As far as all the popular bio hacks are concerned, what are
the ones that you feel personally have the biggest bang
for the buck and ones that are probably just smoking mirrors
and not really necessary? I'm a big fan of BPC, you know,
as a as a peptide for inflammation and the recovery.
Absolutely distorted direct sun in the morning for 20 minutes
plus hydration plus high protein.
You know, those are kind of again, the non negotiables.
Some other ones I would maybe give more credence to are again,
things like pimp or electrical magnetic, you know, frequency
treatment in general. We're starting to see a lot of,
you know, really cool research continue to come out about that
and TMS and, you know, those types of modalities essentially.
And we are live, Thorne. How are you, brother?
Fantastic. How are we doing, Robert?
Good man, good you. You talk probably typically
jumping on podcast talking about brain development, micro habits,
all that good stuff. But I want to start off with
Backcountry, man. Like when was your last
Backcountry trip? Oh yeah, I'm in the Backcountry
pretty regularly. I would say, you know, during
the winter, quite a bit of skiing, live in Colorado and so,
you know, could be multi day trips in the, in the Backcountry
there. I would say, you know, the
longer trips of late, I mean a lot of cycling.
So we cycle here up to Independence Pass.
You know, it's the Continental divide.
Haven't done much camping, but I the, the last big trip I did was
actually kite surfing in Egypt. And so that was last month.
And so that was like, you know, we were on boats.
So I wouldn't say it was like Backcountry, Backcountry, but
that was pretty cool. That's pretty cool.
Have you ever been to Alaska? Oh yeah, many times, yeah.
Done a number of trips back there.
How, how does Alaska compare to Colorado?
I mean, like, it's just more out there than Colorado.
Alaska is the final frontier. You know, like we've done
wilderness trips where again, we've taken planes in and gone
camping and you know, you're dealing with Grizzlies.
I mean, I've, I've actually gone camping in Denali as an example.
And I mean, there are Grizzlies all over, you know, and you're
kind of cohabitating. So it's not necessarily risky
per SE, but you know, you definitely need to be aware.
And you're going out there mostly snowboarding and skiing.
Yeah, tons. Yeah, I do a lot of snow camping
in the winters and again, you know in the summers a lot of
just multi day backpacking and so forth.
But. Nice, I lived in Washington
state for a few years and I got into snowboarding there just
enough to like, not bust my ass as frequently as I was, but I am
no pro by any means. It's it's pretty fun though, I
enjoy it. I mean, it's it's one of my life
passions for sure, yeah. And you did like triathlons and
all kinds of stuff, right? Yeah, I do do number triathlons.
I just did Steamboat Springs, that was about two weeks ago.
And then I have a team that's getting ready to do Malibu,
that's September 13th, about six weeks away.
And we do that to raise fundraising for Challenge
Athlete Foundation and have a great group that try to race
that every year. Very cool.
Well, you're like the head of brain one.
I I want to dive into that. But what was the the origin
story for you having such a passionate interest for doing
hard stuff to begin with? Man, like where'd that come
from? Yeah, thank you.
So you know my background is molecular biology.
So I'm a scientist and really a researcher out my core began my
career on the bench quite literally doing biotech drug
development. I was in the molecular biology,
but generally the genomics side of the house and really focusing
on the gene expression models. So the idea of looking at novel
proteins essentially. So DNA makes, RNA makes
proteins. And we would find novel
essentially gene targets and then we would express them and
then we would test against them. And so very much focused in, in
measurement in general. And then as I went out of
biotech, I moved to LA and I basically became a data
scientist. And so started off very much as
a on the ground level move my way up pretty quickly, but with
the focus always on measurement and how can we measure a human
flavor and then ultimately optimize against it.
And then parallel in my 20s, I began trail running.
I was always very active as a youth and snowboarding, skiing
in particular, but began trail running doing like Susan G
Komen, you know, 10 KS and then half marathons, marathons.
And then I got into full Iron Man's.
And it was through that experience I began to use
wearables. So, you know, currently this is
the Garmin Enduro. You know, I have like 10
different wearables that I'll, I'll test continually, but that
was really kind of the impetus of using data to optimize
biology and that idea of biological tuning, you know,
essentially of, of using data and what I could find, you know,
what I found back then, this is when we had the big chunky
garments, you know, they've gotten much more efficient and,
and better about early life, but then I could optimize, you know,
my biology again by using data. So things like heart rate, I can
attenuate my lactic threshold by, you know, going X amount
longer and, you know, so forth. And, and really optimizing not
only my biology, but ultimately my raise times.
And it was all for fun, but it's really where I saw the the value
and the use of using wearable data in the day-to-day.
Very cool, very cool. I've got, I've got the karma
account that we were talking about before we started
recording. I got the aura before I lost it.
And I've I've used like I'm a big data advocate, like I'm
tracking macros, manipulating inputs, all kinds of stuff,
optimizing sleep. But I also am very intuitive
with a lot of stuff I do, especially when it comes to like
heart, like heart rate training. I never train based off a heart
rate. Yeah, I just recently got AVO 2
Max done for the first time 2 weeks ago.
So it's kind of piqued my interest in because I'm doing a
little bit more of endurance work right now.
But yeah, I, I, I'd be curious to know how you in your sport,
like how do you use the garment specifically?
Like what are you looking at? What are you manipulating?
What's your main use case? Yeah.
So we're actually doing again a a research study right now and
we're comparing multiple wearables and then seeing the
variance in the data sets. So that's been really
interesting. You know, there's a definition
for HRV, but every algorithm and every wearable is different, you
know, and so the data will always be differently.
So if you're, you know, always be different.
