194. Q&A with Gary: Fasting, Hyperbaric, Sleep, Berberine and More!!

We’ve done it again! 10 of your most burning questions, answered! This time, we’re talking about morning sunlight, berberine, hyperbaric chambers, and whole foods. Your body is running on default factory settings, when it could be operating at peak human performance. Here’s the optimization stack that’s transforming lives across multiple biological pathways! Join the Ultimate Human VIP community for Gary Brecka's proven wellness protocols! https://bit.ly/4ai0Xwg Thank you to our partners H2TABS: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4hMNdgg BODYHEALTH: “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV BAJA GOLD: "ULTIMATE10" FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa EIGHT SLEEP: SAVE $350 ON THE POD 4 ULTRA WITH CODE “GARY”: https://bit.ly/3WkLd6E COLD LIFE: THE ULTIMATE HUMAN PLUNGE: https://bit.ly/4eULUKp WHOOP: JOIN AND GET 1 FREE MONTH!: https://bit.ly/3VQ0nzW MASA CHIPS: 20% OFF FIRST ORDER: https://bit.ly/40LVY4y VANDY: “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: https://bit.ly/49Qr7WE A-GAME: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: http://bit.ly/4kek1ij CARAWAY: “ULTIMATE” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3Q1VmkC HEALF: 10% OFF YOUR ORDER: https://bit.ly/41HJg6S BIOPTIMIZERS: “ULTIMATE” FOR 15% OFF: https://bit.ly/4inFfd7 RHO NUTRITION: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: https://bit.ly/44fFza0 GOPUFF: GET YOUR FAVORITE SNACK!: https://bit.ly/4obIFDC GENETIC TEST: ⁠https://bit.ly/3Yg1Uk9 Watch the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM EST: YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0 Connect with Gary Brecka Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo X: https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4hH7Ri2 Website: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU Merch: https://bit.ly/4aBpOM1 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/47ejrws Ask Gary: https://bit.ly/3PEAJuG Timestamps: 00:00 Intro of Show 02:17 Restoring Gut Bacteria in C-Section Babies - http://bit.ly/3JnI95B 04:12 Most Common Root Causes of Tinnitus 07:38 Benefits of Berberine - http://bit.ly/45F89k9 08:30 Morning Sunlight Exposure 09:17 Why Eat Grass-fed Meat? 10:32 Best Types of Eggs 11:05 Benefits of Hyperbaric Chamber 13:32 Is Intermittent Fasting Good for You? 15:47 How to Improve Sleep Quality 17:12 How Does Morning Sunlight Improve Sleep? Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not provide medical advice. It is not intended for diagnosing or treating any health condition. Always consult a licensed healthcare professional before making health or wellness decisions. Gary Brecka is the owner of Ultimate Human, LLC which operates The Ultimate Human podcast and promotes certain third-party products used by Gary Brecka in his personal health and wellness protocols and daily life and for which Ultimate Human LLC and / or Gary Brecka directly or indirectly holds an economic interest or receives compensation. Accordingly, statements made by Gary Brecka and others (including on The Ultimate Human podcast) may be considered promotional in nature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Gary Brecka?

  What if I told you the way you were born could impact your immune system for life? Today's episode is all about your questions. We're going to go deep into birth, sleep, cold therapy, nutrition, supplements, and some of the biggest health misconceptions keeping people sick, tired, inflamed, and just stuck. Let's get into it. Question one, what does a hyperbaric chamber help with? Well, it does a lot of things. On the one far end of medicine, things like, what are the most common root causes of tinnitus? So there's lots of causes for tinnitus. The first thing is if you, why should I eat grass-fed meat? Well, what's really interesting about grass-fed meat is how can intermittent fasting affect health? Some of the worst endocrine disasters I've ever seen were, how can I improve my sleep quality? Number one is...

• 0:57Gary Brecka?

  What if I told you the way you were born could impact your immune system for life? That the ringing in your ears might not be coming from your ears at all? That just 15 minutes of sunlight in the morning could completely reset your brain and your body? I'm your host, Gary Brecka, and you're listening to the Ultimate Human Podcast where we break down the science of human performance, longevity, and what it takes to become the elite version of yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally. Today's episode is all about your questions, the one you've been sending in from across the world. We're going to go deep into birth, sleep, cold therapy, nutrition, supplements, and some of the biggest health misconceptions keeping people sick, tired, inflamed, and just stuck.

• 1:39Gary Brecka?

  Now, before we jump in, I want to give a shout out to my VIP group because the first five questions in this episode came straight from them. Every month, I go live and do real-time Q and A just like this, except it's interactive. It's raw, and you get to ask me any question directly. If you want to be a part of those sessions, just head to the link below in the show notes and join us inside the VIP community. And now, let's get into it. What are some of the ways parents can help restore or support gut bacteria in C-section babies? I will link in the show notes. Below some of the good pre and probiotics that are infantile liquid prebiotics that are meant to replace the bacteria that were inoculated or supposed to be inoculated through the vaginal canal.

