Ben Greenfield:
As we transition into a post-industrial era, where it’s very easy to sit all day long, we still want to satisfy that primal urge to go out and move. But unfortunately, the way we’ve decided to do it is to do just a soul crushing workout at the beginning or the end of the day. Then, have our butts planted in a chair for the other eight hours of the day. My approach is the complete opposite.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Welcome to the Doctor’s Farmacy. I’m Dr. Mark Hyman, and that’s Farmacy with an F, a place for conversations that matter. If you care about your health and you want to find a way to get peak performance and optimize your body and your brain, and defy aging, well, this is the conversation for you because we’re talking with Ben Greenfield. It’s about his new book Boundless, which I’m really excited to get into, Ben. Just a little background on Ben, he’s a human performance consultant. He’s a speaker and New York Time’s bestselling author of 13 books including things like Beyond Training and Boundless.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
He played college tennis, water polo, volleyball, bodybuilder, 13-time iron man triathlete, which is impressive, a professional obstacle course racer, and he’s been voted as America’s Top Personal Trainer and by greatest is one of the top 100 most influential people in health and fitness. He host a highly popular fitness nutrition wellness website, bengreenfieldfitness.com, with over a million monthly visitors, has great articles, podcast, and product reviews. So, he’s the guy. He lives in Spokane. He loves incredible activities like ukulele, spear fishing, bow hunting, planting, and forging, and cooking.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
He seeks to help people to achieve high performance, peak performance, defy aging, and live an adventurous, fulfilling, joyful, and limitless life, which sounds good. I want to sign up for that. So, welcome, Ben.
Ben Greenfield:
Well, and of course, importantly, if you spell farmacy with an F, but you say defy aging, is defy aging with a PH, you put things around?
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Maybe. Maybe, so you’ve been working on this book for three years.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, unfortunately.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
We’re just chatting about it. It’s a tome, it’s 650 pages.
Ben Greenfield:
It took on a life of its own.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
You cut out 450 pages, and it’s an incredible testament to how much you know and what your goals are, which is to really provide a roadmap for people.
Ben Greenfield:
Possibly, you know how crappy of a writer I am.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Oh, maybe.
Ben Greenfield:
Because it was [inaudible 00:02:20] when you wrote the letter, you said, “I apologize, if I had more time this letter would have been shorter.”
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, sorry for the long letter. I don’t have time to write a short one. Right, exactly. So, this book is about things that you’ve always wanted to have out there, that you always wish to exist in a book, but never were there. It’s a blueprint for upgrading your brain, for optimizing your body, for defying aging. So, tell us about this book, what drove you to write it and what are the key take homes?
Ben Greenfield:
Well, the key message of the book for me is really energy, having boundless amounts of energy at your beck and call during the day. Most everything I’ve written before this has been oriented towards performance, towards fitness, towards muscle gain, towards fat loss, and even towards things like iron man training and obstacle course training. Things that at one time in my life I would have professed to be healthy, and a good way to extend lifespan. But now, I know much better than that.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
You had [crosstalk 00:03:24] more iron mans, because it beat you up too much?
Ben Greenfield:
No. Well, I don’t know. I suppose if the paycheck were large enough I might consider hopping back in a bike, but yeah-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Run a 100 miles for a million bucks?
Ben Greenfield:
There need to be some serious incentive there, yeah, for me to slip back into the spandex and the shammy. But the idea behind Boundless was I wanted to focus a lot more on the things that, specially in the fitness realm, get neglected. Everything from hormone management, to guts, to the immune system, to the brain. I, also, over the past three years, have just become increasingly interested in the whole anti-aging and longevity field. So, I [crosstalk 00:04:05].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
That was like functional medicine?
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, pretty heavily into that. I wanted to layout a lot of different dietary approaches and highlight how people can actually determine what kind of diet is right for their biochemical individuality rather than writing just a diet book, or a diet prescription. I worked in a lot of fitness concepts, but fitness concepts more focused on longevity, longevity of the joints, and longevity of the training system rather than performance at all cost. For example, the strength training session is based on targeting both strength and power.
Ben Greenfield:
We know based on telomere length studies and power lifters that having this quick explosive wiry strength is good, but the problem is if you use something like crossfit, or Olympic power lifting, or something like that, and you’re in a very heavily loaded state, or you’re in a metabolically exhausted state, it can also carry with it a high risk for injury. So, for building strength, I like more of the … One of the programs I outlined in the book is something very similar to what Dr. Doug McGuff talks about in his book Body By Science, is very super slow training, 10 to 20 seconds up, 10 to 20 seconds down.
Ben Greenfield:
Single set to failure, you get a really good peripheral blood pressure response, you get the lactic acid trapped in the muscle tissues, so you get a little bit of a growth hormone release. You can get very strong with that type of training just one to two times a week. Of course, you don’t get those fast-twitch explosive muscle fibers targeted that you want for the longevity component. So, in addition to that, there’s a couple of body weight training sessions that you can do each week that are more quick, explosive, powerful, but not under load and not in a metabolically exhausted state.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Oh, that sounds good, I want that.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, the idea is to have energy and to be fit, and to have a body and a brain that response the way that you want it to, but not necessarily for the goals of peak performance, or going out and do an iron man, or something like that.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, [crosstalk 00:06:07] you talked about, training for the Centenarian Olympics.
Ben Greenfield:
Training for the Centenarian Olympics, exactly, yeah. Being able to pick it up off the ground.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I’m getting close to that, I got 40 years to go, so I better start training.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, that’s actually, the Centenarian Olympics, one thing I think about is, can you get up after being down on the ground? One of my favorite workouts that I do is I’ll do a little bit of cardio. I did this workout yesterday at the gym, so it’s fresh in my mind. I do, have you seen Turkish get-ups before, with the kettle bell? I have my kids do this exercise, too. The way I taught them how to do it was with a glass of water. So, you’ll hold the water up above your head, and from a position laying down, flat on your back on the ground, you have to stand all the way up.
Ben Greenfield:
Technically, a Turkish get-up has some pretty strict movement regulations. It’s a Russian kettle bell exercise. If you’re judging it, you got to have certain movement patterns. Anyways, you’re essentially standing up with a weight, or if you’re just training for balance, or nervous system, a cup of water over the head, and then getting back down on the ground in a laying position without spilling the cup of water.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
And without using your hands?
Ben Greenfield:
Without your hand breaking.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
[Crosstalk 00:07:08].
Ben Greenfield:
Now, one hand, that hand that’s behind you, you can use, but other than that, you’re basically up and down off the ground and it’s incredibly difficult. It’s hard to describe on audio, if someone will to Google Turkish get-up and look up a video of it, or don’t use Google, use DuckDuckGo or Qwant. I always [crosstalk 00:07:27].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Well, what you’re saying is so important because I remember my dad when I went skiing a few years ago, well, many years ago, he died about ’91, and it was in the 70s, and he fell on a ski slope and he couldn’t get up. I had to help him up. I think the reason people end up in nursing homes is not because of a disease, it’s because they can’t tie their shoes.
Ben Greenfield:
They can’t get up.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
They can’t get out of bed. They can’t get up.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, so the workout I do, I do a little bit of cardio, like two to four minutes of cardio. Then, I do five of those Turkish get-ups on each side, holding a heavy weight on my head. Then, all I do after that is I sit down and stand up 30 times, and you want to use … They did one interesting study that showed-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Sit down on a chair or in the floor?
Ben Greenfield:
… the fewer limbs that you can use when seating down and standing up from the floor, there’s a direct corelation between that and longevity.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Okay, I’m down.
Ben Greenfield:
Just being able to sit down and stand up. I’ll do a few rounds of that and your hips feel great because you’re getting down and standing up, it’s very functional. When I travel, I like very non-cognitively demanding workouts, where there’s just like two or three exercises and you just do a few rounds. That’s a good one. It’s the sit down, standing up workout.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, that’s sounds amazing. Before we started the podcast, you were down on the floor showing me the five Tibetan longevity exercises that you do every morning. Yeah.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, the Tibetan longevity exercises, yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, I was like, “All right, I’m going to write those down.” Are they in the book?
