Blue Light Is Sabotaging Your Health, Fascia, Recovery & Athletic Performance: Circadian Rhythm, Sleep, Hormones, Stress & Quantum Biology | Brett Hansen

0:03 This is the fitness wisdom. Podcast Hello and welcome back to another exciting episode of the Fitness Wisdom podcast. Today we have a Brett Hansen on the show and we're going to be discussing about how athletes can utilize circadian and quantum biology to improve their performance, recover faster, and most importantly, to prevent injuries. And something that I say all the time is that it's not about just for athletes, right? Like everybody's an athlete. Humans are meant to be athletic. We're all meant to be athletes of life.

0:33 So this is not only specifically all of this information we're going to provide. It's not just, you know, solely for athletes, but athletes can utilize this information to take their performance to the next level. So welcome to the show, Brett. Thank you for coming. Thank you for having me, Andreas. I'm excited. This is a topic I'm super interested in so I'm excited to get down to it. All right, let's go. So maybe let's tell the audience a bit how you actually got into this space. What got you interested in circadian and quantum biology?

0:59 Yeah. So, so a lot of people get into this space, you know, they have a recurring health issue or, you know, problems with their own personal health. I never really had that. I've been an athlete all my life. I played basketball. I played professional basketball. And, you know, through that whole process, I'd always thought a little bit differently about health, you know, a little bit outside the box. And it was really COVID that opened my mind because COVID ended my senior season. You know, we were ready to play in the NCAA tournament and they just, they cancelled everything and right out.

1:31 So it just put a sour taste in my mouth right off the bat. I was like, there's no way that this this can be how my season's ending. So I just got hyper focused on health and individual health. And I really, that really opened my mind to the fact that you can't just blindly go about life and, you know, expect the the experts to tell you what's right or wrong for your body or your health because when you really look at it, you know, they're not doing a great job. So that that was my first awakening into this whole thing.

2:04 And, you know, I got on the coattails of Jack Cruise and he blew my mind wide open. I was just like, you know, not just, you know, open the door to 1,000,000 people in this space who are thinking outside the box and really pushing this movement and which and it's really, I think it's the center of everything. Amazing. And what was the first thing that you noticed when you started implementing this stuff in your life? When you started health optimizing more, what was the biggest benefit that you noticed at first?

2:31 I think just consistency in how I felt and it the center of that is obviously the sun. I never thought twice about, you know, waking up and going outside. I would always just, you know, open my phone, scroll. I'd be on my phone late at night and, you know, just really small changes, like just taking 10 minutes to go outside, wearing blue blockers at night or even just keeping my house dim. You know, that brought consistency into my health and how I felt and it, it made everything better from there.

3:02 You know, my mind, my, my physical abilities, my, I would, I'd never wake up tight anymore. And you know, it was, it was eye opening for me. And then I started, you know, just spreading the word of people around me. And it works for pretty much everyone I've ever told to try some of these things. You know, they their health gets immensely better very quickly. So clearly you realized when you were into implementing that stuff and also recommending it to others that you hit something very special here because it's somehow working on a foundational level and it's influencing so many different systems of the body.

3:36 And something that I love that you mentioned there was about consistency. And I think a lot of people when they start something, whatever is some kind of new biohack or workout or diet or supplementation, there is a lack of consistency in general. And so people just, you know, fall off the wagon because they don't see the results and they're not, you know, they're not frequent enough and consistent enough in order to actually see the benefit. A lot of these things, they take time, you know, to compound.

4:02 And the longer you do them, the actually better you feel. I'm sure you resonate with this and I just personally noticed that, you know, the more you workout, the more you take care of your, the water that you drink, the more you take care of your food that you eat, your portion sizing, how many hours you sleep, all this kind of stuff. If you're doing it every single day, feel better and better and better and you notice that your performance keeps on improving. But actually, if you just do it, you know, one day here and there, because there is that lack of consistency, you may feel the next day really good after doing those things.

4:34 And if you don't do it the next day because you feel good, then the next day you feel like crap. And people are on this, you know, this roller coaster going up and down. So I just kind of feel like that is what is hindering a lot of people's performances, specifically athletes. So maybe let's dive into it now bit deeper. Maybe you can explain to people and specifically to athletes, why is it so important to take care of your circadian rhythms and quantum biology? And what do we mean by circadian rhythms and quantum biology?

5:04 Absolutely. And the point I want to start with too is that the more you do these things, the more freedom you have where you know if you have to stay up late or make a mistake, you bounce right back into that rhythm really quickly once you have that foundation set. So I think a lot of people, like you said, they one, they do it once for twice a week and you're not getting anywhere. It's but you have to really, you know, dig deep for a little bit and then it kind of opens up the world of possibilities for you and it opens up your life to be a little freer.

5:33 You can make a few mistakes here and there and it doesn't affect you the way it used to. But for athletes specifically, you know, the, the performance in athletic training world is so focused on, you know, like hypertrophy and training, you know, especially at high levels, like professional level, these guys are training excessive amounts and they're kind of training on this loose foundation where they haven't locked in their circadian rhythm and circadian health, which I mean, if we want to get into it, it's circadian rhythm is basically just the 24 hour cycle that your body goes through.

6:08 You get a fresh reset every 24 hours. And the key to this is locking in that morning sunlight. The second you get step outside, your eyes receive that, that blue wavelength from the sun and that's going to anchor your rhythm for the rest of the day. And you you receive those benefits later on. I think that a lot of these people, a lot of these athletes specifically, are, it's a area they're neglecting. And I think it's the reason why we see so many injuries today, poor performance. These people are, they're training very linearly and they're doing it with, with 0 circadian foundation, which we'll get into it later.

6:46 But when you lock in that rhythm and you, I mean it, ultimately it's benefiting your sleep, which is an area that I'm super passionate about and that people are neglecting like crazy because that's when you're going to, you know, produce your collagen, your mind is going to reinforce those habits of, you know, proprioception. And I think these people, you're leaving basically 60 to 70% of of gains on the table if you're not locking in that rhythm in the morning. Guys, if you haven't already, smash that subscribe button and the like button.

