Episode Transcript

Julia Landauer 0:04 Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of If I'm Honest with Julia Landauer. I don't know about you, but I have noticed another spike in our culture's obsession with anti aging and reducing age related effects, and this has always been prominent in life, I think, especially when it comes to marketing services or products that can help, quote unquote, reduce aging effects. And with what I think is particularly potent for women and girls to maintain a youthful appearance and to maintain, quote unquote, attractive to others, and all of that stuff. But recently, we've seen some specific examples of that going to the next level, and this is through biohackers and content we're seeing on social media and services that are available new technologies that are out there. There's a lot going on. So what I want to do for today's episode, in the context of this season in general, with human performance, I want to dive into some of the ways that we're seeing this obsession with anti aging play out in culture. I also want to talk about some research that actually observes biological things that happen as we age. And then I want to jump into things that the everyday person can do to try to live as healthy and well in as good a state for as long as they can now. I want to preface this episode by saying I am not a medical professional. I am merely consuming research and trying to be as objective and critical about where the research is coming from, but then also encourage everyone to do their own research. So you may have heard of Bryan Johnson, who is famous for spending $2 million a year to try to lower his biological age and potentially not die. He says that for the first time in human history, because of all of our technological advancements, medical advancements, AI, knowledge, understanding, research that's done, we are at the first time in our in our existence, looking at death as more of a question, not necessarily a guarantee. Now I don't, I don't know how I feel about that, and I'm not saying any of that is right or wrong, but what he's doing and why he gets to that point is because he is spending a ton of money and all of his time measuring as many elements of his body as he can to see how he can get all of these measurements into an optimal state and optimal results, and this is what we call biohacking. Biohacking is not new. There have been biohackers, whether it's Dave Asprey with his bulletproof method, which is incorporating fats into your coffee to try to help brain performance and doing at certain times during the day. There are other examples of biohacking, like cryo chambers or how you use saunas or water, training, breathing, work, even diets, I think, could be kind of put into the biohacking category if you're having a specific type of diet that's specifically targeting certain things to help manipulate your body and your mind to increase longevity or whatever the end result is. So biohacking is not new. But what's interesting about Bryan Johnson one he's so prominent, there's a lot of press around him, and there's a lot of content that he puts out there on his website, Bryanjohnson.com that outlines specifically what he is measuring, what his results are, what his diet is, what his sleep, exercise, what he calls his quote, unquote blueprint. He puts all that online so it's fairly transparent. If he's telling the truth, it's all transparent. And as a curious person who's always been interested in human performance, it's pretty cool to see what what is being measured and understanding what we can get more knowledge about to potentially help ourselves. And he also takes it a bit further than just the biohacking itself. Like, you know, I'm curious as to what compels someone to try to reverse nature's course and upset the evolution that we have had as humans. And where all living organisms eventually die. You know what compels someone to do that? And I was watching him on Andrew Schulz's Flagrant podcast, which is three hours, like it was a long episode, but I was listening to him, and one of the comments that he made as to why it makes sense for him to pursue this research is because the human objective is, quote, unquote, don't die. And if you think about this, whether or not you want to love him or you want to hate him, when you think about this, he's not wrong, right? If humans feel that their life's in danger, they're going to remove themselves from that situation. You know, if someone is crashing on the road, you're going to swerve out of the way. To try to avoid that, because you want to protect your life. If you know that you have a disease or get sick, you're going to try to seek medical treatment so that you can survive that illness or cancer or whatever it is, so that you can keep living. I think at our core, we do want to try to survive. So the way he frames it is that the human existence is the ultimate cooperation game. People have the same objective, and for the most part, we want to help other people meet that objective. So it got a little philosophical there, but it was interesting, I think, to hear kind of this broader reason why trying to prevent death is not necessarily an out there kind of concept. Again, I think the idea of living forever sounds incredibly daunting and overwhelming, but that's just my personal opinion, and I am intrigued to see the further research that comes out from his endeavors. So all this to say that biohacking is out there, and there's this kind of almost like primal need by some people to try to outrun death, if you will, which, however you want to feel about it. It's interesting to observe from afar, on a more relatable level, when I am on social media, whether Tiktok, Instagram, whatever I feel like I am bombarded with content that's about how we can keep our faces looking young, how we can stay in shape, how we bounce back, all this stuff, and I think it plagues everyone. But I think women have been the particular target of anti aging, you know, maximizing their youthful appearance, because that is our culture, and that's what we do, but it's out there a lot, and we see a lot of it. And I think with social media, we're exposed to so many more things that you can do, right? There's Botox, there's fillers, there's laser treatments, there's red light therapy. There are different types of scraping off your the dead skins on your face. There are injections that you can do for facials. There's way to