EVERY SPOKEN WORD
120 min read · 24,350 words- 0:00 – 15:00
That's kind of the…
- TATeemu Arina
That's kind of the first step. And, and many of, many of those people who I see are joining the biohacking movement are really, like, uh, neurotic about performance in, in many ways.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you see that as a good thing or as a bad thing?
- TATeemu Arina
I see many of them being quite unhealthy with it. Um, and what it enables them to do is the same, but in an accelerated manner. So suddenly they start popping nootropics. It's a big, big thing, you know, um, that you can have increased mental performance, even physical performance. Maybe some athletes also look for... I mean, but they'd been doing supplements for 20, 30 years, uh, already, uh, pretty consistently. So that's nothing new. But when it comes to working in front of your computer, suddenly there is more than coffee that you can take to stay awake and focused at your work. So to me, they are seeking a solution to their problem, and once they get some advantage from this, they push the envelope even further. And I don't think that's very healthy. So I see a lot of biohackers, like, not really, um, pushing away their old lifestyle, so they might be still sleeping quite little, uh, but they're doing all these nootropics and diets that keeps the inflammation lower so they can get more out of the system. (graphics whooshing)
- CWChris Williamson
I'm joined by Teemu Arina, author of The Biohacker's Handbook, an all-round fascinating guy. Welcome to the show.
- TATeemu Arina
Wonderful to be here. (sniffs)
- CWChris Williamson
I am getting big podcast studio envy of the lovely setup that you have in front of you.
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah, I mean, I do a lot of things nowadays online, and it was only like a couple of weeks ago I was presenting to a huge Russian IT technology conference. And I don't like travel nowadays that much because I've been doing 100 talks a year for the last five, six years. So I just like to hang around in my studio, and I figured out that, you know, this is the best way to do it. So I can do live streams anywhere and, and create audio, create video. So I, I love it doing this way, and it also helps me to keep my daily routines, which is only... as a biohacker, you wanna maximize your productivity and recovery and all that. If you fly into a conference for what? Giving a 30-minute or a one-hour talk, and you spend time in airplanes and in public transport and eating all kinds of crappy whatever, you know, airport or conference food, I think it's more efficient to just stay here. I might not, you know, make those face-to-face connections, but if I met the people before, that's the way I prefer to do it.
- CWChris Williamson
I totally get it, man. Yeah, there's a... there's an interesting, um, sort of two camps of people as far as I can see. There's people who understand that trying to focus on efficiency and marginal gains in the way that you've alluded to there is something which is kind of what everything else emerges from. And if you look after those small things, that everything else comes along as a byproduct. And then there are the... there are the people who see that as a bypro-... as a normal part of life. It's like, "No, no, no, well, I've go- I've gotta get on the plane 'cause I gotta go to the thing, and that's the way it's gotta be done." Um...
- TATeemu Arina
You got it. You got it. It's, uh, basically one of the principles of biohacking is, uh, the daily decrease. How do you decrease the amount of useless things that you shouldn't be doing? And basically looking for what is the 20% that will give you the 80% of results and output. That was Italian mathematician, uh, Mister Pareto who actually first devised and outlined the fact that in many things in economy, nature, workplaces, everywhere, is based on the 20/80 principle. So for example, 20% of people produce 80% of results. If you take any kind of ant nest, actually we think that ants are extremely hardworking, you know, guys and girls, all of them. But actually, most of them are slacking. They did some-
- CWChris Williamson
Is that true?
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah, they did some studies on ant nest, and they realized that 80% of them are actually slacking around and not really doing much. So (laughs) there is a small number who is always doing the work. So what I'm saying is that, uh, y- you know, it's up to you if you wanna be focusing your time on the 80% that will result in only 20% of the results or if you wanna seek for the 20% that will result in 80% of improvement. So with that, I mean, you can't optimize everything. Uh, you can't really predict everything. Uh, I leave a lot also in my life to serendipity. Serendipity in science has been key for many discoveries. So people who are seeking for some ple- so- uh, people who are seeking for something completely different stumbled upon a totally different invention. So for example, Post-it notes, the guys were trying to work on the most efficient glue, and they actually made the worst possible glue. And it required a little bit of, um, uh, inventiveness to be able to realize that, hey, this can be used for something else. And that also applies to relationships, and that applies to many things in nature if you want to discover things. There is probably a lot of things that you will discover by just exposing yourself to different environments. So that's another part of biohacking is that it's not really about optimizing yourself. It is about optimizing your relationship to your environment. And the more I look at it, uh, and the more I look at the different trends in biohacking, which we can also dive into because I'm also the creator of Biohacker Summit. I've been doing that for the last five years. We done eight events in different...... countries. And what I've noticed, there's a shift more and more towards optimizing your environment, your light environment, your water, your, um, you know, it could be even your own, um, microbiome, which is actually outside of you. You are kind of like a hollow tube, and there is all these bacteria that live in your digestive tract and on your skin, everywhere, and you live in a symbiotic relationship with all those guys, and you can't be separate from them if you want to have good health. And that also applies to so many other things, like our connection to nature and our food chain and all of that. So when I look at my home or my office, I'm