7:19 Now back to the show. Oh yeah, expertly said. Then you see a lot of top athletes like this, Erling Holland and Cristiano Ronaldo and so many people wearing blue light blocking glasses and starting to, you know, bring their awareness to the space, which is amazing because they are quite mainstream people. And even like people who are not athletes are paying attention to these things because, you know, these are the kind of individuals which create trends. And this is the kind of trends that I like to see because it's actually like a beneficial trend.

7:46 You know, I, I've got a comment on one of my previous post podcasts and they were kind of saying how everybody these days is wearing these blue light blocking glasses, but they were kind of saying it in a negative tone. And I was kind of thinking like, you should be happy that everybody is doing this because it's actually like a blessing. You know, even if people think it's trendy, it's still like a really good thing. Of course, we don't advocate for people to be wearing blue light blockers 24/7.

8:10 And while you're while you're outside, that's definitely not a good idea, you know, but you're using them at the right times. It can be like a really powerful tool. So maybe tell the audience and the athletes what's so damaging about, you know, using blue light after sunset, using being exposed to blue light in general, and what should we do about it? I think ultimately the the biggest hindrance of abusing artificial light, the not recognizing your circadian rhythm is the lack of water production.

8:39 I think that is that is front center in this issue because you see all these non contact injuries, a lot of Achilles tendons, a lot of Acls. And to me it makes perfect sense that those tendons are, they're dried out when you blue light is inhibiting mitochondrial function at cytochronesic oxidase. And it is just absolutely killing our water production, our cellular water production. And people don't realize that all of your, yes, you have your super cosmic nucleus that is anchoring that rhythm. But you distally, you have all of these clocks within your tendons, within your fascia, within your muscles that you know they need to be working properly in order to produce water, to make everything function right, glide and move and, and stretch and react basically.

9:28 So, you know, the lack of water, I think is killing the that connection between your fashion and your muscles where they need to talk. You know, when you're doing something physically that is, is tough on your body. You know, you need everything working In Sync in order for for you to avoid injury. And I think that communication is completely offline when we're drying out ourselves, drying out our muscles and tendons. So this is happening when people are basically laying in bed and scrolling their phone, right, right up until bed, basically, like, you know, and in general, I think just too much exposure over the day because I feel like even if you do protect yourself after sunset, if you've been exposed to too much blue light, even during the daytime, artificial blue light we're talking about here, not an actual full spectrum light coming from the sun, which is, you know, with the with the blue light coming from the sun, which has many incredible benefits for syncing the circadian rhythm and so on.

10:21 But basically, yeah, it's just damaging the body on so many different levels. And so this is really impacting people's sleep. And then therefore, it's going to impact, you know, their tissue repair and regeneration, as you're mentioning. But it's also happening on a mitochondrial level in real time. What kind of solutions can we give people you know for this situation? So I think when you start from the ground up, you know, a lot of these athletes are, you know, hormetic stress is good. It's good, good to, you know, test your body and push your body.

10:51 But when you don't have things like testosterone being produced, your cortisol is all out of whack and your body's in, you know, this fight or flight sympathetic mode, you know, it kind of creates chaos. And the whole basis of circadian biology is reducing that chaos and being able to control it and use it properly. So when you're sitting there scrolling your phone at night, it doesn't matter that you did 2 workouts today because you're completely inhibiting your ability to repair at night. And that repair is what's going to prevent injury and then also make you a better athlete.

11:26 And this applies for everyone, obviously. As you said, athletes are humans first. These people, you know, I see a lot of older people, they, they can barely get up out of a chair. They can't walk. You know, it's the same, it's the same concept. It's just applied at different levels. So that, that blue light at night is, is super damaging just because it's, you know, that signal from your phone is telling your body it's the middle of the day. It's a very narrow wavelength of light, a very sharp blue peak.

11:54 And that's, it's essentially telling your body it's noon, you know, And so all of those processes that are going to help you repair that melatonin at night is going to be suppressed and you can't enter, you can't enter deep sleep, which is where everything is going to happen with your, your muscles, tendons and ligaments. And so basically you're saying the adaptation doesn't take place. Am I correct? Exactly, exactly. You're, you're stressing your body and you're not allowing, you know, that proper recovery to to respond to that stress.

12:24 Yeah, it's, it's absolutely wild. I noticed myself personally that even in the daytime, if I use a lot of my tech, you know, if I have to, you know, work a lot on my computer and my phone, even if I do it outside as well, like it's just so hard for my body. You know, You can't just get away with doing multiple hours in a row using your tech. Unfortunately, it comes with consequences like no matter in which environment you do it, of course it's better to do it outdoors 100%, but it's still damaging, I feel because of the non-native EMF's coming from these devices to do them like, you know, to use them many hours in a row.

12:59 And it's so important to build these healthy tech habits. I feel like into our routines where we're, you know, for every hour that we use our tech, we take 515 minutes off, you know, we look into the horizon, we move our bodies a little bit. We do something like this because I notice how much it actually impairs my performance. Personally, when I, if I use my tech until like early after afternoon or lunchtime and I have my workout within one hour from then, I noticed that my performance is really diminished.

13:27 Whereas if I don't do that and I have had a couple of hours to recover from my tech use, then I just noticed that I have so much more energy. Can you maybe like explain like what's going on there? Do you know the mechanism of why I would feel like this? Absolutely. Yeah. I think, I mean, it all goes back to EMF is damaging you in the same way that blue light at night, it's drying out your cells, it's not allowing that your mitochondria to function properly. And you know, I know I'm hyper aware to it.

13:57 But now if I'm on, if I'm holding my phone for an extended period of time, like I can feel it in my hands, you know, like my hand feels tight. So you know, a lot of people, Tristan Scott's a great resource when it comes to EMF and we're being assaulted pretty much from every level. And there's a, there's a lot of really easy, simple solutions to, to fix a lot of the stuff like turn your Wi-Fi off at night. You can just reduce the amount of time you're on your phone at the very least. That's basically the, the biggest impact you can have is just reduce the amount of time you're sitting there scrolling that poor lights entering your eyes.

14:35 But I, I experienced this first hand when I was playing in Spain. I would have, I was living exactly opposite as I would, I would Live Today because I would, I was using air pods every day. I would be, you know, there's a six hour time difference. So I was talking, I would stay up till like 2-3 in the morning just to talk to people back home and I would sleep in late. I wouldn't get the morning sun and you know, I, I was always a super durable player here in the United States when I was aligned.