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, there’s a whole chapter on beauty and symmetry. How to optimize your workplace ergonomics in terms of the type of pelvic shape stools that you can use instead of chairs. There’s a very soft mat that I like, it was created by this Swiss inventor and patterned after the Korean rice paddy fields. He’d walk in those and find out his feet grew very strong and his low back pain went away. So, he developed these mats that you can use as standing mats at a work station. I’ve got all these different things you can sprinkle around your office to optimize your biomechanics during a workday, which definitely plays in the symmetry.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, it’s like having a trainer in a book, so like Ben Greenfield’s in the book telling you what to do?
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, and the symmetry chapter also has a whole range of exercises, and this originates from those exercises I give my clients to do on airplanes, and to do, when they’re waiting for an airplane to take off. And to do when they’re taking their little movement snacks during a workday, stopping every 35 to 55 minutes to do a few stretches. Sample exercises are different moves called foundation training moves that decompress the spine, use your own body to decompress your spine.
Ben Greenfield:
Eldoa stretching, which is a form of self myofascial stretching, where you’re actually pushing through a very extreme range of motion for about a minute, and holding just to mobilize the fascia. A lot of different foam roller moves. Basically, all the things that you can do to get the body moving, but also increase symmetry.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, is there a curriculum saying like, you have to start here and do these things, or this is a program, because [crosstalk 00:10:16]?
Ben Greenfield:
No, much of the book is choose your own adventure, but what it is is like, “Here’s six different three to five-minute routines.” Whether it’s an eldoa routine, or a foundation training routine, or certain series of stretches, or these longevity exercises. Stop at certain points during the day, choose your own adventure, pick which routine you want to do. It only takes three to five minutes, do that, and then, just get back to work.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, these are bite sized forms of working out that have a huge impact, that you can do anywhere, that you don’t have to go to the gym for an hour or two hours, and make you all sweaty and messy?
Ben Greenfield:
Right, right. Yeah, the gym, really our gym culture, not to get too much of a soapbox, but these hardcore soul crushing workouts at the gym, normally, 100 years ago would have been relegated to the realm of the warrior, the soldier, the gladiator. The person who wouldn’t necessarily be expected to live a very long time but had to be in good enough shape to very hard to kill. As we transition into a post-industrial era, where it’s very easy to sit all day long, we still want to satisfy that primal urge to go out and move.
Ben Greenfield:
But unfortunately, the way we’ve decided to do it is to do just a soul crushing workout at the beginning or the end of the day. Then, have our butts planted in a chair for the other eight hours of the day. My approach is the complete opposite. I think that if you move all day, if you’re using standing or treadmill workstations, taking your calls while you’re walking outdoors in the sunshine, taking these movement snack breaks, keeping maybe a kettle bell, or a [crosstalk 00:11:44].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
That’s great, movement snack breaks. We got to pause on that, that is the greatest idea I’ve ever heard.
Ben Greenfield:
Movement snacks, yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Movement snacks.
Ben Greenfield:
Snack all day long, but not the way-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, that’s-
Ben Greenfield:
I used to preach, as a personal trainer, I used to preach six to 10 small meals a day.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Oh, no.
Ben Greenfield:
Some of the yogurt, and carrot sticks, the energy bar, but yeah there’s no evidence that eating more than two times a day is going to do anything for your metabolism, but the movement snacks, that’s a good idea.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
The movement, so it move from actual snacks to movement snacks.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
That is a great [crosstalk 00:12:07].
Ben Greenfield:
The thing with the exercise is if you’ve done that, maybe you keep a kettle bar, or a kettle bell, or like a hex bar, I love a hex bar. It allows someone, even with a compromised back, to be able to lift a heavy weight up off the ground. Or a pull out bar for shoulder decompression, hanging in the door of the office. You just create an environment where you can move during the day as much as possible. I think that if you structure things correctly, that formal exercise session beginning or the end of the day, should be the icing on the cake, should be an option.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah.
Ben Greenfield:
If you’re training for a triathlon, or a spartan race, or an iron man, or something like that, yeah, you do need to go to the gym and do something that would be considered somewhat unnatural. Because you have an unnatural ended mind, you want to go to battle.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Right.
Ben Greenfield:
So, on a case like that, you got to beat up the body, but I think we should structure our days not only for symmetry but these movements throughout the day.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, I love that.
Ben Greenfield:
Then, in that whole symmetry beauty section I also get into other things, like I’m very into the face right now. Like getting rid of wrinkles, taking care of the skin, things like that. So, I’ve got this thing I do every week now, I talk about it in the book but I do like a clay mask over the face and use one of those derma rollers all along the face, into the clay mask. Then, you use an infrared light, like one of these new photobiomodulation panels, like a Joovv.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Joovv, a Joovv light, yeah.
Ben Greenfield:
There are others, but yeah, the Joovv, like one of these old Joovv minis that you can keep in your bathroom and you shine that onto your face for like 10 minutes, just listening to an audio book, listening to a podcast, whatever. Then, you rinse the clay mask on. It’s such an amazing for the face, the pores, for the skin.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, tell us more about the Joovv and the light therapy, because people aren’t really familiar with that and you write about that in your book as a credible therapy for optimizing our body and our brain.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah. Well, light in general is fascinating. I don’t know how much you’ve looked in the light, I’m reading this book right now called The Human Photosynthesis. It actually gets into how the human melanin pigment actually operates very similar to the chlorophyll pigment in plants, in terms of being able to accept photons of light and generates, I think, for each molecule of water it’s about four electrons. Which can then be used to move through the electron transport chain, and technically generate ATP-based energy.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
That’s how our body makes energy, so based on [crosstalk 00:14:31].
Ben Greenfield:
It’s human photosynthesis, yeah, the electron transport is how we make energy, but normally you’d feed glucose into that cycle.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, you can feed light to make energy?
Ben Greenfield:
You can use the combination of light and melanin to produce energy. I had already known a little bit about that idea of some element of human photosynthesis. I think it was [inaudible 00:14:49] who published an article on green med maybe five years ago, and it really come out. He was talking how upon ingestion of chlorophyll rich compounds you saw a similar effect. Chlorophyll rich compounds, combined with sunlight, so like phytoplankton, or green blue algae, or coral, or spirulina, or something like that.
Ben Greenfield:
But it turns out that just melanin alone, even in the absence of a lot of these green blue compounds, combined with sunlight can shift you into a state of producing electrons.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, it’s a base of mitochondrial therapy?
Ben Greenfield:
It’s like charging the body’s battery.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, for those people that don’t really understand, mitochondria are the little energy factories in your cells, and they take oxygen, and they take food and they burn them, that’s how you have energy to run everything. But what you’re saying is that light also can contribute to the rejuvenation of your mitochondria, which is central to aging. We’re going to get into that in a minute.
Ben Greenfield:
Right, right, and the discussion of melanin aside, we know that certain spectrums of light can activate an element of mitochondria called cytochrome c oxidase. So, anything in about 600 to 850 nanometers spectrum of light, and this would be like red light, infrared light, some parts of far infrared light can fall under that spectrum, but it’s normally near infrared and red that are going to target cytochrome c oxidase. It’s actually wonderful for the mitochondria. You get a nitric oxide production. You can trigger collagen or less in production. No really good human clinical studies that I’ve seen, but a lot of anecdotal evidence.
Ben Greenfield:
I think Joovv has put some articles on their site about up-regulation of mitochondrial activity in Leydig cells in the testes. So, there’s an amplified total testosterone response if men are using [crosstalk 00:16:28] lights, on a general sense.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Wait, so you’re saying as you’re shining this red light on you and your testosterone goes up?
Ben Greenfield:
Yes, so you take off your clothes in front of these red light panels and so you get the skin effect and you also get the endocrine effect, and the testosterone effect.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Wow, that’s pretty amazing.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, so nothings-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, you have to shine it on your private parts?
Ben Greenfield:
You go to shine it on you guys and there are multiple ways to do it. I actually travel with the little mini ones and I’ll just lay in bed at night, red a book, kind of tuck it in my crotch and shine it for about 10 minutes. At home, I have one of the big panels, it’s at my desk, so I can stand at that when I’m working on my desk. You don’t want too much.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, 10 minutes a day?
