#2450 - Tommy Wood

The Joe, Rogan, experience.

Train my day, Joe Rogan, podcast my night all day.

All right, nice to meet you, sir.

Stimulated mind.

A future proof for your brain.

Is that possible?

Future proof?

Why can't I say that?

I already have dementia.

Future proof for your brain from dementia and stay sharp at any age.

First of all, what prompted you to write this?

So I've spent a long time working in a whole range of different spheres related to the brain,

how to treat newborn brain injury, how to treat and maybe even prevent certain traumatic brain injuries and concussions,

looking at what affects long-term cognitive decline in dementia, as well as working with elite professional athletes,

particularly Formula One drivers, trying to help them stay on top of their game for as long as possible.

And I saw across all those different areas, there were these core things that the brain seems to thrive on,

that have required either for development or maintenance of cognitive function.

And these are things that people can apply to themselves on a day-to-day basis, improve their focus and well-being now,

and then long-term, that translates to a lot of risk of dementia.

So is dementia and is it a genetic thing or is it a function of atrophy?

Is it a combination of those things?

It's a combination of those things.

Certainly, there's a genetic component.

So maybe I will zoom out to start with and just think about what is dementia.

Dementia is the clinical diagnosis of losing so much cognitive function that you're not able to take care of yourself on a day-to-day basis.

There are several different types of dementia.

The most common is Alzheimer's disease.

That's something like 60 to 80% of cases of dementia.

The next most common is vascular dementia, something like 10 to 20%.

And then there are others like front to temporal dementia, Louis Body Dementia.

Dementia you get with Parkinson's disease.

But those first two, something like 70 to 90% of dementia.

They are directly tied to lifestyle in the environment.

And right now, it's estimated that somewhere between 45 and maybe even 70 or more percent of dementia are preventable.

And most of those fall into those two categories.

There is a genetic component.

So Alzheimer's disease has two broad types.

Because early onset Alzheimer's disease, that's caused by a single mutation in a single gene, something like the amyloid precursor protein gene, or one of the presinoid and genes.

Those people get Alzheimer's in their 30s to 50s.

It's a very predictable and quite rapid decline sometimes.

But that's maybe 1% of Alzheimer's.

The vast majority, like when we think about Alzheimer's, we think about an age-related dementia.

And this is much more related to the environment.

So there is a genetic component. You might have heard of ApoE4.

Yeah.

So you can have three different flavors of ApoE, ApoE protein E, two, three, and four. You get two copies.

Which is the one that makes you more likely to get CTE?

Is that two?

No, so that's four as well.

That's four as well.

Four, essentially has an effect of amplifying certain inflammatory effects in the brain.

That's probably why it makes CTE worse, makes it more likely for you to get CTE, because if you're getting repetitive impacts, repetitive injuries, then it sort of exacerbates or makes that inflammatory response worse.

But when you think about that in terms of Alzheimer's, if you have one copy of ApoE4, your risk of Alzheimer's is increased by sort of two to six times.

If you have two copies, it's six to twenty times, depending on how you look at it.

But all the data suggest that ApoE4 is a risk multiplier.

So it's not that if you have a copy of ApoE4, you're definitely going to get dementia.

It's that in the setting, particularly of the modern environment, risks of dementia or risk factors for dementia are amplified.

Accessive alcohol intake, physical inactivity, low quality diet.

So that also means that if you have, if you then address those risk factors, you have greater benefit.

Because you're offsetting some of that additional risk.

So however you look at dementia from a genetics standpoint, and it can also be family history.

If you have a family history of dementia, you have an increased risk of dementia.

But a lot of what comes with family history is shared environment and shared lifestyle.

Right? You eat and sleep and move like your parents did.

And so if they had a lifestyle that might increase their risk of dementia, you get that as well.

So even if you do have an increased genetic risk, you can offset a large part of that through lifestyle and other environmental factors.

Okay. So for some people, there's an increased genetic risk.

But do some people who do not have this increased genetic risk, do they still have a possibility of getting dementia?

Just from atrophy or just from sedentary lifestyle, no stimulation whatsoever?

Yes. So the kind of the way we would say it is that not everybody who has apoe4 gets Alzheimer's.

And most people who have Alzheimer's do not have apoe4.

So absolutely.

Okay. So is it just like everything else, like your muscles atrophy, your bones,

weak in when you don't put load on them, is that what it is?

Yeah. So that's like the core thesis of my book, right? It's called the stimulated mind.

For that reason, I think that in the, and the title is slightly provocative because in the modern world, we are hyper stimulated.

Over stimulated and nonsense.

Exactly. So we're over stimulated and under stimulated at the same time.

Right. We're getting a lot of input, but we're not doing any calculations.

We're not formulating new ideas. We're not being creative. We're not problem solving.

We're just being inundated with nonsense.

Exactly. So the function of any tissue in the body, right?

You mentioned the muscles, the bones, the liver, the immune system.

Their function is dependent on the stimulus you apply to them.

Right.

And so the brain is exactly the same. And if you want functions and networks in the brain to perform well,

you need to challenge them in order to enhance capacity.

Do you think you need to keep your liver working healthy by drinking every now and then?

So it's the example of, yes, if you drink a lot of alcohol, your liver gets better at metabolizing alcohol.

So it kind of, it proves the point, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the alcohol is there to keep your liver healthy.

Probably not.

Didn't they used to do that with people that had, if they had lung problems, they would give them cigarettes?

Yeah.

Like people with asthma?

Yeah, yeah. And that didn't turn out so great.

The theory was okay.

I think they should have just been breathing heavy.

That would have been a better application to that, right?

Yeah.

Because it's just like, you don't want to torture you.

Your lungs aren't a filter to torture you.

Yeah.

So when you started studying this, do you have someone close to you that has Alzheimer's?

Or is it just a field of study that you were interested in?

Yeah. There's two different things.

One, I focused initially on the brain early in life.

And then, you know, elite level, cognitive performance in athletes.

And you kind of see that these things sort of tied together.

Like, what happens early in life?

What happens during life affects what happens later in life.

But I also had my grandfather died of dementia.

He was an alcoholic.

And he had a combination of alcoholic, you know, alcohol-induced brain-attrophy plus vascular dementia.

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I really wonder about people today.

And this is one of the reasons why I was so interested in this.

Because what we were just talking about before, that people are being oversaturated with nonsense,

but not stimulated in any way the challenges you're making.

I mean, this is a constant state today.

And then on top of that, you've got a lot of people that are using AI throughout their day

to solve all their problems where they don't think at all.

And there's been some studies on that that show that it's a decrease in cognitive function.

Like when they asked them to actually use their brain, the brain works less well than it did before they started.

So you're not getting educated by chat CBT or any of these.

What you're doing is you're letting it think for you.

Absolutely.

So this one, maybe one of the studies you're thinking of was a study that did MIT.

And they had students write essays.

And they could either just write it using whatever they had in the head already.

Or using Google.

Or using an LLM.

And what they showed was that as you increase the amount of like outside support you got, you know, Google.

And then I think it was chat GPT.

Then there was less activity in the brain networks associated with actually doing the task.

And students remembered less well afterwards.

So, I mean, this isn't surprising.

Not at all.

You're not using your brain.

Therefore, it doesn't engage in the task.

But what's interesting is that they found a version.

So like some of the students who had previously written an essay just for themselves.

Then they asked them to go back and use chat GPT on top.

And what they found was that the final output was better.

So the way that we can use these tools,

rather than just asking it to do all the stuff for us, which is what most people are doing.

And I think we'll cause skills and maybe even parts of the brain to atrophy because they're not being used.

Is we use them as orthotics.

Like they can expand our capacities.

You try writing it all first.

And then you say, hey, what did I miss?

What am I not thinking about?

And you can kind of build on it from there.

And that might perhaps actually stimulate your mind.

I think why didn't I think of that?

Like next time I'm writing a paragraph, I'll consider these options.

Yeah, exactly.

So you actually have to fully engage your brain in that process.

But then the end result might be better.

