BEN GREENFIELD | The Ultimate Daily Routine | Modern Wisdom Podcast 157

Ben Greenfield is a Coach, Author, Speaker, ex-Bodybuilder and Ironman Triathlete. We are what we repeatedly do. So when you have every known biohacking strategy at your disposal, what does one of the world's best known biohackers do every day? Today expect to learn Ben's entire daily routine from morning until night including his strategies for a morning routine, training, work, nutrition, supplementation, focus, naps, sleep and much more. Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Extra Stuff: Buy Ben's book Boundless - https://amzn.to/2xO1VT6 Check out Ben's Company - https://getkion.com/ Check out Ben's Podcast - https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/ Follow Ben on Twitter - https://twitter.com/bengreenfield Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom #biohacking #bengreenfield #routine - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I don't really have any appreciable amount of carbohydrates until the evening. I'm typically in a state of fatty acid oxidation or, you know, mild ketosis most of the day. And, you know, unless you're like a two a day hard charging athlete, there's no need for like two big carbohydrate boluses during the day unless you got to maximize glycogen restoration after an early day hard workout. And with that strategy, I avoid a lot of glycemic variability, like a lot of glucose fluctuations during the day. I find I have more stable energy levels and cognitive levels because our dinnertime is usually like a big family dinner or a social time or going out to a restaurant with friends or whatever. I want to be able to, for the more social meal, actually indulge a little bit. I save all my carbohydrates for the end of the day. Yeah. And the release of

• 0:43Speaker 00

  serotonin in response to the carbohydrate feeding, which enhances your melatonin release at night. So you sleep better too. So I just think as long as you pay attention to the rules, this whole idea of carb backloading is actually a pretty good strategy.

• 0:59Chris Williamson?

  Ben Greenfield in the building. How are you, man?

• 1:02Speaker 00

  Hey, good. Not in the building. I'm actually outside in some farm road back behind my house. But, but, uh, yeah, I, I can only stay in a building for so long. The sun's, sun's out today. Got a nice, cool, cool wind whipping up over the plains. So I'll apologize if it sounds occasional like I'm in a hurricane, but, uh, but yeah, we'll, we'll call it a building. God's, God's giant building outside.

• 1:26Chris Williamson?

  That is where you are, man. Uh, so you're getting a little bit of walking in, keeping yourself moving in these times?

• 1:32Speaker 00

  Uh, you know, I walk a lot every day anyways. Any excuse I can get to walk. I just love to, love to move and get some sunshine and yeah, you know, I spend a lot of time these days, you know, doing consults and, and calls sometimes indoors or, you know, doing a lot of writing. And so if I can get outside, I'll do it.

• 1:51Chris Williamson?

  I like it, man. We are not using the C word today. The C word is not being included in this podcast.

• 1:57Speaker 00

  Thank God.

• 1:58Chris Williamson?

  We are talking about some evergreen stuff. Your new book, Boundless, might actually be useful if people are in lockdown because it is one of the heaviest books I've ever felt in my life. So it would double up, double up as a weight or as a...

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, throw so much, throw some blood flow restriction bands on and start to do some overhead presses with that bad boy.

• 2:15Chris Williamson?

  Well, you could use it as a step to reach high objects if you needed as well, you know?

• 2:19Speaker 00

  You could, yeah.

• 2:20Chris Williamson?

  So today, I want to go through three main areas. I want to talk about your morning routine. I want to talk about your setup for working. And I want to talk about your sleep and your nighttime routine. So

• 2:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:30Chris Williamson?

  starting off, what does your current morning routine look like? I want the full Monty.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  The full Monty. All right. Well, interrupt me if I tend to rabbit hole too much.

• 2:41Chris Williamson?

  Don't worry.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  But I, uh, yeah, I usually, um, you know, wake up without an alarm unless I got to catch a flight or something like that. I just find I naturally tend to wake sometime around like, it's usually like 5:45, 6:15, somewhere in there. And I just find that, that, uh, you know, waking naturally, I'm not opposed to some of these devices, you know, like I, I sleep on one of these Chili Pad things that keeps your body cool while you're asleep, which is great for enhancing your deep sleep. And there's apparently a function on it where you can activate it to circulate more warm water to gradually wake you. I don't use that function. I'm nervous I might just pee my pants when the warm water turns on.

• 3:20Speaker 00

  And then, uh, I have one of those sunrise alarm clocks for when I do got to set the alarm on. That just kind of gradually bleeds sun into your room. So you wake a lot more slowly, which I think is just wonderful for not, you know, ripping you out of a deep sleep cycle if you happen to be one, in one, uh, in the, in the morning. And, uh, so yeah, I wake, I, uh, roll over and I do some gratitude journaling for the first few minutes of the day. I, uh, write down one thing I'm grateful for. I write down a one person who I can help that day, whether it's like, you know, calling my mom or or uh. You know, helping the neighbor uh move something or or even just like, you know, giving a bottle of wine to somebody who I know might need a. A smile that day and uh.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  You know, I I I just really like that others facing type of mentality to start the day, cause I figure if I. You know, if I'm writing down one person I can help each day, that's three hundred and sixty five. You know, good things I might do during the course of a year. So I do that and then I uh I write down. Uh also. Any any insights that I had from my my dream cycles earlier in the night or. You know, any just little encouraging words to myself that I that I wanna act on during the day. And then uh. I get out of bed. I'm I'm kinda into into the the Ayurvedic. Uh concepts in terms of the morning routine, so I do a quick tongue scrape. Which takes just a few seconds with a little copper tongue scraper.

• 4:43Chris Williamson?

  What's the logic behind that?

• 4:45Speaker 00

  Back of the tongue to the front of the tongue, just helps to to clean out some bacteria in the mouth that accumulates during your night of sleep. And then I also do uh. Uh oil pulling, so I use. Uh coconut oil blended with some essential oils like. Clove and peppermint and uh swish that around in the mouth while I'm. Tune around during the day, you know, taking a pee and. Getting things ready for the day, and that's also a really, really great uh. Oral hygiene tactic, again, borrowed from Ayurvedic medicine. And um. So I I then uh go downstairs into the kitchen. And if if I've woken pretty early, or if I have been traveling a lot. And I'm trying to kinda like reset my circadian rhythm to whatever time zone that I happen to be in.

• 5:28Speaker 00

  I'll usually wear those uh blue light blocking glasses that people wear at night. I'll wear those in the morning, cause I find that that reddish. Orange lens kinda does a good job simulating sunrise.

• 5:39Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  So if I'm flipping on lights in the kitchen or glancing at my phone or opening the computer or anything. It's a little bit more of a gentle way to wake up, kinda that same concept of not waking with an alarm clock.

• 5:50Chris Williamson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  Uh, wearing these blue light blocking glasses in the morning. Kinda gives you that really kinda sunrise-esque feel in the morning, cause my lazy ass is not gonna be out of bed when the sun's rising, so.