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, excess stimulation of some those nitric oxide synthase pathways and that excess stimulation of cytochrome c oxidase in the mitochondria can generate excess free radicals. So, this is something you could overdo. We could overdo UVA and UVV from sunlight.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, it’s a little too much charge and that creates secondary damage in the body, is what you’re saying?
Ben Greenfield:
Right, right, yeah. Excess, in this case, it would be reactive oxygen species in response.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, like free radicals?
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, in response to the excess metabolic activity. So, we know any of these things that might induce some mild hormetic effect from cryotherapy, to exercise, to heat. They would be unfavorable in large amounts but in small amounts [crosstalk 00:17:40].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Okay, wait, wait, stop, stop. So, you said something about a very cool concept, which is hormesis, hormetic, and people have no idea what that is, and most people have never heard of the word. What it means is that when there is a stress to the system, it activates a healing response. So, a little bit of stress, like if you exercise and lift a weight, it’s going to create a little bit of micro damage in the muscles, but that makes them stronger.
Ben Greenfield:
Yes, assuming you allow them to rest and recover, and the same could be said of radiation. There’s one study that showed that the rodents around Chernobyl were living longer than non-irradiated rodents. So, there’s some evidence even mild amounts of radiation maybe beneficial, this might be partially why earthing, and grounding, and going outside barefoot and getting exposed to that type of radiation is beneficial. Lower risk of skin cancer with frequent sane exposure to sunlight, due to that hormetic effect and building up [crosstalk 00:18:31].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, and the cryotherapy, you mentioned, which is cold shock therapy.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, with the cold, that can accessibly activate the sympathetic nervous system. It can stress the immune system. It can be too much, but in small amounts, you get nitric oxide production, and you get that activation of the vagus nerve, and you get a little bit of conversion of your adipose tissue into metabolically active brown fat. So, small amounts of cold, good, large amounts as anyone knows, such as maybe not dressed right for a day of skiing, it can be stressful. Heat, same thing. We know from the Finnish longevity study, in the men’s longevity study.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, the saunas, the cryotherapy.
Ben Greenfield:
Four to five times a week in the sauna and you see a distinct increase in longevity.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I do both, like a hot steam, really hot. Then, I jump in on ice bath.
Ben Greenfield:
Well, that’s what they left out in that study, I think. Because I’ve gone to Finland and I’ve gone to [crosstalk 00:19:23].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
They jump into an ice pool.
Ben Greenfield:
They jump in the ice. They’ll go in the sauna and then they’ll go jump in the Baltic Sea, stand outside to dry off, shivering, and then, go back in heat and do a few rounds of that.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, I love that.
Ben Greenfield:
Then, of course, there’s the social component. They’re with their buddies, hanging out, then, when you go on the sauna, you’re quiet, you’re breathing, you’re not on your phone. So, there’s some components that I think go beyond the sauna.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, and I remember one time, I was in Maine, I had a friend of mine had a wood-fired sauna, and we literally sat in there for six hours. We’d go back out into the snow and roll around in the snow.
Ben Greenfield:
That’s amazing.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Then, get back in the sauna, roll around in the snow. I had never felt that good in my entire life.
Ben Greenfield:
We do that at our house, my kids call them snow angels, and what we’ll do is we do the sauna. Then, as you’re walking out trudging to the snow, after to the hot tub, you stop, you do snow angels, you get in the hot tub, you’ll get that tingling in the skin, like nitric oxide. Then, you go back out and do snow angels. Yeah, the idea of hot cold, again, for the hormetic effect is fabulous.
Speaker 3:
Hi, everyone, I hope you’re enjoying the episode. Before we continue, we have a quick message from Dr. Mark Hyman about his new company Farmacy, and their first product, the 10-Day Reset.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Hey, it’s Dr. Hyman. Do you have FLC? What’s FLC? It’s when you feel like crap. It’s a problem that so many people suffer from, and often have no idea that it’s not normal, or that you can fix it. You know the feeling, it’s when you’re super sluggish, your digestion’s off, you can’t think clearly, or you have brain fog, or you just feel rundown. Can you relate? I know most people can. But the real question is what the heck do we do about it? Well, I hate to break the news, but there’s no magic bullet. FLC isn’t caused by one single thing, so there’s not one single solution.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
However, there is a systems-based approach, a way to tackle the multiple root factors that contribute to FLC. I call that system the 10-Day Reset. The 10-Day Reset combines food, key lifestyle habits, and targeted supplements to address FLC straight on. It’s a protocol that I’ve used with thousands of my community members to help them get their health back on track. It’s not a magic bullet, it’s not a quick fix, it’s a system that works. If you want to learn more and get your health back on track, click on the button below, or visit getfarmacy.com, that’s get Farmacy with F, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y.com.
Speaker 3:
Now, back to this week’s episode.
Ben Greenfield:
I talked about this in the book a little bit, and it’s what a lot of people are talking about right now in the whole nutrition scene, is this idea of-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Wait, wait, before you continue, so to summarize, we got movement snacks.
Ben Greenfield:
Movement snacks.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Okay, great concept and idea, and there’s lots of those in the book. We’ve got activating your energy system with light, the right kind of light like Joovv. We have hormesis, which is giving your body different kinds of stresses to activate the healing response like hot, cold, et cetera.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, exactly, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Very simple, powerful ideas that you can incorporate into your routine. I’ve been doing all of these things because they’re actually so essential. So, I have a Joovv, I do movement snacks a lot, and I do hormetic stresses with hot and cold.
Ben Greenfield:
Good. Amazing.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I think it’s really how I stay young. I got my telomeres done recently, and I’m 60, but my telomeres are 39. So, I think we actually can reverse the biological clock by being smart about these little micro hacks that anybody can do to optimize our health. Your book is just full of these little micro hacks.
Ben Greenfield:
A lot of these stuff, it’s free. If you think about cold, yeah, you could go and pay 70 bucks for a cryotherapy chamber.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Turn your bath on.
Ben Greenfield:
You could go buy a water, or go for a walk in the cold and you could buy one of the, whatever, $800 light panels, or you can use sunlight similarly, assuming you don’t have any too many neighbors who are watching the tenure junk out in your backyard. But the thing is though about the hormesis-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
You live in Spokane, it’s pretty quiet there.
Ben Greenfield:
I’m out in the middle of nowhere, my problem has been the forest, so I’m not getting a lot of sunlight through the trees. Xenohormesis though is also very interesting, this idea that plants have built in natural defense mechanisms that also induce a hormetic response. This has sparked movements like the paleo movement and the carnivore movement. Paleo movement restricting many grains, and soy, and some of these compounds that have built-in defense mechanisms, where the carnivore diet takes that even further. You get rid of kale, and broccoli, and cauliflower and most herbs and spices because of that mild amount of damage that these plants can cause the body. When you look at a lot of these blue zones and longevity hotspots-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
There you go, that stuff.
Ben Greenfield:
… there’s a vast array of herbs, and spices, and xenohormetic compounds. Yeah, they’re not eating boat loads of quinoa that hasn’t been rinsed, and soaked, and sprouted to get rid of the soap like irritant [inaudible 00:24:02] that cover the quinoa. In many cases, the gluten is being slow fermented like a sourdough bread, the pre-digestive gluten, and the phytic acids, or soy, for example. Edamame is not quite as good as miso, or tempeh, or nato because it’s been fermented. So, I think it’s proper-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
It’s more traditional [crosstalk 00:24:22].
Ben Greenfield:
… preparation and deactivation of some of the natural built in plant defense mechanisms allows you to enjoy those foods. You’re shoving aside the argument whether or not those foods are necessary, which is carnivore diet folks will say, “Well, eating properly comprise nose to tail diet. You’d get all the vitamins and minerals and everything that you need.”
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Liver is far more nutrient dense than any plant food ever [crosstalk 00:24:43].