• 2:22Gary Brecka?

  When you're born through C-sections, you miss this part of the inoculation and very often it can lead to a disrupted gut microbiome. These babies are more colicky, they have more gas, they have more bloating, they have more constipation, they get diarrhea more frequently and very often they have a lot more cramping. So it may not be digestive issues, it may be related to their gut bacteria. So I'll link some really good infantile probiotics. If you're one of those mothers that had a C-section, don't worry, you can repopulate your baby's gut safely and effectively with some of these infantile formulas and some of the infantile colostrum formulas. Another really good way to offset the C-section is to breastfeed. Breastfeeding is one of the most selfless things that you can do for your child and

• 3:07Gary Brecka?

  the consequences of breastfeeding over a prolonged period of time are tremendous. So if you have a chance to breastfeed your baby, that's always the preferred way to go. What are the most common root causes of tinnitus and how can someone identify their trigger? So there's lots of causes for tinnitus. The first thing is if you go to an ENT, an ear, nose and throat doctor, and they do an examination of your ear, they're going to look at the structure of your ear, you're going to look at your tympanic membrane, they're going to look at the little bones in the ear, what's called the hammer of the anvil and the stirrup or the malleus, the incus and the stapes to see if there's any anomalies there, if there's been any trauma to that. And then they're going to look at the cylindrical areas of your ear and look at the cilia,

• 3:47Gary Brecka?

  the hairs or the cylindrical cones inside of your ear to see if there's any damage. Most of the time when you have tinnitus from trauma, you know what's causing it. It was like a gunshot went off next to your ear or a loud firecracker, or you actually received head trauma, or you have prolonged exposure to loud music, you're a DJ, or you're in an environment where there's a lot of cacophonistic noise. But a lot of people will develop tinnitus seemingly out of nowhere. Remember, sounds are actually not created by the most

• 4:20Gary Brecka?

  Coming from outside the body, they are converted to electrical signals inside of the brain. So a sound wave is converted to an electrical wave. And this conversion happens inside of the brain, not in the areas of the structure, the physiological areas of the body, meaning not in your tympanic membrane, not in the bones of the ear or the cochlea of the ear, but actually inside the gray matter of the brain. This is where tinnitus can go wrong. Inflammation, neural inflammatory conditions, viruses, being stuck in a sympathetic state, a state of fight or flight, excess catecholamines, these can all cause tinnitus and they're dramatically

• 5:02Gary Brecka?

  overlooked. If you're somebody that's actually suffered from chronic tinnitus and you've already had your ears structurally examined and they said there's nothing wrong with you, your hearing is fine, but you still have noises in your ears, you may want to investigate some of the newer technologies that are now becoming available. Some of those are red light therapy lasers for your ears. There's a place in Miami called Sentner Wellness that has one of these powerful lasers. You can actually get red light necklaces. These are plastic wide necklaces that go around the neck and they actually have inserts that go into the ears that are not just red light, they're powerful red light lasers that are designed to reduce the inflammatory cascade

• 5:44Gary Brecka?

  inside that area of the brain where you can get trapped catecholamines, causing overstimulation and the perception of a sound when you actually don't have a sound. One of the better ways to treat tinnitus is to also engage in regular nerve calming activities, breath work, yoga, meditation, those things that tell your body it's okay to rest and digest. If you've ever been in a traumatic experience where you've been confronted aggressively and then after that confrontation is over, or you were in a near car accident and after that event has ended, you have a ringing sound in your ears and you know there was no trauma, there was no contact made to your brain

• 6:26Gary Brecka?

  or to your cranium, but you have this ringing, that's the type of ringing that is not caused by structural anomalies, that's actually caused by your nervous system being trapped in the wrong state. Fight or flight, which we call sympathetic versus rest and digest, which we call parasympathetic. So anything that calms the nervous system can calm tinnitus.

• 6:49Gary Brecka?

  What are the benefits of berberine? Wow, I actually just sent out three studies today to a VIP client of mine. So I will link those in the show notes below. So berberine acts like a glucophage, like metformin. Metformin is a glucophage that they give to diabetics to control their blood sugar. Berberine is a root. It's also very, very good for improving insulin sensitivity and controlling blood sugar. So if you were to look on your labs, there are three or four things you want to look at if you're looking at your blood sugar control, glucose, hemoglobin A1C, which is the three-month average of your blood sugar, and then something called insulin, which is the response to blood sugar that your body is doing in the pancreas, producing a hormone to help lower your blood sugar levels.

• 7:31Gary Brecka?