So if you're looking at the trends, it's OK, but you know,
if you're comparing one number to a number, it will never be
exactly the same. Of course, what we've seen the
data though is the in general, I try to use the OR for sleep.
I think it's one of the most accurate.
It's also the least invasive. And then I use Garmin for for
activity is kind of my my tandem.
And we've compared it to whoop, whoops, generally pretty good
because it's just a single band. But of course you need the phone
is the interface. So just depending if you're in
the Backcountry or don't have your phone, that could be an
issue. But yeah, we've been looking at
it essentially all the wearables that are out there.
And then relative to my use, so I use the, let's say the Garmin,
right? And I do use, I use heart rate.
I mean, that's definitely a, a good metric, resting heart rate
and then heart rate variability. But when I'm training and I'm
doing like, let's say training right now for the Malibu
triathlon, I'll look at my averages essentially of heart
rate for a specific sport at a specific intensity and then see,
does that change over time? You know, ultimately, so if I
know I have to do a 15 mile bike ride, you know, what would be my
average training heart rate and then see if I can, you know,
increase that, decrease it, you know, depending on whatever that
use case might be for the the particulars of the rates that
that's why. You're trying to see that heart
rate, you know, decreasing as you're able to maintain or
improve intensity of the activity itself.
Exactly, yeah. And so that's where you're using
other things like wattage, you know, on the bike as an example.
But you know, you can generally get a good amount out of just
the the typical wearables, so. Drathons are no joke, man.
I've never done one, but I've got the guy I did the VO2 Max
with. He just opened up a location
with the DEXA fit and all that good stuff.
And he's training for a, he may be training for Malibu 2
actually, but he was, he's done a few of them.
He's talking to me about it. I'm like, man, I, I don't know
the last time I stepped on a bike or went for a swim.
So like those would be my my weak points for sure.
For sure. I mean, swimming's usually
everyone's weakest just in general, unless you were
collegiate, you know, I mean, I'm a pretty good swimmer.
I've done full Iron Man. But you know, every time I get
into the pool, it's almost like starting over to a degree.
I cycle regularly here in Colorado.
We do a lot of trail running, you know, up to 1314 thousand
foot. But but yeah, swimming is is my
weakest for sure. So, but you really, you know, go
ahead. Have you ever done like an ultra
marathon have? I done any ultras, I, I peeked
out at Iron Man's. I did 2, I did Iron Man Arizona
and then Wales. And then I'm, I'm such a big
skier and snowboarder and Backcountry and all of that.
I've had four knee surgeries and finally my doctor was like, hey,
you can keep doing Iron Man's, you're going to need a knee
replacement. And so now I only do the shorter
distances. I do the sprints primarily and
you know, try to place on those, but that's yeah, it's been
really the focus given the knees until it's sufficient enough
just to do a knee surgery and at what point then I would consider
it. But.
Have you played around with any like the the peptides or stem
cells or anything like that for the knee?
Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
I've done a PRPA number of times and I've done peptides for you
know, years essentially primarily BPC 157, you know the
most common of course for inflammation and whatnot.
That's been pretty much my go to.
Yeah, I'd be, I mean, surgeries would be scary, especially if
you get like an athletic. Like my mom just had both of her
hips replaced and then one of her knees.
And it's like, but she's not doing the type of athletic stuff
that I am. It's like, man, if I'm so used
to training and then I have to go in for surgery and not
knowing the outcome of that recovery, it's like, and that'd
be wrecking me. Yeah, it's, you know, I think
about that frequently. Again, I've had like 4 knee
surgeries and now I'm thinking about another ACL.
And so at the beginning of the season, you know, and we, we ski
almost every day here in the winter as much as we can.
And so you're putting such pressure in that case on, you
know, my, my knee ligaments. It just just depends.
So now I'm like thinking at the end of the season, is it better
just to get it done? So, you know, I have six months
to recover and I can ski, but we'll see, you know, kind of
play it by ear, but. You think the wear and tear on
the knees mostly from the skiing?
Well, it's like from the skiing, yeah, I mean some of that when I
was doing a lot of like city marathons on cement, you know,
that like completely tears up the joints.
But you know, with skiing and snowboarding, it's the lateral
movement and we're we're aggressive skiers here.
So yeah, that'll do it. That said, you know, I started
doing Pilates about probably about 2 1/2 years ago, and I do
it now 2 to probably three to four days a week.
And I do hot Pilates in particular and it's one of the
hardest classes we have in town and, and it's also really helped
with my cross training of skiing.
So you know, my general health protocol is hot Pilates like 3
or 4 days a week and then roughly 3 or 4 days of cardio
and then of. Course they have it cranked up
in there. One O 5, you know, roughly
depending, yeah. It's pretty toasty, man.
Yeah, I know it's hot, but you come out of that room a
different human. Yeah, so and it, you know, of
course is the sweat and so you're getting all the benefits
of that and you know, like a typical sauna workout.
So. But yeah, you come out and maybe
bring 2 liters of water and usually drink all.
That's wild, man. All right, so talk to me about
brain 1. So I, I, I was perusing on the
website before we jumped on and then you kind of gave me a
rundown as well, But I like that.
I mean like the whole biohacking space is on fire right now.
And with that, you're seeing a massive push towards, you know,
tech and supplementation. But the things that I had about
yours was there's a big emphasis on like micro habits.
And I'm a, I'm a, I'm a huge advocate of figuring out
something that you can implement on a day-to-day basis and then
never deviating from it. I guess my superpower as a
human, if I had one, like figure out what I need to do on a
day-to-day basis and then without fail, do not deviate.
So dive into that man. Yeah.