Ben Greenfield:
Liver is nature’s multi-vitamin, but at the same time, plants are fun. It’s fun to gather around a traditionally prepared meal and you’ve got whatever, me and mom’s casserole, and grandma’s salad, and some beets, and goat cheese, and a rugelach and rosemary. It’s like, there’s a lot of cool stuff on the planet that we can eat that goes beyond just animals.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Oh, it’s true.
Ben Greenfield:
But I think you just have to be smart. You have to deactivate these built in defense mechanisms, but even those, because you’re never going to be able to fully deactivate everything.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, I think they’re not necessarily that.
Ben Greenfield:
That’s the principles of xenohormesis, these plant-based defense compounds can actually be good for you in sane amounts.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, this is important to sort of come back on this because I have this theory that I made up as I started to learn about plants and the phytochemicals in plants, and the way in which they interact with their biology called symbiotic phyto adaptation, which essentially means we’ve co-evolved with plants using their “natural defense mechanisms” that they’ve developed in response to stress or protect themselves. Those molecules activate healing responses in our body, or activate different pathways. For example, when you have a wild plant, it’s under a lot of stress. Organic, more than conventional.
Ben Greenfield:
More than the big, fluffy, beautiful, sugary produce at the grocery store.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Right, right. So, when something’s organic, or it’s wild, it’s actually far more nutrient dense. For example, dandelion greens that you can pick up off your lawn have thousand times more anti-oxidant benefit than for example, spinach, which we think is a super food, right? Same thing with little small perennial potatoes, far more nutrient than those big [inaudible 00:26:21] potatoes, because they’ve had to work hard to protect themselves from stress.
Ben Greenfield:
They have been stressed, yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, we’ve used those molecules, like the glucosinolates, for example, in the broccoli family that had helped us detoxify and protect ourselves. All the anti-oxidant colorful compounds and food are all these phytochemicals, and there are more of them in stressed plants, like wild.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I think in your book you talk a lot about aging and this idea of, how do we activate these different mechanisms in our body that promote a healthy aging and then reverse biological aging? I want to get into that because there’s a whole chapter on anti-aging in your book and you talked about everything from peptides, to stem cells, and NAD, which I definitely want to get into, which is nicotinamide riboside. That is a very powerful anti-aging compound that is in a lot of news and press, and people are using it.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
But one of the things you talk about and made me think about this, because of the explanation of the xenohormesis are this category of compounds called STACs, S-T-A-C, sirtuin-activating compounds. Now, sirtuins, for people listening, are a super mechanism for regulating in some resistance, in your mitochondrial function, and longevity. And those are the things that when you see this calorie restriction studies, or intermittent fasting, or fasting mimicking diet, keto diets, those are all activating these sirtuin mechanisms, which are these master genes that regulate the aging process in health.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
They only come with certain kinds of stress, and there are plant compounds that activate this. So, maybe you can help us understand a little bit more about this.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, there are plant compounds that can activate your sirtuin-activating compounds, and when those are combined with NAD or NAD precursors, it’s actually very productive for the DNA, because both of those can work together to repair broken proteins, to keep DNA strands from being damaged. It’s a process called acylation, that these sirtuins act on along with NAD to protect your DNA. I’ll explain how to get some more of those, but I would be re-missed not to mention, when you’re talking about the wild plants, I’m in full agreement with you. I read a book a long time ago by Jo Robinson called Eating on the Wild Side.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
And you forage, that’s one of your favorite things, right? Foraging-
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, and so my family and I plant forage and I do a wild plant pastel, and it’s very, very simple. Anybody who has wild plants growing nearby, even dandelion greens can make this. So, some of the main things I have grown in my property are nettle, which cause a white tail. They’re in there just to get fat. Nettle’s full of amino acids and fatty acids, the stinging nettle, it’s amazing. So, I have a stinging nettle, I also wild mint out there. You can feel the stem, if it’s square you can roll up the leave in your finger and sniff it. It smells a little minty.
Ben Greenfield:
I got a little mint, and then the dandelion greens, those are perfect. So, a bunch of dandelion greens. Sometimes, I’ll swing into our garden and I’ll grab some rosemary or some thyme, a few spices. I’ll even throw, we grow little stevia leaves, if it’s kind of sweet, I’ll throw those in there. So, I’ll come in with my big bag full of wild plants, and all you do is you put that in a food processor, and you put about a cup of a really good extra virgin olive oil in there, and you put about a cup of your favorite nut. I like walnuts for this.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah.
Ben Greenfield:
Then, you get some salts, those are the [crosstalk 00:29:35].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
The garlic?
Ben Greenfield:
You can do garlic. I personally eat a low [inaudible 00:29:38] diet, so I leave the garlic out, and Parmesan cheese is also something that can give it a little bit of an umami flavor. But if you want to go dairy free, I’ll actually ferment the greens. You can just leave them in the jar and ferment them with a little bit of whey from your yogurt, and they develop this fermented umami flavor if you want to take a little more time to make your pesto. You dump all these stuff in the jar, you press go, and you blend it for about a minute, and this wild plant pesto, when you add the olive oil, and the walnuts, [crosstalk 00:30:04].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Incredible, wow, okay, I’m coming for dinner.
Ben Greenfield:
Oh my gosh, it’s so good. I’ll smear that on top of a steak and I don’t eat anything else. It’s wild plant pesto and steak and I’m good. So, back to the sirtuins though, so most people are familiar actually with a lot of these sirtuin-activating compounds. Red wine, and blueberries, and kale, and a lot of the dark purples, and greens, and reds.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I remember a study on the red wine thing on rats, where they gave high levels of resveratrol. They were able to, even though the rats were eating badly and not exercise, to transform their metabolism and increase longevity. Not to say you should eat bad and not exercise, but it was powerful. The only problem was what they did was they gave them the equivalent of 1,500 bottles of red wine.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, so [crosstalk 00:30:52].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, you’re not going to get this just drinking eight glasses of wine-
Ben Greenfield:
Then, the problem is 85% of resveratrol that you buy in supplement form is made from peanut skins, not grape skins. So, there’s an allergenic component, too, if you don’t choose your resveratrol wisely. I’m a bigger fan of [inaudible 00:31:05], for those reasons, molecularly, it acts very similar as resveratrol as a STAC activator, but it’s al to more powerful and you need less of it.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, that’s often a lot of combined supplements, for example, with NAD.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, exactly, and that’s what a lot of companies are doing, is they’re combining NAD with some of these sirtuin-activators, and then, typically, some kind of a methyl donor.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Methyl donor means like B-Vitamins, B12, [crosstalk 00:31:32]?
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, betaine, trimethylglycine, isodine, and selenomethionine, and any of these things are going to contribute methyl groups. We can get to NAD in a second if you want, I can explain that in a little bit more detail.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, I do want to get into that.
Ben Greenfield:
With the sirtuins, I talk a lot about these STACs in the book and how magical they are, especially when combined with intermittent fasting, or restricted feeding windows, or some amount of calorie restriction as far as protecting the DNA. Assuming that you have enough NAD, because sirtuins have to work with the NAD, and NAD levels will dramatically decline as you age. So, you need to have your sirtuin levels elevated but then, also have your NAD levels elevated. One of the sirtuin-activating compounds, that there’s been a little bit more research on lately, that’s a very good sirtuin is fisetin, or fisetin.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, F-I-S-E-T-I-N.
Ben Greenfield:
There’s multiple source of that like persimmon, and onions, but strawberries, especially wild strawberries. You can buy strawberry powder and add it to your smoothie, the strawberries are easy to grow. They grow like weeds, but they’re a very, very good source of this fisetin, which is one of the more potent STAC activators that out there.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Wild strawberries?
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
And you can buy the wild strawberry powder?
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, small, wild, concentrated strawberries. Yeah, you can find organic wild strawberries powder on Amazon.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
It sounds like a yummy way to get healthy and live a long time.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, [crosstalk 00:32:43], turned your smoothie into a fruit loop. So, anyways, the sirtuins are good, but because they need to work with NAD, which is also going to be very protective for your mitochondria during metabolic activity. If you’re eating a sirtuin rich diet but neglecting to keep your NAD levels elevated, you’re really shorting yourself from a DNA protection standpoint, which is all the more important now that we know that some of these forms of non-ionizing radiation like 5G, and wifi, and non-native EMF may actually impact DNA.