• 5:59Chris Williamson?

  What's the uh, what's the brand of sunrise glasses you use?

• 6:03Speaker 00

  I use the ones made by uh Raw Optics. You know, the uh, the owner of that company, Matt Maruka, he's a friend of mine. He's just, he's so steeped in light research. And he's constantly retooling the lenses to block out specific wavelengths of light. Uh, and you know, a lot of these blue light blocking companies, they know how to make a quick buck, you know, they'll import cheap lenses from, you know, uh, India or China or whatever, and then mark up the price and sell it on Amazon. He's actually doing a really good job with his lens technology. And uh, so I, I use the Raw Optics uh, brand. There's a few other good ones out there. I think uh, um, what's the company? Uh, I'm blanking on their name. Blue, Blue Blockers, I think.

• 6:43Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  They do a pretty good job. And there's a, there's a couple of others out there, but I use the Raw, uh, True Dark. True Dark is another one that does a good job. Um, so I use these, these Raw Red lenses. Usually I'll take them off, uh, typically after I've been up for about twenty, thirty minutes or so. So again, I'm just kind of easing, easing from a light standpoint, my body into the day. And then, um, uh, once I've spat out that coconut oil, I kind of rinse my mouth out, cause you don't want to swallow it, cause it's just like, it's accumulating bacteria and stuff in your mouth. So it's, it's, it's just like cleaning. You want to spit it out. So I spit that out in the trash can. So I don't clog the toilets with oil. I, I learned that lesson the hard way. You don't want to spit it in a toilet or a sink. It clogs the plumbing. So

• 7:24Speaker 00

  you actually spit your oil into trash can, rinse out your mouth. Then I have a big glass mason jar full of goodies. So I, I make myself a big glass mason jar, uh, with some hydrogen tablets in it. Cause hydrogen, there's a lot of good research from the molecular hydrogen foundation on the, on hydrogen for anti-inflammatory and selective antioxidant properties and, um, you know, I'm convinced by the research enough uh, to, to do a, a big glass mason jar of that, at both the beginning and the end of the day. But at the beginning of the day, I put minerals into that. So typically like a pinch of a really good salt, like Celtic salt. Or another one I've been using of late are these uh, these um, minerals that are harvested from these algal blooms.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  And uh, it's, it's got like eighty plus minerals in it. It's called Qyton, uh, Q U I N T O N. It's uh, like a, like a hypertonic plasma. So I, I put some of that in the water along with the hydrogen. And then I do a two to one ratio of vitamin C and baking soda. There's a really great book that delves into all the science of vitamin C and baking soda called um, Forbidden healing and I I was I was so convinced after reading that book about some of the effects on everything from uh from a a mild change in pH to an increase in in some immune factor compounds to just just the overall physiological effect of both vitamin C and baking soda that I just have right there in the pantry bulk ascorbic acid

• 8:51Speaker 00

  and uh and then just Arm and Hammer baking soda which is naturally aluminum free and so I got baking soda I got vitamin C I got hydrogen water I got minerals all in this big glass mason jar of water

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  and I I just suck that down that's kind of like tonic and um sometimes we'll throw a little apple cider vinegar in there as well because that is a really nice insulin sensitizing effect at the beginning of the day and lends even more alkalinity to the drink so so I have that and then I uh I put on the uh a pot of hot water or I start the coffee and I'll go back and forth some mornings I do coffee and then just because I don't want the uh my adenosine receptors to to get too uh too um insensitive

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, too down regulated, yeah, yeah.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, which makes me sleepy later on in the day. I don't do coffee every day because I don't wanna I don't want to uh to to create a scenario in which I'm insensitive to adenosine later on in the day and can't fall asleep because even if even if you metabolize caffeine really well if you're a fast coffee oxidizer and even if you you're not having a cup of coffee afternoon just frequent regular use of coffee without breaks builds up so much of these adenosine receptors it just gets harder and harder as months go on to fall asleep at night

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  so uh so what I do is I'll either do coffee or the other one that I'll do is is cacao tea which is lowering caffeine or lowering caffeine but it has like theobromine and some dopamine precursors in it has this real good kind of pick me up feel good effect

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Some people like yerba mate for that but yerba mate makes me a little jittery so I like the way cacao makes me feel instead so I I'll typically blend that with chaga which is which is wonderful it's it's it's chock full of melanin chaga is which can actually interact with sunlight to uh to kick off electrons and produce some free ATP so any photons of light will interact with things like melanin Chlorophyll would be another example. Methylene blue, which is marketed now as a nootropic, that's another example. But because I, I'll, I'll tell you in a second, I go down to the office and I do some red light therapy. I like, I like getting a little melanin or chlorophyll or methylene blue in my system before I go do the red light therapy. And blending this chaga with some cacao.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  Uh, or doing the, the coffee, but the chaga with the cacao is really great if you're doing like red light therapy in the morning.

• 11:15Chris Williamson?

  Just primes you for that, primes you for that red light, right? Just before we move on, the.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, you, you, you basically produce an extra ATP.

• 11:21Chris Williamson?

  You were talking about, uh, ways to assure that your adenosine receptors don't get down regulated by spacing your coffee use. What have you found to be an optimal way to pulse that every other day, three times a week, twice a week? What?

• 11:35Speaker 00

  Well, in the book, I talk about how one tactic for people who just want to drink coffee every morning. You just do coffee for three weeks and then switch to a really, switch to a good decaf, like Swiss water processed decaf or CO2 extraction decaf for about a week. Takes around six to eight days to reset those adenosine receptors. But if I'm just kind of doing it naturally, I just listen to my body. Basically, if I wake up and I don't feel a need for a little extra caffeine, I just don't have coffee. I do the chaga. So it typically comes out to about, oh, two or three mornings of the week is the chaga and the cacao. And the other mornings, it's just a good cup of organic coffee.

• 12:10Chris Williamson?

