know why I keep saying baby during this podcast because baby…

Brock:  ‘Cause I don’t have a shirt on.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.

Brock:  So you can’t help it.

Ben:  Maybe because we’re recording in the evening.  Anyways, I also have an article by the famous Dr. Olli from Finland, really cool guy.  He is always at the Biohacking Summit in Finland and he’s nuts about testosterone, he’s nuts about nuts, and he wrote a big article for Ben Greenfield Fitness about 17 different testosterone biohacks.  Everything from like red light therapy on your balls to zinc and that article also has a bunch of things that will help you out with erectile dysfunction.  So go read that one too.  I’ll link to it at bengreenfieldfitness.com/372.

Derek:  Hey, Ben! What’s up? My name is Derek.  I’m an opera singer living in Germany and I had a question about you know, after my performances  I think I built up a lot of adrenalin, a lot of stress hormones and I’m wondering what advice you have to help my body process this.  Thanks a lot and keep up the great work.  And on behalf of all your fans living in Germany: Vielen Dank!

Ben and Brock: (Singing)

Brock:  (laughs) Is that the only opera that you’ve seen?

Ben:  No.  I know more than the via, what are they called The Barber of Seville? Anyways though, Brock, as a former ballerina I’m sure you quite good at opera.

Brock:  Uh, not the singing part.  I did perform in a many operas as the dancer though which is really fun.

Ben:  Good man.

Brock:  And actually our friend Monica Reinagel is an opera singer.

Ben: The Nutrition Diva…

Brock:  Yeah.  We know all kinds of opera singers.

Ben:  Anyway, Derek, shall I break this down for ‘ya?

Brock:  Break it down.

Ben:  So, first of all, I have a great podcast that I did with the author of a book called “Anxiety 101” by Dr. Eudene Harry.  Go check out that podcast ‘cause that’s got some great stuff on anxiety.  But I’ll give you my top 5 tips.  My top 5 tips.  Tip number 1 which my friend Emily Fletcher of Ziva Meditation who I interviewed on the show is very into.  The last conference I was at a few days ago, she was at and she led the whole conference through this and everybody was just like zen the rest of the day.  We did this for about 5 minutes.  Alternate, nostril breathing.  There’s a lot of breath work patterns that have been shown to decrease cortisol and remove stress and anxiety pretty quickly and alternate nostril breathing is at the top of the list.  And that’s where you breathe in through your left nostril, hold it and you breathe out through your right nostril, and breathe in through your right nostril, and you breathe in through your left nostril.  Then you whisper like I do.

Brock:  (chuckles) Before you start this, go and blow your nose because if you’re like me, something goes shootin’ out.

Ben:  Exactly.  Alternate nostril breathing.  Number 2 is the one plant-based component that has more freakin’ studies behind it for its anxiolytic effects than I can shake a stick at.  Everything from effects on cerebral blood flow to areas of the brain responsible for anxiety to studies they’ve done on chronically stress rodent models and human models, not actually human models but actual humans.

Brock: (laughs)

Ben:  They may have been some models, I don’t know.  A ton of different anxiety responses to this and that is…

Brock:  Oh, I know what it is.  I know what it is. Spear, right?

Ben:  Close!

Brock:  Spear.

Ben:  Hmm, CBD.  CBD, baby.  I’ve been takin’, and try this on for size.  Take 2 of those before you take a nap in the afternoon.  Oh my goodness! The most amazing naps in the planet.  The CBD IUs has other anxiolytics in it, are things that shutdown anxiety namely ashwagandha and lemon balm and that’s over at getnatureblend.com for the CBD, that would be number 2.  Would be CBD for sure.

Brock:  Alright.

Ben:  Number 3 would be the Quick Coherence Technique.  I love this one.  And this is where you focus your attention in an area of your heart and you imagine that your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or your chest area and typically inhale for 5 seconds and exhale for 5 seconds.  And then you think of something that you’re someone that you’re grateful for or something you appreciate or you care for or something or someone you love, and as you breathe in and out of that heart area in your chest, you just let that feeling wash over you just thinking, drawing upon something or someone that you love or that you’re grateful for.  It’s that freakin’ easy.  There’s not a lot more to it.  And they’ve shown that this like increases your HRV, and decreases stress.  That’s a pretty good one too.  So the Quick Coherence Technique.

