The Medicine You're Not Taking: What Real Community Does to Your Biology

0:03Darin Olien:Welcome to Super Life with me, Darin Olien, a podcast where we explore, discover, and share solutions that promote a healthier life and a better world. Together, we'll ignite possibilities, inspire change, and build sovereignty, creating a roadmap towards a super life for you and for all. Get ready to start living your super life.

0:33Darin Olien:By 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Over 500 toothpaste tubes have been thrown away since I've started this ad. You don't think of these small little things, but they add up a lot over time, and we can do something about it. That ends up to be over a billion plastic toothpaste tubes a year alone that ultimately end up in our environment and in our waterways and ultimately ends up in the ocean. Do you want to add to this or do you want to do something different? Plus, maybe that exposure to that plastic, getting the plasticizers and the endocrine disruptors and then putting that toothpaste in your mouth also is not a good idea.

1:22Darin Olien:There's some great solutions. You can DIY stuff. I've got many of these in my fatal conveniences, but the easy ones that I use every day, and I'm about to travel a lot more, and the traveling makes them really easy, I go to bite. I bite down on a little tablet, which is not interacting with any plastics because it's in a glass bottle. And it's refillable and reusable and sustainable. And there's no unwanted toxic fluorides, flow agents, and solvents in my mouth. So my favorite is this Bite Toothpaste. 100 % home, compostable pouches, subscription models. You don't even have to think about it again.

2:07Darin Olien:You're helping you by putting clean products in your mouth and you're helping the environment because Bite Toothpaste is one of the best companies I've seen looking at all aspects of their supply chain and their refillable, reusable, sustainable, regenerative practices. So Bite is offering you, all my listeners, 20 % off your first order. Go to trybite.com, T-R-Y-B-I-T-E forward slash Darren20 or just use the promo code Darren20, D-A-R-I-N, and you can get 20 % off your first order with a great new toothpaste without using the tube. Hey there. I want to tell you about a study. One of the most powerful studies I believe there ever has been and potentially ever will be.

3:01Researchers at Harvard Medical School followed 724 people for 85 years. That's right, 85 years. They tracked their health, their relationships, their mental state. Every few years they did this for the duration of most of the people's lives. It is one of the longest, most comprehensive studies of adult health ever conducted. And after 85 years of data, we're talking blood tests, brain scans, interviews, medical records. What did they find? Was the single most powerful predictor of long, healthy, happy lives. Not diet, not exercise, not genetics, and not wealth. The most powerful predictor of all was the quality of their relationships.

4:04Let me say that again. The single most powerful predictor of how long you live, how well you live, how happy you are, how good your life feels was determined. And across 85 years of data from Harvard University is the quality of your human conditions, the connections, your community, looking at people, being around people. And yet in 2023, the United States Surgeon General declared an epidemic, not of cancer, not of health disease, an epidemic of loneliness. I talked about this in the recent solo episodes. Half of all American adults and throughout Western civilized world, But American adults, one out of every two people listening right now, right around you, report experiencing measurable loneliness.

5:10That's half of us. That is not okay. That is a symptom of what we're doing and also what we're not doing. I'm Darren O 'Lean. Welcome to Super Life. This is another solo episode that I'm diving in so that you can take things and apply them into your life so that you can have the best life ever. This is a very important episode because today we're talking about the medicine that costs nothing, requires no prescription, and has been proven repeatedly across multiple scientific disciplines to extend our lives, protect your immune system, lower your inflammation, and make you fundamentally more resilient as a human being.

6:00That's right. It is free, but it takes a commitment from you to maybe change some things because that is real community. And why? The systems we built around modern life have stolen it right out from under us and what we can do to take it back. So here's the fatal convenience of the modern life. We have built an entire civilization around the idea that independence is the highest virtue, right? That needing of other people is a weakness, that you should be able to work alone, live alone, achieve alone, and heal alone. We've substituated digital connections for human ones. We've replaced neighborhoods with suburbs, corner stores with Amazon delivery, town squares for social media feeds.