always, always kind of thinking about the ways how I can prime my environment so that it gives me the best possible conditions for optimal performance and health and wellbeing. And, um, and not always it's about Calvinistic, um, utility-driven needs. I think that that's a misconception in a lot of, kind of, um, high-performance and self-development talk, is the need to somehow be in grip of what you're doing. And if you look at quantified self, measuring yourself, tracking yourself with an Oura Ring, like trying to get, you know, perfect night's sleep, that's the utility value. But part of it is also self-realization and self-expression. So the data itself enables you to express yourself, and it also helps you to reflect back on you, who you are, in what place here in the universe, and what you're up to. And it brings up important questions, like if you start tracking your sleep, you start to ask questions like, "Why do you sleep?" Um, "How do you sleep? How long do you sleep?" And the act of measuring itself already changes the equation. So when you start tracking your steps or your sleep, you're already changing your sleep and your mobility and movement. So to me, it is also about understanding that what you pay attention to, what you focus on, is... in, in terms of your own behaviors, you're already part of that equation. So you're already taking the first steps by using some maybe external ways or keys or cues to, um, tap into your own, uh, behavior. So if you do journaling, for example, that's a big thing also in biohacking, is like doing, you know, maybe daily affirmations or having some kind of gratitude, grad- gratitude journal. (laughs) Damn.
- CWChris Williamson
Good one.
- TATeemu Arina
It's late. So-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TATeemu Arina
So, uh, all of those are priming you for the day and helping you to pay attention to the signals that are key in your environment. It can be two e- two different people, exactly the same conditions and environments. The other one is freaking out, and the other one is enjoying him- him or herself. There's a saying that when it rains, some people get wet, and some people f- feel the rain on their skin. So it's a matter of perspective. And what these things are really helping you, it is to gain a perspective to yourself. And that, to me, what bio... that, that is what biohacking is to me. It is more... it is a modern approach to enlightenment, in a way. It is using modern tools combined with ancient wisdom and natural living principles, uh, systems from... I mean, there are so many biohacking systems that have existed for thousands of years. You take yoga, meditation, you know, different schools of martial art, different nutritional schools from, you know, from Mediterranean diets to, uh, to, let's say a very, very much so wild herb, plant-based stuff that we do here in the north in Finland. It is... you know, we are standing on the shoulders of giants. There are so many people who have mapped the territory, and they've mapped really, like, what is key to understanding your place in this universe and as human being, and also to kind of push your boundaries. So if you think of, like, a martial artist, like, you take any of these Eastern schools, I practiced myself some, um, Aikido, for example. And the Japanese, the Chinese arts also some, uh, some kung fu, tai chi I've done also. And what I've learned from those is that as much as you focus on the ability to produce extreme force with the least amount of effort, you also practice the counter of that, which is meditation and breathing techniques and all that. So that's also what biohacking should be. It's not about better, faster, stronger. It is also wiser. It is also about more being reflective on how you do things and not always try to, you know, sleep four hours a night and, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TATeemu Arina
... have four proof coffee and smart drugs, right?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah, I think certainly a lot of people that are listening may think that when you hear the word biohacking, for most people who are maybe uneducated about it, I think a lot of, uh, terms come to mind about people being quite utilitarian, quite transactional with these marginal gains and, and things like that. I recently had a discussion, uh, with Stephen Wolfram. Now, he, as the listeners will know, if you've been tuning in, and if you haven't, you need to go back and check it out 'cause it's an awesome episode.
- TATeemu Arina
He is awesome.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Um, the, uh, he's tracked, I think, three million emails that he sent over the last 30 years and about 30 million keystrokes. He is-
- TATeemu Arina
He's the true pioneer of self-tracking.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I, it's, I, it's a, uh, uh, to a degree of fidelity that at- at least with regards to work, that I've never, I've never really seen before. But what he actually had as his justification for it was quite philosophical and pretty beautiful, that he said, "I like to work. I like my job, and I like what I do at work. Why would I not facilitate me doing as much of what I like to do as efficiently and as effectively as I can?" And I think that transcends for me what... Before, you know, so we've got Biohacker's Handbook here in front of me. It's, uh, a beastly-
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... a beastly thing. There are-
- TATeemu Arina
Right here also.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that as a reference just in case you forget some of the things that we need to go back to? (laughs)
- TATeemu Arina
Okay. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, y- you know, before you have a look through that... And I guess with one reading, you could potentially see each of them as discrete individual hacks or, or, or techniques or whatever it is. But the emergent end result of this is that you're able to do more of the things you wanna do. You can spend more time in good health. We, I recently spoke to Professor David Sinclair from Harvard Medical School, and he was talking about just making people live longer. And he talks about the health span, not just the lifespan. It's like feeling better for longer, having more energy to do the things that you care about, et cetera, et cetera. Um, so I think you've given us a pretty robust introduction to biohacking there so far. Um, where would you say are the key areas that biohackers tend to focus on?