Well, it's just such uncharted territory for us.

All this, especially social media.

I mean, completely uncharted territory that people are staring at their hand for eight hours a day.

I mean, that's really what you're doing.

You're staring at your hand and you're hoping usually unsuccessfully to get something that really excites you.

And something that's really unique and changes your perspective on things.

I mean, I think maybe when I was using social media every day, maybe once a day I would get something that was really interested in that I would save.

Oh, that's actually interesting.

And I would think, okay, that would be a good subject to bring up on the podcast.

But the rest of the time, it was just horseshit.

Well, part of the algorithm, and this, you know, I'm not an expert in training algorithms to do this.

But part of the goal of the algorithm is that you don't get everything that is perfect,

or that will immediately capture your attention up front.

Because you want it to be random.

And there's a method in the randomness that keeps you scrolling.

Because eventually you'll get those small bumps that then keep you going.

But what's particularly interesting about social media is it leverages the fact that we are social beings.

So we prioritize information that is called the acronym is prime, prestigious in-group moral and emotional.

And this is even greater in social context, right?

Because we are trying to learn about our social environment so that we can survive our group and be fitter.

And so social media makes us think that we will get that information

whilst at the same time offering us the exact opposite, which is essentially isolation.

But it leverages that desire of the human brain to find this social information and this social connection

whilst not giving us any of that.

Also, without it getting any feedback from another human being while you're communicating ideas.

So you could say the most horrible shit to people in a comment or a text message.

And you don't think about it because it's like there's not a person there.

Not right in front of you.

Yeah.

And it's like an anti-human device.

Very weird.

But I mean, if your goal is to capture attention, they're doing a great job of it.

Well, not just that.

They're acquiring enormous wealth and also enormous influence over just all sorts of things.

Politics, economics, I mean, some of the richest corporations in the world,

they gather a thing that we never thought of was valuable, which is data.

Yeah.

I mean, when people first started using these things, when people first started using the internet,

nobody really thought that data was going to be one of the biggest commodities in the world.

Yeah, but now, if they know what captures your attention and what you'll spend money on,

and that's the perfect way to get as much out of you as possible.

So the concept is future-proofing your brain.

What are the things that you think people should be doing to try to future-proof the brain,

other than avoiding social media and avoiding a lot of the stuff that we're talking about here?

So I think every tool has a possible use.

For instance, social media, if you have crafted a social media that allows you

to maintain connections that you wouldn't have otherwise,

like the original version of Facebook, as it existed 25 years ago,

was just posting pictures and you could chat with some family members.

Right.

So if you use social media like that, and there are studies that show that if you're using online tools,

including social media, and it increases communication and connection

beyond what you would have had otherwise, that can be a net benefit.

If it's all you use and it's replacing in-person human connection, then it's a net negative.

So there can be ways that it could be beneficial.

And if your Instagram feed is just like cute dogs running around in the snow,

which is what most of mine is right now, right?

That can be a nice five-minute break in between cognitively demanding tasks.

Right.

That's fine.

But when you think about future-proofing your brain,

this idea that there is some unknowable future, right?

We don't know what the future is going to look like.

But if we want to exist in that future, we're going to need good processing speed,

good decision-making skills, good working memory, good emotional and social skills, right?

And so in order to maintain those, we need to challenge and stimulate them.

So the most important thing most people can do is think about new challenging

and often creative skills, and there's a lot of evidence for creative arts, music.

What they do is they improve the function of networks in the brain that are at risk

during the process of aging, particularly because they're important for attention and social connection.

And so if we really invest time in doing these things that we suck at and get better at them,

we maintain these broad cognitive skills that we're going to need in the future regardless of what happens.

And some of that is also personal.

The goal is to build as much cognitive capacity as possible, right?

I have this idea of headroom, which is the difference between what you need on a day-to-day basis,

versus what you're truly capable of.

It's the difference between like on a day-to-day basis,

your legs need to be strong enough to like get you up off the toilet, right?

But your maximum capacity is like, what's your max back squat?

The difference between those is your headroom.

And then that gives you capacity to perform when you're injured or sick

or you need to like lift your car off your body because it got flipped in a car accident,

like all those things, like when you need to draw on greater resources,

you want those resources to be there.

Because we are going to be stressed, sleep deprived, sick,

and we still want our brains to function.

So investing in like really challenging tasks and skills builds that capacity

so that we have access to it when we need it.

What is the function and like what is the effect on the brain when you learn a new skill,

like sucking at something, which I always tell people is one of the best things you can do.

A lot of people don't enjoy it because they're ego,

they don't like being frustrated that they're terrible at something,

but there's something about not being good at something

and dedicating yourself to it and seeing market improvement

that stimulates all sorts of areas of your mind,

which I find really interesting.

So most people don't realize that the process of learning,

which in itself is like the core process of neuroplasticity,

the brain making new connections and cementing new connections,

that whole process is driven by failure essentially and making mistakes

because your brain is a prediction machine.

It's constantly predicting what's going to happen next

based on the world around you and what you're trying to do.

And so imagine that you're trying to do some kind of new move in Jujitsu or something

and you have no idea how to do it.

You're going to try it and there's going to be this big gap

between your expectation and reality.

That's going to be frustrating.

That's the feeling of failure.

But that's what diverts resources in the brain to say,

hey, we need to close the gap between what we hoped would happen

and what actually happened.

And that's what drives neuroplasticity.

And this is also then what drives the cementing and function of these networks

in the brain associated with that.

So the idea that you start sucking it something

and you get better at it over time,

that is exactly the thing that the brain needs in order to improve

and maintain its function.

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How many of those things should you take on at once though?

This is my issue.

I have a problem.

I wish I could have four lives,

but I could run simultaneously.

I would have four different occupations.

So I try to smash as many things into a day as possible.

But there's many times where I think,

boy, I think I'm doing too many different things

than I'm trying to get good at.

And maybe it would be better if I just concentrated on one.

So there's a few different ways to look at this.

I think that a broad base and a broad range of different skills

is probably something that we should all hope to have.

Like talent stacking.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And if you think about,

like one of my favorite books is Range by David Epstein,

which talks about the broad range of skills

that people who then really succeeded in academia or sports have.

They didn't specialize really early.

They had like a broad base of talents

that they can then draw upon as they specialize later in life.

And I think that's something that we can all aspire to.

But equally,

what's probably more common is that we try something

and we do it for a little while,

and then we just kind of give up on it

and we try something else.

And yeah, there's like a little bit of benefit to that.

But when you look at some of the studies

that really examine the effect of learning

some of these creative skills,

and they've done it with tango dancers

and painters and video gamers,

when you compare an expert to an amateur,

and where you're seeing the benefits of expertise

in terms of the function of some of these networks in the brain,

it really is the development of some level of expertise.

It is probably required to see the maximum benefit.

Obviously, the learning curve is steepest at the beginning.

Right, when you're beginning to learn something

that's when you'll learn the fastest.

But there is also some benefit to expertise.

So some of that, just to say that,

pick one or two things

that you're actually excited

to continue getting better at for a long period of time.

And so then maybe you do have to try a bunch of different things

until you find the thing that really gets you going.

But across all those different skills,

they have similar core effects on the brain.

So you don't have to do one or both.

You can just pick the one that you enjoy the most.

So it's just about the struggle of trying to get better at something, essentially.

Yeah.

And my wife is learning a new language right now.

And she's been so excited about it.

It's really interesting because she starts talking around the house in French.

And it's one of those things where you're like,

I'm watching her do it. She wasn't doing it.

And then she's been doing it over the last couple of months.

And I'm seeing this excitement in this new project.

And we were talking about it.

About how that is one of the things that's very difficult to do.

But it's more complex than learning.

Because it's learning and interacting.

It's not just learning.

You're learning, but you have to.

It requires like this back and forth with another person.

You have to understand sentence structure.

It's just like comp and essentially French is so different than English.

There's so much weird shit involved in it.

But you could see.

Like I could see in her that like this is very stimulating to her mind.

Yeah.