  Got you.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  Just, just organic black coffee. I don't do any calories just because I don't want to take myself out of a fasted state in the morning. So no, no MCT oil or butter or anything like that. Just, just black coffee. And then, um, uh, while the, while the hot water's going for the cacao tea or the chaga or the coffee's brewing. I spend 10 to 15 minutes just doing body work, like foam rolling. Um, uh, sometimes it's like the little vibrating balls, sometimes lacrosse balls, but I just, I take 10, 15 minutes every morning to do deep tissue work. So whether or not I get a massage, I try to get a massage once a week, but even if I don't, you know, I figure by the end of the week, I'm getting a good 75 to 90 minutes of really good deep tissue work.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Uh, and I, I just find it primes my body for the day. A lot of times I combine it with some breath work. Uh, a little bit of inversion. So I'll hang from an inversion table or from something, from, uh, like some gravity boots. But it's kind of like my non-negotiable me time for like 15 minutes in the morning. I usually listen to like a sermon or a really good spiritual podcast while I'm doing that just to start off my day on a really positive note and uh and then once I've done all that I'll I'll grab the coffee or the tea and I'll head down to my office and I'll generally spend about a half hour uh going through uh typically like research articles, science, uh some of the feeds that I follow and and uh

• 13:36Speaker 00

  you know, like like health, exercise, science, nutrition, science, um you know, some some different Twitter feeds, some research journals. I just really like to learn at the beginning of the day. I find my body just soaks up and feels really primed to learn. So I'm I'm typically not doing emails or or uh you know, social media and stuff at that time. I just kind of soak up some knowledge at the beginning of the day. While I'm having my coffee or my tea and while I'm doing that, I use red light therapy. So I've got these big uh these Jew red light panels in my office that I flip on. So as I'm standing there going through all the research, I'm just bathed in red light. I take off all my clothes and I just do like naked red light therapy, full body and and that's for like

• 14:18Speaker 00

  twenty to thirty minutes. It's amazing. You get nitric oxide release. It it stimulates uh the mitochondrial production of ATP. It's just this this complete feel-good effect. It it's and and it's also very similar to uh to sunrise again. So I'm getting that big red light dose in the morning, which is great for circadian rhythm. And um you know, I I like my office to be just like this total zen zen. So you know, I've got essential oils, kind of getting diffused into the air. I got the red light therapy. I've got a little grounding mat that I stand on. So it's as though I were outside, kind of sucking up some negative ions from the surface of the earth. Same thing if I'm standing on that in my office, I get the the same effect. So so that's just kind of my me time in the morning.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  And I finish up all that and you'll you'll find if you guys uh use that tactical baking soda uh with that glass mason jar, after about forty-five minutes, that baking soda kicks in and you just go have this awesome, awesome dump. So I uh I flip off the red lights after about a half hour and you know, I just I can tell right away. You feel the stomach gurgling a little bit. It's like, alright, it's time. And uh go upstairs and just have have an amazing, amazing, amazing bowel movement. And then um You know, by then it's it's typically around, you know, like seven forty-five to eight fifteen ish in the morning. And I I usually before I jump into the rest of the day, um, you know, and and kind of start working everything or

• 15:45Speaker 00

  have some breakfast, I like to do some kind of like a morning, um, some kind of morning protocol that makes me feel really good. I don't like to hit the weights hard or do like a big, high intensity interval training session in the morning. So usually for me, it's either a about a twenty or thirty minute walk in the sunshine. Or a twenty or thirty minute sauna session. So this would be after I go to the bathroom.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Yep, yep.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  You know, I'll do like a sauna plus a cold soak, you know, twenty or thirty minutes in the sauna, just the deep sweat. Um, again, I'll I'll put essential oils in the sauna. Um, sometimes I'll put on like a topical rub, like any of these topical muscle creams that have things like, you know, cayenne and menthol and black pepper, because they're just sweat buckets. I've found if you if you smear some stuff over your skin.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, bet you are.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  Before you get into the sauna. Uh, I'm using one called Prototype Eight by ATP Science right now. And I'll just like smear it on my arms and my legs. You know, put some some really good uplifting essential oils in there like rosemary or cinnamon or something that's really kind of like stimulating to the brain. To get me all charged up for the workday. And uh, do the sauna. So I'm sweating really hard, then go then go jump in the cold pool or take a cold shower for about three or four minutes. And uh, I'm either doing that or just like a long walk in the sunshine. And so do all that. And then, um, uh, you know, I I own a a company called Keon. We always have a call every morning at nine forty-five. So I gotta be done, showered, you know, ready for the day, you know,

• 17:13Speaker 00

  spend a little time with the kids and say good morning to them and hear about how they're gonna spend their day. They're homeschooled, so they're at home with me all day anyways. So I just kind of check in with them, make sure they're all set for the day and check in with my wife, make sure she's all set for the day. And then I just make myself a a giant superfood smoothie while I'm getting ready for that call with my team. And that, you know, the smoothie just changes every day, but typically it's things like, you know, for, for my base, I just use ice. And then I'll put some stevia in there, some monk fruit in there for a sweetener. And then I just love to toss a bunch of, bunch of great stuff in there. So for my liquid, I'll usually use bone broth. Or, or kefir, or sometimes coconut milk. I, I make my own yogurt at home.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Uh, usually using coconut milk or goat's milk as a base. So I'll put some yogurt in there. Uh, and then typically a few scoops of something like a greens. I'll put some collagen in there. Uh, squeeze of a lemon or some kind of vitamin C in there. And then I, I just blend all that up. If I want a little bit more creaminess, I'll put like half an avocado in there. Sometimes for a little bit of extra greens, you know, I, I grow sprouts at home. So I'll put some sprouts in there. And then I'll, I'll top it with just a bunch of goodies like spirulina, like after I've blended it, I'll top it. With like spirulina, coconut flakes, cacao nibs, but I, I blend the smoothie really thick. So I basically like eat it out of a bowl, almost like an asaibowl. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With all these. Like a dessert.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, it's amazing. It's so good. It's like the highlight of my day. I'm thinking about that one. Doing my sauna or my walk. I'm already thinking about that amazing, amazing superfood bowl I'm gonna make at home. And so I typically I'll eat that while I'm on the call with my team. Just chatting with my team, you know, hearing about what everybody's gonna be up to for the day and, um. Just touching base with, with the whole squad, cause I'm running my company virtually for the most part. Uh, because our offices are in Boulder, but I'm up in, uh, Washington state. And they're down, you know, most of my team is, is down kind of around Colorado. So I, um. I, uh, do that call and then after that, from about 10 until around two or 2:30.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  I just, you know, no push notifications, no, no Twitter, no Facebook, no social media. I just work like a horse with blinders on for the next four or five hours, you know, kind of that deep work concept. You know, like Cal Newport's book. Where I'm just, you know, whether I'm, I'm writing or working on a book or a series of articles. Or shooting videos, doing content, um, doing consults with my clients or people who have hired me to go over their nutrition or their workout plans with them or their, you know, their lab work, their blood work. Uh, sometimes, you know, I, I advise a lot of companies in the health and, and fitness space. So sometimes it's advisory calls for different businesses.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  Um, you know, every, every day kind of varies, but you, but for me, that kind of like 10 to two or two 30 slot is just deep work time. Just crush the day during that time. I'm hyper productive and I take breaks about every, uh, you know, it depends on, on the style of work that I'm doing. But every 30 to 60 minutes, I'll take breaks and, you know, do some pull ups, do some kettlebell swings. Um, you know, jump up and down on a trampoline. I, I just like to take little breaks just to keep my body moving, uh, during those, those, you know, four or five hours of work. But, uh, you know, generally, once I've, once I've finished all that work, I, um, I come up and, uh, I, again, I have a home office, so I'll make myself some lunch. Lunch for me is just usually,

• 20:43Speaker 00

  you know, some good greens, like some more sprouts or really nice plate of greens with, uh, you know, I'm a big fan of the whole smash diet, like sardines, mackerel, anchovy, herring or salmon. So usually I'll do like some kind of really good omega three rich cold water fish. You know, some nuts, uh, some avocado, uh, usually another cup of bone broth and I just have, it kind of like breakfast. I have like a superfood kind of salad type of thing for lunch.