Brock:  What do you use for that? What’s your app of choice?

Ben:  I use the Nature Beat app.  It actually measures your HRV and kinda walks you through it.  So, that’s what I use the Nature Beat app.

Brock:  I can’t believe I forgot about that one.

Ben:  Nature Beat.  Greenfieldfitnesssystems.com/naturebeat.  I think that’s the URL.

Brock:  I have that one in my phone…

Ben:  Every morning, 3 minutes.  Push the little HRV for stress button and that’s it.  The third one, should you not be able to get your hands on CBD, the next best thing is adaptogenic herbs and my favourite blend is handmade by this Chinese herbologist in Oregon who’s been on the podcast 3 times.

Brock:  Who is not Chinese.

Ben:  Roger Drummer.  He’s not Chinese.  It’s reishi, eleuthero, rhodiola, ashwagandha, schisandra, eucommia bark, gotu kola, and he extracts these stuff at extremely, extremely high densities.  Like it is potent.  And this one is in a pill called Inner Peace and it’s specifically designed to regulate that hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis I was talking about earlier.  It’s probably the most powerful adaptogen that I’ve used in terms of something that you could readily get from not too expensive in a capsule form and that one is called Inner Peace.  So, that would be number 4, Inner Peace, an herbal adaptogen.

And then the last one is a brand new device that came out a month ago.  It’s made by this company that used to only sell things you had to get prescribed by a physician, it’s this thing you wear around your head.  It was known as the Fisher Wallace Stimulator but this new version of it based on the frequency that it emits.  It’s this band that you wear around your head and it hits the two spots right above your ear and it stimulates your brain to produce serotonin and melatonin while lowering cortisol.  And it’s crazy.  Wrap this thing around your head.  You can close your eyes and see these strange flashes of light in your eyes and you leave it on and it runs for 20 minutes and just lay there and you can close your eyes and take a nap or you can just lay there and let it run.  Amazing way! You can get stressed out and it’s almost like one flow over a coccus nest when you’re going nuts and crazy and mad, and swinging like axe around, like a murderer and they do an electrostimulation, just shock the heck out of your brain.  This is like that but in a much more gentle way.  It just basically shocks stress away.  And it works.

Brock:  (chuckles) I feel like you mixed a couple of Jack Nicholson movies together.  (laughs)

Ben: (laughs) I think I just mixed up a bunch of old whore movies.

Brock:  That’s right.  If you’re feeling like Jack Nicholson, this is the cure.

Ben:  God bless Stanley Kubrick.  Anyways though, go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/circadia and check this thing out.  It’s technically called transcranial electrical stimulation and it’s safe for adults, it’s safe for children and it works like gangbusters.  So that’s been my top 5: alternate nostril breathing, CBD, quick coherence technique, Inner Peace, and this circadia device.

Stef:  So the Keto1 seems to have caffeine in it.  I can’t really tell how much caffeine but why do a lot of these things either supposed to make you feel so great, have caffeine in them.  Of course you feel great!

Brock:  Everything good in the world has caffeine in it.

Ben:  You know what? There is a reason that ketosis supplements have caffeine in them including this Keto1.  The Keto1 is a beta-hydroxybutyrate salt.  I wrote a whole article about how ketones have now been proven to increase longevity and how been come full circle.  They contribute to this longevity protein called FOXO, forkhead box O transcription factor which increases the transcription of genes that encode a bunch of antioxidant enzymes that help you to live longer.  And then ketones actually activate this.  That’s a total rabbit hole.  That’s why I wrote that article.

Brock:  Actually, speaking of rabbit holes, how come nobody has sent us a recipe for the chunky-monkey longevity ice cream?

Ben:  That’s right! Though we talked about it in the last episode, get on that!

Brock:  Yeah! Common people!

Ben:  You need to get ice cream right now.

Brock:  I guess we need to put caffeine there.