  So berberine, in several side-by-side clinical trials, outperformed metformin, which is a prescription and a glucophage. So I'm a huge fan of berberine, especially for people that are trying to control their blood sugar. It has a positive effect on insulin sensitivity, has a positive effect on blood sugar. You can take it with meals, up to three times a day. And if you're one of those people that are struggling with blood sugar, berberine is absolutely a supplement that you should consider. How long should I get morning sunlight? Eight to 12 minutes is all you need. Remember, it's important to be outside of your windows. When we say natural light, preferably contacting your skin. Even if it's cold outside, you are going to get beneficial blue rays from the sun.

• 8:14Gary Brecka?

  Not the kind of blue light that comes from your phone, but beneficial blue rays from the sun. You get all kinds of infrared and near-infrared spectrums that are very, very good for cortisol and melatonin. You also get the red light, which is beneficial for your skin, collagen, elastin, and fibrin. Let's not fear the sun. If you're worried about UVA and UVB rays, just go out in the first 45 minutes of the day, what's called first light. There's no UVA or UVB at that time of the day. If you really want to get in a really, really good sleep habit or morning sunlight habit, just make sure that within 30 minutes of waking, you get outside for eight to 12 minutes, facing the sun, allow natural light to get into your eyes. If you're one of those people who lives in Canada or the Midwest where it gets foggy

• 8:56Gary Brecka?

  and dreary in the wintertime, you will still get this light through the clouds if you get out in morning sun. All right, why should I eat grass-fed meat? Well, what's really interesting about grass-fed meat is grass-fed, grass-finished is what you want to be after, just like pasture-raised is what you're after in chickens and eggs. Grass-fed meat means that the cow is feeding on the grasses, and it's not just grass. It's all the different cloves, all the different types of foliage that are out in a field. When a cow eats what it's meant to eat, and it doesn't eat processed grains, high fructose corn syrup, soy meal, and highly, highly processed wheats and grains, then the omega-3

• 9:40Gary Brecka?

  to omega fatty acid ratio inside the meat changes. You know, right now, the ratio of these omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids are way out of balance. We also have a tendency to have less antibiotics, less steroids, and less vaccinations in cattle that are grass-fed and grass-finished versus those that are commercially raised. And in commercial feedlots, the whole idea is fat as fast as you can and slaughter as early as you can. A grass-fed cow might be four to six years old, whereas a traditionally raised, you know, produced cow in a feedlot might only be two to three years old.

• 10:21Gary Brecka?

  So meat is more mature, it still has the delicious marbling, it may be ever so slightly more expensive, although I noticed that grass-fed meat prices are coming down. So if you're looking at labels and you really want nutrient density in your food, something that's going to secrete a lot of GLP-1, the famous Ozempic, Wakavi, Manjaro, we actually make it right here in our gut, you make that in response to nutrient density. So grass-fed meat has a better nutrient profile. What are the best types of eggs? Pasture-raised, free-range, these are words you want to look for, of course, organic, but the word pasture-raised is the real trigger that you want to look for. Now, recently, I've read some unfortunate articles, I don't know how true they are,

• 11:04Gary Brecka?

  I haven't actually dug into them personally, but I've read some unfortunate articles about some of the eggs that are... Labeled as pasture raised are not actually pasture raised. So if you'd like, I'll link a couple of brands that I like below. I have no affiliation with them, but we want to look for things like organic, pasture raised, and free range. Those are buzzwords that you want to look for on your egg cartons. What does a hyperbaric chamber help with? Okay, wow. Well, it does a lot of things. On the one far end of medicine, things like diabetic ulcers, burns, chronic peripheral neuropathy, where certain tissues are pathological because they're deprived of oxygen. This is where hyperbaric chambers were originally designed, along with curing

• 11:47Gary Brecka?

  something called the bends, which is when divers come up to the surface too quickly, and gas expands inside of their joints, nitric oxide specifically. Nitrogen actually expands, the gas bubble expands too fast and causes a lot of pain. But for generalized use, meaning for the general public, why they are becoming so popular is that there's a lot of science around increasing the density of mitochondria. Mitochondria are the powerhouse of your cells. They're the battery of the cell. They make something called ATP, which is what powers human beings, delivering oxygen to tissues that may not be getting a lot of oxygen. So those fine little capillaries in your body that are a fraction of the human hair, about 70% of your circulatory system, which is what we call microvascular. So those vessels

• 12:32Gary Brecka?

  serve critical areas of our body, like the back of our eye, our brain, our liver, our lungs, our pancreas, our kidneys. So getting floods of oxygen into those areas is an excellent way to not only maintain a healthy lifestyle, but possibly even extend your life because you're getting oxygen to tissues that might not otherwise be getting oxygen. Here's a quick tip that I've learned. Not all hyperbarics are the same. There are home hyperbarics you can get through prescription, which are soft chambers. They go to about 1.3 atmospheres, have plenty of benefits. Then there are hard shell chambers that actually do deeper dives that would equate to a 33 foot scuba dive, doubling the atmospheric pressure. Those seem