• 21:10Chris Williamson?

  But made up with fish in it. The super.

• 21:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Usually fish or nuts. Sometimes if we've had steak or chicken or whatever the night before, I'll use that as the protein topper. But again, I, I don't, I don't really have any appreciable amount of carbohydrates until the evening. I save all my carbs until the evening. So I'm typically in a state of fatty acid oxidation or, you know, mild ketosis most of the day. And, you know, unless you're, you're a, like a two a day hard charging athlete, there's no need for like two big carbohydrate boluses during the day unless you got to maximize glycogen restoration after an early day hard workout. So, I find, because I typically do my hard workout in like the later afternoon or early evening, as long as I've had carbohydrates the night before,

• 21:53Speaker 00

  my glycogen levels are pretty topped off anyways. And with that strategy, I avoid a lot of, uh, glycemic variability, like a lot of glucose fluctuations during the day. I find I have more stable energy levels and cognitive levels. Um, And it also allows me to, because our dinner time is usually like a big family dinner or a social time or going out to a restaurant with friends or whatever, like, I wanna, I wanna be able to, for the more social meal, actually, you know, indulge a little bit, like have some red wine or some dark chocolate or some sourdough bread or some sweet potato fries or whatever. So I save all my carbohydrates for the end of the day, which is also nice,

• 22:34Speaker 00

  because since I typically am not doing my, my hard workout, like weights or high intensity interval training or anything like that, until the later afternoon or the early evening, that means that I'm very insulin sensitive after that workout. So those carbohydrates very easily get partitioned into, you know, muscle tissue.

• 22:50Chris Williamson?

  Shuttling them all into the right muscles, right?

• 22:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, so they don't spend a lot of time in the bloodstream with my blood sugar spiked. So it's just, it's a, it's a good scenario for me, you know, doing the easy workout in the morning or the easy movement in the morning, no carbs all day, and then the hard workout later on in the day, then the carbs at night. So.

• 23:09Chris Williamson?

  I like, um, for the people that are listening, I've been a big fan of carb backloading for a long time. And backloading carbs, for me, one of the main reasons that I like it is that it plays with the sacrifice reward mentality that you have. You know, you're like, right, I, I, it might be nice to feel satiated with some slightly more starchy food earlier in the day, but as you, I, I can get through, I can get till two o'clock. Right, well, I'll get my workout in. Now it's four o'clock. Oh, well, I've only got to wait until five, five thirty and then you've got your nice big starchy meal. You feel nice and full and obviously you've got this change in insulin sensitivity. You've got the improved shuttling and partitioning of nutrients into the muscles. It seems like a real, a real kind of, uh, easy hack.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the release of serotonin in response to the carbohydrate feeding, which enhances your melatonin release at night. So you sleep better too. So I just think, I think especially for an active person or someone who's working out later on in the day and someone who's willing not to like suck their face with random snacks and sugar earlier in the day, as long as you pay attention to the rules. Uh, you you know, there's this whole idea of car backloading is actually a a pretty, pretty good, good strategy. So, um, anyways, I finished lunch and I'm a huge fan of napping, huge fan of napping. So I take a nap almost every day for like twenty to forty-five minutes. And, um, I I kind of protect that time quite a bit. I tell my team, like, don't schedule me any calls

• 24:34Speaker 00

  from about like two thirty till four. I just want that time to to kind of like have that breather in the middle of the day. And so for for me, you know, typically, uh, after lunch or with my bone broth at lunch, um, I'll have something that's kind of relaxing. Like right now, I like reishi mushroom extract. Kind of relaxes me, tones me down in the middle of the day. And I just slip away either, uh, and and take a nap in the bedroom or I have one of these of late. What I've been using for my naps is I have a, uh, a soft shell hyperbaric chamber, which just concentrates oxygen. So I go in there, I'm under concentrated oxygen, flip on the oxygen mask and, um, I'll put on some really relaxing beats. I like, uh,

• 25:19Speaker 00

  the one I've been using of late is this, uh, this vagal nerve stimulator, an app called New Calm. And, uh, that thing will just, they they say based on the research, it'll simulate a full ninety-minute sleep cycle in twenty minutes.

• 25:31Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  I don't know if that's true, but but I can literally just turn that thing off for twenty minutes and be dead to the world and feel amazing. And sometimes I'll cycle through it two times, so I'm getting a full forty minutes. And that's my go-to. The other one that I like is Brain FM. That's another really good app for just kind of checking away. So I put on some good noise blocking headphones, a good sleep mask. Uh, I like the sleep mask called Mindfold. It just blocks out all light and I go dead to the world from like, you know, two thirty to three fifteen or so. And that nap just, like, I have a better workout later on in the day. I'm I'm more present for evening activities. I just like, I'm a huge, huge fan of the nap, so.

• 26:12Chris Williamson?

  I find, uh, I find sometimes with naps that I can, I can suffer with a little bit of mood change afterward. I wonder if you've ever come up against that.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, typically I'll take a stimulant after my nap.

• 26:26Chris Williamson?

  Okay, bring you back around a little bit.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, sometimes it'll be a touch of coffee. Sometimes I'll pop like some nicotine gum. Sometimes we'll use a nootropic, like I like one called Qualia Mind. Something that kind of like picks me up again in the afternoon.

• 26:42Chris Williamson?

  Maybe that's where I'm going wrong. I mean, I think my ability to go from hyped to chill to hyped again, just my ability to change that speed to decelerate and then re-celerate is is pretty tough. I mean, you know, if you're if you're having a conversation with a client and you're getting real hyped up, they're having a great day, you're having a great day, you're going backward and forward. Is that mushroom extract that you mentioned sufficient to kind of bring you down and brain FM? Couple of binaural beats, is that enough to kind of take the sting out of what you've been doing?

• 27:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, that combined with the food in your stomach from lunch, I find just it works fine. And then the other thing is that, you know, if you take a nap and you're putting some kind of stimulant into your system around 3:15, I typically don't go to bed till like 10 anyways, and I don't find that that interferes with sleep. The only thing I'm careful with is if it's if it's coffee, I'm a little bit careful with that. So if it's coffee, it's like four ounces of coffee, rather than like a microdose of caffeine. But but that's enough to just give me a little bit of a pick me up and kind of get me going again after the afternoon nap. And then.