Ben:  Yeah.  Anyways though, go listen to bengreenfieldfitness.com/371 if you don’t know what we’re talking about.  So this Keto1 has caffeine in it as do a whole bunch of these other ketosis-based supplements that are out there.  And there is a reason for that.  Caffeine intake increases plasma ketones when they’ve shown this to be the case.  When you combine…

Brock:  Just straight up with nothing else.

Ben:  It will.  Straight up with nothing else or when you combine it with exogenous ketones.  It significantly stimulates ketone production in any dose dependent matter.  I mean, the more caffeine you use, the higher the level of plasma free fatty acids and the higher amount of ketosis you can get into.  So it’s actually a really good one-two combo to combine caffeine and ketones unless it’s 10 PM and time for bed.  So that’s why from the scientific standpoint, but the interesting thing is that caffeine has an effect on whole bunch of different supplements and nutrients and vitamins.  One is for example Theanine.  Caffeine elongates the effect of Theanine and vice-versa.  And Theanine is this really interesting supplement that can do things like increase alpha brain waves and actually decrease stress a little bit, and remove some of the jittery effect of caffeine.  So that’s why green tea for example is such kinda cool drink to have because it’s that combination of theanine and caffeine.  So, that’s one thing that caffeine also mixes with.

Taurine is another.  Taurine, you know, you’ll find that in Kimera Koffee stuff.  It’s non-essential sulphur containing amino acid that appears to improve the ability of caffeine to allow you to engage in cognitive performance type of tasks primarily executive thinking patterns and making decisions.  So taurine is another one that caffeine is a good one to stack with.  Ephedrine, which you’ll find in my opinion in a lot of dangerous but effective fat loss supplements.  Ephedra also works quite well combined with caffeine, and the two have this synergistic effect where you get double the effect when you combine them, same thing could be said for methamphetamine by the way.

Brock:  Same amount of anxiety related to [1:07] ______.

Ben:  Yup, yup.  That’s another one.  There are also a lot of different medications.  There’s like one called propranolol which is a beta-blocker for high blood pressure and that one like caffeine antagonizes, meaning like if you take caffeine at the same time that you take a beta-blocker for high pressure, the caffeine kind of diminishes the effect of the beta-blocker.  And so, any medication or supplement that you’re taking, you should look into the effect of caffeine on it but ultimately when it comes to taking with ketones, the reason that’s in a lot of the supplement is because it increases the effectiveness of ketones.

And then of course, there’s the whole idea that a lot of people know about, if you use an iron supplement, caffeine interferes with the body’s absorption of iron.  So you wouldn’t want to have coffee with the supplement that has iron in it.  If you really trying to get as much as you can out of your vitamin B vitamins, caffeine causes a mild diuretic effect and so it can result in fluid loss and you pee out some of your B vitamins.  So you have a vitamin B deficiency which is not a lot of people do, hard charging and high achievers have a lot of times have low levels of B12 but caffeine can inhibit the absorption of that.  Vitamin D is another one.  Caffeine inhibits vitamin D receptors.  So, you gonna be careful if you have low vitamin D.  Same thing with calcium, caffeine and along with calcium or caffeine along with iron are two thing you’d wanna avoid…

Brock:  How about protein? Doesn’t caffeine helps protein get to the right places?

Ben:  Hell ‘ya, I don’t know about that.  I actually have not heard that it may.  It may.  I don’t know.

Brock:  I thought you told me that.

Ben:  It’s possible that I did in the previous podcast and I’ve forgotten about the research.  So yeah, that’s possible that I could.  I mean, I could see a mechanism where caffeine would increase plasma build of amino acids in the same way that it would in fatty acids, but I don’t know for sure.  Don’t call me on that, anyways.

Brock:  I’m googling it.

Ben:  Yeah, google it.  In the meantime, while you’re googling that, Brock, let’s give away some swag and then I’ll give my final tip from Paul Chek.  First of all, remember you can go to greenfieldfitnesssystems.com/giftpack and you can get a gift pack but if you just want us to send a handy-dandy gear pack to ‘ya, all you gotta do is leave us a review in iTunes.  Of course, if you wanted to get the double whammy, you could do that podchaser contest and also go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/podchaser.  But if you go to iTunes and you leave us a review and you hear your review read on the show, all you need to do is email [email protected], that’s [email protected].