- TATeemu Arina
So, uh, what you actually described already, like what kind of people are, uh, drawn to biohacking, the kind of utilitarian go- uh, people, those people are often struggling already with our modern society. Like, they try to push themselves for results. Uh, so those might be startup entrepreneurs. They might be, I don't know, some high street investors or real estate brokers, or you name it, like people who are really, you know, working insane hours and not really taking any vacation. So, they struggle with hormonal imbalances. They struggle with all kinds of blood sugar regulation issues. They might suffer from gut, uh, dysbiosis. There, there is so many things that they seek an answer for in, in biohacking, and they might try things like ketogenic
- 15:00 – 30:00
Do you see that…
- TATeemu Arina
diet and see that the lights go on suddenly, and they might start tracking their sleep and trying to figure out, like how to get more deep sleep with the amount of sleep that they're getting. And, um, to me that's kind of the first step. And, and many of, many of those people who I see are joining the biohacking movement are really like, uh, neurotic about performance in, in many ways.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you see that as a good thing or as a bad thing?
- TATeemu Arina
I see many of them being quite unhealthy with it. Um, and what it enables them to do is the same, but in an accelerated manner. So, suddenly they start popping nootropics. It's a big, big thing, you know, um, that you can have increased mental performance, even physical performance, maybe some athletes also look for. I mean, but they'd been doing supplements for 20, 30 years, uh, already, uh, pretty consistently. So that's nothing new. But when it comes to working in front of your computer, suddenly there is more than coffee that you can take to stay awake and focused at your work. So to me, they are seeking a solution to their problem, and once they get some advantage from this, they push the envelope even further, and I don't think that's very healthy. So, I see a lot of biohackers, like not really, um, pushing away their old lifestyle, so they might be still sleeping quite little, uh, but they're doing all these nootropics and diets that keeps the inflammation lower so they can get more out of the system.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TATeemu Arina
So they're basically juicing themselves faster. And once they take all the nootropics that you take something like modafinil or you take, you know, Adderall or, or you take some, you know, stack of supplements, often there is side effects that are related to increased heart rate. So once you increase blood flow, once you expand capillaries, yeah, you improve nutrient flow. Uh, but once you get like five, 10 beats higher heart rate because of doing all of that, uh, I, I wouldn't be surprised if down the road, uh, you age faster, uh, for ma- so many different reasons. Um, and it's... If you think of the heart as a muscle, it's a mechanical muscle that is doing work. When it, when the heart rate goes up, the time speeds up. When the heart rate goes down, the time slows down. So, that's why it's so super important to do things to counter that kind of behavior, which is meditation, breathing techniques, just going for a nature walk, whatever. And if you're only doing all the nootropics and you're doing all the, you know... Uh, you can, you can do many of these things in excess. Even things like red light therapy, uh, for mitochondrial function, uh, or things like antioxidants, there is a dose response curve to many things. Also nootropics. So basically, a dose response curve describes...... the fact that there is a sweet spot for dosage. If you, if you get too much, you get side effects. You get potentially dangerous, uh, imbalances also. Uh, if you do too little, that's also... I mean, that's often what people are correcting, but then they go to the extreme. They might be using blue light blocking glasses all day long. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yep. Nice.
- TATeemu Arina
So, uh, so that's the thing. Um, they, they might be drinking bulletproof coffee all day long. Um, uh, there is a balance to things, and I think there is a need for homeostasis in biohacking. So homeostasis in medical terms is the, is the, is the balance that your body strives for. And if you're artificially, um, tilting it to a certain direction, like constantly pumping up your heart rate and blood flow, I don't think that's healthy. So I, I mean, I come from Europe, so we, we are slightly different than Americans, for example. Uh, I, I feel that the American culture of biohacking is much more, like, performance-driven. While the Europeans, like, uh, I mean, in the north, in, in Finland, which is by the way one of the biohacking capitals of Europe, if you look or go to any of these health food shops, we have, we have, we have great products and companies and huge aisles, also. And you can get... In every supermarket, there is s- superfood sections. You can buy MCT oil from all the large super- supermarkets. Like, it's... And it's all high-quality also. You get really high-quality coffee.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TATeemu Arina
So it's all available, um, but people are driven more by, uh, things that come from wild nature, like extracts from medicinal mushrooms like chaga. They might be getting bilberry extracts, which is basically the, um, more pronounced, exponentially more powerful, the original form of a blueberry. The blueberry that is sold as a superfood is actually, um, the one that grows in a bush. It's quite high in sugar, and it's not... I mean, it's, it's a woozy compared to a bilberry, which, which is basically growing on the ground ............................
- CWChris Williamson
Is bilberry, bilberry's a hardcore blueberry?