6:58We've built houses with backyards instead of front porches. We've made it easier than ever to get everything we need without ever seeing the face of another human being. That is the ultimate fatal convenience. And we've called it progress. I now call it regression. But here's what the science says. Social isolation, the objective condition of having few meaningful connections, increases your risk of premature death by 29%. Isn't that ironic that you buy the pills, you work out, you eat the right food, all for what? Health and longevity. And yet this one seems to miss us all. This one, we've isolated ourselves away from meaningful connections.

7:53This is not a mood stat. This is a mortality stat. This is a quality stat. Loneliness, the subjective feeling of feeling disconnection, carries health risks equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes every single day. The Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, 2023 advisory, social isolation increases the risk of premature death by 29%. These are all found. And COVID didn't help us at all because that was a massive social isolation issue. About half of the U.S. adult population report measurable loneliness even before COVID. It just exploded after COVID. 29 % increased mortality, greater risk of heart disease by 29%, greater risk of stroke by 32%, 50 % increased risk of developing dementia.

8:57Did you hear me? 50 % increased risk of developing dementia by not simply having meaningful connections and community in your life. this is not just a soft statistic just to listen to me and throw it away you actually have to actively have this in your life make connections reach out even like i've told you in the last couple weeks even when you're in the line at the grocery store look at the person behind you say hello connect with people this is also making community these are the numbers from the surgeon General of the United States. This is cited in peer-reviewed epidemiological data. And the mechanism, the actual biological reason why social isolation kills us, is one of the most fascinating and important things I've ever learned in my life.

9:58Because once you understand it, you can never look at your social life as an option again. So let's start at the beginning, at the cellular level.

10:11Darin Olien:Before we continue the pod, I want to share something. I've tried so many supplements. I've been in the space for 25 years and every so often something really pops out. Monovitality is that difference. It's not just about adding minerals. It's about tuning your body to the higher frequency physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually because this is the mana from the earth, the shilajit, the ormus minerals, and so on. There's so much going on with this brand. I'm so excited. Beyond the shilajit, they're expanding into other elementals. The brand is built on ancient alchemy with ingredients like gold nanoparticles, beta-glucans, shilogit, ormus, all geared to elevate you.

11:02Darin Olien:Especially in today's world, you need bioavailable, a bio-delivery system that upgrades your body from the inside out. Every formula is frequency charged to promote balanced energy immune system and cellular renewal. And the wild part, the more consistently you take it, the more you feel everything in your body. It's the same with me. The more I use it, the better I feel. My sleep improved, my skin glows, my stress goes down, my testosterone goes off. It's like my whole system is humming again. So if you're tired of low energy, brain fog, and or just not feeling the same and like something's missing, check out MANA.

11:49Darin Olien:Go to manavitality.com. That's M-A-N-N-A vitality.com. Use the code DAREN20 and you get 20 % off your order. This isn't about health. It's about living in harmony with your greatest and highest potential. Human beings are the most socially dependent species that has ever existed on this planet. We depend on social connection. We are born more helpless than virtually any other mammal full stop. An infant cannot feed itself. It cannot protect itself at all, regulate its own temperature, or survive for more than a few hours without direct human contact. We evolved in cooperation, in cooperative groups, and our nervous systems, our biology at the deepest level reflects that evolutionary reality.

12:54You want to regulate your nervous system because that's the buzzword lately. Be around people. Connect deeply with people, not just talking about the weather. Give them a compliment. Say hello. How are you really doing? That is regulating your nervous system. That is producing oxytocin, dopamine, norepinephrine, All these beneficial, improving your immune system, lowering your inflammation, literally your autonomic nervous system, the system that governs your heart rate, your digestion, your immune function, your inflammation response is not neutral about your social environment. It is constantly scanning your social cues.