• 13:14Gary Brecka?

  to be better for cognitive dysfunction, neuroinflammatory conditions, things like autism, any kind of... Traumatic brain injury or concussive injuries. There's quite a few studies out now that show dramatic effects with hyperbarics in those different scenarios. Remember, hyperbaric does not have to have 100% oxygen. 100% oxygen chambers should only be used in a medical facility like a hospital under the direct supervision of somebody that's trained in hyperbaric medicine. They are not toys. They can be very, very dangerous. You want to get hyperbarics if you're thinking of getting one for your home or your doctor's thinking of prescribing hyperbaric therapy. It's fine to just use ambient air that is compressed at twice the atmospheric pressure. Remember, the air that you're breathing is 21.1% oxygen.

• 14:00Gary Brecka?

  By using a hyperbaric chamber, you double that amount of oxygen that's going into the bloodstream. Okay, so how can intermittent fasting affect health? It can be very good for you, or it can be very bad for you. Here's one of those things that one size doesn't fit all. Some of the worst endocrine disasters I've ever seen in our clinic system were young menstruating females that ate in a very narrow feeding window. So here's how you decide if intermittent fasting is good for you. When you get a blood test and you look at your glycemic profile, glucose, insulin, and hemoglobin A1C. If you have a low hemoglobin A1C, a low 5.2, you are not a candidate for intermittent fasting. And the reason is this, because your blood sugar is already low.

• 14:44Gary Brecka?

  And so if you have prolonged low blood sugar and you go a long period of time without eating, your pituitary will perceive that low caloric intake as starvation. It will begin to throttle back your metabolism. So the pituitary will begin to decrease its stimulation of the thyroid. It will drop thyroid stimulating hormone. It will reduce the production of thyroid hormones, T4 and subsequently T3. So your metabolism will begin to slow. So it makes it easier to gain weight. Remember, the pituitary, especially in females, is regulating your menstrual cycle. It's determining whether or not your follicular ovulation or luteal. Anytime that the pituitary is perceiving low blood sugar as starvation

• 15:28Gary Brecka?

  and throttling back the metabolism, it can also Also throw off a woman's menstrual cycle. So if you have high blood sugar, 5.5 or higher, 5.6, or you're prediabetic, 5.7, 8, all the way up to 6.0. 6.4 is where you become diabetic. If you're in that range, intermittent fasting can be life-changing for you. Because you have insulin resistance and intermittent fasting will help improve your insulin sensitivity. Start with 12 hours of eating and 12 hours of fasting, and slowly decrease the window to eight hours of eating and the balance of the time fasting. All right, how can I improve my sleep quality? So you're not asking about sleep duration, you're asking about sleep quality.

• 16:13Gary Brecka?

  Number one is consistent bedtime. I know that's tough for a lot of people. Set an alarm 15 minutes before you want to go to bed. Start getting really good at going to sleep. Most of us set alarms to wake up. We never set alarms to go to bed. Number two, get morning sunlight. This is the most underrated sleep hack on the planet because it is free and it's easy to access. People don't give it the just amount of credence that it deserves. So getting morning sunlight in the first 30 minutes of waking, staying hydrated in the morning, sleeping in a dark room, sleeping in a cold room, and investing in a few-dollar, all-cotton, full-face eye mask. Meaning it goes all the way from the top of your face down onto your cheeks. Wrap it around your head. Those are great ways to improve your sleep quality.

• 16:58Gary Brecka?

  If you're somebody that ruminates at night and has a hard time falling asleep because you're thinking, try magnesium 3 and 8. Why does morning sunlight improve sleep? Because morning sunlight is medicine. Morning sunlight is specific wavelengths of light designed to reset your circadian clock. You get certain wavelengths of blue light, which stimulate cortisol, the waking hormone, suppress melatonin, the sleeping hormone, and tell your body it's time to wake up. So if today's episode lit a fire in you, don't let that fire go out. Take what you've learned and go do something with it. Swap out your fish oil, change your light exposure, get your child the gut support that they need. Step into cold water tomorrow morning. Your biology is listening to your behavior. And every small change adds up.

• 17:43Gary Brecka?

  If you want to stop guessing with your health and start getting real, data-driven answers to what's going on inside your body. Come join my VIP group. We do monthly deep dives, live Q and A sessions. And this is where I share the uncensored, unfiltered, behind-the-scenes science that I don't post anywhere else. You were never meant to be average. You were meant to be the ultimate human. I'm Gary Brecka. Thank you for tuning in. I'll see you next time. And until then, it's just science.