Brock:  Fi-syssssss

Ben:  And will send you a gift.  You leave a review, we send you a gift.

Brock:  Uh, you’re confusing me, Ben.  I don’t know what’s going on.

Ben:  Just wait ‘till you hear this review.  The person who left a review called Body Epiphanies and the title is “Roasting Balls While Inhaling Ayahuasca.”  Yes you heard me right.  This man is pure gold.

Brock:  Pure gold.

Ben:  Brock, you wanna take this one away?

Brock:  I do.  It goes like this.  “I listen to a hundreds of podcasts.” Wow, this guy’s got a lot of free time. Or girl? Do we know what sex it is?

Ben:  Brandon.  The name is Brandon, probably a boy.

Brock:  Oh there you go, okay.  “Ben is by far the top of the food chain in the realm of all things optimal health and fitness.  I especially love his interview with Dr. Mercola.”  Or Mercola.

Ben:  Mercola.

Brock:  Mercola.

Ben:  Mercola sounds… Mercola! Mercola sound like a muppet.

Brock:  I hear it sounds like that, the Swiss sore throat lozenge…  Anyway…

Ben:  We digress.

Brock:  “I have learned a lot from him over the years and I must say if you’re aren’t listening to Ben, you’re missing out on GOLD in all caps.  I mean, how many podcasts can you tune into and hear about a man toasting his balls with some red light therapy using a Joovv light simultaneously while inhaling Ayahuasca incense.  This man has it all.  I must forewarn you that he uses the word ‘copious’ a lot.”  Actually I might say that you use copious copiously?

Ben:  Uh-hmm.  I do?

Brock:  Uh-hmm.  “Just a random notation.  Al the fitness tips that you could ask for with a massive serving of psychedelic talk that keeps you on your toes.  If you’re interested in mind expansion and optimal performance, you need to be listening in.  Cheers!” Brandon A.  TrinBCTPMHHPNC.  I assuming he has a whole bunch of degrees with something.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  A lot of letters up.

Brock:  I don’t know what any of those are.  I think he made those up.

Ben:  Pretty sure he did.  ‘Cause my name is Ben Greenfield MSCTHTPEZ doctor.  Anyways though, Brandon, email [email protected].  We will send you a handy-dandy gear pack.  Okay! Include your t-shirt size by the way.

Brock:  Yes.

Ben:  Here is my final tip for you.  Straight from Paul Chek.

Brock:  Oh, yeah! Geez, I almost forgot about this.  Here we go.

Ben:  Okay.  This is freaking amazing.  You need 2-3 components for this along with either a) what is called a volcano vaporizer or b) for the smaller achiever, more portable solution, what is called a magic flight box.  Traditionally sold as a various small portable device to vaporize marijuana.  However, it is an infrared conductive-based coil that you could pretty much put any grass or urban and what Paul taught me how to do was you take your favourite loose leaf tea.  You get like a marijuana vaporizer, you put your favourite loose leaf tea in and you had a very small amount of a good organic tobacco in there.  ‘Cause tobacco is notorious for pesticides and herbicides.  He like this in a raging cup called stokkebye, S-T-O-K-K-E-B-Y-E.  And then you put a drop…

Brock:  Pipe tobacco kinda?

Ben:  Yup.

Brock:  And the stuff like the really nice smelling stuff.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah.  Uh-hm, and then you put a drop of your favorite essential oil in there.  It could be pine, it could be turmeric, it could be spruce.  I like to use a lot of these kinda like a wood essential oils.  Just a drop and then you vaporize that the same way as you would with marijuana and it is amazing.  A) there’s no smoke, so you’re not getting the carcinogens and you’re breathing in this blend of essential oils and a little bit of this wonderful smelling tobacco and a little bit of a tea of your choice like a nice loose leaf, like a green tea or a meriva tea or a moringa tea, like you name it.  There’s a whole bunch of great organic loose leaf teas out there.  But it’s just like sipping a cup of coffee during the day.  Or green tea.  It’s kinda like a zen experience and it’s really really cool.