So, you know, the genesis was from my background as a peak,
you know, performance athlete first and foremost, again,
having done Iron Man's where you're continually optimizing
nutrition, you know, as you're very familiar with, right.
But you're, you're out on the bike, you've got hydration,
electrolytes, carbohydrates, you know, some level of protein, you
know, and you're, you're optimizing all these things.
And if you get any one of them off you're, you know, basically
hitting a wall. So it was kind of from that
general mindset. And then as I was going down the
road, I, I was doing some pro bono work with a group out of
Columbia University and I saw a need for just better resources
and brain health and, and brain fitness specifically.
And, And so it was, was basically, you know, came up
with the concept of using health protocols and scaling them.
And So what does that mean? So what we've done initially is
we will take a scientific paper. Have you heard the hypothesis
dementia is preventive? It's pretty prevalent, you know,
nowadays generally it's referred from The Lancet 2020.
So if you Google Lancet 2020 dementia, the paper will come
up. And what they've done is they've
identified 12 modifiable, what they call risk factors or just
behavioral modifications, micro habits, things that you can do
to lessen your propensity for dementia.
And there's 55,000,000 cases worldwide, you know, with
dementia. And this would potentially help
support 30 to 40% of that, you know, as we're talking 10s of
millions of users, you know, at this stage.
And so we'll take that paper, we run through the AI, we get an
editorial, and then we get a protocol people can quite
literally follow of things micro habits to do everyday.
And so a protocol is comprised of micro habits.
A micro habit could be nutrition supplements, you know, including
peptides, of course, we have a huge database of those.
And then it can also include, you know, just like the
behavioral things that you do everyday, like cold plunging,
right? Cold plunging would be a micro
habit as part of your health protocol.
And then even within cold plunging, you have multiple
variables that you can optimize. So you know, frequency per week,
duration of, you know, the session, temperature of the
session, you know, would be like 3 immediate variables.
And so we're constantly optimizing essentially the
protocol and then the micro habits to that human robber.
And we also have over 300 wearables that are integrated
today. So every major wearable you can
imagine. And then where we're going next
is essentially test for could be like blood based biomarkers as
an example for, for things like brain health.
And so looking at, you know, let's say there's a company we
partner with, there's, there's a cognition test 6 blood
biomarkers. And so people can come in, they
can integrate, you know, their wearables and then they could
look at, you know, doing a test such as this.
And then they would get their baseline cognition and then
undergo a program and a protocol and then ultimately see if
there's improvements over time. That's the general idea.
So is this, is it like tracking what, what is people like?
If somebody's like, OK, I've got a family history of Alzheimer's
dementia, I'm going to jump on this.
What does that look like from their workflow standpoint?
They they go in, they pull that protocol out and then it
generates their micro habits that they need to be checking
off on a day-to-day basis. Yep, that's correct.
Yeah. So we again, we've taken, we
have a database of protocol, there's over 400 and then the
user can come and they can select one and then they can
integrate their wearables and then use the AI to actually
tailor the, you know, essentially the program and the
protocol to them. You know, Robert, you as a human
based on your actual data. And if you're like, do you need
to check off the habit or is it like picking up the fact like if
you're one of your habits is go for a run, but then you're
wearables that's integrated shows that you've got elevated
heart rate and you've tracked a run on your Garmin for 30
minutes. Is it automatically?
That's what we're working on now.
Yeah. So there's active and passive
tracking essentially. And so right now the core
platform is based on adherence. You know, you signed up for
this. Did you do the things that you
signed up for, yes or no? And then you track it That would
be active. You know, you're literally
saying yes, I went on this run. We generally have people do that
and, you know, in the evenings, essentially reflecting on the
day, voice journal, all those types of things.
And then secondly, a human can. Yeah.
I mean, basically that's the that's the primary we would be
tracked. But secondly, it could be, you
know, essentially passive tracking, seeing that they have
an increase and, you know, they did this activity or they're
logging the activity in a Garmin or a Strava, whatever it might
be. And then we could tell they did
that thing. Nice, so on on your you're kind
of like the Guinea pig, you know, being the the head on show
this like what what is your daily micro habits stack look
like? Yeah.
So I have a series of non negotiables, you know, and we
initially went down this road. I mean, I don't love the term
biohacking, but that, you know, concept of biological
optimization, longevity, you know, and so we took protocols
from all of the major longevity practitioners out of there.
Anything that's been published, we looked at Ryan Johnson and
Blueprint, we looked at Peter Attia, Caleb Barnes and, and
basically analyze them and, you know, saw what are the, the
patterns essentially across every single longevity protocol
ever, right? And there's you're non
negotiable. So things like nutrition,
exercise, sleep and stress are kind of like, you know, the four
pillars that you see across every one of these protocols.
And so mine generally breaks down into this 4 categories.
So relative to nutrition, I will do a intermittent fast till
usually about 10 or 11 in the morning, ideally starting about,
you know, 7 or 8 the night before.
Nutrition wise, it depends on how I'm training, but I've got a
full regimen of, of supplements, you know, ranging from Omega
threes to I use like Thorin multivitamins.
I use magnesium somewhat basic. When I'm fully training, I'll
use BPC as a peptide. And then and then you have your
exercise. As I mentioned, just, you know,
my, my general, there would be hot Pilates, hot yoga three days
a week and then something fairly long on the cardio side, you
know, 50-60 miles on the bike trail running and things like
that. And then, you know, relative to
stress and sleep, just management tools.
There could be breath work also could be, you know, just regular
bedtime routines, circadian regulation, you know, from sun
in the morning and then you know, trying to wind down by
let's say seven, 8:00 at night. So those are the general and I
can actually share my health protocol with you and you can
see exactly what that looks like in Brain Wine as well.