• 27:44Chris Williamson?

  Just to just to circle back to your work schedule at the moment, can you just tell me about your desk setup that you're using at the moment?

• 27:50Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. So like I mentioned, I have I have one of those grounding mats. So that I'm getting a little bit of the mild anti-inflammatory effect that you can get from the the negative ions from the ground. And then I've got a standing desk and I just have a hand crank desk. I think mine's made by somebody called Rebel Desk. Vera Desk does does really good desks too. And then I've got a treadmill that I can walk on sometimes.

• 28:18Chris Williamson?

  Is that Trueform?

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have the Trueform treadmill just because I wanted a manual treadmill that could keep up with my, I've got really long legs and I also. Walk pretty fast and I find that a lot of these manual treadmills for offices, they're like too slow and too short. So I like that Trueform because it, you know, doubles workout tool anyways. We're gonna buy a treadmill. Might as well get one you can, you know, throw down some sprints and stuff on too. Plus it, the curved nature of the treadmill engages your glutes a little bit more.

• 28:49Chris Williamson?

  Man, running, doing sprints on that thing is miserable. Hamstring, glute, lower, just the whole posterior chain gets fried.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's impossible to run without engaging your posterior chain on that thing. And it's actually hard to walk without engaging your posterior chain as well. So. See, I've got the Trueform, standing desk, grounding mat. The red lights I mentioned, but I'm only using those in the morning. There's actually some evidence that you can, you can overdo it. Like you can create excess reactive oxygen species if you overdo the red light therapy. So I just do that in the morning.

• 29:19Chris Williamson?

  You said about thirty minutes, is that right?

• 29:21Speaker 00

  Uh, no, closer to like twenty. E- even if I'm in the office, you know, sipping the coffee, doing the research stuff for thirty minutes, I only leave the red lights on for like twenty minutes. Um, and then, uh, what else is in my office? I said there's a, there's like an essential oil diffuser in there. If I want to kind of be in a different position than just standing or walking, I've got a, uh, I've got a chair called a saddle chair. Which kind of.

• 29:45Chris Williamson?

  Is it by Fully?

• 29:47Speaker 00

  I've got one by Sally, S A L L I.

• 29:49Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  And then I've also got a stool that's also in a pelvic shaped position. Uh, that one's made by Focal Upright. It's called a Mogo. So there's no chair in my office at all. It's either the, the pelvis stool or the saddle chair.

• 30:02Chris Williamson?

  Have you tried, uh, when, when standing, have you tried a small step to rest one foot on in front while you're standing?

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, I use the treadmill for that actually.

• 30:13Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I get you. That's, um, that's been such a game changer for me. For anyone who's listening that uses a standing desk. Buying like a kid's step, you know, like what a kid would use to get up to the kitchen counter. Or anything that raises your foot, maybe between half a foot to a foot and a half off the floor. And it really does decompress my back. That's made a big difference. Also, I wondered, have you tried the rocker boards?

• 30:36Speaker 00

  Uh, I have one called a fluid stance.

• 30:38Chris Williamson?

  Yep, yep.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  That's like, it's like a balance tool, but it's not that hard to balance on. So I could be like on a phone call.

• 30:43Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I'm a big fan.

• 30:44Speaker 00

  Feel like I'm, I'm not able to balance.

• 30:46Chris Williamson?

  Big fan.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  The other one that you could put your foot up on works well. This is a new one I have called, it's called a slack block. And it's basically like a slack line. It was developed for balance training. So I have it in my office as one of those things I could stand on for a little bit during like a pomodoro break.

• 31:00Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  But it can double as something you could put your foot up on too.

• 31:04Chris Williamson?

  That's cool. So that's like a mobile miniature slack line.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 31:08Chris Williamson?

  That is so sick.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. So you get a little bit more increased proprioception. The other thing I have related to the feet is I always have a couple of golf balls. Like right underneath my feet. So I'm always doing some foot rolling while I'm standing at my desk. So just some, some deep tissue therapy for the feet and that works pretty well.

• 31:26Chris Williamson?

  I've found as well, I'm, I'm not sure if this is the same for you, but sometimes when I'm doing some work that doesn't involve my hands, having something to just get rid of the excess energy. So I always have a pen in my fingers and I twirl a pen. I tend to do that under the desk when I'm podcasting and actually find my ability to focus on what I'm doing. When I have a, a small amount of really basic movement going on elsewhere makes a big difference.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  Oh yeah. That's a good idea. I feel like I'm getting a little bit of that by rolling the golf balls under my feet, but that's a good idea with the pen. Or you could use, I suppose you could use like Captain's a Crush hand grip trainer or something like that too.

• 32:00Chris Williamson?

  It came, the, the idea came from seeing kids who have ADD.

• 32:04Speaker 00

  Oh yeah.

• 32:05Chris Williamson?

  And they're given Play-Doh.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 32:08Chris Williamson?

  To, to just play with, with their hands while they're in, uh, classes. So the kids, the kids have this Play-Doh and what it allows them to do is just expel the top end, that, that excess energy that they've got. They do something with their hands and it allows them to focus better. And I, I just, I've had pens in my hands through, you know, all of university, all of school. Put a pen back in my hand and I found that my focus improved. Unbelievable.

• 32:32Speaker 00

  That's a, that's a great idea. I like that. Yeah. Pen, I suppose a rubber band or like some Play-Doh. Yeah. It's a, it's a great idea. I like that.

• 32:39Chris Williamson?

  Cool.

• 32:40Speaker 00

  So, um, um. Yeah, so the, let me think if there's anything else in the office that's interesting. I, I use, um. If I'm working in there at night, same thing up in the master bedroom, the master bathroom, like I'm not a fan of LED lighting. Because even like these newer, like so-called biological LEDs, they all produce like a, like an imperceptible flicker. That's a little bit irritating to the retina and there's even some evidence that it may cause a little bit of damage to the rods and cones. And so, um, I use incandescent lighting, incandescent light bulbs. Simulate pretty closely the natural spectrum that you get from the sunlight. And so, all the cans in the house have incandescent light, but then. I've got a, like a, um, a lamp in the office for nighttime work.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  That's a red incandescent light bulb. And then up in the bedroom and the master bathroom and my kids' bedrooms. It's all red incandescent lighting, so it kinda looks like a nightclub a little bit. When you, when you flip on the lights and go to the bedrooms at night, but there's no blue light, it's amazing. So you, so you don't disrupt your circadian rhythm when you're. Getting ready for bed at night or you, you know, you flip on the lights, go take a pee at night or whatever. It just keeps things, you know, really stable from a circadian rhythm standpoint.

• 33:51Chris Williamson?