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah. Yeah. If you, if you cut a blueberry, you can see that the, the things that give blueberries the color, the anthocyanins, which are also the, the medicinal properties of blueberries that are being, uh, thrown around-
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- TATeemu Arina
... which are also great for eye health and all that, um, uh, extremely strong antioxidants. Often, these very dark pigments are like that. If you take coffee, chocolate, uh, chaga mushrooms, um, you take blueberries, the, the dark pigments are usually very strong antioxidants. Now, in blueberries, you have only these pigments in the skin section, uh, a little bit, maybe one or two millimeters below the skin. But if you take a bilberry, that's the original badass motherfucker version of the blueberry. The blueberry's a selectively bred, uh, kind of a thing that, you know, it's bigger and has more sugar content. But if you take a bilberry, you cut it, it's, it's all throughout these dark pigments, and it has so much more flavor. The same goes for raspberries, uh, the local raspberries we have here, those are much smaller, but they pack all the bitter compounds, all the nutrient and stuff in there. So anyway, so in Finland, it's not really that much about supplements. It's really about the real foods. And-
- CWChris Williamson
I get you.
- TATeemu Arina
And that's the thing. I don't know if it's part of the culture that we have every man's rights, that you can actually go to nature on private land, and you can pick anything you want, and you're not being chased, chased down. Um, it's okay. Uh, it's part of the Nordic culture here in Sweden and Finland and Estonia. You can go to the nature. You can take berries, mushrooms, um, herbs from someone's backyard, and it's okay.
- CWChris Williamson
I think you would, uh, you'd probably be chased out of someone's backyard in the UK if you tried to do that here.
- TATeemu Arina
Exactly. So the same in US. So people are not really accustomed to the fact that nature is theirs.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TATeemu Arina
Um, but here it's... I mean, we have 100,000 lakes, sauna. The Finnish sauna is part of our culture. It has al- always been. It was the method through which we heated our homes. And-
- CWChris Williamson
Did I read, uh, did I read a thing where sometimes people leave their saunas on or out overnight, and sometimes neighbors just go and use other people's saunas?
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah. Public, uh, sauna culture is, is big, but you're probably referring to the smoke sauna. Smoke sauna is something which you heat with smoke. In the end, you don't have smoke in there, but you basically use that to-
- CWChris Williamson
(coughs)
- TATeemu Arina
... really bring the temperature up. And then, you know, all the heat is, is, is, i- i- in a huge pile of stones, and it keeps hot for 48 hours. It also takes at least six hours, often 12 hours, to heat a proper Finnish smoke sauna. And a, and a great, you know... A proper smoke sauna also burns at least once in 10 years to the ground, and you build it again.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Oh, God.
- TATeemu Arina
Uh, you, you can't have those in apartment buildings. So what we have nowadays in apartment buildings are these, um... I, I guess they are like electric grills. Uh, so an electric sauna, it's not really-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Are you grilling yourself, Teemu?
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah, I'm grilling.
- CWChris Williamson
You better not be grilling. (laughs)
- TATeemu Arina
I have a sauna here. Yeah, but the problem with these electric stoves is that...... they reduce the humidity in the air.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Yeah. …
- TATeemu Arina
getting many of the benefits to your cardiovascular system. And, um, when you go for ice swimming, a good duration is once, once you get in there and you start hyperventilating, you stay there until your breathing gets even. You just try to kind of breathe through it. And that's once you get past a certain point, you are already, you have already, you know, got the shock to your nervous system that is beneficial in this context-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TATeemu Arina
... and also the cardiovascular benefits. Uh, so...Another thing that, for ladies out there, is key is also skin. Now, your skin is your largest organ, and most of the time, we spend our time in pretty much heated environments, in a tropical environment almost, like heated indoors, cars, um, we have all kinds of, uh, air conditioning and heating systems in buildings. Now, we don't really expose ourselves nowadays that much to heat alteration. Now, if you do that on a regular basis, it will also improve your skin quality, uh, for many, many, many reasons. Uh, part of it is related to the expansion and contraction of capillaries of, um, and micro veins, and, and there is many benefits to that. So yeah, I think some of the best biohacks are actually pretty simple and natural.
- CWChris Williamson
Very straightforward stuff, right?
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So, I mean, um, how often are you suggesting, or what, what appears to be optimal? Twice a week? Three times a week?
- TATeemu Arina
I would recommend doing it two or three times a week. But if you even do it once a week, you reduce your risk for seasonal flu by 66%.
- CWChris Williamson
That's a (laughs) that's an insane statistic.
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah. So it don't need much. Um...
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So we've got, we've, we've got, um, sauna, heat and cold therapy is one of the, one of the top list. So okay, if we were to take that, if you were to... I'm aware that with biohacking, biomarkers are a key element of what we're talking about here, that it's not simply a one-size-fits-all solution, and that people need to make adjustments to their own homeo- to reach homeostasis, and to then improve on that based on where their imbalances lie, and yours will not be the same as mine, will not be the same as the listeners at home.