Nice, nice. Are you, I know we're talking
about Aura. Before we start a recording,
have you looked into that eight sleep or Sleep 8 or whatever
it's called? Yeah.
But I'm very interested. That one looks cool.
We actually integrate into them. We have an API already.
But yeah, I haven't haven't played around with it.
But yeah, that one I've heard is a game changer.
Yeah, I feel like thermal regulation, you know, happening
simultaneously as you sleep would be the way to go.
Especially we just had a son couple weeks ago.
So like we got a lot of bodies in the bed right now and I get
hot and my wife doesn't want it to be too hot for the baby or
too cold for the baby. So like having my own thermal
regulated side would make all the difference?
Yes, you should definitely consider it.
They're not cheap, but I've heard very much worth the
investment. Yeah, for sure.
When it comes to like habit stacking in general, I feel like
a lot of people struggle with this.
Like when I'm working with clients, I'm trying to get them
to adhere to a specific macro protocol and, you know, good
dietary choices. Like I've, I've become part
nutrition coach and like part therapist and I'm trying to
figure out how to make it work within their lifestyle.
And it's almost like in order for habits to be formed, there's
got to be a strong enough desire for them to want to do it,
obviously, first and foremost. But it almost, it's almost like
there has to be some form of consequence if they don't
adhere. And this can be different for
the individual. But like in your work, work with
people and try to get things, you know, consistent.
How have you found the most luck in adherence?
Like just getting them to stick with it?
Yeah, that's a great question. So adherence depends on
motivation, right? Like if you ask a human to do a
thing, what is their motivation? And generally that's driven by
value. And so it just depends on, you
know, what that humans motivation is.
And so where we've actually been seeing a lot of we actually have
ABDB product, that's our our primary product that we're
taking to market, working with practitioners in the levity
longevity space as an example. And so or another big one is
actually surgeons. So surgeons that have pre and
post op protocols. And So what we see is very high
adherence for surgeons or medical professionals post
surgery. Because generally speaking, if
you've had a surgery, you want to heal as efficiently and
effectively as you can. And so in that case, you know
you have a much higher adherence in general, right?
But to answer your question more broadly, the really the strategy
we take is using cognitive behavioral therapy and
education, you know, as an integral part of that.
Like again, it comes back to that point, if people see the
value of doing the thing, then they have a higher propensity of
actually doing it. And so it's a very small baby
steps, like some of our more advanced protocols, you know,
can have 2630, you know, 40 micro habits as an example.
People really have to start small, especially if they've
never used the concept of a protocol.
So literally like changing one habit a week can be massive, you
know, for a normal human. But it is that concept of using
CBT and then specifically like Q and rewards, you know, how do we
show them the value? How do we educate them and then
ask them to do the thing? And then we also have
implemented different label like layers of algorithmic, you know,
messaging essentially. And so getting them at the right
time. And those pieces are also really
critical in that pathway. You feel like there's like, like
milestone achievements, you know, weigh heavily on people in
a positive light, like, you know, they've got some goal,
they've reached micro goal A. 100%, yeah.
So one of our new partnerships we're actually about to announce
is with a Do you watch football offhand?
Not really, but I'm fine. I'm not.
Honestly, I'm more of like a bored guy and you know,
triathlon, but so we partnered with this amazing athlete named
Malik Jackson. Malik is a Super Bowl 50 Super
Bowl champion. I mean, I think it was MVP of
that game. Like and just such an awesome,
amazing human. He's got a group called the Care
League that focuses on protocols and you know, essentially health
plans concierge for ex NFL athletes.
You know, and a lot of these guys are dealing with TBI, you
know, tragically, you know, you're seeing some of the stuff
in the news. They're dealing with mental
health, you know, purpose in these things.
And so with and going down this road with Malik, we're really
excited. We're working with a bunch of
NFL guys on this. But the concept again of how do
you incentivize them? And what we found is, is to your
question using things like leaderboards and gamification
and not cheesy, you know, like airline status gamification or
like retail models, but again, trying to incentivize them to do
the thing using those types of made of testing essentially
those types of models now and leaderboards are a good example.
Are you on Strava? Yeah, I've got a Strava camp.
Yeah, so like I, I use Strava more than any other social
platform and I just do it for myself.
I mean, that said, you know, there's like leaderboards on
Strava and then there's like King of the Hill and local
Legend and you know, those types of things.
And those are just drivers, you know, those are helpful in, in
getting people, again, committed driving motivation and, you
know, showing value. So those are some of the the
areas that we you know are testing and and I've seen great
success. And I feel like people that are
using this software tech in the 1st place probably have some
essence of competitiveness in their nature because they're
trying to do this to get better themselves.
And when you start getting better, you kind of wind up
becoming more competitive by default.
So haven't like a leaderboard functionality makes a lot of
sense. 100% yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
We in, you know, we, we started off more in the peak performance
side. But to be clear, we want, you
know, our grandparents to use these protocols.
You know, we didn't don't just want to focus there.
So we're looking at ways of making these even digestible for
older humans. Or maybe it's not a digital
device. It's like a printed out protocol
they can follow on their fridge, you know, things like that.
But yeah, that's I think that's accurate.
The older demographics, tough man, like I've got grandparents
is all of the students like, man, like there's just, there's
a lot of ignorance around, you know, what is a macro nutrient?
Like they don't know the difference between carbs, fats
and proteins or things like that.
And to be fair, like when they were growing up, we weren't in
near the, you know, metabolic syndrome that we are now.
So it wasn't really top of mind. But yeah, trying to break things
down for them and get them motivated and seeing the bigger
picture is challenging for sure. Yeah.
I mean 100%, you know, like most doctors.