15:07 I didn't realize I was, but I was at the time and over there, I was completely out of whack. You know, I, I, I got an ankle injury and it took so long to heal normally I could get, I could roll an ankle here and you know, I'd be back under a week. This ankle injury specifically was, you know, it took 2-3 weeks and I still was, I was about 80%. So and I really believe that how I was living, how misaligned circadian Lee I was that really affected my recovery and you know, my my body's ability to bounce back.

15:43 Imagine spiking your blood sugar without eating cake. Elevating course is all your stress hormone without being stressed and suppressing your body's most powerful sleep. Antioxidant and regeneration hormone, which is your melatonin. This is why I make sure to wear my yellow daytime blue light blocking glasses every time where I spend time indoors under artificial lights and in front of screens to protect my eyes from oxidative stress and my entire body. And if I'm going to be exposed artificial blue light, especially after sunset, I'm going to wear my red lens blue light blocking glasses to support my melatonin production and release.

16:15 So if you want to protect your energy levels, sleep and biology from artificial blue light, head over to the description and you will find all of the links with a massive discount on my favorite blue light blocking glasses. So what are you actually seeing the athletes are doing today? Like what kind of mistakes do you think they are doing that you are noticing from the sidelines Since you've been an athlete and you understand how they operate, What kind of mistakes are they making which are actually hindering their performance and inhibiting the recovery?

16:44 You already mentioned blue lights and non-native BMFS, but maybe can you go into the specifics so people can actually understand their habits and behaviors which are resulting in these issues? Absolutely. I think it all, like I said before, it all ties back to your ability to recover and everything you do during the day is, is pretty much, you know what I see in, in young athletes, especially the, the younger generation coming up, they are on their phone 24/7. That thing is glued to their body. And then, you know, overtraining is a is a real issue as well, because overtraining isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's a bad thing when you're not putting your body in a position to recover.

17:23 Yes. And I, and I think that, you know, people now are starting younger and younger with sport specific movements and you know, they're training their body in one line of movement. And you see, so that their body's not able to react when, you know, you have to take a awkward step or, you know, you see a lot with Achilles, like when your, your, your toes hit the ground and then your heel hit the hits the ground behind you. Yes, their Achilles are snapping, you know, because their body is just trained in such a, a silo of movement.

17:55 You know, they don't, they're not barefoot ever. I think feet is a big issue today. Kids are wearing shoes 24/7 and, you know, everything starts from the ground up in terms of movement. So those those feet, the muscles in your feet are weak and they're not able to deal with movements that you're not accustomed to. So I think diversifying movement is a huge piece that a lot of people are just, you know, they're kind of neglecting. And I've seen even Antonio Brown talked about this, the the power of strengthening your feet.

18:31 You know, you that that's a big thing he had as a wide receiver in the NFL. And I think pretty much anyone can benefit from doing simple, honestly, step one is take off your shoes and and connect to the ground. Yeah, which I mean, it sounds crazy to have to tell people to do, but no one does it. But yeah, I think giving the body the ability to be durable, react and, you know, deal with any type of situation that happens. And like I said before, that also ties into keeping everything in your body hydrated.

19:05 But yeah, it's it's a real issue. And I think the injuries today are, you know, they're, they're really speaking to what people are doing long. So you mentioned phones, so their phones glued to their body like not all the time wearing shoes, doing linear movements, keep going down the rabbit hole. Is there anything else that they're doing that's hindering their performance recovery? Absolutely. And I mean, nutrition plays a piece here to a lot of people. You know, they're, they're just kind of, they're eating what's available.

19:36 And I, I know it's probably the same over there, but in America, what's available is pretty much crap. You know, if you can eat local seasonal food, I'm a big proponent of, you know, high quality red, red meat locally sourced just to, you know, collagen is a, is a massive piece in this puzzle. And I think that creating collagen is something that people aren't really, you know, it's, I can't, I, I talk all the time. I can't believe that these $100 million athletes are just like collagen is something no one's even talking about.

20:12 And obviously, you know, you can take collagen peptides and everything, but eating something like ground beef is amazing. There's a ton of collagen in there. And you make collagen at night during deep sleep. So anytime you're inhibiting your ability to get into that deep sleep, that collagen is not going to be produced. Collagen has a million circadian clock genes within it, not just, you know, it's, so it's, it's more than just seeing that morning sunrise. It's, it's respecting those clock genes throughout the day.

20:43 And if you're inside, no matter what, if you're inside under artificial light, that is giving the wrong signal to those clock genes. And it's just pushing, it's just kicking the can down the road of when your body can repair that collagen. So if you're working out all day, you know, you're breaking it down, which is fine, but then you need to put your body in a position to where it can build it back up at night during that deep sleep. And I think athletes are just completely missing that. We've probably heard about red light therapy before and all the incredible benefits that it has to offer, but unfortunately, not all panels on the market are created equally.

21:14 And This is why I only use and trust the ones that have put in the description below. They have the highest quality panels on the market from build quality, a aesthetics and functionality. So if you want a massive 40% discount on my favorite red light therapy panels, head to the description below and make sure to use the promo code attached to get a massive 40% discount. Wow, well said like that was awesome. Yeah. It's so important for people to understand this and especially if they care about longevity, not only about just this immediate short term performance, but actually living healthy for the long term, moving well for the long term, being functional and capable.

21:48 I think a lot of people are very short sighted. You know, when when people are young, it makes sense. You know, when I was in my 20s, I wasn't thinking about my 30s, but now that I'm, you know, 30 years old, I'm starting to pay a lot more attention to the things that I do in my life. I'm a lot more intentional with my habits and behaviors. I noticed that there are a lot of things that impact me way more now than they used in my 20s. And I wish I knew a lot more things when I was in my early 20s versus like, you know, I learned them when I was, you know, 2627.

22:19 You know, I haven't been doing this stuff that many years. I mean, I learned, I learned about Doctor Jack Cruz's work in 2019. It's been around six years when I've been, you know, doing circadian and quantum biology stuff. But I wish I knew about it earlier because I actually feel like I lost a lot of years of my life in terms of, you know, quality because I was also doing a plant based diet when I discovered Doctor Jack Cruz's work too. So I was, you know, doing all the all that kind of stuff. Do you see any athletes these days doing any plant based diets?