Ben Greenfield:
So, if you can do things like get your NAD levels elevated, activate sirtuins, when you get exposed to a lot of these non-native EMF, typically, there’s a huge influx of calcium into the cells. So, you keep your magnesium levels elevated to battle that, activate some of these other anti-inflammatory pathways. There’s one in particular called the Nrf2 pathway that you can activate with ketones, or with being in a state of ketosis. There are a lot of things you can do to protect yourself, but I would say top of the totem pole for the DNA would be sirtuins and NAD.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Okay, let’s back up a little bit, because people probably don’t know what NAD is. So, in the body there is, inside every cell, hundreds of thousands of these little factories called mitochondria, they’re your power plants. As I said, they take oxygen that you breathe and food that you ate and they combust them. There’s a whole series of chemical steps and basically a cycle that has to work if this is going to be functioning. It’s regulated a lot by various genes, like the sirtuin genes, Daf-2, FOXO, these are genes that actually regulate the aging process.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, I was recently at an event where I was listening to the head of the Buck Institute for Aging talk about NAD and talk about the mitochondria and some of these genes, they literally, by actually helping properly regulate, for example, one of the genes Daf-2 in earthworms, they were able to expand the lifespan of that worm that would be equivalent to us living to a thousand years old. The things that turned it off are sugar, and processed food, and toxins, and EMFs, and wifi, and all the things you mentioned.
Ben Greenfield:
So, do you know how old you are in worm years now? No?
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I don’t know.
Ben Greenfield:
We have to come out with that test.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, worm years. Well, [inaudible 00:35:01] say we could live to a thousand, but what you’re talking about is how the science of aging has advanced so far that we now understand the mechanisms, and we understand how to play with them in ways through the movement snacks, with some of the other things like everybody, but also through the right nutrient and supplements. NAD is one of the key parts of that cycle of making energy, and many of us, like you said, decline as we age, and there are ways to increase it through various modalities including certain supplements, [crosstalk 00:35:30].
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, which is becoming a hot topic now.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
NAD, IV NAD people are using.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, from a traditional standpoint you can fast, you can eat a wide variety of fermented foods. There are certain teas like Pau D’arco bark tea, which has these compounds called beta-lapachones in it, which are wonderful for increasing your NAD levels. Of course, you can make sure that you’re not turning over NAD too quickly by paying attention to the level of exposure to non-native EMF, like turn your phone in airplane mode when you can [crosstalk 00:36:00].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
We’re in this apartment in New York City, and I look at my wifi, and there’s 400 different networks. I wanted to build a Faraday cage around our apartment.
Ben Greenfield:
You could.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
We’re actually looking at buying a net, literally, that goes over your bed that shields you from all EMF.
Ben Greenfield:
You can do that, I’d use paint if you can, if you’re allowed to paint in your-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Paint in your room?
Ben Greenfield:
Faraday paint. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Oh, there’s Faraday paint?
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, Shielded Healing has Faraday paint, just if you don’t want to ruin the functionality of the room, like a canopy around the bed.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Okay, that’s a good thing to know, everybody, Faraday paint. Faraday is a scientist, a physicist who came up with this concept of Faraday cage that essentially blocks out all radiation.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I think that’s a powerful idea that we should think about, because it does affect sleep, it affects-
Ben Greenfield:
It is, I wear Faraday cage underwear when I’m on the airplane. It’s not here yet, but I just got a Faraday cage hoodie. I pay attention to this stuff, but yeah, part of it is because of the NAD.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
By the way, mitochondria, the most important thing you need to keep healthy through aging, and they degrade, the genetics’ DNA gets damaged-
Ben Greenfield:
Absolutely.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
… and they’re easily damaged, they’re super sensitive, and we don’t know how to take care of them. We don’t pay attention to it, it’s not something the doctors think about or talk about [crosstalk 00:37:12] disease.
Ben Greenfield:
Unfortunately.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
But the good news is, it is the center of the aging conversation, and it also is something we know how to deal with, what we can do about it. So, that’s just exciting. I spent a lot of time in the functional medicine treating people’s mitochondrial issues, all kinds of modalities, including the things you’re talking about.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, yeah. So, the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, that’s basically NAD, it’s unfortunately not very well absorbed, if you just take an oral NAD supplement. So, what you’ll find out on the market now are two different forms of NAD precursors. One called NR, nicotinamide riboside, and the other one called NMN, which is nicotinamide mononucleotide, something, something.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah.
Ben Greenfield:
Anyways, though, NR is actually pretty well absorbed orally, and so a lot of supplement manufacturers, the ChromaDex, and Elysium, [inaudible 00:38:03], all these people are using NR now as one oral way to boost NAD levels. NMN, you can’t necessarily swallow as a capsule, but it can be combined sublingual NMN tablets.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
They actually sell NMN as capsules.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah. Well, they shouldn’t because it’s not very well absorbed unless it’s dissolved sublingually. The thing about NMN is more of the nicotinamide will be in the hypothalamus and in neural tissue in response to NMN supplementation versus NR supplementation. So, if you’re doing it for the brain effect, I would say use sublingual NMN, or use, they make these now, intranasal NAD sprays. If you just want a quick, full body effect, NR works just fine. But you want to make sure, kind of back to what we hinted at earlier, that because NAD is going to upregulate your methylation pathways, you take a methyl donor along with it.
Ben Greenfield:
Like betain, or trimethylglycine, or SAMe, or something that will make you feel a lot better when you take the NAD.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Those are supplements you can buy over the counter?
Ben Greenfield:
These are all things you can buy over the counter. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
The NAD spray, I think, needs a prescription.
Ben Greenfield:
No, you can buy that. Alive by Nature I know has one right now, that’s one company that has … they have a sublingual-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
And NMN sublinguals, how do you trust the quality in the brand?
Ben Greenfield:
Well, I know the people who run that company, and they’re pretty committed to quality. They’re manufacturing cGMP facilities and I think they do a good job. However, the NAD levels are still something that I think you should spark a pretty significant increase in prior to supplementation, by doing something like NAD IV. In terms of increasing bio available NAD, nothing beats that, meaning that you actually sit and get a 500 to 1000 mg NAD drip into your system. Many people will do this for one to five consecutive days to top off the NAD levels. Then, use oral supplementation after that, and drop in-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
What do people experience?
Ben Greenfield:
… drop in once a month, or once every couple of months to redo an IV to get the levels back up, and that’s what I do. I get an IV about once a month. I take NMN right now sublingually in between those dosings, or in between those IVs. The other thing that I do, is because the one time I know I’m exposed to tons of radiation, inflammation, non-native EMF, et cetera, is you can get these transdermal patches now, that use an electrophoresis patch to actually deliver NAD transdermally.
Ben Greenfield:
So, I wear one of those patches that will slow bleed about 750 milligrams of NAD into my system while I’m flying. So, that’s a very useful way to get transdermal delivery [crosstalk 00:40:39].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
What do you notice from this? Do you have any difference in how you feel, your cognitive performance, energy?
Ben Greenfield:
The energy, better energy would be the biggest one. The NMN, if I take that prior to a workout, I get almost like a mild flushing reaction, like a little bit of better blood flow, so there’s that. The DNA protective effect though is something that I think is best measured with what you’re using to monitor your longevity, your telomere length analysis, or one of these new methylation clock analysis, because some of these things, you don’t know they’re working until you can actually see the effect that they’re having on telomeres or on DNA protection.
Ben Greenfield:
So, my last spectracell telomere analysis, it was nine years old as far as biological age, and one big change that I made was doing NAD for the past two years, using that method that I just described.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Nine years old?
Ben Greenfield:
Nine years old.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
How old are you?