And it made me go, man, I should learn a language.

I'm like, fuck, where do you have the time to learn a language?

But then I thought about like when I was on social media all the time,

I would look down to my phone some days and it would say screen use today.

Six hours.

I'm like, fucking six hours.

That's what your time is.

Right. If you spent six hours just learning Spanish, how you'd be fluent?

I'd be able to go to a Takaree in order in Spanish.

It's like we spend so much time doing nonsense that anything that you can do

that requires your brain to be in that uncomfortable state of what is this?

Oh, what is this?

Oh, it's this.

Is that this?

Got it.

You know, that that dance, that firing of the synapses and forcing your brain

to figure this puzzle out, so many people don't have that.

And I see it in people that get stagnant where they're doing the same thing every day.

Their job is fairly mundane and kind of boring.

And maybe they like it, but there's nothing stimulating about it.

They're talking the same boring ass people.

They don't exercise.

They go home, they watch TV.

And then they shut off and they do it all again.

And then you talk to them like five, ten years later,

and it's almost like they're slipping.

Like you see it.

You can see it in people that have mundane existences.

Like their stimulation is so low that their ability to be stimulated as low.

I think that that thing you describe is so baked into our society that we've started to believe that it's normal.

Right.

So when you look at the trajectory of cognitive function over the over like your entire life,

imagine like a graph where on the one side you have cognitive function.

And it could be something basic like processing speed.

How quickly do you do brain process information on the bottom is age, right?

It tends to peak some time around our sort of mid 20s to early 30s.

It's usually the peak on average tends to be higher and later.

The more time we spend in education.

So the more time we spend, essentially as professional learners,

the more we can build that kind of final capacity.

After that is just sort of like an average decrease downwards.

And a colleague of mine, Josh Turkner and I, his neurologist,

we wrote a paper a couple of years ago where we theorized that the reason why we see that decline

in other population level, in cognitive function from about that age,

is because we go to work, we do the same thing again and again and again.

And then everything else that life gets in the way.

And we never spend that same time investing in building our cognitive capacities,

the way we did when we were kids and when we were in school.

And so the decline is partly because we just stop doing that.

So one of the theories of aging is that it's just a continuation of development,

like process of development.

And most of the processes of development in the brain are refining connections

based on the environment and the stimulus the brain receives.

So if you start removing stimuli because you're no longer engaging in these cognitively challenging things,

the brain's going to start removing connections.

Hey, I don't need that, right?

I'm not using this part of my brain.

And as a result, you start to see decline.

And so there are studies that show if you have a very stimulating job,

it's very complex problem solving skills, lots of social interactions.

You have a slower rate of cognitive decline as an adult and a lower risk of dementia.

You see in individuals who continue to engage in reading writing lectures,

dancing, you know, a whole bunch of hobbies.

Again, you see a slowed rate of decline.

So some of what we just expect to happen with age is because of the way we stop engaging with the world

and we stop challenging ourselves.

Well, it completely makes sense, right?

Like if you think about physical activity, it goes along the same kind of path.

Exactly.

You see, I have friends, I'm 58, which is crazy to say.

It sounds so old.

But I have friends that are 58 that are basically their skeletons with like meat hanging around various parts of it.

But my physical ability is very similar to what it was when I was in my 30s.

The only way that I could really test it is like physical competition,

and I'm not really interested in that, I don't want to get hurt.

But my capacity for work is very similar.

Yeah.

And I know that because I force it, you know, I make myself do it.

And I would imagine the same thing is true with the mind.

I mean, it has to be.

I think it's all together.

It's a use it or lose it.

Yeah.

If your mind doesn't have a need to be constantly intrigued and stimulated,

like you could think first survival, right?

One of the things that's speculated, and maybe I can ask you about this,

because this is one of, I think about this a lot, like what is ADHD?

And I, whether or not it's actually a problem, I think it's a superpower.

Because I'm pretty sure I have it, you know, but yet I can folk, I'm very functional.

I can focus on things.

And as long as I tire myself out from activity, I can relax,

and I can concentrate on things, and I'm very interested in certain things,

and I can lock into them and concentrate.

But if I was forced to be in a classroom with a very boring teacher,

teaching a subject, I'm not that interested in, and I was a child,

if I had the wrong parents, luckily I didn't, I would be medicated, right?

But I think that that is this ability to focus on certain things, like hyperfocus,

was probably a function of a persistent hunter, right?

Because if you wanted to catch an animal, you couldn't be a person that gives up quick.

You had to be a person that you, you keep looking for tracks,

you keep trying to find sign, you're trying to figure out a way like,

I've got, keep pushing, one more hour, we've got 20 minutes of daylight left,

I've got to figure this out, right?

That thing had to be in you in order to be a successful hunter.

So I'm sure that that's part of it.

The current picture of ADHD I think is quite complicated.

So I have family members with ADHD, when they then started on medication,

they were like, oh, actually all of a sudden my brain works, right?

But that medication is Adderall, right?

If I took Adderall, I would say the same fucking thing.

I don't need a stimulant.

But if I took a stimulant right now, I'd be like, dude, I'm so much better.

But you know what happens in certain individuals with ADHD, when you give them stimulants,

they calm down.

They calm down.

So I think there's a combination of multiple things.

Some is, yes, these can be very beneficial traits in the right settings.

But you also have to consider that we're layering on a modern environment

that's like bright lights at night, a whole bunch of caffeine and stimulants, right?

And yeah, of course, some of it is, I think, right, the teacher is boring

and they're just not engaged because the majority of people with ADHD

can still focus on things that they're interested in focusing in.

Yes.

Or even without any kind of medication.

Yeah.

But there's like a sliding scale.

And I think there's a whole bunch of different reasons why for one individual

they might experience sensitive ADHD or not.

So I think it's complicated.

Can I ask you, before you go any further, can I ask you, how much of that

is dependent upon physical activity?

Like, do we study ADHD based on whether someone is physically active or not?

Because, look, if I'm not physically active, I'm a mess.

For something, if something happened and for some reason, like, I got a court order,

you're not allowed to exercise for six months or you go to jail.

Like, oh, God.

I would probably be a fucking complete basket case, right?

And maybe I would have full on ADHD.

Maybe I wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything.

My brain would be bouncing all over the place.

Like, how much of it is a biological requirement that your body has to release energy?

So I think you can, I would expand that out even further than that,

because physical activity is a core requirement of all biology and physiology.

Right.

There's a nice quote by Inigo Summoner Milan, who's a well-known exercise physiologist,

who says that physical activity is baked into our evolutionary development.

So much so that now we've had to invent exercise in order to prevent what happens when we don't move.

So the lack of movement is a disease-causing, pro-aging situation.

So to stop you there, what if, I mean, or do they, when they treat kids with ADHD,

do they take that into consideration?

So, as I'm not an ADHD researcher, so I genuinely don't know.

But I would think that before you would give someone a stimulant, maybe track and field.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And maybe play badminton, do something where you've got to run around, where you're like,

oh, boy, I can focus now.

I think that that's, again, I would say that that's needed for all kids regardless of any potential diagnosis.

So, of course, we need, I think that should be taken into consideration,

whether that's going to be enough for every kid, you know, hard to say.

But we know that all humans require significant amounts of physical activity

just for their biology to work properly.

Right.

So certainly if that's not being taken into account or it's not available or it's not encouraged,

there are a whole host of conditions where that's going to become a problem.

Well, it just only makes sense, right?

And we mean, this has been talked about forever.

The stoics used to talk about it.

There's a quieting the mind.

I mean, Samurai says, talk about it.

So, you know, one of the main benefits that Chinese used for Kung Fu thousands of years ago,

quieting the mind.

And the propensity that we have in the society,

this direction of almost immediately prescribing a medication for something,

when it seems like what you're doing is you're dulling a biological requirement.

You're dulling the impact of this biological requirement that you're not meeting.

Why wouldn't we prescribe exercise first and then think about those things?

For instance, hormone replacement.

If you have a good doctor, an ethical doctor that is working with someone

and they find out you have low testosterone,

one of the first things they do is adjust your diet.