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But if, if I was to ask you for your, um, as the experience that you've seen and with the broad cross section of the public which you've been exposed to, what would you say are the rough-hewn, um, what's the 80/20 of the 80/20 for people to look at doing? If it was to be a top five things that most people could benefit from, or your favorite things that most people could benefit from that you think have emerged from the biohacking community recently.
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah. If you look at biomarkers, what you should pay attention to, uh, so, so I'm not a big fan of any kind of reductionist logic, that you break down a human being to a single number, like say your blood sugar value or something like this. But in the end, those are pretty good indicators, many of them, but a combination of them is perhaps even more beneficial. So what I would look for is, is certainly the classical ones. I would look at your fasting blood glucose, but not just your glucose tolerance test, but your long-term, uh, hemoglobin A1C is, is I think one of the key markers to follow on so that you understand your long-term exposure, uh, to blood sugar fluctuations. The other one that I would look for is definitely, uh, lipid biomarkers that is related to cholesterol, but I wouldn't look at total cholesterol. I would look at triglycerides, uh, and their, um, uh, relationship to HDL, uh, LDL cholesterol. And, and, and that is already giving pretty good, uh, indicators of, of where you are in terms of particle size versus, um, uh, cholesterol levels. And, uh, cholesterol is a carrier, so when inflammation goes up, cholesterol levels tend to also rise. When you exercise a lot, your cholesterol tends to rise. So it doesn't only rise when you eat food that is high in cholesterol.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TATeemu Arina
It, it rises in response to your, um, your, your day-to-day activities. And now, what is kind of key to understand there is definitely inflammation. So high cholesterol is not that dangerous if you have low inflammation. With high inflammation, then there's a risk that you damage your arterial walls and that creates problems then with high cholesterol. So now what you would track for is things like homocysteine and high, hi- highly sensitive C-reactive protein. They often check for CRP, um, but that tells you more about things like bacterial infection or massive, uh, systemic in- in- infection or inflammation going on. But if you track your highly sensitive C-reactive protein, you get a better idea of low level inflammation, which kills you over time and kind of exposes you to, um, to all these degenerative diseases that come with age, even things like, uh, Alzheimer's and, and, and cardiovascular disease that lurks in slowly or, uh, or inability to deal with, um, glucose or insulin resistance. Now, um, what I would look for definitely in terms of sleep quality is the amount of deep sleep. I wouldn't look at sleep duration. I would look at, uh, the amount of deep sleep because deep sleep is the key phase when you're, uh, at sleep in the first stages of sleep when you get most of your deep sleep usually. That's when your brain shrinks a little bit and, um, there are these, um, the, the, the lymphatic system expands to the brain and it's mediated by glial cells in the brain and it pumps out any of the metabolic byproducts that accumulate throughout the day. So basically being awake is a catabolic state. It breaks your body down. Now when you sleep, that's an anabolic state when you build up things and you clean out things and you defrag yourself and that's where things like, um, amyloid plaque or amyloid beta which accumulates in Alzheimer's disease tend to be cleaned out.Now, if you don't get proper deep sleep, which comes in the first four, five hours of the night, you're not cleaning the system properly. And one easy way to reduce the amount of deep sleep is actually to drink more than two glasses of alcohol. So obviously, I mean, many of these things that we already know, um, the, like, excess consumption of alcohol or smoking cigarettes is definitely linked to, um, many of these conditions. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, one of, one of my friends recently, I was having a discussion with him, and I was, uh, we are big advocates of going sober on this show. I've currently just testing myself to see if I can do 18 months sober. Um, I run club nights, which means that it's the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing. But it's a good, it's a good challenge, and I am enjoying it at the moment. Um, what about-
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah. Yeah, I actually, I actually met a DJ friend today, uh, who's into electronic music, and he also said like... I mean, he's into biohacking nowadays, but he spent most of his youth basically like, you know, watch-
- CWChris Williamson
Partying hard.
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah. And watching when other people, like, um, get wasted. And it, it, I mean, I was... Just like a couple of nights ago I was, or, or yesterday? Hmm. Maybe two, two... Yeah, yesterday I was... In the evening I was in a, just a summer, you know, first outdoor event here, and I just realized that how many, how many people are smoking cigarettes still. I don't get this passive smoking thing, uh, at all nowadays. But when I go to a place like that, I realize that, "Hmm. Ah, okay, some people are still doing this."
- CWChris Williamson
It blows my mind, man. Like, it, it's... There's been the anti-smoking or the, I guess the smoking health advertisements, especially in the UK, have done such a good job. Like, I'm terrified of being near a cigarette now, and I, I kind of always have been. The fact that people still see it as a, a viable thing to do, to me, kind of, kind of blows my mind. But yeah, so I was speaking to my friend, and I was... He, he was talking to me about how he said, "Alcohol helps me sleep better at night." And I was like, "You're not sleeping, you're sedating yourself." And there's a big difference between the two. And going to bed sedated is not... it's got nothing to do with sleep. It's just the fact that you've knocked yourself out with two, two big glasses of red wine at, like, 10:00 PM.