Brock:  Does it need to be in one of those volcano shapes?

Ben:  I use this tiny tiny tiny little thing.  You get on Amazon.  I’ll put a link to it in the show notes.  It’s called a magic flight box.  You can take it anywhere in the world.  TSA is not gonna kick your butt if you get a little tobacco and tea and essential oil with your vaporizer, right? I mean though…

Brock:  Just make sure you clean it up.

Ben:  Yeah, you clean it up well.  And actually you can mix marijuana with tobacco, and that’s pretty amazing too doing marijuana, tobacco and essential oils but anyways, if you just wanna do something that perhaps isn’t slightly as so inebriating that gives you little high during the day.  That’s it.  Just remember anytime that you vaporize anything, you can’t take any toxins that are on it.  Get organic, make sure you stay clear on things that has herbicides and pesticides in it but that’s a little tip.  Isn’t that cool?

Brock:  It’s good tip.  Yeah! I’m gonna give that a try.

Ben:  Yeah! It’s actually quite nice.  It’s my new little favourite tricks.  Let’s have it.  So there you have it.  So you learned all sorts of things.  Have to get it up, how to smoke, how to go to Panama and party, how to live a very long time, how to walk like a pigeon, how to sleep like a dog, and how to get your tight pants on in today’s episode.  All the show notes, everything that we talked about, you can find over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/372.  Brock, have a wonderful night.  I’m gonna make myself an [1:14:58] ______. My kids are at wilderness survival camp which is why I was able to do this podcast at night.  So they’re probably fighting out wolves in the wilderness.

Brock:  Uh? Is that so?

Ben:  I’m gonna go make [1:15:06] ______.  Later dude.

Brock:  Good night!

 

 

Aug 9, 2017 Podcast: 372 – The Best “Minimalist” Exercise Plan, How Guys Can “Get It Up” Better, How To Calm Down After Stress, and Why So Many Products Have Caffeine.

Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right (or go to SpeakPipe), use the Contact button on the app, click Ask a Podcast Question at the bottom of this page, or use the “Ask Ben” form at the bottom of this page.

In intro and outro, Ben mentions 110% compression pants, the eng3 NanoVi device, Qi Gong master Chris Holder and Paul Chek and a Magic Flight box.

News Flashes [6:44]:

• Keys to bad-ass, track-record-breaking longevity? Naps, time outdoors and gardening apparently.
• Yet another host of amazing tips from a Japanese centenarian.
• Wow. 256 Years Old Man Breaks The Silence Before His Death And Reveals SHOCKING Secrets To The World.
• Brain cells that control aging discovered – seem to be in same areas of brain associated with stress huh?
• Science Points to the Single Most Valuable Personality Trait.

You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Instagram.com/BenGreenfieldFitness, Facebook.com/BGFitness, BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Snapchat, and Google+.

Special Announcements [17:30]:

This podcast is brought to you by:

-Casper – Get $50 toward any mattress purchase by visiting www.casper.com/ben and using BEN.

-Blue Apron  – Check out this week’s menu and get your first three meals FREE – with shipping – by going to blueapron.com/ben

-Atrantil –  Go to lovemytummy.com/ben and use the code Ben for 15% off.

-Kettle and Fire – Go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/chickenbroth and get 20% off your order.

-Podchaser Contest – Don’t forget to log in and vote by heading to bengreenfieldfitness.com/podchaser now. Enter code “Patreon”.

–Click here to follow Ben on Snapchat, and get ready for some epic stories on his morning, daily and evening routine! What did you miss this week? A clay mask, a park workout, a morning routine change-up, an epic post-race salad and more.

Ben's Adventures [26:20]:

-NEW! Click here for the official BenGreenfieldFitness calendar.

-Ben is racing on the Spartan Pro Team for 2017!
You can catch him at any of these races below and you can click here to register:

-The Ascent, West Virginia, August 26
-Lake Tahoe, Spartan World Championships, September 30 – October 1

-August 12th and 13th Montage Deer Valley Park City, UT: Ultimate Achiever's Club. Ben will be speaking to the finest group of chiropractors on the planet!

-Aug 16-17 San Francisco: Udemy. Ben will be filming in San Francisco for Udemy.