They say, well, you have so much food in your diet that causes inflammation.

You have a very high rate of complex carbohydrates.

You have a lot of sugar in your diet.

You drink too much alcohol.

You smoke cigarettes.

Let's remove those things first.

And then let's see what happens.

And then you increase your protein and you start drinking water

and you go, oh, look, your hormone levels are going up naturally.

Well, because you're a fucking poisoning yourself, right?

So, wouldn't you...

I mean, why don't they prescribe exercise for kids?

Other than the fact that you can't make money off of it,

wouldn't it be a good idea?

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So I think that all kids should absolutely get, you know,

several hours, ideally, of movement and physical activity of different kinds every day.

Part of the problem, it's not that scientists or doctors don't think that that's important.

Right now, the systems that we have make it very difficult for those things to be put in place.

So making sure that every kid has the time and the resources to be able to exercise.

And the right kind of people so that they know what they're doing and they're supervised.

And it's the same with, say with testosterone placement if your testosterone is low.

Like most, the primary cause, or one of the most common cause of low testosterone in men,

is that combination of metabolic disease, being sedentary, poor quality diet.

We know that.

But creating the systems that allow people to change those things and then supporting them to do that is really hard.

Nobody has solved the behavior change problem.

If we think about the modern environment and we think about what that drives us to do and not do.

But we have all this information.

We know how to prevent these diseases.

We know how to reverse many of them.

And a lot of it is driven by lifestyle in the environment.

But supporting people to change those behaviors and make sure they have the resources and time to do it.

That's really hard.

I nobody solved that problem yet.

Boy, that seems like a problem that's easy to solve.

It's just based on personal responsibility.

No, but it's not.

But if you can tell someone, this is your requirement for the day.

I want you to run one mile.

I want you to do 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups and write it down.

But how are you?

So first of all, but you're saying it like it's impossible.

I'm not saying it very difficult.

I'm not saying it's impossible.

That those of us for whom this has become a part of our personality and our lives, like you and me.

Of course, of course you just do that.

You just go for the run.

You do the 100 push-ups.

But for people who have never had anything like this and it's never been a part of their environment.

It's never been a part of who they are.

Changing that actually requires a ton of work and coaching.

And it's actually really difficult.

It's difficult, but it's totally doable physically.

It's not like I'm asking you to breathe underwater.

People have done it and you can draw inspiration from it.

My friend, Jelly Roll.

You know Jelly Roll, the musician?

Yeah.

Jelly Roll was 500 pounds.

And he's lost 300 pounds.

And he did it with no ozemic, no GLP ones.

He just started walking and started cutting sugar out of his diet and slowly,

but not even just slowly, over the course of just a couple of years.

He shrunk to like a normal-sized human.

It's fucking amazing.

But he drew inspiration from a lot of other people.

You know, one of them, he's good friends with my good friend, Cam Haines,

who's an ultra marathon runner and endurance athlete.

And so, you know, he's taking them on runs and worked out with them and helped them.

And just watching YouTube videos and just all he started doing was just walking.

You know, where he couldn't walk up hills and he would just walk around his block

and walk up the hill when he didn't want to do it.

And he did it.

It's like it's not.

You can do it.

You just have to start doing it.

And I think the starting doing it is the most difficult.

I don't think it's difficult to do it once you gather momentum.

Because there's a thing that happens with people when they start doing something,

they get excited and then they look forward to doing it again.

As long as you don't like...

You don't take a guy who's 500 pounds and say, today we're going to do 100 push-ups,

100 sit-ups, we're going to do kettlebells and then we're going to do laps around the block.

You can't do it.

It's not possible.

But you could just go for a walk.

And then tomorrow we're going to go for a walk a little bit further.

And then in two weeks, we're going to double that walk.

And then in three weeks, you know, we're going to incorporate some light body weight squats.

And all along the way, we're going to adjust your diet and then write these things down.

Like, this is not impossible.

So it's just they need motivation.

So I agree, it's not impossible.

But I've worked with several digital health companies who are working in the behavior change space.

And people don't need more information.

They know that they need to walk more.

And they know that they could eat better.

And they know that they could sleep better.

Right.

But the process of trying to, first of all, understand, how should I do that?

What should I do that?

When should I do that?

And then, right, like some people may absolutely not have the time or the environment, maybe they live somewhere where

actually, you don't want they don't want to be walking around outside.

Right.

Right.

That's relatively common.

Or they don't have a kitchen.

Right.

So then how do you, how do you cook food?

Like, how do you navigate that food environment?

So I agree, I completely agree with you.

All of this is doable.

It's just that different people are going to need different levels of support to do that.

Initially, right, gain that momentum, understand, understand how that feels, how it changes them.

And right now, the majority of people don't have access to that kind of support.

And I absolutely hope that that changes.

Right.

The food environment changes so that it's much easier to change the way that you eat.

And that the built environment changes so that it's much easier to go out and have a walk.

And do a lot of that.

So I think that we just have to consider that it's both, right?

There's an individual component, right?

But there's also like a societal component where we have to make this as easy for people as possible

and sort of like build it into their lives such as they are.

Okay.

So let's consider the societal aspect of it.

Let's consider the, like, how would you implement something?

Let's imagine that you get appointed to some committee that's in charge of trying to facilitate this growth and improvement in people.

What would you do?

So I think you need a few, a few different parts to it.

One, a great part would be to say through, you know, if you could dramatically improve quality and access of education at all levels and make physical activity just be a regular part of that.

That has been slowly removed from many educational curriculums around the world over time, right?

So bring some of that back and it just becomes part of day to day life.

And then you would also teach people the skills involved in some of these, these other things.

So like teach people how to cook and how to do that within the bounds of what they have access to their, you know, cultural preferences, dietary preferences, you know, financial, you know, financial abilities, that kind of stuff.

Right.

That should be a part of a school curriculum.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Just like you should teach kids about taxes and all these other things.

Right.

And so I think if you start early on and you do this with sort of curiosity and skill building,

then you release people out into the, you know, I think that's the place to start because when you get out into the real world and you're working three jobs and you live somewhere where you don't want to go for a walk outside.

And like you can barely get six hours of sleep every night.

And, you know, you've got three kids that you're trying to look after saying, oh, hey, you should do 100 pushups every day.

Like that's not going to happen.

Like other things are going to happen that are more important.

So I think there's that part, maybe the skill building part.

Then it's thinking about like how people have opportunities to do those things.

And then I would think about, you know, access to high quality, you know, health care, psychological care, like these things that sometimes people need help that they can't get access to or it's expensive or whatever.

So I think giving more of that so that they get support when they need it is definitely would definitely help as well.

I think one great way would be to devise a website, make it like maybe like even a government website where you put in like your body weight, when was your last physical activity, what this, that, the other thing, what's your diet.

And then they implement a program.

And you could follow online with a bunch of other people that are doing the same thing and post your results.

So you have a community aspect to it.

You have a dedicated program that you can follow.

So you don't have to think about, oh, I don't want to do that.

I don't want to do this.

So you'll just tell you just do this.

Just do this.

Oh, you weigh 400 pounds.

You're 39 years old.

You haven't worked out in 10 years.

Okay, here's, here's day one.

Yeah.

And follow along, post your weight, post your, what you're eating.

I mean, that, I mean, and with AI, I mean, that's one of the good things about an LLM, right?

With AI, you could ask it to formulate adjustments.

Yeah.

And you could say, okay, what nutrients should I be consuming?

How much protein do I actually need?

How much, how many calories do I need?

How many calories are in this and that?

And, you know, how much protein do I get from, you know, 20 ounces of broccoli or whatever the fuck it is?

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So when you look at some of the most successful trials of behavior change,

and most of them are based around weight loss studies, right?

That's, that's a very typical way to do it.

When you, when you want somebody to change their behavior and feel, feel good about it,

one of the sort of constructors, self-determination theory, you probably heard of, right?

Humans need three things, autonomy, competence and relatedness.