I mean, how many days did they spend in medical school studying
nutrition? You know, I mean, it's it's it's
pretty crazy. I have a quick anecdote.
I broke my clavicle here in Colorado two years ago.
And I went to the Stedman Institute.
It's the number one orthopedic in the US NBANFL, all those
guys. And I go in, they do an X-ray
and she's like, Oh yeah, her clavicle is completely broken.
Here you go and threw me a sling.
And so my healthcare protocol was literally immobilization,
right? You don't move your arm.
That was it though, you know, and I was like, OK, great.
What what do I do? Is there anything to follow?
And she's like, you know, I mean, there's a piece of paper
or something they gave me and I went to my network and I asked
him in my group and I have a lot of nutritionists and dietitians,
part of the brain one family and I, you know, asked them.
I was like, hey, broke my clavicle.
What do you guys think? They're like, oh, collagen bone
broths, you know, And so I started making bison stews and,
you know, soups and, and then I was actually doing temp as well.
Do you know PMF? Are you familiar with that as a
modality? Right, pulse, electrical
magnetic frequency. I've done Pam for years and but
I did send this really interesting localized Pam for
it, like pulled, you know, the electricity through the bone.
And Long story short, I went back to Steadman and you know,
this was she's like, come back in six week and I was traveling.
So I went back in 3 1/2. They do an X-ray.
She's like, Oh my gosh, this is completely healed.
What have you been doing? And I was like, I was focusing
on my nutrition and like one of the top, you know, doctors at
Steadman was like, oh, we never would have thought of that.
You know, literally they never would have thought of nutrition
as an integral part of the human healing process.
And that was like one of the epiphany moments in, in working
towards like developing brain one.
It just didn't make sense to me. And so to the point, you know,
not only our, our, our parents, our grandparents, they didn't
really, you know, they, they learned the food pyramid, you
know, like, what are you kidding me?
And thank God, it's being, you know, essentially updated as we
speak. But how crazy is that to think
that, you know, grains are, you know, essentially the staple of,
of everything. And that's what our grandparents
grew up with. And ultimately most, most
doctors, you know, like that's what they're basically signing
on for, you know, for the majority.
So part of it is education. And that's actually a really
integral part of of what we've built is around educating, you
know, humans and and trying to give them science evidence
based, you know, peer reviewed articles that they can
ultimately make their own informed decision upon.
But that's really that well. I mean, it's, it's interesting,
like I'm in the, you know, evidence based bodybuilding
community all the time. And there's so much discourse
around various nutritional studies and training modalities.
And it's like there's so many studies that people, they, they
don't know what actions to put into place because there's so
many seemingly conflicting piece of information.
So I like what you get going that basically synthesizes all
this information and then aggregates it over all the data
coming in and then just develops legitimate micro habits that
people can implement. They won.
Yeah, I mean, that's it. Literally, yeah, it's a massive
challenge. You know, you, you have to look
at every single study and it's their bias.
And so again, what we've done is we've gone the route of taking
peer reviewed studies that we've approved and then using that as
the backbone for the content and the education as opposed to just
like using an AI and being like, hey, you know, tell me about
hurry variability and triathlon and da da, da.
So we're, you know, again, starting with the paper and then
developing, you know, the content, the programs and
protocols. Yeah.
What do you think? And, and you mentioned before we
start recording too, that there's like a, a journaling
that's that's one quote UN quote biohack that I know I need to
get better at, but I'm not very good at at all, especially like
old fashioned pen and paper journaling.
But you've got a voice functionality there now.
We do, yeah. So I'm, you know, I'm a
scientist at my core researcher. I literally have like, I'm not
joking, 70 of these journals. Like this is when I was in the
lab, we would just take notes with everything.
So I have like work journals and then I have personal journals
that I've used often on for years.
We have digitized that with a journal in the app and the
experience and we have focused on voice actually.
And voice is interesting because it's also a biometric.
And so when people log in, they go through a short assessment,
they can integrate the wearables and then they have the option of
using essentially a voice recorder as a biometric.
And the reason is, is because you can see like the amount of
of variables that we can get out of a voice biometric are nuts.
I mean, there was a study recently they were able to
diagnose those autism essentially through voice.
Emotion is actually fairly easy to get to.
And so we've been testing essentially people coming in and
they're leaving a voice journal, but they can also opt in to
leave a voice biometric and then they don't need to sync a
wearable. You know, ultimately, if they
don't have a wearable, they can't afford a wearable, so they
can actually use voice. So there's some really
interesting testing we're doing on that front.
And the goal is also to reach, you know, older audiences that
definitely don't have biometrics.
I mean, some, but it's rare. But instead, you know they could
use this type of function functionality if they choose to
and. And I actually did an
interesting analysis where I was able to see correlation in the
initial data between voice and HRV coming out of Aura as an
example. So.
Very cool. So you can record into it.
Can you go back retroactively and listen to the recording as
well as see the text? Yeah, exactly.
So it transcribes it into a written text and you can approve
all this, you know, it's all opt in.
I mean we're we're very upfront about, you know, the, the data
collection and so forth. But you, you know, you approve
it and then it's a transcription and then ultimately you also
have that signal that's processed and then that becomes
a trendable graph and you can see how that trends over time.
And then we've compared that to, we're actually doing a research
study now where we're comparing, you know, boys with a number of
wearables. And then just seeing, you know,
do these things trend? What's the variance between HRV
out of Aura versus Woo versus Garmin?
And there's variances in all of it, of course, but you know, are
they trending together? Is it possible to get like like
a synopsis of the, the primary thoughts that you're, you know,
having and, and journaling over the course of time?