Ben Greenfield:
I’m 38, I just turned 38.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Okay, that’s impressive.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, so who knows when you’re stacking all of these modalities, what’s actually working. But ultimately, the NAD, I think, even if you’re not doing IVs, or patches, or whatever, and you’re just taking oral NAD, if you’re doing that and including sirtuin rich compounds in your diet and some methyl donors, that’s a pretty good STAC for longevity.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Wow, that’s a lot of information. So, in order to upgrade your mitochondria and help you live longer, have more energy and repair your DNA, you’re talking about using NAD in different forms, NMN, sublingual, patches, IVs, which is available now on more and more clinics around the country. Including our UltraWellness Center in Lenox, Massachusetts, where I practice, and I you’re talking about adding rich compounds that are like the red wine, but that you can actually get from strawberries, wild strawberries, and other plant foods.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Then, you’re also talking about adding things that help with a cycle called methylation, which is a really critical in your biology, in your biochemistry that is going on thousands, millions of times a second, and it needs helpers and things like SAMe, trimethylglycine.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, and if you’re drinking the wine, same as you’re talking about with stress and wildness, drink a wine that has been from a grape that’s been grown under stressful conditions. It’s like a lot of big California Cabs and Merlots, they heavily irrigate their crops. They’re developing a very sugary grape-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
That’s kind of soft.
Ben Greenfield:
… that is low in anti-oxidants, that hasn’t been stressed as much. So, we’ve now gotten the health sector, companies like Dry Farm Wines, for example, that are doing more of like a low irrigation grape crop. If you look at countries like New Zealand, or Italy, or France, when you’re at a steakhouse, usually those are the type of countries that are still using old world biodynamic methods, with low irrigation. So, you can even consider the wildness of your wine.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Okay, now, I want to talk about diet and sleep.
Ben Greenfield:
Okay.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, in your book you talk how obviously there’s no one diet for everybody and that you need to figure out what the right diet is for your body. But there are some common themes, so tell us what those are and how do people figure out how to use it themselves?
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, it’s interesting. All the way back to Roger William’s book Biochemical Individuality, there’s a vast array of different sizes of livers, and stomachs, and there’s different rates of excretion of uric acid and Vitamin D, all sorts of different ways that we respond to different vitamins and nutrients, and a lot of that is based on genetics. So, we cannot say that, let’s say, a ketogenic diet that might have helped your neighbor lose 20 pounds is going to be appropriate for you, because maybe you have familial hypercholesterolemia, or maybe you have an FTO gene that predisposes you to gaining weight in response to high levels of saturated fat.
Ben Greenfield:
Or, maybe you got poor liver bowel production or gall bladder bowel release, so there’s something going on that makes a high fat diet very unfavorable for you.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, don’t work for you.
Ben Greenfield:
The same could be said for, maybe you’re an under methylator and trying to get by on a largely plant-based diet, when in fact you need a lot more of methionine and methyl groups that you would get by including meat in the diet. So, there’s a great deal of individuality with diets. That’s why I’ve never really written a diet book just because it’s so hard to actually dial in a specific diet. Even in Boundless, I actually outlined 13 different diets. From the Wahls protocol, to the plant-paradox protocol, to the paleo protocol, to the carnivore approach, all these different approaches.
Ben Greenfield:
Then, walk people through how they would find based on genetics, blood testing, stool testing, urine testing, food allergy testing, which diet is going to be appropriate for them. Even then, it might be a transitory diet, where like maybe you have leaky gut and auto-immune issues-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, it’s a therapeutic approach?
Ben Greenfield:
… and high levels of mercury, or something that’s going to require more of like an auto-immune or detoxification approach for eight to 12 weeks before you progress into a more kind of free diet, or a diet that might be less restrictive. So, ultimately, a great deal of individualization is necessary with, I think, probably the most important first step being to look up what your ancestors ate and try to, in some way, simulate that if you can. If that’s the lowest hanging fruit, it’s a very simple [crosstalk 00:45:54].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Well, my ancestors, meaning the ones like in the last 100 years or 200 years? Because they were all eating Jewish food [crosstalk 00:46:00]-
Ben Greenfield:
Well, that’s the problem, because 200 years from now, if I say that, my ancestors were eating at McDonald’s, right? They have a $7.29 hamburgers.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, I’m like, I’m not [crosstalk 00:46:05] and all that stuff was [crosstalk 00:46:10].
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, but generally, you can look at things from an ancestral standpoint and say, “Okay, I’m largely Northern European, I’m probably going to do okay with things like fermented foods, salted foods, fish, meat, et cetera.” Or, maybe I come from more like a Southeast Asian or Sub-Saharan African ancestry, so I could do better with a little bit more of the citrusy fruits, maybe some of the higher carbohydrates, coconuts, potatoes, things like this. So, you can get some decent idea of your basic ancestral food choices just from knowing where your ancestors came from.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah.
Ben Greenfield:
But I think it’s smart to delve more deeply into that, get a good blood test, get a urinary hormone [crosstalk 00:46:50].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Most of us were much these days.
Ben Greenfield:
That’s the problem with America, too.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
[Crosstalk 00:46:54]. I’m 99% Jewish from the Middle East. I’m lucky I’m like one thing, but most people are not.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, right, which might actually a lot of those can be free with their diets, who knows?
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah.
Ben Greenfield:
It’s difficult to say. But ultimately, you do not want to assume that whatever the prevailing diet is from the most popular book in the bookstore is going to work for you at this point in your life. You need to [crosstalk 00:47:15] and customized.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I always say, the smartest doctor in the room is your own body.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah. That being said, as you alluded to, there are prevailing characteristics of just about any successful diet, including those we see in longevity hotspots, like Nicoya, or Sardinia, or Okinawa. A few of those components would include some element of caloric restriction or fasting. Even look at the Mediterranean diet, which we bastardize in the US to be as much goat cheese, and olive oil, and fish, and even red meat, and spoonfuls and spoonfuls of milk butter, and ate handfuls of almonds during the day. When in fact, a traditional Mediterranean diet, if you look at the Orthodox church, and the amount of fasting in religious observations on that diet, there’s huge amounts of protein restrictions.
Ben Greenfield:
Certain days of the week where olive oil isn’t even consumed. You see almost like a [inaudible 00:48:10] cycling of times of the year when you’re eating adequate calories, and especially adequate proteins. Then, times of the year when there’s protein restriction, meat restriction, calorie restriction. So, almost every single diet has some element of calorie restriction, whether it’s intermittent fasting or some religious observation of fasting, some element of protein restriction. Not year round, but there’s always something about that.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Right, periodically. It’s like a reset, and it actually resets your biology.
Ben Greenfield:
Right, and for me, I fast 12 to 16 hours, every day, overnight, 12 to 16 hours fast. Once a quarter, I do a five calorie restriction, similar to Valter Longo’s fasting mimicking diet, where just for five days I eat about 40% of the number of calories I would normally consume. Then, one to two times a month I do a 24-hour, dinner time to dinner time fast. For me, that’s sustainable all year long, it’s easy to remember. There’s nothing super … there’s no 10-day water fasting ball. I can sustain that throughout the year. So fasting is one component. Another component is eating in a parasympathetic state, usually with people.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
You mean when you relax?
Ben Greenfield:
When you relax, yes. Eating relaxed.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
You [crosstalk 00:49:17] in your car on the way to work, or while you’re in a meeting, or lunch, yeah.
Ben Greenfield:
Right, in your car, on your way to work, even last night I gave a dinner talk and everybody’s talking and chatting, they bring out the food, and they really dive in, I’m like, “Wait a minute, we have all these people who just walked in, they’ve been at work all day, they’re stressed out. Half of them were checking their emails on their phone when they still walk in here. You don’t just sit down and eat in that state.” At our house, at the Greenfield house, we all take at least three deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, again, and again, and I’ll typically will say a blessing over the food.
Ben Greenfield:
Then, once the meal begins, it’s all fun and games. You play table topics, we have all these different card games, exploding kittens, and unstable unicorns, and bears versus babies, and all these games we feel. It’s funny all of our cards have a little [inaudible 00:50:05] stains on them and stuff, because we’re always playing cards over eating. But this idea of eating in not just a relaxed, rest and digest, parasympathetic state but also eating with people, in the presence of others. Not hunched over your computer having salad, or huffing down an 800 calorie smoothie because you know it’s gone because you’ve been looking at your emails the whole time. That’s another component.