  Is there a particular, is there a particular brand of bulb or lamp that you've got with that? You just slot in?

• 33:56Speaker 00

  I just grab, grab whatever's on Amazon. It's just all red incandescent light. They're a little, they're, they're a little bit more power hungry than LED lighting, but it's, you know. Yeah, it's worth it to me, the extra whatever, you know, twenty, thirty bucks a month for my electrical bill to, to go with incandescent, so.

• 34:12Chris Williamson?

  Got you.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  Um, see, I use incandescent lighting and then red incandescent lighting at night and, um. Yeah, those are some of the biggies in the office. As far as what I have, there's always, I got a kettlebell on the floor of the office, you know, always, so I gotta step over, it's always top of mind, so. Whenever I'm in there, you know, I'm always thinking, ah, gotta throw down some. Some kettlebell swings, you know, a little pull-up bar in the door of the office I can hang from every once in a while when I'm walking in and out. You know, I got a little rule, I gotta do five pull-ups.

• 34:41Chris Williamson?

  Every time you go through the door. Yeah, it's such a good hack. I've got, uh, I'm currently opening up my shoulders to do some mobility for weightlifting. And I've just got so many resistance bands on the floor. It's like, if I don't pick them up to use them, I'm going to fall over them and hurt myself. So I might as well, it's the same as you with your kettlebells. It's like, oh God, I gotta step over it. I might as well use it.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. My office is just littered with shit like that. Just kind of, kind of keep me moving, moving during the day.

• 35:05Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  And, um, then I've got, you know, I pay a lot of attention to not having a lot of non-native EMF, like wifi devices, Bluetooth devices. You know, uh, so everything's hardwired with ethernet cable. So I just have like CAT seven metal shielded ethernet cable. Instead of the wifi. So I'm just plugged directly into the router and the wifi is off. And then I've got these, uh, cause I had a building biologist come to my home, do like a walkthrough. Of anything that might be producing a lot of dirty electricity or a lot of, a lot of EMF. And so, um. I put a dirty electricity filters in the office too. So these just plug into the outlets and, and filter any power surges that might be occurring. And, um. And then, yeah, so no wifi, no Bluetooth and these dirty electricity filters.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  And so I, I just feel better when I don't have a lot of signals bouncing around. That's also the advantage of a manual treadmill is a lot of people don't realize like treadmills produce a huge amount of EMF. And so if you can have a manual treadmill instead of a, a motorized treadmill in your office or in your gym. I, I think it's a good idea from a health standpoint.

• 36:08Chris Williamson?

  Got you. I want, I wanted to touch actually on Bluetooth. Did I hear right that you don't wear AirPods or any other Bluetooth headphones because of the adverse effects of Bluetooth? I noticed that you're wearing wired Apple headphones at the moment.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'll either use AirTube or, you know, or, or wire in versus Bluetooth just because of. You know, a few different studies that have looked at it like a dark blood, blood field analysis and showing like some, some clumping of some of the cells in response to these Bluetooth signals and, and compared to wifi or, or say like a 4G or 5G signal, it's, it's less of an issue, but I'm, you know, I'm, I'm using a phone or, you know, talking on a lot of these devices so much. I just figure, you know, there's an extra three or four hours a day, I don't have to have some kind of non-native EMF up around my head. I just don't. So.

• 36:53Chris Williamson?

  Got you. And just you touched on, you've touched on a topic there that I know a lot of people will be interested in. What's your thoughts on 5G at the moment? Is there any way that people can protect themselves? Is 5G phones get rolled out?

• 37:05Speaker 00

  Um, well, you can, you can go into your settings and just switch it back to 4G if you want. But 4G, 4G has issues as well. The, the problem is, you know, and, and Dr. Joe Mercola just wrote a great book called EMF on this. I interviewed him about it on my podcast is, you know, the effects on the calcium channels of the cell, you know, you get a bit, you get a steep calcium influx into the cell, which basically creates a net positive charge inside the cell when it's supposed to be in that negative charge. And then you get some amount of, of DNA unraveling from, from the, from the radiation, you know, the, the, the non-onizing radiation. And then, um, you, you also get a little bit of effect in terms of down regulation, what's called your NF kappa V pathway, which is

• 37:47Speaker 00

  responsible for modulating a lot of your inflammatory processes. So, you know, the, the problem is that when with 5G, not a ton of studies have been done on either it's deleterious impact or the absence thereof. So it's one of those deals where, well, if no studies have actually been done showing its effects on the human body, we're rolling it out, you know, I'd, I'd rather wait until we see the studies. So I'm, I'm pretty careful with it. As far as what you can do to protect yourself, obviously with 5G panels being put up everywhere and, you know, the fact we can't escape it, I would say the best thing you can do is to counteract some of that calcium influx into the cell. Just make sure you're supplementing with magnesium, you know, or, or you can eat organic produce

• 38:29Speaker 00

  that's grown in really mineral rich soil to get your magnesium, but it's tough to, to get good organic produce grown in mineral rich soil these days. And I think magnesium is a good supplement in the evening anyways for nighttime relaxation. So I just take magnesium every night, you know, keep your red blood cell magnesium levels topped off. That'll help with the calcium influx. And then for the, um, For the DNA piece, the the two things that that can really help to repair the DNA are any sirtuins, you know, like risveratrol or or, you know, blueberry powder or taro still bean or cacao, you know, any of the things you might be working into, you know, like that superfood smoothie or whatever in the in the morning anyways. Um, and that really, really works well hand in hand with any NAD precursor.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  You know, like NMN or NR or even like NAD, you know, the occasional NAD IV, you know, like once a month, just to keep your NAD levels topped off. NAD and sirtuins work hand in hand to help protect the DNA. And so that's that's number two is do magnesium. Make sure you keep your sirtuins and your NAD levels topped off. And then the third regarding that inflammatory pathway, the NF kappa B pathway, uh, the best way to to kind of modulate that and keep it active would be A, mild ketosis, which we're getting from that kind of carb backloading type of approach. And then also, um, exogenous ketones actually can can really help with that pathway. So like, you know, using ketone esters or ketone salts,

• 39:55Speaker 00

  especially if you're traveling, you know, airplanes, airports, hotel rooms, places where you can't turn the wifi off. Or, you know, you're getting exposed to a whole bunch of other signals that might go beyond, you know, your phone with on which you might have the wifi disabled or on which you might have in airplane mode. You can't control other people. So when I travel, I I really step up my, uh, you know, my my supplementation with these ketones and kind of keep my my ketone bodies even more elevated to assist with that inflammatory pathway. So that's another good half.

• 40:25Chris Williamson?

  I like it.

• 40:26Speaker 00

  Things. Those are a few things you do to protect yourself would be magnesium and, um, and then, uh, sirtuins, NAD precursors and, uh, and ketones. So.

• 40:37Chris Williamson?