22:50 Or you know, I've, I've played with a few kids who who were plant based. Not I mean, there's a here's his name, Lance Curse, I think is his name. He he's a plant based guy, plant based athlete. And I mean, he's a beast. He's huge. He's but you know, he's of African descent. I think that might play a piece into it. A lot of these guys, you know, they can deal with a plant based diet, but if you're like a Northern European such as myself, you know, I don't really think you can get away with it, especially being an athlete.

23:25 So and I, I've experimented with that as well and I just found it, it didn't work well with my body. I was, I, I felt, I don't know, it was weird that when I was eating majority plant based, I felt lower energy, I felt a little bit moodier, which is weird. And I, I, I think my testosterone was all over the place at that point, to be honest. And so I, I, I think you can get a ton of benefit as an athlete, you know, focusing on those animal proteins and especially, you know, it's all dependent on where you are as well.

24:00 You know, here in Florida, you can, you can eat it's, you know, vegetables and fruit all year round because it's growing all year round. And up up north, up north, people, this is an area where people need to improve as well because there's, you know, very little sunshine. Nothing should be growing at that point. And you know, you have people before practice eating bananas and fruit and because it's available to them, but it's not necessarily the right signal to your body. And a lot of people speak in the northern latitudes, you know, when you don't have that vitamin D available to you, melatonin really picks up the slack because you know, how you have these much darker days, much longer nights, And you need to respect that rhythm of your body so you can produce that melatonin to, you know, soak up all that extra oxidative stress in your body.

24:50 And I think if you're a Northern athlete, this can be a huge, huge piece for you. And is there some ways that these Northern athletes can mitigate some of the damage? Like is there some bio they can implement or what would be your tips for them? For Northern athletes, I would say you need to embrace the darkness absolutely is number 1. You know, you have the sun's going to set it like 4:00 PM up there. So you know, when that sun is setting going down, you need to, you absolutely need to, you know, dim your lights, get blue blockers on.

25:23 And another piece of this is, you know, eat when the sun is available. I think that's a huge piece that people are missing. And I get it. You know, you got late practice and you're, you're, you're wired to think I need to eat. But I think the best thing for your body, especially if the sun has gone down, is is to to avoid food and not eat and allow your body to really get into that recovery process. Yeah, I think a lot of people have this idea that they always need to keep eating. They don't realize that you can get in the majority of your calories earlier on in the day.

25:54 And it's not like your body is somehow not going to know how to, you know, funnel them into your muscles or recover you. So if you eat earlier, a way, way bigger meal or all of your calories way before then you would normally would, then that means that your, your window of eating is more compact. And that means you would be more full even though you don't feel like eating, but you force yourself to eat anyway because that's how much your body actually requires in a day in order to maintain itself and perform at the highest level.

26:24 Again, what we talked about that consistency there and then. So if you do that, then no way you will be feeling hungry after the practice. You'll actually just be feeling like you're just still digesting your food, you know, because you're, you've eaten so much that you, you'll be feeling like, OK, now I feel normal. And then you'll be able to go into a deeper sleep because you're going to be more insulin sensitive and your insulin is not going to be as high and interfering with your melatonin, interfering with, with your sleep because insulin and melatonin go work against each other.

26:55 So when insulin is high, it, you know, blocks melatonin. And so when insulin is low, melatonin can rise and people can start to feel more sleepy and they can get into that deep restorative and regenerative sleep. I think a lot of people don't realize that sleep is not just for sleeping. You don't just go to bed like just to lay there for 8 hours and magically like everything is fixed. But in order for the regeneration to take place, like Brett is saying, we actually need to honor these cycles, the light and the dark cycle.

27:24 That's why Brett was saying about the blue light blocking glasses because people still, I don't understand why you would wear them. And the reason is because as Brett was explaining previously about the blue light spike in your cortisol in your body thinking that it's midday the entire day. Obviously, then your body has no reason to produce and release melatonin. And so if melatonin is not high, you can't get, you know, tired and feel sleepy and relaxed and getting to that deep and restorative regenerative sleep.

27:51 And tell me a little bit about hormones. What what can people do to optimize their hormones, You know, especially for athletes because, you know, we understand the athletes really rely on good optimal hormones in order to build muscle mass, to perform at the highest level and to recover. So what can people do to improve their hormone levels? I think it all kind of ties into your cortisol and managing your cortisol and and allowing for the correct, you know, rise and then leveling out of that cortisol through the day.

28:22 And that's why I want to hammer home the point of that you made of front loading calories and loading carbohydrates as well. You know, when you wake up, your, your body is craving carbohydrates. Honestly, it's, it's ready for that. You know, you're extremely insulin sensitive. You know, I start every day with, you know, pound of ground beef and quite a bit of, you know, whatever root vegetables, some rice sometimes. And that's made a huge difference for me. So I think the, the better you can manage that cortisol downstream, your testosterone, your estrogen, everything else is going to, you know, it's going to level out and it'll, it'll get to the level that it's, it's supposed to be at.

29:00 Whereas if you have that cortisol, you know, let's say you skip breakfast, have a have a coffee and then your cortisol spiking at the wrong time. Then you're on your phone late at night. It's staying high downstream. You're not gonna be able to produce those things like testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, progesterone at the top. But all those things are gonna be inhibited. And I think, you know, hormones are a huge piece in, in the athlete story because they help not only your body, but they help your mind.

29:30 They, they help you be consistent and steady. I think when people's hormones are out of whack, you know, they're, they're all over the place. And I've experienced it a ton with, you know, teammates that they come into practice and they're Moody everyday and they're just so inconsistent and they can't, they can't get it together. And I, I think that's a huge piece because they're just neglecting all of these things early in the day that later on, you know, they, they fall apart. So yeah, the keyword there was cortisol.

29:58 And I guess in all of this comes to stress management because that goes hand in hand, right? Stress elevation, you know, stress hormone elevation. And so we talked about the blue lights. You talked a little bit there about skipping breakfast. So I, I guess you would be against fasting then, you know, you know, training on an empty stomach, maybe drinking coffee on an empty stomach. Is there any other things that maybe you wouldn't recommend for people in order to manage their stress better? Or is are there some other practices that you recommend for people to use in order to manage their stress?