13:45And it is fundamental. It is a fundamental operating system. The question your nervous system has been acting since you were born is, am I safe? Am I with my people? This is incredibly important. When you are in genuine community, when you feel seen, known, supported by people who know your name and your story, your nervous system shifts into the ventral vagal state. This is the biological state of safety and connection. In this state, your heart rate variability improves, your digestion function improves optimally, your immune system shifts from defensive posture to maintenance and repair. Your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain, responsible for creativity, compassion, the part of your brain responsible for creativity, compassion, and clear decision-making comes fully online.

14:52This is not a metaphor. This is physiology, real, measurable, documented physiology. And when you are chronically isolated, When the nervous system has no evidence of social safety, it does the opposite. It goes into threat mode. Cortisol levels rise. Inflammation increases. The immune system shifts into an inflammatory posture primed to fight infection from wounds. Digestion is suppressed. Sleep architecture is disrupted. And over months and years, this sustained threat away from people, this threat mode biology, damages the heart, the brain, the immune system, and every organ that it depends on, especially on the autonomic nervous system that regulates everything.

15:51You've probably heard of what I said earlier called oxytocin. It's often called the love hormone or the bonding hormone. But that marketing does it a disservice because oxytocin is a lot more than that. It's a lot more than just feel-good chemical. It is a master regulator. When you have genuine face-to-face interaction with another person, when you make eye contact with someone, when you share a meal, you share a touch, you laugh, your brain releases this oxytocin. And oxytocin doesn't just make you feel warm and connected. It directly suppresses cortisol production. It downregulates the HPA access, the stress response system.

16:47It reduces inflammatory cytokines. It increases immune function. It activates the vagus nerve and shifts your nervous system towards the ventral vagal restorative state. That's what it does. There is no pill. There is no way to eat. there's nothing that you can do to come close to the power of connection of what i'm describing here not even close here's what this means practically every time you sit down with a friend for a real conversation every time and you put your damn phone down every time you share a meal with your family and you put your damn phone down don't even have it on the table turn it off every time you walk with someone and talk with someone about real world stuff.

17:40You are doing something pharmacological to your body. You are feeling good. Yes. You are suppressing inflammation. Yes. You are lowering the cortisol in your body. Yes. You are improving your immune system function. Yes. The body does not distinguish between a pill and an authentic human moment. The biology responds either way. And here is what kills me about this, that this medicine is absolutely free. It requires no prescription, no insurance, no copay. but we have built a world that says, but we have built this world that makes it incredibly hard to access because we have made everything else important over us, over our human family, over our connection.

18:39So big shout out because over the last 20 plus years, my good buddy, Dan Buettner and his team have studied the regions of the world where people live the longest and the healthiest lives. He called them Blue Zones. And you might have seen this on Down to Earth Season 1. We talked a little bit about it. There are five of them, now six in Singapore, Sardinia, Okinawa, Costa Rica, Greece, Loma Linda. Now here's what's fascinating. These communities are geographically separated by thousands and thousands of miles. They eat a little differently. They speak different languages, practice different religions, and yet they share a set of deep structural commonalities.

19:29Let me give you the list, and then I want you to notice what shows up again and again. In Okinawa, the elders belong to a social group called, I think I'm saying this right, Moya, a small group of lifelong friends who have committed to each other well-being for life. They walk together, eat together, support each other through loss and hardship of life. And the research by Dr. Makoto Suzuki, who studied the Okinawans for decades, found that their social engagement patterns were as protective as their famous plant-rich diet. In Sardinia, the Blue Zone villagers clustered showed unusually high numbers of male centurions, rare anywhere in the world.

20:17And we were there and we saw the gravestones of many men living over a hundred and also met obviously some living ones. And since men typically die significantly younger than male, researchers studied this anomaly found that Sardinian men maintain active community roles well into their old age. And in Greece, elders described a daily rhythm of long communal meals, very long communal meals that stretched into the evening and had regular napping, walking through the village to meet their neighbors. And it was this pace of life that was connected, no rushing, all connecting. And it goes on. And here's what Dan concluded.