boost collagen. There are topical solutions. There are injections. I mean, there's so much that's out there to try to get us to appear youthful. And I'm not saying any of this in a judgy way. I'm saying that I've observed that it's out there. And look, I certainly feel the pressure to try to maintain my youthful appearance, especially in my 30s, where I'm noticing so many more wrinkles and gray hairs and stiffness in my joints and my body taking longer to bounce back from adverse situations, whether that's a rigorous hike or drinking a little too much, right? Our bodies age, and I'm feeling the effects, and I recognize that there's so much out there to try to get us to buy into reversing those aging effects. And truth be told, I would love to slow down the effects of aging. I first noticed my body starting to physically feel like it was declining when I was 26 on the one hand, I was starting to get a bunch of gray hairs, but I also noticed that if I sat on the ground for too long, my knees were really stiff when I stood up, or it was more easy for me to sleep in a funky way that then put my back neck in a crick for a couple days, like it was the first time where I thought, Oh, this is what the rest of My life is like, and it's only going to get worse. So once that started happening, I decided to be a little more proactive in doing what I could to treat my body with the respect that it deserves, and stretch really well, hydrate, eat well, and I definitely experiment with moisturizers and serums, and I dye my hair regularly so I can cover up the grays, because I really don't like them, even though I know they're natural. And I get Botox periodically, all things that, you know, try, that I do to contribute to minimizing the speed at which I age. For better or worse, I'm, you know, one day, I would hope that I had no shits to give and wouldn't care about aging. But we're not there yet. We're not there yet. And one tangent that's more anecdotal than anything else, and it's not commentary, it's just an observation. I've found over the last you know, five or six years that I've been traveling to France regularly with Ben when I go over there, and I'm with people, especially women, that are my age, a little younger, a little older, I find that there's way less use of Botox and fillers over there. Again, this is just my observation, but culturally, it doesn't seem that anti aging in a non natural way or an injected way is as big of a thing over there. So again, just observation and to have the confidence of a French woman would be so, so cool, because I do have confidence. Don't get me wrong, I'm a confident person, but there's a little genetic qua to a French woman's confidence, and I hope that I will I, gain some of that through osmosis, through my through my marriage, so girl can dream. Anyway. I say all this to address the fact that, again, anti aging sentiments are abundant in our culture, and a lot of what I just addressed was more on a superficial or surface level, but then there's also a lot on the core and molecular level of our beings that people are trying to do to minimize the effects of aging. Pivoting a bit. I do want to jump into some research that actually observes some of the different stages of aging. And there was recently research that came out of Stanford University (go card) that observed these biological stages of aging. These researchers found that some age related changes happen slowly and over time, like the slowing of metabolism and wrinkle development. But then there are other age related changes that seem to peak at certain specific times of our lives, so they come in waves, and researchers observed that these peaks happen at age 44 and 60 approximately. So at age 44 our bodies go through a change in their ability to metabolize fats and to metabolize alcohol, and so this will make us feel like it's more easy to gain weight and that we have more alcohol sensitivity. At 60, people experience changes in carbohydrate metabolism, kidney function and immune regulation, which can lead to people in their 60s getting sick more frequently and unable to fight off some of those lower level infections that people who are younger might be able to fight more regularly for both age 44 and age 60, these researchers found that people will experience a spike in skin and muscle aging as well as heart disease. Now I don't mean to be all doom and gloom about aging at all, like aging is much better than the alternative, if our objective is to not die, but by having this knowledge, we can be empowered to make changes to our lifestyle so that we can prepare our bodies to better handle these spikes in age related changes later on in life. These are things like exercising a certain way, building up your muscle density when you're younger, so that it's easier to maintain when you're older. It's about, you know, making sure you're eating the right kinds of food so that you can limit the potential of heart disease and all of these things, that if you do more research, you'll be able to find what will work best for you, for your own condition. If we bring this discussion back to the big picture around health and longevity and trying to maximize our Living Well, on this planet, a lot of the fancy, cutting edge technology and health aids that people like Brian Johnson are using may be inaccessible to the average person, both from a time perspective, money perspective, any of that, but there are a lot of things that we can each do to try to maximize our well being, maximize our health, hopefully maximize our longevity. And I know that this discussion cannot be limited just to things that are in our control, which I'll get into in a second. Right? I'm aware that access to medical attention and proper medical care is not always great for everyone. I know that not everyone has health care. I understand that there are some systems in place that make it harder for us to live the best that we can across the board. But I am someone who always likes to focus on what is in my control, and so that's what I want to do, by sharing some of the research that I've done, some of the things that I apply to my own life. Again, I'm not a medical professional. I encourage you each to do your own research and talk with your doctor to figure out what's best for you. But there are some key things that seem to be universally accepted as good for our longevity, and that's what I want to share with you now to close out this episode. So a