Like for instance, if I'm doing this voice journaling on my way
to the coffee stand every day, for instance, and then I want to
get a overview of what is on my mind and therefore in my journal
over the past three months. Does it kind of like get the
highlights? We're not there yet.
It's something we've talked about.
You know, the content is also sensitive.
And so, you know, we're not necessarily analyzing the
semantics or the words per SE. We could, but you know,
currently we're not, you know, we're using the, it's more the
actual voice, you know, no inflections or recording to then
drive the analysis essentially. So slightly different.
Like really bummed it would pick up that I'm bummed for extended
period of time or if I'm like euphoric it wouldn't it would no
tape that as well. Potentially, yeah, yeah, I mean
that's literally what we're we're testing right now.
So, you know, we're doing an IRB approved research study about
exactly this. And some of these things I've
done myself, I mean, I've done time series, you know, for for
years, just, you know, personally as an interest of
these things. And but it's cool.
And you know, now between, again, voice, facial
recognition, iris recognition, I mean, there's an incredible
amount of data. You can tell hypertension just
with a facial scan with nearly the same accuracy as a blood
pressure monitor on your arm, you know, literally just with a
scan 30 seconds, boom, you know, as an example.
So the technology is getting much better.
Yeah, the landscape right now is wild, man.
It's, it's like I'm a purist traditionalist in so many ways,
but it's like I've got to bridge the gap between taking advantage
of all the tools and resources that we have at our disposal
now, but just not to the detriment of the foundational
course that that's positive, that comes from that fundamental
mindset. And that's the hard part, man,
because it's like we live in this weird dichotomy in 2025.
100% And honestly, there's just the, you know, there's a
flooding at the market, especially in anything neuro
attack relative to devices or even supplements.
I mean, it's, it's absolutely crazy, you know, the, the number
of products that are on the market.
And that's part of the reason we went down this road is to help
better inform. And there are some, you know,
really good products that are, you know, becoming consumer
facing where you can literally do, you know, EEG and
neurofeedback with like a band at home instead of going and
seeing a therapist. And so for certain humans, you
know, you have to meet them where they're at.
And that's like a really good option for them.
But again, you know, the accuracy, how many clinical
trials have they done? Generally a lot of the stuff is
not FDA approved, you know for better or worse on that, but.
Yeah, totally. What's your take on just
behavioral thought in general? You know, that seems I've talked
about this on quite a few podcasts lately, but like the
people that are in the nutrition performance based biohacking
space, like they're in hook, line and sink, like they want to
get all the wearables, they want to dive as deep into the
research they want to implement as much as they possibly can.
Then you've got the other subset of the population that seems to
be totally oblivious to these tools and resources and just
continues to get unhealthier and unhealthier.
So like the bell curve has gotten more narrow.
I mean, you've got just two polar extremes, more so than a
blended median. What?
What is the catalyst to get people on the right track in the
1st place? Do you think it's going to be
like this implosion point at which society just simply can't
sustain itself as they get unhealthy?
Or what's going to happen? I think it will be a combination
and I think we're seeing this right now.
You know, the fact that Andrew Huberman can do a three hour
podcast with his retention rate, you know, and, and the fact that
people are listening to three hours signs based podcast is
amazing. And I think as the the
technology gets more ubiquitous, you know, Kennedy just announced
that every American should have a wearable as a side note.
I mean, that's pretty progressive, whether you like
his policies or not. I mean, that's one that's
interesting and it really lends it till itself to, you know, the
ability for the the technology just to get easier for people to
use. So accessibility is part of
that. And then 2 is, how do you drive
action from the thing? I think that's what a lot of
these wearables don't do as well.
And it's a gap that we're filling is it's one thing to
say, OK, your HRV is elevated, you know, what have you been
doing? But then offering really
practical mechanisms to try to reduce, you know, your HRV
urine, improve your ability to rest, you know, what does that
look like for parasympathetic regulation basically?
So I believe that we're seeing that trend, you know, shift more
and more. I mean, I, I think we're seeing
in real time. And I remember 10 years ago, I
was doing a, a triathlon in Central Coast, California.
And one of my buddies, we were like camping outdoors, doing a
training camp. And he had a red light on his
knee. We're like, Dean, what are you
doing over there? And he's like, oh, you got to
try, you know, try this red light thing.
This is like over 10 years ago, right?
And at the time, no one had heard of red light.
It's now on Tony Robbins's homepage.
You know which. And of course, I'm sure the
majority of your readers have all done unrelated at this
stage. So, you know, these things that
used to be more fringe are now becoming, you know, more and
more ubiquitous. I mean, literally, you're seeing
that with, you know, these types of facilities with cryo as an
example, cold plunging, you know, at home cold plunging,
that whole market has just exploded.
So I believe we're seeing a shift.
And then, you know, again, back to the, you know, USDA side of
the house in general, I, I like to believe people are getting
healthier, at least, you know, working towards healthier
habits. But that's where we're really
trying to also focus not just on the peak performance.
It's like the everyday user, you know, that can really benefit
from that concept. You know, again, we grew up with
very little information outside of the food pyramid on
nutrition, you know, and obviously that was completely
flawed. And you know, this more than
anyone as someone, as a keto evangelist.
So, so that's my optimism ultimately at the end of the
day, yeah, it's just trying to meet, you know, that normal
human and and also provide accessibility.
I would say that's another big one too.
You know, our programs range and cost.
Some people can't afford a wearable, right?
They can't afford to do a program.
But there's other things you can do to, you know, essentially
manage your autonomic nervous system so you can go into the
river. You know, here in Colorado, I do
cold plungering literally here in the rivers, 45°, it's
fricking freezing. But you know, we do it
regularly. And so if you can't, you don't
have a river nearby. You can do a cold shower, you
can do breath work as another example.