Ben Greenfield:
We also see, as we also talked about, typically large inclusion of a wide variety of wild plants. A lot of these xenohormetic compounds [crosstalk 00:50:36] these diets.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
It’s hard to get for people, but it’s great.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, yeah. Farmer’s market, community supported agriculture, patio gardening, [crosstalk 00:50:43].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I would say, eat weird foods, [crosstalk 00:50:45] weird foods.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, eat the ugly, weird foods, yes, assuming the weird food is not a coconut crusted deep fried twinkie, which sure are classified as weird.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, not [crosstalk 00:50:53].
Ben Greenfield:
If I could throw probably a couple more in there, it would be typically not having a very large meal close to bedtime. That’s another one, [crosstalk 00:51:04].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, two to three hours at least.
Ben Greenfield:
[Crosstalk 00:51:05] about sleep is one of the best ways to keep your body’s core temperature low while you sleep. If you do have a late dinner, I had a late dinner, my dinner was at 11:00 last night, I’ll get cold, or I’ll go for a walk. I do something that will get that core temperature back down. So, last night I took off my coat, I went for a brisk walk, I walked for 15 minutes before I got my Uber back home, or hopped on the taxi back home just so I can get my body’s core temperature down. Cold shower, cold soap, anything like that, if you have to eat a late meal, is a good idea.
Ben Greenfield:
So, ultimately, there’s about 12 different factors that I go into in the book that are prevailing characteristics of all of these areas, where no matter what the diet is, whether it’s a plant-based diet in Loma Linda, or fish and rice in Okinawa, there are certain principles that you follow such as fasting, eating with people, not having huge dinners right before bedtime, that no matter what diet you’re eating, will allow it to be successful.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Amazing. So, in terms of the whole vegan meat thing, we talked about these blue zones, but the truth is, they did eat meat, Ashkenazi pork, in Costa Rica you’ll eat a lot of guinea pigs. They’re not the wild vegan.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, yeah, trick with meat, really, in my opinion, is that when you look at mTOR activation, two different compounds, [crosstalk 00:52:20].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Okay, mTOR, for all of you listening is essentially one of the regulatory factors around aging.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, it’s an anabolic switch that if excessively activated, can accelerate aging, but if activated within reason can do things like maintain muscle, maintain bone density, allow for repair, allow for recovery, libido, hormones, et cetera.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
It sounds good.
Ben Greenfield:
But if it’s constantly activated, that’s a constant state of poor growth that can accelerate aging. Well, the two things that you want to be careful with, if you are including a lot of meat or proteins in your diet is extremely high amounts of leucine, and very high amounts of methionine. With methionine, you would get that if you’re eating a carnivorous diet but the lion’s share of the animal-based foods that you’re consuming were derived from muscle meat, rather than from things like bone broth, bone marrow, organ meats, liver, kidney, hearts.
Ben Greenfield:
These foods that are richer in not only some of the nutrients, returning back to liver being nature’s multi-vitamin, but also in glycine, in amino acid, which helps to balance out those very high amounts of methionine. So, if you are going to include meat in your diet, I think it’s important to eat nose to tail, and to learn how to prepare-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Which most people don’t like.
Ben Greenfield:
… organ meats properly, I call it awful for a reason.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah.
Ben Greenfield:
And if you don’t like to do that there are companies like Paleovalley or Ancestral Supplements that are selling now liver powder.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
You’ll get a liver shake [crosstalk 00:53:44].
Ben Greenfield:
They got prostate, brain, heart, you can just take capsules, and I use these a lot of times when I travel, because I don’t eat a lot of organ meats when I’m traveling. So, ultimately, that’s one issue. The other issue is high amounts of leucine. This is something I think is a bigger problem in the fitness world, because any supplement manufacturer knows that a good way to make money fast is to sell branched chain amino acids supplements, which unfortunately, in a literature, have not been shown to be that great at all for performance or recovery. It’s just basically glorified flavored water.
Ben Greenfield:
But it’s isoleucine, valine, and leucine in branched chain amino acids. So, if you’re relying upon a lot of these popular protein powders that are adding extra BCAAs to the protein powder, if you’re using BCAAs when you go to the gym, there’s now a bunch of different companies that are putting BCAAs in there. Like Bang energy drinks and some of these others, they’re adding BCAAs to the energy drinks. So, you’re not only getting all the artificial sweeteners and everything else, but you’re also getting a ton of leucine.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
[Crosstalk 00:54:39].
Ben Greenfield:
Leucine is another potent mTOR activator.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
But it also helps muscle synthesis. You can’t build muscle once you have adequate leucine, which is not so much of plant foods.
Ben Greenfield:
It can, but you don’t want it in excess. I think a lot of people are getting too much methionine and too much leucine when they should in fact be getting more glycine. So, I think if you are going to eat a meat-based diet, I love meat, I bow hunts, I prepare meat all the time. My wife does a lot of cooking at our house, but if there’s a steak, or a chicken, or a fish that needs to be cooked, I’m the man, or an organ meat. So, I eat meat but nose to tail, and I’m cognizant of methionine versus glycine, versus leucine consumption. That’s what’s important.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, how do you fix that? So, are you saying you’re staying away from muscle meat?
Ben Greenfield:
No, you sacrifice some of the muscle meat consumption and instead include things like bone broth, liver, kidney, heart, organ capsules. You can supplement with glycine, you can use-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, if you supplement it with glycine, you’d offset the effects, is that what you’re saying?
Ben Greenfield:
You can offset some of the effects of methionine, your methionine glycine ratios.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
[Crosstalk 00:55:43].
Ben Greenfield:
For example, when I sit down to lunch, I have lunch, typically, for me, lunch will be a little bit of, these days, I’m eating a lot like pumpkin squash, some of these underground storage organs, typically a little bit of ferment on the side, like a kimchi, or sauerkraut, and some sardines, or anchovies, or mackerel.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Oh, sounds like my diet.
Ben Greenfield:
Herring or salmon. But I now have, after seeing a lot of these stuff about glycine, I have a big cup of bone broth with lunch. So, I’m getting that glycine in as well.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, glycine is very important for detoxification as well.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, absolutely. The joints.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Very powerful. Yeah. Okay, so what about the other things that we care about like sleep and brain performance? How do you help people address sleep and sort of maximum mental performance?
Ben Greenfield:
We could tackle them one at a time, but sleep is pretty straight forward. We know that you need to be in a dark environment. It needs to be silent, and typically, it needs to be in a low temperature. Most people can wrap their heads around-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, cold room, eyes shades, ear plugs?
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, basically. But there are few nitty gritty details. For example, if you use something like one of these new pads that you can use to circulate cold water under [crosstalk 00:56:57].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
A chilly pad, I have one, they’re amazing.
Ben Greenfield:
A chilly pad, [crosstalk 00:56:59], I set mine at 55 degrees, I sleep like a baby. If I’m traveling like here, or in New York, I sleep with the windows open all night. We’re here in the month of January, so the room gets nice and cold, a little dip down into the 50s, and it’s perfect, but a very cold environment.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
How does your wife like that?
Ben Greenfield:
Oh, she makes her snuggle up, but the chilly pad actually is a his and her side, right? So, my side is a 55, and she doesn’t even turn her side on, actually. But the other thing you do is you can wear wool socks, and wool socks actually causes basil dilation that helps to cool the rest of your body where your feet stay warm. That’s kind of a hack, even if you don’t have a chilly pad, or a very cold room. Of course, if you have a late meal, or a late exercise session, figure out a way to get yourself cold. Take a cold shower, go for a walk in the cold brisk weather, do a quick cold soak, hop into a cryotherapy chamber if you got one of those fancy gyms.
Ben Greenfield:
But figure out a way to decrease your core temperature before bed all the more if you’ve exercised hard or eaten a lot of food within three hours prior to bedtime. So, that’s one thing, which is the actual core temperature. You pay attention to not only the bedroom, but also the sleeping surface, the breath ability of the sheets.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I got to tell my wife that, because she likes it hot, I like it cold. But I do have a chilly pad which has improved our marriage.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, that’s going to be a saving grace for you. Yeah. Then, with light, a lot of people know not to look at screens now. I think that’s pretty common knowledge, is don’t stare-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
The blue blocker glasses.