handful of things very important to not smoke. Smoking is not good, not good for your lungs, not good for your health, just don't smoke. The next thing, which is personally more challenging, is to minimize drinking alcohol, especially as you get older, like it has negative effects you can it'll impact your sleep. It can impact your body's recovery. I know all this. I love my wine. We're gonna we're gonna keep working on it. The next thing to do is to exercise both moderately and rigorously. So moderately is kind of in those zones two to four, which is roughly a heart rate of 120 to 150 depending on some things. But then you also want to get some rigorous exercise to really get your heart rate elevated into that like Final percent of your capacity. I know this is easy to say as an adult without kids or dependents, who works normal hours, but prioritizing sleep is another really important thing, not only for your mental recovery, but for your body's recovery, for your ability to fight off cold and infections. Sleep is really important. And the last element that I want to dive into in this. Non exhaustive list is diet. It's universally accepted that we want to minimize the processed, dyed, and packaged foods that we eat, and the more that we can have natural, organic whole foods, as they say, to increase our nutrient count, to increase the benefits that we get from it that's always better. I know we could go into a whole separate conversation about good food scarcity and grocery deserts and preservatives and food. I mean, I know it's not great, and I know it's expensive to eat healthy, but the more that we can do that, the better it is for our bodies. And I was reading an article in The New York Times that cites some research, which I'll put it in the description, and they talk about four different specific types of food that we should try to maximize our intake of so that we can best fuel our bodies. And the first thing they talk about is prioritizing plant based proteins. So these are things like legumes, nuts, whole grains, and they help with muscle and bone strength, which is critical when you're getting older, as we mentioned, at age 44 and at 60, you'll see more muscle degradation. So the more robust muscles can be when we're younger, the easier it is to maintain later. And this article made the specific note that getting proteins from red meats may have adverse effects, and that they actually the fattiness of the red meat and everything can increase risk of heart issues later on. So do with that, as you will, again, always do more research. The second area that they focus on is getting enough calcium and vitamin D. Calcium from things like dairy and milk and vitamin D is largely from the sun, but also can be found in mushrooms, fish and eggs. The next area that they focus on are polyphenols, which are antioxidants and antiinflammatory nutrients, which are found in fruits, vegetables, nuts, coffee, berries, dark leafy greens, vegetables and avocados. And continuing on the avocado train is the importance of healthy fats. Healthy fats are in things like avocados, nuts, seeds and fatty fish, specifically salmon and tuna and the Omega oils are really good for you. So again, plant based proteins, calcium and vitamin D, antioxidant, anti inflammatories and healthy fats, which kind of summarizes to feel like a bit of a Mediterranean diet. And again, this is one article based on some a subset of research. Definitely do your own. Everybody is different, but trying to minimize the processed diet and packaged foods can be beneficial, quite beneficial for longevity. Reading about all of this longevity work brings me back to my peak racing days where, you know, I was a full time athlete, and all of my time was centered around how I could be the best racer, how I could be in the best physical shape, mental shape, how I could maximize my business opportunities, get sponsorship, meet people, all this stuff. It was so cool. 2016 2017 and 2018 were like what I consider my peak racing years. And 2015 but peak racing years because I really felt like I was living into that professional athlete lifestyle where I could have the luxury of focusing on training. And I love exercising. I love training. I love pushing myself to the max. And I was talking about this, this athlete lifestyle, with my guest, Gary Klutt on episode 55 and we were diving into just all of the really interesting things you can do. And it's such a luxury and privilege to be able to focus 100% on your health. And some of the things that I did in that kind of three year period when I was really, really active, was making sure that I was sleeping a lot. I was making sure that my diet was great for the kind of first time in my own control. I was meeting other athletes and doing things like water training and pool training and doing deep breathing and understanding the benefits of sauna and ice bath work and really getting into mindfulness. And it was just really cool, and I feel like it gave me some building blocks that I can now channel into my life post racing, that still feed my needs on an emotional and physical and mental level now. So I love doing this research. I love seeing what other people are doing, even if I think it's wacky. I think there's value in understanding why people are diving into the different subjects that they are. And I will definitely be keeping an eye on Bryan Johnson and seeing what are the things he does. And I would love to hear if you guys are doing anything that's really interesting and catering to your mental and physical well being, please put them in the comments on a social media post. Send me a DM because I love to especially figure out accessible things that we can do that that help us feel better. Because. The better we feel, the more enthusiastic we're going to be about going into the world and living really rich best lives that we can, which I'm a big advocate for everyone that is our episode. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode where we dove into biohacking and the fuss around aging and kind of what all that entails, if you enjoyed this episode or found it helpful, I hope you'll share it with someone who might also like it. I would love to hear from you leave a review comment on my posts on social. If you could subscribe to the podcast and rate the podcast, it would mean a lot to me as always. Thank you so much for letting me be honest with you, and I look forward to seeing you in two weeks.