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Drinking wine in the evening, I mean, that increases, uh, GABA, uh, neurotransmitters in the brain with an inhibitory neurotransmitter, so it slows down signaling. So definitely relaxes you, and you feel like you're more easily to go to sleep. But it can also inhibit your deep sleep stages. And, and, uh, depending of your genetic makeup, uh, so one thing... one kind of key thing to look for if you do any of these genetic tests is to look for your, um, cytochrome P450 system in your liver, how it basically metabolizes things like alcohol or, uh, ca- or caffeine. So if you're fast or slow metabolizer, if your, if your liver is able to produce huge amounts of glutathione that breaks down alcohol, yeah, I mean, you're, you're on a safer side. If you get a red flush reaction from alcohol, you should stop immediately.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. My business, my business partner, Dave, is, uh, Asian heritage, and he still gets Asian beer flush, which he has to take his little tablets for and stuff. For anyone who is listening that doesn't know what this is, you may have an Asian friend, I think it's disproportionately skewed towards the east, uh, in terms of population. And, um, when my business partner, Dave, is about two beers deep if he's forgotten to have one of his special pills, he, it just looks like he's been out in the sun for too long and he just instantly gets like a-
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... like a flush, a flush face-
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... which is so- super funny in the middle of a night out.
- TATeemu Arina
The, the interesting thing about alcohol here is that here in the northern, uh, northern part of, uh, the globe, you know, Finland, Russia, people drink a lot, you know. Uh, and we a-... we are actually quite tolerant to alcohol. So we don't get the red flush reaction that easily genetically. And, uh, that might sound like a good thing that you can s-... deal with alcohol more, but the problem here is addiction. So if you're not getting the beating of getting a red f-... uh, flushing reaction, uh, you, uh, risk yourself, you know, getting addicted more easily.
- CWChris Williamson
But there's no early warning system, right?
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah, there is.
- CWChris Williamson
You're just gonna keep going.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
I'd agree. For me,…
- TATeemu Arina
management problem, you really have an attention management (laughs) problem. That's for sure. And sometimes taking these substances that might make you hyperactive, might make you a little bit too stimulated, a little bit too much dopamine, they might make you more easily distractible, actually. So it's a sweet spot. I know this for myself actually, caffeine is not necessarily the best thing to do if I wanna write. It's good if I wanna go for a run or, you know, talk to you. Um, that's where it works for me because it helps me to rapidly fire and, you know, make connections. But if I wanna do deep work or creative work, I need to slow down the system really. Like, for me, things like, uh, things like theanine work pretty well. Things like, um, lemon balm might be good. Maybe a cup of tea. Uh, so less stimulatory things are good in that state for me. Or, or just like... Yeah. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
I'd agree. For me, for me as well when I'm doing creative work, when I'm podcasting, you know, getting a little bit more kind of speedy kinda helps. Like, so caffeine or whatever would- would be good, but for me, when I'm doing creative work, if I have too much, I'm, I'm m- uh, overshooting by such-
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah. Anxious, anxious.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I can't, I can't allow everything to slow down and, and to really focus on what matters. So L-theanine is one of the things you've touched on that. So yeah, going, going back to one of the things I mentioned before, if you were to take a, a broad cross-section of people and say, "I mean, would you recommend to most people a sauna?" I'm gonna guess so. Based on everything that I've seen, it suggests that, um, heat and cold therapy is robustly pretty good. Are there any other techniques that you think that are fairly robust and that most people should consider adding into a routine? If they're- they're new to biohacking, they haven't yet got the book and they don't know where there are... where to start. Are there some things-
- TATeemu Arina
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that you think will just give them some good benefits to begin with?
- TATeemu Arina
I mean, I'm beating the horse to death here but light is obviously a big thing. So there is a lot of research that has come out in the last couple of years on chronobiology, so basically the biology of... your biological clocks, and light is a big influencer on that. Diet is another one, by the way. So when you drink coffee, that actually pushes your, uh, biological clock forward by four hours, um, easily. Uh, things like-
- CWChris Williamson
That's really, that's really worrying.
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah. I mean, if you are traveling and you try to adjust to a time zone, that might be good. Um, things like fasting will be good because biologically, we are wired to move the clock forward until we get food. So I would always, like, think about morning as one of the resets for the day. So, um, starting a day with coffee but not the first thing when you wake up because that's when w- you have high cortisol. When you- w- w- your adrenal glands are just waking up, pushing more caffeine into the system to activate your adrenal glands is, is, is like putting more gas on the pedal that's already, uh, pushed way down. So I would wait for the cortisol to drop. So that might-
- CWChris Williamson
How long is that typically?