So, you know, these tools, while the diagnostics absolutely cost
money, you know, a lot of these things we try to make, you know,
accessible for the everyday person to to do as well.
It is interesting man. I'm reading a book.
I just read Cam Haynes's Undeniable is his latest one.
And then I read, I'm reading the comfort Crisis right now.
And it's interesting talking to people in the biohacking health
space. It's like so many of these
fundamental recommendations or things that were just by
definition happening on a day-to-day basis 500 years ago.
And we took it for granted. And like the world has gotten so
much more soft, plush and comfortable that we have to like
seek out this adversity. Like going to get a cold shower
in the river. Like that just happened everyday
basis. Like going, you know, putting
forth a bunch of activity, putting a bunch of steps in,
hunting down food, cooking a meal with your fan.
Like all these things that were just, you know, part of the day
back then are now things that we've got to like call a bio
hack and get excited about to implement.
But it's like, man, it makes such a profound difference.
Like obviously eating processed, hyper palatable junk food and
watching Netflix all day is not the cure. 100% isolation, you
know, I mean, that's absolutely a killer.
You know, we have also found the power of connection as an
example, people who are connected to themselves, to
their family, to their higher power, whatever it is, if you
have that sense of connection and purpose, you know, your life
expectancy increases, like what is it, 10 to 12 years or so?
So you know, the the power of connection, just having
community and people around you as an example, it's, yeah, very,
very powerful. Is there a community
functionality within Brain One? Not yet.
We're working on it right now. Yeah, I intentionally wanted to
wait a bit. We we started testing with some
basic gamification. So you know, really in some ways
competing against yourself, but using things like streaks were
built in day one. You know, did you do the things
you said you were going to do on a micro habit basis, on a
protocol basis? And now we're building
leaderboards and then the ability to like, follow and
share and, you know, all those types of things.
But very excited about it. And yeah, the sort of the, you
know, the community members as. Well, nice, nice.
As far as all the popular bio hacks are concerned, the ones
that you've played around with and implemented in your own
day-to-day routine. What are the ones that you feel
personally have the biggest bang for the buck and the ones that
are probably just smoke and mirrors and not really
necessary? Yeah, that's a great question.
I think fundamentally just starting with like the non
negotiable and the basics. So as a, you know, a data
scientist myself, measurement, you know, I wouldn't even call
this a biohack per SE, but it's the door to understanding your
baselines that you can then optimize, right.
So minimal as we discussed like or is a great example, you know
what, 300 bucks, you know, for the ring $6 a month and then you
have that baseline of your activity plus your sleep data
that you can then begin to optimize again.
So I think, you know, that would be 1, I would say out of the
gate that can allow you to understand, you know, your data
that you can then ultimately monotonize against.
I think other, other big ones. I'm a big fan of BPC, you know,
as a, as a peptide for inflammation.
When I'm here in Colorado and I'm skiing all winter, you know,
snowboarding nearly every single day, I possibly can you feel in
the joints. And so I definitely feel with
something like BPC as a peptide, you know, the the inflammation
and the recovery absolutely distorts.
You just have to give yourself injections, which you know, is
not always the easiest for some people.
But you know what other I mean, again, I, you know, it's the, as
I go down the list, you know, nutrition, exercise, sleep and
stress. I mean literally for, for every
one of these circadian regulation, you know, direct sun
in the morning for 20 minutes. I mean, it doesn't get any
simpler than that. So things like that plus
hydration, plus high protein, you know, those are kind of
again the non negotiables and then they get more advanced from
there depending if I'm training or if I'm traveling or you know,
whatever routine like it. Are there any that have like
really gained popularity momentum?
But you're like, man, this is not worth near the hype that
it's been given. I thought I would say offhand,
not necessarily worth the hype. I think some other ones I would
maybe give more credence to are again, things like pimp for
electrical, magnetic, you know, frequency treatment in general.
I mean, we're starting to see a lot of, you know, really cool
research continue to come out about that and TMS and you know,
those types of modalities essentially.
So those are pretty exciting, I would say.
Yeah, I have the. I've not done that.
I'm familiar with it, but like the electromagnetic pulsing for
muscle stimulation relaxation, like when my wife was in labor,
they had like this electrical thing that they offered her
where they could just hook that up to and you know, I guess
distract the intensity of the contractions.
But it's like, who would have ever thought about that?
That makes total sense. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. There's another partner.
They're doing bioral beats that they actually use in surgeries
to essentially get to a specific, you know, gamma brain
frequency. And they can do surgeries
without anesthesia. I mean, we've been hearing some
pretty crazy things along those lines, but.
The binaural beats the stripping man.
I had a down the podcast a while back and he was like, you can
totally like I've got, I used to have really bad OCD and he's
like, you can totally rewire your, your brain basically gets
stuck in a feedback loop and you've got to like be repetitive
to like fulfill that loop. But if you retrain the brain via
this manner of feedback, it's like, man, that is totally
counter to the, you know, drug induced formula that's typically
prescribed. Yeah, 100%.
I try to keep all pharmaceuticals to an absolute
minimum only when necessary. And again, you know, there's a
number of these modalities that are out there that are can be
just as effective. So yeah, those are great
examples. So what's the timeline with
Brain One? Like what, what stage are you at
now? Is it live and open to the
public or what's the next milestone there?
Yeah. So we still have a gated, we're
allowing people in just on a cohort basis.
Our major focus has been working with practitioners, longevity
clinics, more progressive functional doctors that have
been looking for, again, these types of protocols to give to
their clients. So that's really where we've
been focused. That's been the core revenue
model. And then the goal is to open
this up and, you know, give away the core protocols to humans and
then, you know, we make money off of subscription and, and,
you know, essentially selling the programs themselves.