30:34 Absolutely. I think the breath is, is, you know, right at the top of that list for managing your stress. People are in such a stressful state all day. They, their mouth breathing, they have no idea how to, you know, be within themselves and feel their body and listen to their body. And if you just take, you know, 1020 minutes in a, in a day and practice, you know, these deep inhales, breath holds, extended exhales to just kind of level out and, you know, enter back into that parasympathetic state.

31:06 I think you see it a lot too with athletes. You know, it's nothing is more, you know, frightening as a player when you see on the other side that the other team is just, you know, their mouth breathe their their nose breathing, they're barely broken a sweat and they're just in a this flow state. They're relaxed. They're ready to, you know, react. And that's the key as an athlete is being able to play at a super high pace while also remaining in that parasympathetic state. And you see it all the time when someone goes to the free throw line, people, you know, even though when I was younger, they'd be like, just take, take a deep breath.

31:42 And you didn't really, you know, you kind of brushed over it. But if you're in a game or a match or whatever, and you can take, you know, a minute and just do some deep breaths, you know, regain control of your mind, your body. And nothing is good when you're in a stressful state, you're, you know, nothing's going to be operating to its full capacity. And I think breath work is amazing. You've had Brooke on here from Musical Breath Work. She's great. I think that's an awesome resource if you want to really dive into how to control your breath and and connect that to your body.

32:13 Muscle cramps, eye twitching, headaches, agitation and stress. Those are all signs that I have magnesium deficiency. I can always tell when I haven't taken my magnesium. You see, magnesium is an absolutely essential mineral and is required in over 600 biochemical reactions across the body. I'm pretty sure we've all experienced that calf cramp in the middle of the night and that is most likely due to a mineral or magnesium deficiency. And the reason why most individuals are deficient in magnesium these days is because stress depletes magnesium.

32:42 And tell me a single person in this world who is in stress right now, whether that is physical or psychological stress. Magnesium is something that I'm very religious about taking every single evening before I go to bed because I don't only want to sleep 8 hours, I want to have a deep and restorative sleep. I know that when I've taken my magnesium, I wake up feeling relaxed and refreshed. So if you want to discover the magnesium that I use on a daily basis, you want to make sure that you head over to the description below and use the promo code attached to get discount on your entire order.

33:09 Absolutely. And then that came to mind for me about the mindset. You talked a little bit about the mind and people being Moody. And OK, that's not so much to do with mindset that has to do with your neurotransmitters. But I kind of feel like your Physiology governs so much of your mindset, the how you think, you know, and then that reinforces a specific state like what you mentioned there about that flow state. And people don't actually realize that this flow state gets activated when by doing repetition, but by doing something that's natural for the body.

33:42 Or you can be doing something that is, you know, creative as well. You can be writing on the computer, for example, you can be drawing, you can be running, you can be doing something where you are fully engaged emerged in the task. Basically, that's what you know, what you consider a flow state. And I feel that that is combined with optimism and good breathing mechanics. And you just when you get into this state of being where your body is sort of aligned in the way that it should, you know, hormonally and, and spiritually, you know, I think that mindset is so important to understand.

34:14 Like, how important do you think it is the athletes try to optimize their body in order to fix their mindset? Because, you know, we know how important this is. Absolutely. It's, you know, it's everything. And I think that the the return to nature is something that athletes are missing as well. You know, it's, it's hard to enter that flow state and really connect with yourself when you're inside. You're under poor lighting. You have all this tech, you know, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, you know, you have screens all around you.

34:42 I think the second you can, you know, remove yourself from that situation because all that's all those things are stressing your body without you even knowing it. So the return to nature, everything outside is trying to calm you down. You know, the sound of the leaves, the touching of the earth, you know, the light frequencies you're getting, even the air, the purified air. So the, the more time you can spend outside, you know, outside of your athletic activity, because I as a basketball player, especially growing up in the North, you know, you're, you're in the gym all day, you know, and that's the only place you are.

35:19 That's terrible lighting. It's bad air. So I think if I was, if I knew what I know, know now, I would have spent much more time outside whenever I could, even if it's cold outside and we can touch on cold exposure as well. That's a big help think managing stress through cold exposure can be a great asset. You know, a lot of people say that it's cold exposure is spiking your cortisol too much. But you know, Tom Seeger has said multiple times the once you do it enough, yes, you don't get that huge cortisol spike in your body.

35:52 Exactly. You know, essentially you're building this resilience to stress. Yes. And I think that's a huge piece. If athletes want to implement cold exposure before their training, before practice rather than after, I think that's a big switch a lot of people can make to kind of keep that stress under control and and you know, tone their bodies to deal with stress. Oh, that's fantastic that you actually mentioned that because I just released an episode today. Well, it's a Christmas edition episode for people to to not get fat over this Christmas time.

36:25 And one of the things that I was mentioning, one of the things that I was mentioning in that episode was how resistance training and high intensity training itself because it's so stressful on the body. When you have finished that activity, your body now perceives obviously the not doing relaxing as something safe. And so you have that contrast, right? Whereas when everyday people are living their lives in this sort of moderate stress where they're not experiencing deliberate intentional spikes of stress, then that basically doesn't give the brain any perspective.

36:57 So basically just thinks that everything that you're doing in life is trying to kill you. But if you actually are intentionally, you know, doing a workout or doing a nice path or doing something hard standing on nail boards or something like this, it gives your brain this understanding standing, this is the hard thing. And when the hard thing is over, it understands that, OK, now I can shift back into that parasympathetic state. And we know that the state of the nervous system governs so much of our healing, our regeneration, our repair, our detoxification.

37:26 And if we're not in that right state, if we're not in the parasympathetic state, we're not actually going to achieve all those things. So we can be doing all the things in the world, but if we're all the time stressed out and if we're not, you know, managing our stress and if we're not doing intentional stress, then, you know, it's not really going to benefit us. So we talked a lot about foundations. We talked a lot about nature, sunlight, sleep, cold. Let's dive into a little bit of biohacking now, because I think this is, you know, after we address foundation, then I think it's, it's good to talk about how can we take our performance to the next level?