So autonomy is the, like, I am in charge of my life and I'm in charge of my decisions.

So what are the things that I want to work on today, right?

I have some choice there, competence, like, how do I help somebody feel like they know what they're doing?

Like, a lot of the hurdles with exercise or diet is like, I don't know what I'm doing.

And like, this guy says that I need to do sprints.

And this guy says I need to lift weights.

And this guy says I need to do X amounts of zone two.

But I like, what does that even mean?

Like, like, do I even know what I'm supposed to do?

Like, so how do you build competence in people?

And then, relatedness, that's the point that you are making, right?

You have a group, like, you support each other.

Maybe you do stuff, you do stuff together.

So one of the most successful weight loss trials of all time was called the broad study.

And one of the things they did, so they lost a lot of weight and they kept it off.

And so most weight loss studies, people regained it afterwards, is they met several times a week.

They did, like, potluck, screw activities, like, they helped each other.

Yeah, community.

Yes, community.

The one downside of that is that there was, there was, there was an app.

I can't remember the name of it.

That tried to build that for exercise.

So, like, you'd have these buddies and they'd be your accountability buddies.

But what happened was that when people started to slip,

they left the platform much faster because they were like,

I don't want my buddies to know that I'm not doing what they are supposed to be helping me do.

So you kind of have to, like, build in multiple buffers and different ways to help people

depending on what it is that motivates them or not.

I mean, we have public education, right?

We have universities, we have public high schools and middle schools.

Why don't we have public gyms?

Why don't, I mean, how much money would it cost to have community gyms set up

or you don't have to have money to join, where it's paid for by your taxes?

You're not talking about something that's outside of, you know, like,

financially, it wouldn't be feasible.

Yeah.

It's not that hard to do.

So I think that was the, I don't know what the financial model is.

Now, but that was the idea of, like, the YMCA.

Right, right, right.

It becomes a community focus point, like, my wife grew up in North Carolina.

She talks about how they were down the YMCA all the time, like playing basketball.

I used to have a YMCA when I lived in Boston that I used to go to.

It was really cheap.

They had weights.

They had a track.

They had a swimming pool.

They had all sorts of stuff.

It was way cheaper than a regular gym.

And they had classes you could take.

And there was something very similar closer where I grew up in the UK,

just like, for a couple of pounds you go do a,

some kind of martial arts class or something.

Yeah, they had that too.

Does Austin even have a YMCA?

Yeah, definitely.

Oh, yeah.

There's one, there's like a big one downtown.

I've driven past it once.

Like a big glass front.

Like a, I mean, I don't know what it costs.

How much is it cost to get into the YMCA in Austin?

Let's find that out.

I mean, that should be paid for by taxes.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, if we pay for all this other shit that we don't need,

why don't, you know,

when, when, when a big hurdle is accessibility and,

one year, new progress pack joined today.

How much,

125 dollar value for a year?

Is that what it says?

How much does it cost?

Doesn't say how much it costs.

What does it cost?

Joint today.

How much?

So the secret of most,

membership sum for gyms,

they don't list their prices on.

Yeah, but it's a YMCA.

Click on join that, join today.

Telling you that want you to come in and say hi,

so they can talk to you.

Oh, is that what it is?

Every, that's how everyone works.

But it's probably cheaper than most.

Well, why don't you put it into

a perplexity or something like that?

Say, what is, how much does it cost to join a YMCA?

Here we go.

Let's guess.

How much do you think it costs?

20 bucks a month?

50.

Yeah, I think it can't be much more than a planet fitness, right?

A planet fitness is pretty cheap.

But the thing about planet fitness is,

they kind of,

a lot of these big gyms,

not just singling out planet fitness,

they kind of hope that you don't show up.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

That's the big.

Yeah.

You generally look at $40 to $80 per month,

depending on age and household type.

That's not too bad.

Yeah, but for some people,

that's, that's,

that's a lot of money, right?

That's 30 bucks a month.

Yeah, like that's,

a good chunk of their food bill.

So I,

there,

there should be some sliding scale

where this becomes very, very heavily subsidized.

Yeah.

But, or free.

Yeah.

Oh, I did.

I mean, why wouldn't it be free?

Yeah, I think it should be.

And then homeless people go in there and shower.

There are.

Well, I mean,

I'm okay with that too,

depends on who they are.

I mean, if they shout,

okay, with some of them,

you know,

fucking crazy people,

shit in the,

it's up in the,

in the shower.

Blue Cross,

Blue Shield,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

many health insurance plans,

offer gym,

membership,

through reimbursements,

discounts,

or programs,

like active fit,

or global fit,

benefits can include

$20 to $400 annual reimbursements.

Some people can use their health insurance

to get some of that fee covered.

Okay.

Well, that's nice.

But the thing is, again,

it's just like,

planet fitness,

or any of these places.

The thing is, like,

they want to recruit you,

and then you go,

and you're like,

okay,

and then you never go again.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But we genuinely want people to go.

Like, that's the whole idea.

Well, the thing is, like,

there's one thing, like,

for someone

and I've taken friends to gyms

before they don't work out,

and they're like,

what do I do?

They have no idea what to do.

Yeah.

Classes is what should be.

Absolutely.

Classes.

Learn new skill,

move,

make a friend,

like,

so much amazing stuff.

I think that's something.

Yeah.

And they should have

multiple different classes available,

at the same time.

Right?

There should be a class

for people that have done nothing.

Like, okay,

these are dumbbells.

Yeah.

This is a pick up a light one.

I'm going to show you how to do a shoulder press.

And then it should be for,

you know,

more advanced people

and intermediate people

or something.

You know,

a whole range of different skills.

Yoga,

Zumba,

Pilates,

Tai Chi.

Slightly different.

At dumbbell weights,

but in Austin,

they have a bunch of public,

free gym equipment

in different parts.

Playgrounds and parks.

Yeah.

That stuff's great.

Well, New York City has a whole,

look at these guys.

Yeah.

We'll look at staring at each other.

Talking shit.

I think one of the problems is that,

well, first of all,

like, a lot of people might just like,

look at that and be like,

what do I do with that?

And then the second is that,

a lot of what we see around fitness and movement

is kind of the extremes, right?

They're idolized.

Professional athletes,

like,

this is what the best of the best do.

And we often,

we internalize this idea

that that's what we need to do.

And if we're not doing that,

then we're not doing anything.

Right.

Whereas,

all the data suggests

that literally any type of movement

above what you're doing right now

is beneficial,

cardiovascular health,

cognitive health,

dementia risk.

Yeah.

So I think some of it is just like,

letting people know

and having people understand

that it doesn't take that much

to move the needle.

And then when they start to do a little bit, right,

you get a bit of a bug,

maybe you enjoy it,

you find a thing that you enjoy,

you do more of it.

And so that's part of it too.

Like, having people understand

that it doesn't take that much

to really start, you know,

having an impact.

Yeah. And it's also,

for a lot of people,

this is a society

that really emphasizes

quick fixes on things.

And it's not a quick thing.

You have to trust in a process.

And so that has to sort of be,

that has to be,

people have to be educated to that.

It has to be taught to you.

Like, this is a process.

And you're on a process,

you should be very excited

about being on this process.

It's going to be weird

because it's going to take a long time

for you to see any results.

But that long time,

like, in that,

in that time period,

you will eventually see results

and then you'll be excited,

you'll feel better,

you'll have more energy,

it'll help every aspect

of your life,

you just got to do it.

One of the,

one of the things that I like

when I talk about movement

in particular,

or exercise,

and say cognitive function,

is that you will start

to see benefits relatively quickly.

So, if you go and do

a six-second max sprint,

a couple of times,

and there were studies

that show this,

you will acutely,

like, immediately see

an improvement in cognitive function.

Better blood flow to the brain,

you've created a rouse

or which is really important

for focus and attention.

If you, you know,

go out, go for a walk outside,

right,

you will sleep better that night,

so you will feel better the next day.

And so, yes,

you're absolutely right

that this is a lifelong thing,

right, you can't just do it

for a couple of months

and then,

hope that it's going to

translate to benefits

for decades to come.