-Sep 8-11, 2017: Who Wants To Live Forever Conference in Reykjavík, Iceland. Most of us not only want to have a long lifespan, but also a long healthspan; to be fit and healthy throughout the course of our lives. As we move into this unprecedented era of human history, a question arises: how far can the human healthspan be extended, and what are the most effective ways to achieve longevity? Click here for tickets!

-Oct 13-15, 2017: Biohacker Summit, Helsinki, Finland. This event is the focal point for learning faster, performing better, living longer, and enjoying more what you wake up to do every day. Discover the latest in wearables, internet of things, nutrition, digital health, and mobile apps to increase performance, be healthier, stay fit, and get more done. Get your tickets here!

-November 10-13: Weston A. Price Foundation Wise Traditions Conference, Minneapolis, MN. I'll be speaking at the 18th annual conference that covers everything from hormone health, adrenal and thyroid health, natural fertility, degenerative diseases, to traditional diets and food preparation & more. Learn how to improve your health through food, farming and the healing arts. Click here to register. 

-Dec 7-9, 2017: XPT Experience, Kauai, Hawaii. Join me, Brian Mackenzie, Kelly Starrett, Julia Starrett, Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reece, for an epic, all-inclusive performance living workshop this Dec 7, 8 and 9 in beautiful Kauai, Hawaii. Come and join us for pool training, underwater workouts, gym training, breathing instruction, outdoor workouts, recovery biohacking and much more! Get your tickets here.

-Dec 11-23, 2017: Runga Retreat, Cambutal, Panama. This retreat spans 8-days and centers around fostering heightened awareness, presence, and connection with others through a mandatory “Digital Detox” – or no cell phones, computers, and other technology. Yoga is offered twice per day, everyday. There is also an off-site adventure ranging from hiking volcanoes to white water rafting or zip lining. World-class spa treatments are available and 100% of the food are suitable for vegetarian, vegan, paleo, gluten-free, or ketogenic dieters. Get your tickets here, and use code BEN for $10 off.

Giveaway:

Grab the Official Ben Greenfield Fitness Gear package that comes with a tech shirt, a beanie and a water bottle.

And of course, this week's top iTunes review – gets some BG Fitness swag straight from Ben – click here to leave your review for a chance to win some!

Click here to get Greenfield Fitness Systems gift packs!

——————————————

Listener Q&A [29:40]:

As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Brock Armstrong, the Podcast Sidekick.

The Best “Minimalist” Exercise Plan

knralph says: I am stuck. I exercise a lot and I do CrossFit everyday plus a lot of heavy weight lifting. I spend a lot of time in the gym. I have knee pain and I know this is a waste of time. I am wondering how I can responsibly reduce the amount of exercise I do everyday and not gain weight. I eat keto and follow Paleo and Whole30 and enjoy it.

In my response, I recommend:
-My How To Look Good Naked & Live A Long Time article
-My podcast on Vasper
-My podcast on ARXFit

How Guys Can “Get It Up” Better

Marvin says: I am 30-years-old and have trouble getting an erection. I think it may because I work too much. I mostly work, lifting heavy things, I may not eat the proper foods and I party a lot and smoke. I do things that I know I shouldn't that probably affect my performance in bed. But I am hoping you can give me some pointers to enlighten my performance.

In my response, I recommend:
–GainsWave
–Examine Research Digest
–Multiorgasmic man book
–17 Ways To Biohack Testosterone

How To Calm Down After Stress

Derek says: I am an Opera Singer living in Germany. After my performances I think I have built up a lot of stress hormones and adrenalin and I am wondering what I should do to help my body process these? From all your fans in Germany: Vielen Dank!

In my response, I recommend:
-Alternate Nostril Breathing
–CBD
–Quick Coherence Technique
–Inner Peace herbal adaptogen
–Circadia device

Why So Many Products Have Caffeine

Stef says: So the Keto1 supplement has caffeine in it. It doesn't say how much caffeine though. Why do so many of these products, that are supposed to make you feel great, have caffeine in them? Of course you feel great – you're having caffeine!

In my response, I recommend:
–My article on Keto1