Very cool. And what what's the tentative
timeline for that'll be opened up?
Yeah. So we're, I mean we're testing
right now I think open to the public roughly 3 months is what
we're thinking. You know, we've been in beta now
about a year, and so we're just, you know, rigorously testing and
making sure we can build the best product that we possibly
can. But we're working with a number
of clinicians from really across the United States at this stage
and we're live in a number of markets.
Very cool, man. It's exciting.
It makes it more accessible. Like convenience is, is such a
paramount thing with, you know, adherence.
And I feel like this would just strip the barrier of entry from
a convenience standpoint in so many ways.
That's it, you know, and it's just making sure the human does
the thing that they commit to do, you know, which is the
toughest, you know, myself included, you know, we all go
through these patterns where sometimes it's the focus,
sometimes it's not. But at least giving someone a
framework to follow, you know, again, like dementia prevention,
Lancet 2020 is an example. If all of our parents and
grandparents knew these basic principles that may impact their
behavior and thereby help exacerbate millions of dementia
cases. So education, you know, is is
really paramount to that. What it what is a?
Yeah, one more for you, man. What What is a habit that you
want to and recognize the value in implementing for yourself but
really struggle with? So cold plunging, but in
particular cold plunging in the shower so I can go into the
river, I can go into the ocean. Like I can go into a full body
cryo like a tank. But if I have to do a like a
shower based cold plunge, it's brutal for me.
Like, yeah, my cold plunge. Scenarios same way man, like cuz
I've got a like my cold plunge is just a freaking horse through
that works really great during the winter time, but not worth
the during during the summer. So my cold plunge is on point
during the winter months, but during the summer it's like,
man, I need a cold plunge and I'm just gonna bite the bullet
and make one or buy one. Yeah, I mean, you know, nowadays
are so cheap you can get one like you know, like a stand
alone, you know, I mean a couple 100 bucks.
But yeah, I would say. Though, man, I think like
there's been a like Huberman's talked about, there's certain
conjectures to how much it impacts, you know, testosterone
and inflammation, things like that.
But all of that aside, I think like the psychological benefit
of just doing that first thing in the morning is in and of
itself totally worth it. I completely agree, I think it's
game changing. Another one for me is again,
sweat, but specifically either sauna or doing a, you know, a a
heated exercise of some quarts like that has been absolutely
game changing. You have a sauna at your place.
We do, yeah. We have one upstairs and then I
do the hot Pilates 3 or 4 days a week and that's like, you know,
usually 20 for for sweating. Do you do the contrast therapy
when you're doing it at your home, sauna and.
Yeah, yeah. We have a cold plunge and a
sauna, so just depending, try to do both, although I, you know,
still prefer the river. Actually, you know, we're doing
it live, so don't use it as much as I might.
But again, it just depends on the schedule.
Nice. I did.
AI was in New York for a while at a conference that that like a
Russian, like a traditional Russian bath house there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was, I was definitely out
of place, like, I've got this, my southern draw going,
everybody else to speak in Russian, I'm probably in the
middle of the Russian mob, who knows.
And they got it cranked way up. Then we transitioned from that
to the cold plunge. And then we'd go back and forth
like 3 times. And man, the first time I went
from the sauna to the cold plunge, I got so dizzy I almost
passed out. I'm like this is not not normal.
Yeah, those, I mean, I've done this same exact protocols.
I love that. Honestly, I think it's great and
I think it really builds. I think you, you know, you do
get better at it the more you do.
But yeah, those first few times could be brutal.
And they are incredibly hot. And then they like whip you with
like the branches. Is that the experience, right,
which includes, you know, increase the circulation and so
forth. And then jumping into the cold,
which is like, you know, 40° or something crazy so.
But I walked out of that man so relaxed, like it was like a.
100%. It was a euphoric man.
I was just so relaxed. I could have slept for two days
afterwards, probably. Yeah, again, regulation of that
parasympathetic, like I've seen it myself, you know, with
friends who are going through something, you get them in a
cold plunge and take them to the river.
It's like, you know, come out a different person.
So and that's something you can do for free, you know, depending
on where you, you know, where you're living, or at least in a
cold shower. So those are the types of, you
know, areas that we're focusing on for accessibility.
Totally agree, ma'am. Well, Speaking of Pagosa
Springs, you know you're in Colorado.
I was doing that because they got the Hot Springs there.
So I would finish that as the hunting trip every year.
We'd we'd go in, do the Hot Springs and we'd jump in the
river and just transition back and forth.
And that was like the perfect end cap to a hunting trip.
Yeah, I haven't, I haven't done Pagosa.
I've been down there. But yeah, there's a a bunch of
Hot Springs up and down that range and same thing.
They're on rippers. And yeah, that's perfect example
of a natural contrast therapy. Yeah, super cool, man.
Well, I'm stoked for what you got going to brain one, man.
Three months is no time at all. So once it goes live, will you
like send out an e-mail to everybody that subscribes to the
list? And yeah, we've got you, Robert,
and keep you in the loop and appreciate your efforts and all
the things you're doing and, you know, putting nutrition and
health first. And anyway, Queen support,
please let us know. Likewise, man, everybody listen
that wants to get more information, just go to
brain1.com. Yep, Brain .1 and actually Brain
.1 and Yep. Sign up for the wait list.
Mention your name, we'll put them to the front of the list.
Awesome man. Well I do appreciate throwing.
Keep killing a man, keep changing lives, and if there's
anything I can do for you, just let me know.
OK. I appreciate it, Robert.
Thank you so much. Hey, man.