38:01 Because I don't see anything wrong with biohacking as long as you've addressed your foundation first. If you've got your sleep right, you're doing your sunlight, you're doing all the things you're eating right and, and you're recovering well, then I think you can add, you know, some of some biohacks into your life to further assist recovery, regeneration, you know, get back stronger, you know, faster. So what are some of your favorite biohacks that you know people can use in order to improve their performance?

38:27 Absolutely. I think you made a great point there where, you know, you don't just jump to the biohacking. You know, you have to nail down all of those foundational things that we said and then then go from there to kind of go to that next level. That's, you know, that's where you see people like Holland and Marcus Urente, like they're going to that next level of elite athlete. And you know, the, the number one biohack is, is blue light blockers. I think personally, because you know, you're put in so many situations where you can't control the light environment.

38:56 You know, it's just life. You're not, you're not going to have lights out when the sun's down all the time. It's just it's just not going to happen, especially as an athlete, you know, traveling. So I think blue light blockers, good quality blue light blockers are a great, great thing. And also, you know, I talked to Cameron Borg about this, but finding a fit of blue light blockers is big too. You know, it's not always necessarily, you know, some people react differently to monochromatic light. Yes.

39:23 So, you know, listen to your body and if you're if you don't react Gray to the dark red, you know, go light or go maybe even orange, yes, or amber. The second piece of that is the lighting in your house is, is huge and it is such an easy, simple fix because the first step is just turning off turning off the lights. You don't need to necessarily run out and get like all these different crazy lights. If you can get a lamp, yeah, no, but you're doing it right. No, but if you can get a lamp that's, you know, there's a big difference too from overhead light versus light coming from the ground.

40:00 So a lamp that's sitting on the ground with these nice like red or amber tones, because it's not only the frequency of light, but it's, you know, how much like how bright the lux of that light. So if you can do more dim, you can make your home at night. You know, I think that's such low hanging fruit for a lot of athletes and meal timing is is for me is like such a big bio hack. Oh, nice front loaded front load your calories and if you can, refrain from eating once the Suns down. I've made a huge change within the last five or six months of being really strict on that and I see a massive difference.

40:39 It feels when I'm ready to go to bed and I haven't eaten for two, 3-4 hours. It feels like my body's ready to enter into that recovery state. It's just built into our brains, our culture to you just eat, yo, you got to eat dinner. You don't, you have to eat 3 meals a day. You know, I it's just, I think you know, following those simple rules can can make a huge difference for now. How about weight management? Have you noticed anything with your weight since you started eating your dinner earlier?

41:12 You know, I, I don't, I, my weight is so consistent now that I'm locked into to what I'm doing. It's I, it's really, it would be really hard for me to get fat. Like I think it would be like virtually impossible to with doing all the things that I do. And I think that's, that goes for everybody. If they're, if they're strict about it and they're living correctly, I think, you know, you can see people who they don't change their diet at all and they lock into this circadian rhythm and they, they just shed weight.

41:41 They shed pounds. Yes. That all ties into, you know, seeing that morning light that beta oxidation is kicked into effect and you start using your fat rather than holding on to it. It's a hard thing for people to understand. And if you're really out of sync and you've been out of sync for a long time, it's going to take just as long to to lock that rhythm back in. So you have to be super consistent for an extended period of time. If you know, if you're 50, sixty, 100 lbs overweight, it's going to, it's going to take quite a bit of effort.

42:12 But I think it's that effort is something as simple as turning the lights off, you know, or not eating past a certain time. You know, it's not like you have to go run a, a marathon. You know, it's, it's just that consistency in your daily habits that's, that's going to change everything. Yeah, and I, I think there's something beautiful, you know, with the seasons as well, you know, respecting the seasons and as you mentioned, you know, going, you know, shutting the lights off earlier in the night and, you know, making everything more dim and, and stopping your eating as well, like just the sunset time.

42:43 And because if you honor the cycles, you notice that by design, you would fast naturally more in the winter time compared to the summertime, because in the summertime we have a way bigger like light window. So we can eat, you know, more throughout the day. We can eat more energy and we can eat more meals throughout the day. Whereas like in the winter time, it's more of a time of regeneration and repair. And we kind of know that fasting is quite incredible at, you know, removing mutated cells and kind of repairing the body like this.

43:14 But only those things only really take place when we are not eating all the time because, you know, we tend to forget that, you know, our body is constantly scanning the food that we eat, right? And it's it's kind of like a stressor on the body. So we actually never give our body that rest when we don't abstain from food. And that's why I think fasting can be an incredible tool. But done the right way, like nature's way, and nature has done it by design, so that even in the summertime, even if your sunsets at 8:00 PM, if you stop your eating at 8:00, then you're still going to have quite many hours of fasting until 6:00 AM with the sunrise, you know, but most people are still eating just, you know, way, way, way too long throughout the day.

43:57 So you mentioned blue light blockers, lighting in the house, eating, you know, within the light and dark cycles. Anything else in terms of biohacks? Think biohacking is you know, it's I've gone through a lot of supplementation wise. I don't I don't do a ton. You know, I actually do very little just because I feel feel really good and I don't really, you know, I don't want to mess with anything if if everything, if it's working, you know, I'm not going to fix it. But well, I think temperature is a good biohack.

44:33 Your your body temperature, a cold sleeping environment. And that's something that feeds into eating late at night. It's a you know, digestion is a very energy dense process. So. It's creating heat. Yeah. It's raising your body temperature. So the later you eat, the bigger meals that you're eating at night, that's going to keep your body temp elevated late into the night, which is the opposite circadian signal that it's supposed to be receiving. You should be, you know, right before you wake up is about like the coldest your body temperature should be.

45:05 So I keep my house pretty 68°, you know, nice and cool and you know, a dark cold sleeping environment is is elite. Yeah, in the summertime I really suffer here in Cyprus because it gets really, really hot here. I don't know how much it is in Fahrenheit, but it's it's pretty hot. You could say it's Texas hot here. And, and basically, you know, it's really uncomfortable when I wake up in the morning because I'm kind of like soaking in my own sweat. But I don't use any air. I don't use any air conditioning.