  I like it. I like it. Does, uh, Keon do a ketone ester?

• 40:41Speaker 00

  Uh, no, we don't. We don't. But there's some good ones out there like HVMN has some good ones. Uh, the company Ketone Aid, they've got some good ones. However, you know, I, ketones are so interesting because for me, they give me almost a buzz very similar to what I get from alcohol. Probably because of the, uh, something called one, three butane dial in, uh, in some of these ketone esters. And when I'm like making cocktails at night, a lot of times I'll just, you know, when I normally use gin or vodka or whatever else, you know, then mix it with ice or lemon juice or bitters. I'll just use a little bit of ketones instead. And it's, it's just, I actually just, just today, literally today at Ben Greenfield Fitness dot com, I published an article on like how to make amazing cocktails that don't have alcohol in them, but that still kind of spin some dials in your brain and have this feel good effect.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  And, and actually ketones are one, one way you can do that. So.

• 41:29Chris Williamson?

  That's funny.

• 41:30Speaker 00

  You can use them as an alcohol substitute.

• 41:31Chris Williamson?

  I run, uh, I run, I run nightclubs. I wonder if I could sell some ketone cocktails. Uh, if I could throw some of those up, I wonder how many people.

• 41:38Speaker 00

  Uh, you, you want to, you want to be careful. And I should say this too. If you, if you mix ketone esters with alcohol, um, the byproduct is kind of similar to GHB. And, you know, that's, that's a little date rave drug. So you wouldn't want somebody like ordering a mocktail and then also getting a cocktail and winding up just like face down in their plate. So.

• 41:58Chris Williamson?

  That would be a bad look. That would be a bad look. Okay. So we're on to, we are on to the nighttime routine. Tell us about your nighttime routine. What's it looking like at the moment?

• 42:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, um, like I mentioned, you know, I, uh, I take that nap and then after my nap, I do a lot of my reactive work, like emails, social media, you know, people needing to hop on last minute phone calls with me, all that shit that, that's kind of like, not necessarily, that doesn't fall into the productive bucket, but it's kind of more reactive. Like I save all of that for later on in the day, you know, because I'd rather strike while the iron is hot when I have low amounts of decision making fatigue or cognitive fatigue early in the day and do a lot of my productive work. So. I wake up from my nap and typically, you know, there's another hour and a half or two of just, you know, kinda putting out fires, so to speak, right? Taking care of all the shit that would normally distract you earlier in the day.

• 42:50Speaker 00

  And then, once I finish all that, uh, I'll typically jump into a workout. You know, and for me, I, I just finished my, my Russian kettlebell RKC cert. So for me, for the past few months, it's been, you know, snatches, Turkish getups, goblet squats. You know, usually a lot of concurrent strength endurance training. So I'm mixing that up with like, you know, air dine, um, sprints, uh, rowing machine, ju- just, you know, a, a lot of, uh, kinda circuit style work with the kettlebells.

• 43:18Chris Williamson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:19Speaker 00

  And, um, uh, typically, it's something like that. Uh, since I just finished that cert up last week, I'm kinda getting back into just basic weightlifting, right? Push, pull, hinge, et cetera. So, um, so either weight training or high intensity interval training, uh, in the, in the afternoon or the early evening. Typically, I'm working out from about, yeah, kinda like that, five thirty to six thirty-ish range, right around in there.

• 43:47Chris Williamson?

  I remember a little while ago, you mentioned that you'd pivoted from performance to longevity. So probably about a year and a half ago, I think. What's, where's your goals at now?

• 43:58Speaker 00

  Uh, definitely longevity, you know, cause for years I was competing in Ironman Triathlete and, you know, racing for Reebok and Spartan training and, and, uh, now, um, I just wanna feel good, you know, I wanna be strong, maintain muscle. I, you know, still, if anybody joins with me in a workout, you know, they tell me I'm a pure masochist, but, you know, even my workouts now are nowhere near, you know, going out and crushing, you know, two hours out in the mountains, you know, and, and, you know, or five hours on the bike, like, you don't wanna do any of that shit anymore. I'm working out like forty to sixty minutes max.

• 44:34Chris Williamson?

  Got you. Your condition, based on, based on your Instagram at the moment, your condition looks to be even leaner than you were. Looks to be the leanest, I think, I've seen you.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  Um, I'm about a hundred and eighty-five pounds, around four or five percent body fat.

• 44:48Chris Williamson?

  Quite lean Ben, that's quite lean.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I'm naturally lean. Like, my dad's the same way. My dad doesn't really even do much training and he's prob- you know, he's sixty-something, he's probably like nine percent body fat. So a lot of that's genetics.

• 45:01Chris Williamson?

  Good genetics.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  I don't really go out of my way to, to like stay super lean, but you know, my testosterone's fine, my thyroid's fine. You know, so as long as my endocrine system is, is working fine, I'm, I'm okay with just maintaining where my body wants to be at.

• 45:16Chris Williamson?

  Got you, got you.

• 45:16Speaker 00

  You know, cause I, I def- you know, I'm a foodie. I eat a lot of food. I punish a lot of ribeye steaks and lard and ghee and liver and you know, I just, my body doesn't hold on to a lot of fat, honestly. It's just, it's the way it goes. So. Anyways though, so um, after, after that, uh, that kinda like early evening-ish workout that finishes up sometime around six-thirty or so, uh, typically after that, I'll make sure there's no more email fires to put out, no work that's left to be done. And then from about seven, seven-thirty on, it's all family time. Like, we have these wonderful like family dinners where we play board games and go over our gratitude journals and sing songs and

• 46:02Speaker 00

  um, and, and just, just connect as a family. We all typically are gathering together and making the meal together and everybody's contributing and cooking and laughing and playing music. And so from like seven-thirty until nine, it's just like full-on family time, dinner time. We finish dinner and then we go play more music. I'll read to the kids or, or play them some songs on the guitar. Um, you know, we, we, we don't really go out to restaurants that much, but typically it's just like super duper focused and relaxed and fun family time. Um, all, all the way up until after nine. And then typically by about

• 46:42Speaker 00

  nine-thirty or so, you know, the kids are tucked away. And then my wind down routine, um, in addition to those red lights would be, you know, as we're making that family dinner and, you know, getting back into dinner, I've typically got, you know, the blue light blocking glasses on again to start to, you know, suppress any exposure to um, to, you know, uh, large amounts of, of blue light. Um, I, uh-

• 47:09Speaker 00

  What else do I do?

• 47:10Chris Williamson?

  How long are you aiming for with the with the blue light blocking glasses? Ninety minutes, two hours before bed?

• 47:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's usually about ninety minutes, two hours before bed. Unless I'm planning like, you know, whatever. If my wife and I wanna have like, you know, like a, you know, a really intensive sex session or something, you know, we're planning on being up till ten thirty or eleven, you know, talking, having sex, stuff like that. Like, sometimes I'll just like purposefully not do a lot to wind myself down, so I don't wanna be tired.