But, you can see

immediate benefits

if you start to do some of this stuff,

and you can feel it very quickly.

So, I think that

that's going to be important

because not everybody

is going to feel

in the position to invest

in their future selves.

So, if you start to see benefits

straight away,

you're more likely to keep going with it.

Okay, so that's for people,

we were just,

I mean, I'm glad we covered it,

but we're essentially talking about people

that don't know what to do.

For people who do know what to do,

you said you work

with a lot of formula

and one athletes,

and what do you do for,

like, what is,

formula one is fascinating to me.

I've been to the,

the Coda race track,

we're actually putting up a studio,

we're going to have a studio at Coda,

we're going to have a second studio,

at the race track.

And the idea is to take people

around the race track.

I think it would be like,

stimulate their mind,

and then come in and do a podcast,

be a lot of fun.

Yeah. Right, it'd be like,

you'd be like racing,

like your mind would be like,

woo!

That is an incredible sport

where it's fractions of a second,

split second decisions.

Your ability to react has to be,

like, incredibly fast.

Like, have you ever seen the thing

where they drop things?

Oh, yeah, they have people

that have to grab them.

Louis Hamilton is like,

better at anybody than anybody else.

He's just fucking intense.

What do you do with them?

So you already have people

that are primed, right?

They're the best in the world.

But they are constantly looking

for an additional edge.

What are you doing for them?

Yeah, so there's a few things there.

My work with Formula One drivers

happens mainly through a company

called Hintza Performance.

It was founded by AkiHintza.

Hintza, H-I-N-T-S-A,

named after AkiHintza,

who was a Finnish orthopedic surgeon.

He worked with Harley-Gabrace Lassi

with Mika Hakkonen.

He was two-time Formula One World Champion.

And then now,

sort of like a big sports enterprise,

and I'm the head scientist for motorsport.

So that's all motorsport categories

from like carting in kids up to Formula One.

We work with several Formula One drivers.

And we provide coaching

and medical services.

Each driver, or most of the drivers,

have a coach, right?

So like, you know,

when you watch Formula One,

there's like somebody holding the umbrella,

holding the helmet, right?

Well, that's often one of our coaches.

They're usually a strength and conditioning specialist

or they might be a physio or a nutritionist.

Like, they have a ton of, you know,

really high-level skills.

And they're there every day, right?

They do the sleep.

They do the training.

Like, they're traveling with them the whole time.

They sort of can manage as much of their life as possible.

And when you're thinking about

that level of skill,

the stimulus part has taken care of itself, right?

One of the reasons why these guys are so good

is because it's all they've done every day

for two plus decades, four decades,

if you're Lewis Hamilton or close to that.

So, and that's slowly building these skills,

first in carting, then in these different

Formula Cateries, Formula Three, Formula Two,

up into Formula One.

And so, the kinds of things that we might work on,

and so like, I'm helping coaches,

working with the drivers,

we have a huge team, you know,

a doctor who works with a bunch of Olympic athletes as well.

And so, it's a combination of,

are there any individual performance limiters?

So, we might do some blood tests,

look at nutrient status and various other things.

You know, make sure they're really on top of that

with their diets.

But then, in that kind of world,

and like, I'm sure you experience this yourself.

Everybody's got a thing for you to try,

or a thing for you to do, right?

Like, you're constantly been bombarded

with the latest, greatest technology,

and like, this guy wants to study this thing.

So, a lot of what we do is,

like, be really careful about the things that get added,

and maybe even take stuff away if we need to.

Like, what are we trying to work on?

What are we trying to build?

What does this one driver need?

Because they're all very different.

They need a different, you know,

they have different diets.

They have different training programs.

They have different warm-up strategies

for when they get in the car.

And so, a lot of what we end up doing

is focusing on the other side, right?

So, if you stimulate your brain,

it adapts when you rest and recover afterwards.

So, because they're essentially jet lagged

nine months of the year,

rather than a different country every week.

That's a factor.

That's a huge factor.

And like, on top of like every race weekend,

they've got to go meet sponsors.

They've got to do media days, right?

They're constantly moving.

So, it's what can we do to maintain

their level of performance throughout the season?

And this is something that the coaches do a ton of work in.

Like, how can we, what kind of exercise

and how can we do targeted training to like,

maintain performance throughout the year?

And then, the other part is,

how can we get as much recovery as possible?

Because if we want them to adapt to all the work they're doing

and come back each weekend at the top of their game,

or as close as possible,

we need to get them to rest and recover

and come back and do it again.

So, often we're not focusing on the stimulus part.

We might be in a driver training.

We might be thinking about how can we develop cognitive skills

and these kinds of things,

and these driver physical skills.

In Formula One, often it's,

how can we get these guys to recover better?

How can we get these guys to sleep better?

And then that might be technology,

but it might also be, you know,

just like, how can we nail the basics again and again again?

Make sure they're getting enough time in bed, right?

Especially when you're traveling a bunch that gets really difficult.

So, we're often focused on the recovery side

and how we track, like, how do we collect those data?

How do we know when something starts to slip

and get on top of it early?

That's the kind of stuff we tend to focus on.

So, let's talk about the jet lag aspect.

What are the strategies for mitigating jet lag?

And, like, how do you,

let's say, if they fly in for a race,

like, if they're going from Europe to the United States,

and they have to race,

how many days in advance do they arrive?

And how do they shift their circadian rhythm

and eliminate jet lag?

What are the strategies?

Yeah, there's,

the time for them,

like, the number of days they come before,

the race will depend on

how long it was since the last race,

plus what other things they've got going on.

But it's offered, like, two or three days, right?

They'll try and get come in the beginning of the week,

at least, like Monday, Tuesday,

if the race is then going to be on Sunday.

And then, as much as possible,

you might start to try and shift things earlier.

So, shift your light exposure

so that it aligns more closely with your destination

a couple of days before you travel,

shift your sleep, if you can, shift,

exercise and caffeine timing,

again, because those things shift circadian rhythm

so that you can kind of get closer

to what you're going to do when you land.

And so, those are probably the primary tools,

is exercise light, caffeine,

use some of the musemenotonein.

You can also change when you eat.

So, like, food timing is a zeitgabour,

it's a fancy word for, like, time-giver,

like, helps the drive circadian rhythm.

So, often, when you're flying,

they'll give you a meal that's happening,

like, in the middle of the night,

in the time that you're going to land, right?

So, often, you might try and avoid eating while flying,

and then have your next meal in time

with, like, a normal meal timing when you land.

I've heard that one of the things to help with jet lags

is to eliminate meals when you're flying period.

There's something about eating,

even if it doesn't have anything to do with the time.

Like, say if you're flying from Los Angeles to New York,

one way to eliminate jet lag, they say,

is just to not eat on the flight.

So, six-hour flight, don't eat at all.

I think most of that is to do with circadian timing,

because you're usually flying at a time

when you wouldn't normally eat,

or, like, you're often, like,

they give you dinner at, like, 9 p.m.,

or it's even midnight, right?

So, if you...

But is that all it is?

But ways explained to me,

is that there's something about your body processing food

when you're flying that actually exacerbates jet lag.

So, I can't think of a...

Does that make sense?

Other than the fact that...

I mean, you obviously sat still for long periods of time,

which might not normally happen at the time of day as well.

I think the majority of it in terms...

Certainly, in terms of jet lag plans,

is thinking about the timing of meals

related to circadian rhythm,

because you normally, you know,

break your first, faster, certain time of day,

have dinner at a certain time of day.

So, I think most of it is related to circadian timing.

Okay.

What about rigorous exercise?

Because one of my strategies,

like, say, if I have to fly to London or something like that,

and I want to avoid jet lag,

I immediately go to the gym.

That's the first thing I do.

I put my stuff in the hotel room.

I go right down to the gym.

Yeah.

No negotiation whatsoever.

And I get in at least an hour.

Yeah.

I have to.

That's a great way.

That's a great way to...

To help offset some of the jet lag.