- TATeemu Arina
So that m-... That's probably, uh, around a couple of hours from wake up. So I would make the coffee, yes. I would put it in a thermal. I would take it to the... to work and I would drink it slowly. And, um-
- CWChris Williamson
You're a... You're an, uh, you're an advocate of the lemon and saltwater on a morning, right?
- TATeemu Arina
Uh, when it comes to hydration, I would go for electrolytes for sure. I mean, you lose a lot, a lot of water when you sleep, so, uh, hydration is key and you need electrolytes for absorbing the water. So the more fluids you have in your body, the better, um...... your system also works, your joints, your disks. A lot of back pains can actually be a result of hydration. So, there is not just, you know, enough fluids in your system to moisten up, you know, um, uh, things like, uh, the, the disks, uh, in your back.
- CWChris Williamson
It's dehydrated disks is what, is what it's referred to, right?
- TATeemu Arina
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
It's one of the technical terms for it.
- TATeemu Arina
That's right. So hydration is key, but when it comes to, like, um, hacking your morning water, what I like to do is if I, if I, if I now had everything in my disposal, what kind of morning water would I do? I would actually use not filtered water or something fancy like that. I would use either spring water or birch sap. Birch sap directly from a tree, that's awesome. It's already full of all the electrolytes in a natural form. I would, um, ferment it. So I would have fermented birch sap, so I get also the probiotics. If I don't have those, I would mix some probiotics in there perhaps. Uh, what I would also throw in, in terms of a lot of people put things like lemon for some vitamin C. Uh, I might use things like spruce sprout powder or amla extract. Uh, amla extract and spruce sprouts are one of the greatest sources of vitamin C. Or I might also use sea buckthorn juice just to, you know, uh, dose a little bit of that in there. I might throw some things to help with, uh, anti- uh, basically anti-inflammatory compounds. I might th- throw something like an extract of ginger or, or turmeric in there also. Uh, al- also a pinch, a pinch of salt is, is a pretty good idea. So there you have it. You know, you have already a m- more, like, an optimized version. So your question, like, what would most people benefit from?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TATeemu Arina
I give you a p- uh, I don't g- uh, I'm, I'm gonna give you, uh, a way of looking at things. So when you look at your day, look at the things that you do repeatedly. Uh, you sit in a chair. You sleep in a bed. You drink a cup of coffee or tea or whatever you do. You know, look at the things that you do repeatedly over and over again, and those are the areas, if you optimize those, you get cumulatively the highest benefits from. So, there is not a single thing, but I would look at your patterns of behavior. I would map them out and, uh, think about, like, "How can I do this better?" And don't compromise on things like your- the quality of coffee or tea or your chair or your bed, because those are the things you spend most time with. A lot of people, they buy things that they think they need, like a fancy car or, I don't know, a new shirt, and they don't invest in small things like a much better, like, ergonomics. So, uh, that's what I would go for. Um, and if you do a lot of seating work, um, getting some way to get more mobility in your day. Maybe a standing desk. It- it- the point is not to stand all day long, but it's really to alternate your physical position. That's kind of the key for activating your lymphatic system. So I would pay attention to stimulating your lymphatic flow, because the, the lymphatic system doesn't have a pump like the heart does for the cardiovascular system. It requires movement and gravity, um, uh, for, for the fluids to move in and out from, from, from your cells. So...
- CWChris Williamson
The- speaking as, speaking as someone who considers himself active, I train between one and two hours a day, seven days a week, um, but the periods when I'm not active are incredibly sedentary.
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And this, this is, um, a, uh, missed step, a bias that I've not been conscious of until fairly recently. I thought, "Right, well, I'm, I'm cracking out... In an hour and a half, I'm cracking out 1,000 or a 1,500 calorie workout. Like, I don't need to worry myself with staying mobile through the rest of the day." Whereas recently, the guys from Fully, they make the Capisco chair, and they make the, uh, Jarvis desk. That is what I'm sat on now. So this stool, which is just behind me, and this particular desk, which allows me to stand, like-
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... this is, this is now I'm working with an adjustable desk. And for the listeners at home, they'll know that I have L5 and S1, for me, are two bulging disks. I have that. I have a- what's referred to as a Schmorl's node. And you think, "Well, I have fairly strong extensors. I have all of the rest of the things." But it's not... It seems it's not sufficient to just look after your health or your fitness during fitness time, staying moving throughout the day. Uh, an episode I did with Dr. Ewan Lawson, who is the author of The Healthy Writer, came up with something called the 20-20-20 rule, which I thought was great, and it ties in with Pomodoros. He said, "Every 20 minutes for 20 seconds, stand up, walk around, and look at something which is more than 20 feet away." And he talks about resetting the ocular muscles in the eye to try and r- it's- there's been some moderately-
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... strong research to show that it will stop weight tension headaches and the straining of the eyes being at a screen, which is a particular distance away.