45:35 I always have my windows always open. Like I try to have them open in the winter time as well. And even in the winter time, I try not to use so much heating and try to be outside as much as I can get in the sea as much as I can. In the winter time, to be honest, I sleep a lot, lot better compared to the summertime because summertime is like, OK, Going towards the summer, it starts to get very comfortable because I don't need to cover myself. I can just lay on top of my bed just naked. But then when it gets towards the middle of the summer, I can't control, you know, that intense heat and it's just wild.

46:06 I don't know what to do about it. Of course, I can put the, you know, the air con on and cool my room down. And I know that actually sleeping in a cool room is better, but I still feel that I need to experience that temperature because that's my natural environment. And actually this is where I was born as well. So I kind of feel that my body is supposed to experience this temperature. What's your thoughts on that? Well, I think it's, you're doing exactly what you should do is you're respecting the environment you live in and you're exposing yourself to that environment.

46:35 You know, if it's hot there and it's supposed to be hot there. So it's, you know, it's, I think if you're in tune with what nature's putting it out like, it's, it's perfect. And that's Tristan Scott always posts his thermostat in his house in Wyoming and it's like freezing in his house. He doesn't turn on the heat, you know, but that's, that's the signal you're supposed to be receiving at that time. That's what your body's, you know, supposed to be used to. So I I think you can't go wrong if you're you're observing nature's.

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47:29 Shilajit is loaded with ionic minerals which are the most biocompatible with our human body. It also has a very high concentration of folvic acid. This folvic acid allows those minerals to get into the cell and do their work. Minerals are absolutely essential for all processes of the body. I'm having good energy levels, enhanced cognitive function, hormone optimization and so much more. You name it. This is why I use shilajit on a daily basis because it works on a foundational level, on a mitochondrial level, and we know that we need healthy mitochondria in order to produce cellular energy.

47:59 Something very important to mention is the quality of shilajit. The one I use has been tested for heavy metals and impurities, ensuring the highest quality shilajit. So if you want to experience this incredible ancient substance and find the one that I use on a daily basis, head over to the description below and use the promo code attached to get a discount on your entire order. You talked a little bit about supplementation there. I'm wondering like, is there any like low hanging fruit? Like what are some of your favorite supplements which are not somehow crazy, but are that you wouldn't go a day without?

48:30 Like I know I have some. I'll let you share yours first.

48:36 To be honest, all I use shill legit and that's about it. That's pretty much it. I use shill legit and just good, good quality sea salt. I think the brand I have is from France. It's it's really good Nice, but that's virtually the only supplements that I take. I try and a big change in my diet that I've been trying to implement is just more seafood. You know, I've been upping the, the sardine intake and I'm telling you, like I, I don't know if it's placebo or not, but I feel amazing after it implementing more sardines into my diet.

49:10 I think, you know, it's not only just a, a high, quick, high protein snack, but it's, you know, the DHA, you get the Omega threes, that fish oil, the natural fish oil is absolutely amazing. I think that if like if that counts as a biohack, I think sardines sardines are the way to go. Yeah. So basically you said they're Omega threes and a lot of athletes, they take Omega threes because they're known for being anti-inflammatory, very, very good for recovery. There's so much research when it comes to recovering and adapting faster to, you know, stress.

49:44 So they are like a really big deal. But as you mentioned, I think it's so important to emphasize the natural form getting it through food because I feel like there are so many supplements out there that go runcid, you know, on the shelves and they get destroyed by the time that people take them. I think people need to be very much aware of this that, you know, fish oil is a very, it's, it's basically a polyunsaturated fatty acid, which makes it more vulnerable to oxidative, you know, stress and heat and light and all of the temperature changes.

50:14 Anytime when you extract something out of, you know, the matrix, most likely it's not going to result in the same benefit it as eating it within the matrix. You know, it's like the same thing as we talk about table sugar versus eating fruits. You know, it's like a completely different story. You know, the glycemic impact on your blood sugar and your insulin response, all of this. There is a difference. You know, fruits come with the fiber, they come with the antioxidants. So in a way, like nature has packaged everything by design.

50:43 But when we as human beings fiddle with things and we mess around, you know, it kind of feels like, you know, we're really like playing with fire, really. Absolutely. And I think that's a huge problem with fish oil. I talked to Justine Stanger about this and most of that fish oil that you get, unless you're, you know, there's a very select few that are sourcing it correctly, it's all not even in a usable form for your body. You can't, you literally can't even use it. Yeah, so and IA lot of people like, oh, I'm taking my omega-3.

51:14 Same thing with the vitamin D supplementation. You know, these, these are such reductionistic ways to look at how the body's working. And as you said, nature is perfectly packaged. All of these things, you know, they're in the living form. They have everything in it to, you know, you eat fruit, it has all the fiber in it to manage the glucose intake. It's it's all made perfectly for us. I think we're over complicating a lot of this stuff. And as you said, supplementation is kind of it's, it's almost kind of become an arm of big pharma these days.

51:47 You know, they, they've, they people run to that because they're, oh, I can just take a pill and it'll fix whatever issue I have. It's just, it's almost the same as all of you know, it's it's kind of become an arm of the medical establishment in my opinion, because it's become so captured, yes, by big corporations that they they ignore all of this. They ignore that the body is a living breathing system that needs to use things, needs to have things in a usable form. Yeah, that's why I would say skip the the fish oil supplement and just eat fish.

52:23 Oh yeah, and what you said there about the vitamin D as well, I think it's so important for people and athletes, especially if you care about your performance and your testosterone, your insulin sensitivity. You have to build good solar habits and educate yourself on, you know, circadian and quantum biology. I recommend people check out my episodes with Zaid the Hajj, where we go deep, deep on all things circadian and quantum biology and the myths. Yeah, the myths around skin cancer in sunlight because you know, a lot of people hear these discussions but then they are like well how am I supposed to do it without getting burnt and stuff like that?

53:00 No one said you have to lay in the in the sun for 8 hours. You know, it for myself personally in the summertime, you know, yes, I am as much as I can out during morning hours when UV light is is still not, you know, so intense during, during when the UV index is the highest and maybe one hour Max outside. And then after I take a break in shade and then after I can be outside again during afternoon hours when UV index is going lower. And this is the way I go around with sunlight. I just get as much morning light as I can from, you know, 6 until 10 or 11, then I'm in the shade and then I'm going to get, you know, one hour midday sun for that vitamin D boost.