• 47:36Chris Williamson?

  I get you.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  But, uh, but yeah, I also, um, I tend to have a pretty raging appetite even after dinner, so I'll typically do something with glycine, uh, or gelatin in it, which really just, so I make Jell-O. I make Jell-O with just like some, um, some gelatin that I'll mix with coconut milk and a little stevia. Sometimes I'll put a prebiotic fiber in there, which also helps with sleep, uh, like acacia fiber. And then I'll just put that in a food dehydrator for about a day and, you know, stir that up, keep that in the fridge and I'll just give myself a nice, kinda like, um, you know, like, like, uh, a two inch by two inch, uh, piece of Jell-O at night. Sometimes I'll put a little bit of almond butter on that, a little touch of sea salt.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  And, uh, that's like, that's my go-to dessert for keeping my appetite satiated.

• 48:23Chris Williamson?

  Satiating, yeah.

• 48:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's because that gelatin, the glycine, just helps me go to, go to bed and not feel hungry later on. So I'll have that typically for dessert after dinner. And, um, and then, uh, for the wind down routine, other than that, um, what else do I do? Uh, I'm, my, my go-to supplements for sleep are CBD. I do about typically high dose CBD. Most of the research on CBD that shows that it enhances sleep uses a lot more than, than what they use for like the anxiolytic effects. Usually it's anywhere from a hundred to six hundred milligrams for sleep. So typically I'll take about a hundred milligrams of CBD.

• 49:03Chris Williamson?

  Sublingual?

• 49:05Speaker 00

  Yep, yep. I, I like the droppers. I, I find I respond best to that. I just hold it in mouth for a couple of minutes. And then, like I mentioned, the, the little bit of glycine with gelatin and then also, like I mentioned, magnesium. So CBD, magnesium, and then a little bit of that Jell-O. That's, that's kinda like my go-to snack.

• 49:23Chris Williamson?

  What's your, what's your magnesium supplement?

• 49:26Speaker 00

  I'm using right now Mag SRT by Jigsaw Health. It's, uh, I think it's glycinate, three and eight, and citrate, I think.

• 49:34Chris Williamson?

  Got you. What's the dosage?

• 49:36Speaker 00

  Uh, it's about four hundred.

• 49:38Chris Williamson?

  Got you.

• 49:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, so you just go to go to bowel tolerance. And man, when you when you mix that with having the vitamin C in the baking soda in the morning, it's great for the bowels as well. And um, then the the red light and then what I sleep on is I have a gravity blanket. You know, I'm big, I'm a big fan of in addition to make sure you're sleeping in a cold environment. And you're paying attention to light. And you're paying attention to uh, not having a lot of ambient noise in the bedroom. I think safety is big, so I don't work in bed. I never have my laptop in bed. I don't even keep business books or health and fitness books or anything like that up in the bedroom. It's all just like fiction or something not related to work. And then I also find when I pull like one of these big breathable twenty five pound gravity blankets over myself for sleep.

• 50:25Speaker 00

  It kind of amplifies that feeling of safety even more. So it just it's it's super duper relaxing for me. So I sleep with a gravity blanket on top and one of those chili pad devices underneath because the chili pad will circulate about fifty five degree cold water under my body while I'm sleeping. Which really enhances your sleep cycles quite a bit. And then um, I've got an essential oil diffuser. It kind of like in my office, I'll diffuse uplifting scents like, you know, peppermint, rosemary, etc. In the bedroom, it's usually like lavender or burgomo or some really relaxing scent that I'll diffuse while I'm asleep. And then same thing, I'll put on sleep sleep blocking mask, some foam earplugs. I have an app called Sleepstream on my phone.

• 51:09Speaker 00

  And there's a lot of research showing that uh, you know, there's all these different noises that can block out sound like white noise or brown noise. It turns out that that pink noise is the one that enhances your sleep the most. So I put some pink noise on that. And then um, let me think if there's anything else.

• 51:26Chris Williamson?

  How are you doing that with earplugs in?

• 51:29Speaker 00

  Well, I got the foam earplugs in, but then the, the, um, the phone's in airplane mode next to the bed with the Sleepstream app on, just playing pink noise.

• 51:37Chris Williamson?

  Just out of your phone speaker?

• 51:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, because we have, you know, we have like roosters and owls and all sorts of stuff out here in the forest. And so I just like to cover up that, that ambient noise. And, um, then I use, uh, breath work to just kind of lull myself to sleep, typically four count in, seven count hold, eight count out. And I'll do that for about five or 10 minutes and I'll just, you know, doze off at that point, just kind of breathing myself to sleep.

• 52:05Chris Williamson?

  Definitely one of the things that I like about your day and the way that it's constructed is that everything has its place, that you're not half into anything, apart from perhaps doing little bits of extra training while you work. But the focus there is in facilitating work, not in doing work while you train, right? I particularly like the idea of the family time, the focused family time. I know that Ben Berger on from Chasing Excellence, big fan of this. I know Joe Rogan, big fan of this as well. You know, spending time with your family where it's not half looking at your kids, half looking at your phone, half thinking about work. Still there's the emails to do, there's this, that and the other. I like the idea that you've got your sections in the day that focus you toward what you're supposed to do.

• 52:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think that, uh, multitasking, you know, in the sense of like rolling golf balls under your feet or flipping a pen while you're working is just fine, but multitasking as far as not being focused and mindful on the task at hand is just, it's a huge issue these days. And so, yeah, I, I agree full on.

• 53:04Chris Williamson?

  Unbelievable. Look, Ben, man, it's been absolutely fantastic. Your new book, Boundless, linked in the show notes below. Where else should people go to, uh, to check out what you do?

• 53:15Speaker 00

  Um, you know, my podcast, all the articles I put out, you know, all that jazz. It's just all at bengreenfieldfitness.com. And then my, uh, my supplements company is, uh, Keon, K I O N. And that's at getkion.com.

• 53:28Chris Williamson?

  Unbelievable. Everything will be linked in the show notes below. It's been mind blowing today. So I'm sure there's a lot of people that are going to go back and listen to this. If you enjoyed it, make sure to hit the subscribe button. Go and check out Ben's podcast. If you enjoyed what we went through today, then he does deep dives on there all the time. Ben, man, thank you so much for your time. It's been awesome.

• 53:46Speaker 00

  Oh, thanks, man. Thanks for having me on.

• 54:04Speaker 04

  Mr. President, my company informed me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all keep the blame on me.

• 54:13Speaker 03

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 54:21Speaker 02

  What would happen if I stopped going? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  I'm not the first then.

• 54:29Speaker 03

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17.9.0 without parent.