Ben Greenfield:
… at computer screen, or if you are, wear your blue light blocking glasses. Put your phone in night mode, but a few areas where I … two in particular, I think, could be better paid attention to. Number would be, when you’re in your bedroom at night, maybe take off those glasses where you get up in the evening to go use the master bathroom, or you turn on the lights in the master bedroom. You’re just basically getting blasted with all that same light you were trying to restrict from your restricted screen usage.
Ben Greenfield:
So, what we did in our room, our master bathroom, my kid’s bedroom, and my wife’s and mine bedroom was we replaced all the bulbs with red incandescent bulbs, which simulates something more like torch lights, or a sunset. So, you don’t get that big rush of blue light if you happen to get up in the morning and use the restroom. Not that I would ever get up at night to take anything out of the refrigerator, but just in case something like that were to happen, you open the refrigerator, big blast of blue light-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
But you’re not supposed to eat in the middle of the night.
Ben Greenfield:
Well, you know what? The blue light thing, really, that becomes a rule when the sunsets in whatever area of the world you happen to be in. Same as you’re cleaning up the kitchen after dinner at 8:30 p.m. and you open that fridge over and over again, you’re just getting blasted, blasted, blasted.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
It’s true. Yeah.
Ben Greenfield:
So, I got some of that red light tape and I covered the light in the refrigerator with some of that same red light tape that restricts the blue light in the refrigerator.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Amazing. Well, what’s fascinating is there’s a book called Lights Out years ago about how the development of the light bulb was the beginning of a lot of our chronic diseases.
Ben Greenfield:
T. S. Wiley’s Sleep, Sugar, and Survival, it’s called, yeah, it’s a fascinating book. Anyways, so that’s one thing, is your actual light bulbs and what you’re choosing for light bulb. I like red incandescent for that. Then, the other one is the fact that your circadian rhythm or sleep cycle doesn’t start when you’re getting ready for bed at night, it starts in the morning, when you get up. So, getting as much natural sunlight, or even blue light as you can in the morning. So, what I do in the morning is I think, “Okay, let’s simulate what our ancestors would have done.”
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Look at your iPhone early in the morning?
Ben Greenfield:
If I would have gotten up, I would have first seen sunrise, right? So, yes, I will not be opposed. So, looking at screens, looking at the phone, et cetera, but I put my blue light blocking glasses on in the morning, so everything I’m looking at is kind of red, like the sunrise. Then, typically, around 7:00 or 7:30, I take those glasses off and all of a sudden, I’m getting full daylight, I’m getting full blue light from the computer screen, full blue light from the iPhone. So, I’m jump starting my circadian rhythm at the right time of day, but you ease yourself in it. You put the blue light blocking glasses on in the morning.
Ben Greenfield:
Then, you take them off as you get around 7:00, 7:30. Then, you let yourself get exposed to blue light, and computer screens, and sunlight, and everything else. So, you blast yourself with light in the morning. Those are a couple of the biggest for light and for cold. Then, for the silence piece, it’s foam ear plugs. I like an app called SleepStream. It’s like a DJ, of course, it’s got white noise, it’s got a brown noise. Based on some research they did at Stanford, apparently, pink noise is the best for getting some sleep.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I think Faraday pink is also up there with things that are going to help sleep.
Ben Greenfield:
Pink noise and Faraday pink, that’s right. Yeah, so the silence piece is it’s a little bit easier to wrap your head around. Then, finally, just the last thing, similar to eating, activate your parasympathetic nervous system. You know Dr. Andrew Weil, and I interviewed him on my podcast and he talks so much about his for 4-7-8 breathing. I actually do 4-8 breathing. I find that seven count hold, when I’m breathing myself to sleep at night is a little much. So, I just do four count in, quick pause at the top, eight count out and I can low … my sleep latency, because I use the Oura ring to measure my sleep latency, it’s about three to five minutes.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
That’s pretty quick.
Ben Greenfield:
I literally get in bed four, eight breathing, and I’m out like a light.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
That’s great. That’s great, [crosstalk 01:02:08] you’re breathing, slowly at the count of four.
Ben Greenfield:
In for four-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
And breath out slowly as you-
Ben Greenfield:
And as you breathe out for eight. Speaking of longevity, just having long breaths out, because what it does is it trains CO2 tolerance, your body holds on more to more CO2. We know all these long living animals, from the bowhead whale, to the naked mole rat, they all have very high CO2 tolerance. So, if you can breathe through your nose when you’re working out, when you’re out walking, you can take longer exhales, then inhales. You can always be cognizant of breathing out longer and more than you breath in. You can train yourself to enhance longevity through CO2 tolerance.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
That’s fantastic. So, Boundless is full of all these amazing tips, hacks, and tricks, and actually, incorporating the science into practical things that you can do every day to perform better, feel better, live longer. It sounds pretty darn good. I’m going to get my copy right now.
Ben Greenfield:
I’m proud of [crosstalk 01:03:02]. Well, I think you’re getting a copy. I think I’ve sent you a copy. You don’t have to get one, but if people are listening in, I want to encourage them to get one. I’m pretty proud of it. It took a really long time to write, and I tried to make it practical, but I also tried to weave in a lot of the sexy stuff. Like, yeah, there are $40,000 biohacking tools in there, and there’s crazy supplementation protocols for microdosing with psychedelics, and plant medicine journeys, all the way, and just the basics.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Holy cow, this is like the one stop shopping-
Ben Greenfield:
So, it’s a little bit of everything.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, you’ve basically taken all of the things that people are hearing about in the news, in the media, and blogs, and you put it into a coherent book that people could follow, read, look at the signs behind it. I’m sure there’s tons of references.
Ben Greenfield:
Yeah, I made a huge webpage for every single chapter, so when you read a chapter, you go to the webpage, it just got all the books, all the articles, all the pod … everything you can use to take a deeper dive into anything that’s been discussed.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Deeper than the 650 pages?
Ben Greenfield:
Deeper than that. I have the 450 pages that got cut from the book, I put all of those on the website, too. So, I pulled out all the stuffs on this one.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
So, everybody go to boundlessbook.com to learn about more Boundless, upgrade your brain, optimize your body, and defy aging. Ben, you’ve been an incredible guest. I have learned so much from you, and I think if people pay attention, they’re going to feel better, look better, live longer, and have a great life, because that’s what it’s all about.
Ben Greenfield:
That’s right, and have a great life on [crosstalk 01:04:30].
Dr. Mark Hyman:
It’s not just about optimizing your mitochondria, the whole point of this is to live a joyful, connected, meaningful life.
Ben Greenfield:
It’s such a good point. You and I, I think we both know there’s this 110 year-old cigarette smoking gin chugging grandma somewhere in Sardenia who aren’t necessarily living the model of perfect health as we would define it by western longevity standards, but they’re happy, they have friends, they have a wonderful social life.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
It’s true, it’s true.
Ben Greenfield:
It’s a big part of it, too.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Although it’s part of the 1% or 2% who can smoke, and drink, and live forever.
Ben Greenfield:
I would imagine their-
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I would not advise that. I would not advise that.
Ben Greenfield:
[Crosstalk 01:05:04] gins are probably turned on pretty dang high.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
Yeah, it’s so exciting. Yeah, it’s exciting to live in this time because the science is advancing so far, and the average person can actually take advantage of the science. Unfortunately, most healthcare is not focused on this. They’re focused on disease. You’re talking about how to create optimal health and that’s essentially what functional medicine is. So, as you’re talking, I’m like, “Wow, this is really awesome to hear you talking about the principles of functional medicine in the way that are accessible, and that people can get to and transform their life.” So, thanks for being on the Doctor’s Farmacy, Ben.
Ben Greenfield:
Cool.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
If you love this podcast, please share with your friends and family on social media. Leave a comment, we’d love to hear from you. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast, and we’ll see you next week on the Doctor’s Farmacy.