- TATeemu Arina
Absolutely. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so that's, that's something to take there. Um, so we're looking at the areas of our life that we're doing a lot of. If you're a driver, look at your seating position in a car. If you're an office worker, look at your desk position, look at where your keyboard is. If you're... Well, everyone's gonna say, "If you sleep." Everyone sleeps. Um, when you sleep, consider your sleeping position, your pillow, the surface that you're sleeping on. What are some of the other areas that people may have overlooked?
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah. Well, well, I, w- I, I started just reflecting on what you said, and to me, it seems like, you know, if you take exercise even-Um, people have recovered days (laughs) , and you know, that's when they don't do anything. And there is a bunch of research that actually shows that an active recovery day is probably actually better, to have a little bit of movement in the day, maybe go for a walk. So one of the key things for a long life, definitely once you get older, once you are... Now, now that you're young, you're gonna do, you know, all, all kinds of heavy exercise and stuff like this. But the older you get, it's, it's more and more important to get your proprioceptors right. And, uh, it's proprioceptics-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, proprios- proprioceptors, I think. Yes.
- 1:00:00 – 1:12:35
What's that? …
- TATeemu Arina
for a gym workout. You do push-ups occasionally, you do pull-ups, maybe you do, you know... um, you, you, you do some parkour whil- once you're outside in a city. So you're trying to find some ways to use your body at its fullest form. I have to testify that, you know, I don't do that all the time. I, I'm, I'm still learning, you know. I try to get more and more playful and more exercise to my day, and I'm getting there, you know. I just got myself an X3 bar, and I do my-
- CWChris Williamson
What's that?
- TATeemu Arina
Uh, it's a resistance training, uh, system, uh, developed by, by a doctor. I'm trying to remember his name now. But anyway, so he-
- CWChris Williamson
X, X3.
- TATeemu Arina
X3 bar, yeah. So basically what happens is when you do something like a deadlift...
- CWChris Williamson
... yep.
- TATeemu Arina
The, the highest resistance is when you're just lifting it off the ground, and the, the lowest resistance is, is in the up- uh, uh, uppermost position. Now, the resistance bands are reversing that. So, they have the highest resistance on the upper position and the lowest when you're down. And it actually pushes your training beyond what is possible with just lifting heavy stuff. And, um, I- I really like the device and it's, uh, it's easy to carry around, and, um, it's- it's unforgiving. I mean you can-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TATeemu Arina
... uh, it- it, uh, it, it... I- I call it a businessman's workout because you can do it at, you know, with your suit on.
- CWChris Williamson
Hotel room.
- TATeemu Arina
And... Yeah. Hotel room, 15 minutes, and you're completely wasted out of breath, and you don't even get too sweaty, uh, doing it. So, you can go for a meeting right after red-faced.
- CWChris Williamson
That's really interesting. Um, so w- uh, before we go, some of the things we've touched on today that I know the listeners might be interested in. You mentioned about, um, the biomarkers for lipids and glucose and stuff like that. I was flown out to Boston, as the listeners will know, by the guys from InsideTracker-
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... um, who do some biomarkers. They do a service in the UK and in Europe, although I'm aware that it is a slightly reduced version of their main one, which is all 40 biomarkers. And you also mentioned about, uh, genetic testing. Have you got any companies that you recommend for, uh, the biomarkers for, um-
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... dietary stuff-
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and for genetics?
- TATeemu Arina
InsideTracker is great if you want to check biomarkers against your diet. Uh, they have a do-it-yourself service also where you go to your local lab.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- TATeemu Arina
You get the numbers, and you then manually enter them on InsideTracker, and you get your analysis. Another great company on the US side is called WellnessFX. Um, I think they were sold to Thorne FX, a supplement company, I think. But anyway, so they, they did pretty extensive panels. And, um, on Europe's side, um, I mean, there is... there is genetic companies. I mean, you can do, like, 23andMe test, and then upload the data to companies like-
- CWChris Williamson
InsideTracker, yeah.
- TATeemu Arina
... DNA Fit and Prometheus. And, um, there is also, um, Liv, Wello, and a bunch of other services. There is Dr. Rhonda Patrick's genetic analysis for nutrition and nutrigenomics. That's great. Um, or you can go for a full genome test with companies like Kronomix, which also provides an epigenetic test, or Dante Labs is another one that comes to mind.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the... What's the sort of cost of that?
- TATeemu Arina
I mean, these are... Uh, I... Probably cheapest you get them is, like, 150, uh, bucks and, uh, up to 1,000.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. For the real-
- TATeemu Arina
Mm: mm-
- CWChris Williamson
... every... full MOT.
- TATeemu Arina
Yeah, but I wouldn't definitely go for a genetic test as the first thing. I would get my basic, uh, biomarkers in place. Um, uh, I actually solved my own problem here trying to get, you know, these lab tests here in Finland. We founded a company. I helped to found a company called HealthDx that does biomarker analysis. So-
- CWChris Williamson
Amazing.
Episode duration: 1:12:36
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