Because you start to tell your body,

or, hey, like, even though it's

whatever, midnight in Austin,

right, this is the time when I want to be awake.

So it starts to advance the circadian phase.

So, exercise.

Some people like to do cold exposure.

Right.

It does a similar thing.

Right. Increases adrenaline.

Increases heart rate. Increases arousal.

Can do it with light.

Can do it with caffeine.

And so, like, some combination of those things can definitely help.

Okay.

So, there's the sleep.

Adjusting the sleep.

There's the light exposure.

There's exercise and food.

Is there anything else?

Like, what kind of supplementation is effective to mitigate that?

Yeah.

So, they might use melatonin.

One of the...

One of the issues that we have...

It's not an issue.

It makes perfect sense.

Is that...

The supplements that we use with the drivers have to be third party tested, right?

NSF for sports.

Yeah.

For sports certified.

So, some of the things that we might like to try...

Is that because the drivers get tested?

Because the drivers get tested.

And what are they banned?

What's banned?

Everything.

It's the same as...

Like, all the water drug...

Oh, okay.

It's the same.

They're under water regulations.

So...

Are they allowed to use peptides?

It's...

It's a gray area in general.

I don't believe...

I don't believe anybody does.

And we certainly don't recommend it for that reason.

Because we just don't know what's in there.

Are they tested for peptides?

So, they're not tested for peptides.

But...

Well, it depends on whether it's actually a peptide that has good high quality evidence in humans.

Well, there's...

Also, you should get them from a real good compounding pharmacy.

Make sure you're getting them from a quality source.

Which is...

The real problem with peptides today is that since they're not regulated, there's a lot of gray market.

There's a lot of real, you know, bullshit corporations that are selling you stuff that's nonsense.

And even things that are tainted.

So, yeah.

So the main thing that you're worried about is contamination.

Like, what else have they put in there?

Right.

Right.

To make it...

To get back to people.

Same thing as supplements.

Yeah, same thing as supplements.

But in reality, like, there aren't many peptides where I'm like where I would say...

Or I should...

I couldn't think of any where I'm like, this will have a definite benefit based on high quality studies in humans.

Right?

Those studies just don't exist.

And so until we get to that point, plus the sort of like the gray area of the sort of legality of it,

we tend to focus on, you know, the real...

I mean, it's the basics, but we know that they work.

But there are peptides that have shown to increase sleep and increase REM sleep in humans.

Yes.

But I wish I could tell you, because they talked about it, but I never tried it.

I know Tom Segur is on it.

See if we can find what it is, Jamie.

It's, uh, boy.

It's fucking with my head.

Yes, IP.

Is that what it is?

I'm asking.

No, um...

Delta sleep inducing peptide.

I want to see the randomized controlled trial.

I have to.

I can't recommend it unless I know that it's...

Third-party tested, it's legal, and there's a high quality trial in humans.

Like all those things have to align.

The problem with high quality studies is they take time and money.

Yeah.

And these aren't FDA approved, so you're not going to get those things.

But that doesn't mean they don't work.

Yes.

And this is the problem, is that like you could try it.

And then if you show benefit like...

In that setting, I can't try it.

You can't.

No.

Well, you can't because of Formula One drive, regional stuff.

Yeah.

So the way drug-free sport works, which is the governing body of the UFC drug testing,

they don't allow anything, unfortunately.

But there are studies that show that BPC157 includes increases tissue recovery,

and helps you feel from non-humans.

True.

And there's, look, the same thing with the COVID vaccine.

They weren't tested in humans either before they started trying them.

There was, for the first wave of COVID-19 vaccines,

there were some pretty good quality trials in humans.

Right.

But all it showed is that it showed an antibody.

It didn't show that it...

Oh, no.

Against hospitalizations and death.

In the first waves.

We could argue about that because it's very sketchy.

Okay.

It's very sketchy data that has been disproven.

I think that those...

I think those first waves were high-quality.

But didn't even say that it increased hospitalization and death.

It was stopping transmission and infection, which was just a lie.

So that's what they claimed.

It's all sketchy because it was based on profit.

The whole thing is weird.

It's a weird one.

It's a weird one.

I can't talk about my situation.

Yeah, I can't talk about my situation.

But with...

There's plenty of anecdotal evidence, especially with professional athletes,

with BBC 157 and TB 500, particularly for tissue injuries,

for recovering quicker from tissue injuries.

So I know...

I know there's anecdotes.

I know that people say it benefits them.

In the environments that I operate in, that's not enough.

I understand.

You're an actual doctor.

Dr. Tommy Wood.

He's legit.

I'm just a dork.

I'm allowed to just say, try it.

Fuck it.

But...

So with drug-free support, like with the UFC,

they use thorn supplements,

and it's with the UFC recommends, which are very good.

They're very party-tested.

So you have to find whether it's pure encapsulations,

or some legitimate, well-proven, established company,

that provides you with third-party tested supplements.

What supplements have been shown, like for...

Let's stick with Formula One drivers.

Reaction time is critical.

Your ability to function at a very high cognitive state.

You're thinking constantly.

You're always calculating in movements.

What supplements are these guys taking that benefit them?

So, when you think about complex skill performance,

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How aroused is your physiology?

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nor adrenaline, adrenaline, cortisol,

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Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So the curve is bell shaped.

Right, it's the Yerkes Dodson curve

named off for a couple of guys.

So I actually did studies in mice

that then translated actually

surprising well over to humans.

And so what it says is that

if you're sort of underaroused,

you're kind of disengaged,

a bit of lethargic.

Right, you're not really going to perform well.

If you're overaroused,

you're sweaty, anxious.

Right, again, you're not going to be able

to sort of pay attention to the task.

So there's this sweet spot.

At the top of the curve,

you're capable of flow states,

clutch states,

which is where you can perform your best,

but it's still like, it's hard work.

And so what you're trying to do

is get the guys to the top of that curve.

And this, for many,

involves some element of routine.

Right, knowing that I've done the thing

that I know that's going to make me feel good.

And so it's a combination

often of the things that we've already mentioned.

They might use some warm-up sprints.

They might use music.

They might use bright light.

They might use breath work.

They might use cold.

Certainly, if it's going to be a hot race,

they might do some pre-cooling

to bring down cool temperature.

That improves endurance during the race.

Do they bring cold plunges to formal one days?

Yeah, yeah.

So some of them have a cold plunge

or you can fill a wheelie bin

with water and ice and jump in that.

It doesn't need to be that cold, actually.

So for increasing endurance performance,

like 20 minutes at around 20 degrees Celsius,

sort of like 60-ish Fahrenheit,

that significantly improves endurance.

Is there a benefit to 20 minutes at 60 degrees?

Fahrenheit versus three minutes at 34 degrees?

So the problem is that when you get too cold,

you can actually decrease cognitive performance.

So there's a fine line when it's really cold.

What you want to do is you want to decrease core temperature

without negatively affecting cognitive function.

And so that's easier to manage at slightly less cold temperatures.

Just like if you did really, really exhaustive exercise,

you go out and so I was a rover in college.

So like a 2K test on a rowing machine.

Like after that, my brain doesn't work for hours after.

And so like very cold ice baths for several minutes

for some people that can decrease cognitive function.

So you can find a sweet spot.

That makes sense.

That makes a lot of sense,

because my mind is very bad after brutal workouts.

Yeah, yeah.

But if I have a really hard workout

and I come in and do a podcast,

it's just a moment where I'm like,

it's just not firing.

Yeah.

And that's perfect.

And that's normal.

We know that you can do very fatiguing exercise.

For a period of time,

you experience a decline in cognitive function.

But a light exercise stimulates.

Exactly.

So like one of the best studied exercise modalities

to improve cognitive function is literally just like a 20 minute jog.

It's like a light jog.

Exactly.

But you always call it warming everything up,

that's the activation, increasing release of all those hormones

you mentioned.

And that increases arousal,

that improves cognitive performance.

So they might be doing some of those things in the car,

right, that there'll be differing types of caffeine use,

depending on sensitivity and timing.