53:39 And then after that, you know, just a little bit of afternoon sun and that's it. You don't have to overdo the sunlight. You just have to know how to implement it into your life and use common sense really. If your body is telling you you want to get in the shade, of course you get in the shade. You know, it's like your body has an inbuilt mechanism to tell you that you feel uncomfortable. And of course, a lot of people you know, with social media these days, they're here. No pain, no gain, or you need to bypass your, you know, discomforts.

54:07 But it doesn't apply like in all areas, you know, like you, if you're feeling like you're getting burnt, obviously it's a good idea to get in the shade and build up tolerance. And the right time to get in the sun is now that it's winter time, every single day leading after summertime. Because the biggest mistake I see people do is that, you know, they go in the summer in the sun because it's comfortable, because it's warm and they can be without clothes. But in reality, you want to go now outside with your shirts off in the morning, like in the midday sun when there's basically no UV available or even very little UV in most places of the world.

54:39 And you're going to get so many benefits. And then you can build your tolerance to the sun. And if you do this every single day, every single day, like this is what we talked about the beginning about the consistency. If you respect that consistency, your body is going to respond accordingly and you're going to have that adaptation. Just like with training, you're going to come back stronger on your skin and your whole biology is going to respond very positively to the sun. But if you obviously just decide, OK, hear this podcast and then in the summer go in the sun and then you get burnt and then you blame us because you burn, you know, it just doesn't make any sense.

55:13 It's, it's such a common sense issue, the sun exposure, the whole sun exposure thing. I can't believe that people have a, a really hard time grasping it. You know, like I made a post once and I was just sitting outside. I was like, if you just observe your literally your dog, it will get hot and then it'll walk over and sit in the shade. You know, it's, it's, it's not rocket science, but I think, you know, even for athletes, we didn't even really touch on some of the sun exposure things that athletes can benefit from.

55:44 I think once you build that solar callus and you know, you're out in the sun consistently. So that, I mean, I literally I couldn't get a sunburn if I tried. But when I'm out because I'm just in the sun so often, yes, but I use it correctly. You know, I, I get morning light every single day. I expose myself to the UV when it's available and it, you know, like as you said, high UV power Max and then I'm in the shade. But there's, there's a million things that athletes can benefit from from being in the sun, such as just the very fact that the sun is about 50% infrared light red and infrared that is building up all the, all the mitochondria in your body.

56:24 If they're going to produce more water, it's going to reduce inflammation. You know, you see all these studies coming out now on infrared light, it's kind of becoming a little more mainstream, but it, it's absolutely the one of the best recovery tools that you can implement into, into your athletic lifestyle. Not to mention you're going to produce nitric oxide, your blood vessels are going to vasodilate and you're going to, you know, you, if you work out outside, you understand this. So you get twice as good of a pump, your muscles feel amazing, and then your recovery is is much faster than if you were in a blue lit gym.

56:59 So I think as it for an athlete, I think a lot of a lot of teams at whatever level, professional college, high school, I think the more you can work out outside and move some of the, you know, go do a beach workout, you know, get outside, get your players barefoot on the ground. I think you'll see injury rates plummet to be honest. Any other good tips before we close out the show? I would just say, you know, respect, respect your body and align with nature. I think that is that is the way There's so much knowledge hidden within every layer of nature.

57:33 And I think we've only just scratched the surface. I think there's, there's so much more to that we can learn. But what pretty much what I found is that when you're out in nature, the answers are there. And whether you're an athlete or you're 85 years old, you'll only benefit from spending more time outside. Whether you're just sitting in the shade, but take your shoes off, touch the ground and you know you're going to reduce injury risk, you're going to improve lifespan, improve mobility, there's there's a million things that you can benefit from just simply putting your phone down and stepping outside.

58:06 Well said. And you know, a lot of people, they don't need to necessarily know about, you know, all the different facts and the benefits of things that it has to offer. You're still going to get the benefits without actually acknowledging all of the benefits. You know, I think it just takes a lot of episodes like this and conversations for people to actually understand the importance of reconnecting with nature, getting that natural light, getting your bare feet on the ground like you mentioned, and disconnecting from technology.

58:34 Because as we're moving more and more and more into a technological driven world with more blue light, more Emfs. And I think, and another thing that we didn't mention was, you know, I to this modern life, the way it's given to us, it's extremely detrimental to our health. So if we don't actually take action to do something about it, if we just live life the way it's given to us right now, we are going to be suffering so much with our health. You know, at the way younger ages, people are going to be dying sooner.

59:04 You know, the population is already declining, people's hormone levels are tanking, infertility rates are all at all time highs. So I think it's so, so important to take action, take responsibility and dissociate yourself from the life that they have. I think everybody knows who they are, right? It's, it's, it's the people who are empowering, in control, those who are imposing the rules and the masses are going along with it because people think, you know, like when something is on a shelf in the supermarket, it wouldn't be there to hurt them or to harm them.

59:40 Most people don't. You actually realize that you need to educate yourself and just just because you can buy something, you know, from the DIY store, it doesn't mean there is for internal consumption. The same thing from the supermarket. Just because it's in the supermarket doesn't mean that you can put it inside of your body. You have to do these, you know, you need to go on deep dives, do your research and that's what me and Brett are basically doing. We try to educate you guys today to empower you to give you the knowledge and the information to give you.

1:00:08 The wisdom in order to apply into your life, because if you don't do this stuff, you know, you're just going to get, you know, stepped over by the ones in control. So where can people find you, Brett, and connect with you if they wish to do so? I'm most active on Instagram at Real Medicine. I also have my own podcast, The Medicine Podcast. It's on Spotify and YouTube. But yeah, check out, check out my information. I just post basic stuff like this. Well, Andreas, you're the man. Thank you so much.

1:00:37 You're I had a blast and I encourage everyone to listen to previous episodes that he's had. He has amazing guests on here, so this is a lot of fun. I appreciate it brother. Thank you so much. You guys enjoy the topics and guests I bring on the show. I would really appreciate it if you left me a five star review on Spotify and also subscribe to fitness wisdom podcast on YouTube as well as this helps us spread the knowledge and wisdom with the world. Until next time, this is the Fitness Wisdom Podcast.