Are they taking it in pill form

so that they could regulate it quickly or accurately rather?

Yeah.

So some do sometimes pill, sometimes gel,

some guys just like a cappuccino,

they might use green tea,

because the theinein in there might balance some of the jitters

that you can get with caffeine.

Some people find creatine stimulating or mildly stimulating

so they might take creatine before they get in the car.

Well, there's been studies on creatine and cognitive performance

that are really interesting.

Particularly in the setting of sleep deprivation.

And so when they're jet lagged,

I think that would make sense.

There are some newer caffeine-related compounds

that if we can get them when they're third-party tested,

some may try those.

So theocrene or tea-creen and parazanthine,

which is a metabolite of caffeine.

Some of they may have some fewer of the like anxiety promoting

high blood pressure, high heart rate effects,

but maintain some of the cognitive effects,

especially in combination with caffeine.

So you have a little bit less caffeine plus a bit of those.

They're harder to get sort of third-party tested and stuff,

and some of the evidence is newer.

But that's looking sort of promising as another thing

that people might try.

You mentioned theanine, which is a newtropic.

There's quite a few different ones that people enjoy.

You know, beta-coline, there's a bunch of different ones.

Like, do you do Formula One drivers?

Do they supplement with that kind of thing?

So you think you're like alpha-GPC?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a coolean type of coolean.

It's preferentially turned into astalk coolean.

And astalk coolean is really important for like focus and attention.

Some of that stuff isn't regularly used,

mainly because it's hard to get a third-party tested source.

Is it really?

Yeah, most of the things that you take,

probably isn't, or that anybody would take,

there might not be an NSFersport certified version.

There's very few companies that do that routinely

for all their supplements.

God, do you think that that would be really accessible?

Yeah.

Because newtropics are so common now.

So there's that.

Plus, when we're working with different drivers,

they each have very unique needs.

So it's a combination of,

what do I think is really going to move the needle?

And not over-correct.

I think most coaches I've spoken to in Formula One

have a story where their driver had three expresses

before it got in the car,

and then he overcook the first corner.

Right.

So it's a really tricky balance of trying to make sure

that they can systematically get in the zone to perform well in the car

without sort of pushing them too far over the other side.

And so that's where supplements become trickier

and it's very easy to down-regulate

if you've over-cooked it

through some of those physiological means.

I can do some breath work or something

to kind of calm myself down.

But if I've stuffed myself full of caffeine,

it's going to be hard to come back from that,

and then you step in the car and it could cause some issues.

So we tend to focus on some of the physiological stuff,

and then maybe a little bit of supplementation.

Because that seems to be the best balance across those different needs.

Well, it seems like formula one would be a great place

to develop a framework for this

because there's so much money involved.

It's such a massive sport.

And you would think that they would have that dialed in.

Like, you're 168 pounds.

This is when you woke up. This is what you need right now.

You need this much protein, this much this.

Stop eating X amount of hours before the race.

So, yes.

We do a lot of that.

But it's different for each guy.

And nobody wants to share what they've got.

Oh, it's that.

Even your biggest rival is your teammate in many respects.

That's the only guy you can go up against.

Truly head-to-head because you're in the same car.

A lot of what we do,

we have to silo within a driver.

This is the stuff that works for this guy.

And I can't use that to help this guy.

That's one reason.

That's one reason my hints.

They don't share information.

And that's one reason my hints has been very successful

as a company is because they've been,

we're very good at walling this stuff off.

Like, we know what's good for this guy.

We know what's good for this guy.

And we sort of leave those separate because

different frameworks, different approaches might be needed.

Well, it's such an extreme example.

Could be because any little deviation

that you wouldn't normally feel in everyday life

could be disastrous in a Formula One race.

What about different things to stimulate cognitive function,

like playing chess or doing,

is there anything that those guys engage in

specifically to improve the way they think?

Again, it depends a little from driver to driver.

A lot of them like play some kind of video games,

which actually have some interesting evidence

to support them in terms of improving cognitive function.

I think for them though,

a lot of that is,

it's almost like relaxation.

Like, when you drive a Formula One car for a living,

like playing a video game,

it really is challenging.

Right.

And so, a lot of it tends to be very car focus

where they get tons of time in the simulator

during the season, they get a lot of time in the car.

So, there's nothing that consistently would work

or that everybody does.

I think a lot of where the cognitive training side comes from

is during driver development.

How can we get more sport-specific

or sport-supporting cognitive challenges

in younger drivers as they're developing?

So, we might use some cognitive training tools

and some other things to try and support

some of those development processes

because by the time they're at the top,

especially if you want to maintain it,

the main thing that you need to do is

obviously maintain those driving skills

which you'll get through the day-to-day aspects of the job.

Plus, then, it's really continually paying attention

to sustained physical health, physical performance,

especially because of the arduous schedules

and all that kind of stuff.

And again, they're focusing on the other areas

because they know that will help them stay

at a high level for longer.

So, they're focused on recovery from all the unavoidable aspects

that are going to mitigate your performance?

Yeah, exactly.

So, sleep, some of them use different

meditation or breath work

or other devices.

Just to kind of help maybe you like

gamify it slightly

or you make it a slightly more enjoyable experience.

It's easier to do, easier to switch off

if you're doing things related,

sort of like vibration

and that kind of stuff.

You mean like pressure plates,

like those standing up things?

Yeah, so like cheeky plates?

No, there's turbo sonic.

There's a chair

that some guys use.

I mean, this is used in a ton of different sports

and in other military groups as well.

It's called the shift wave. Have you heard of this?

Yeah, I have one.

Yeah, some of the guys have a shift wave.

It just kind of depends on

what works well for them in terms of like

allowing them to downregulate, allowing them to kind of sleep better.

And again, we sort of

often focus on the more sort of physiological

environmental side rather than

trying to throw a bunch of supplements on it.

Well, it seems like

that's a great place to study Formula One drivers

because you're dealing with these like

fine lines. There's this tiny

differential between success and failure.

Yeah.

And one of the interesting things is that

sort of the real performance stuff

is kind of siloed within the team.

So then,

right, because that's related to performance in the car

and that's sensitive information.

So a lot of the time we're kind of thinking about

and this actually across most

sports,

the best predictor of performance is subjective well-being.

How does the athlete feel?

How? And so like, there are tons of studies

even like coming out now. Like, you compare that to blood tests

and HIV and all this other kind of stuff.

How they feel?

Am I tired? Am I achy?

Do I feel alert?

You know, all that kind of stuff.

That seems to predict performance really well.

So how can we

and better some of those, better than some of those other things?

The best is a combination

as much as possible.

But so we do a lot of

work aggregating data.

But then really, the rest of the time is

how can I make sure this guy feels good every day?

Right? And feels comfortable when he gets in the car.

And so then we have psychologists.

They're a big part of that. Plus, like,

keeping an eye on their body and all that, you know,

all those sort of things to sort of put them in the best

spot possible when they get in the car.

Do you coach them to avoid toxic relationships?

I'm not sure

if anybody's ever gotten into that.

For fighters, it is like

one of the number one predictors

of poor success

in a competition.

I've seen it over and over again.

Guys with horrible relationships.

You know, whoever's fault it is.

Both fault, both parties, whatever it is.

But those are the ones, like, when they have,

like, really bad relationships.

Like, there was this one guy that I know

that was a really high performer.

Very good fighter.

But he had this crazy girlfriend

and she required so much attention

that it would drive her nuts

when he was getting ready for a fight

because he was spending all his time

in the fight and it would peak

literally the night before the fight.

Like, the relationship was so toxic.

She would always start fights

and all the coaches knew it.

She would start fights after he weighed in

because he was so locked in on the fight

the next day that he wasn't paying attention to her.

So she would storm out of the hotel room

and go down to the bar by herself

and he would freak out

and he would always wind up performing poorly.

At least I personally haven't seen the evidence of that

in that world.

The fighters are kind of crazy though.

It's an interesting group to study

because it's a very bizarre activity to begin with.