21:06after 20 plus years in the field. The healthiest, longest lived people on the planet didn't hack their longevity. And I know Dan loves to go after some of this biohacking stuff and I do too. There's, you know, listen, I love that the science comes along and there's some compounds and things that can help us along the way because our world is different. So I do like that part of science coming along, but I do align with Dan on this as well, that these communities were born into these communities and they structurally were embedded by this connection into this connective tissue, this fabric of daily life.

21:51It was built that way. It was social connection at its core. It wasn't something that they had to add to their routine because it was their routine. And here is the contrast that should stop us cold. In the United States, the average American now spends approximately 20 minutes per day in direct in-person social contact with their friends, 20 minutes a day. 20 minutes. That's down from 60 minutes just 20 years ago. For young people aged 15 to 24, in-person time with friends dropped by 70 % in two decades. It's scary and it's not going to bode well for our health, for our mental health and so on.

22:38So this dismantling of this community has really got me thinking almost on a daily basis because this didn't happen by accident. Just like the food system, the dismantling of community has structural causes and understanding those causes is the first step towards reversing them. In 2000, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam published a landmark book called Bowling Alone. He had spent years tracking civic engagement in America, membership in clubs, participation in religious institutions, attendance in community events, spent time with neighbors. and what he found was striking across virtually every measure of social connection.

23:31Americans had become dramatically less connected since the 1950s and 60s. The title came from an observation. More Americans were bowling than ever before, but they were bowling alone. The bowling leagues, the communal, structural, regular shared activity had absolutely collapsed. People were doing the same physical action, but in isolation. Putnam identified a suburban sprawl as significant as anything we've ever seen. When you design a city where everything requires a car, where there is no walkable public space, where houses face away from the street and people retreat to their private backyards, you are designing isolation into the actual architecture.

24:36You eliminate the accidental community that happens when you walk past your neighbor or you go to the shop at the local store or you sit down at a communal table. The built environment shapes the social environment always. And then came the digital revolution. Social media, we know what happened then. And in some ways, it did and it was supposed to create connection. It was great because across oceans, languages, across otherwise unbuildable bridges and these distances, the worldwide web, the social connection, the digital connection was supposed to produce the same biology and it didn't. Not at all.

25:26Screens don't release oxytocin in the same way faces do. Text messages don't activate the vagal social engagement system. Scrolling through someone's curated highlight reels generate social comparison and end anxiety, not connection, the opposite. Not the nervous system regulation that comes from genuine presence. We built a world of an unprecedented digital connectivity and somehow ended up more alone than ever. So what do we do? Because this is not a call. So what do we do? This is not a call for despair. This is a call for action. We always have choice. We individually have choice. We collectively have choice.

26:10With the same intention and rigor that you bring to your nutrition and your movement and your sleep, your social life is a health practice. Hear me now. Not a luxury. Not a reward for when work slows down. A biological necessity that is measurable and has measurable consequences for the betterment of your life. Hear me. And here's what I know. The same culture, that dismantled community, can rebuild it. Because connection is not a lost technology. It's a forgotten priority. And we can start reclaiming that literally today. Make effort to connect with people. Look them in the eye. Give them a hug.

27:03Have real conversations. This is actionable. This is doable. This is possible right now. Get off your screens. Go into a room with another person. Text less, call more, sit with someone, have deep and meaningful conversations, share food with people, be seen, be honest, Be radically honest. Serve your community, your friends, before they need to ask. Here's the bottom line. The research is unambiguous. Your relationships are literal medicine for your longevity and, hear me, your happiness. The people in your life, whether you have them now or you're creating more of them now because you can, the ones who know your name, who show up when things are hard, who share your meals and your failures and your laughter.

28:06They are literally keeping you alive and you them. Dan did some amazing work in the Blue Zones. The Blue Zones didn't discover this. They preserved something that was cultural already. They kept it alive. That industrialized, digitized, suburbanized America systemically dismantled it. But we can rebuild it. One honest conversation at a time. Have one honest conversation this week. Make a point. Be real. Be open. Be vulnerable. Be truthful. full show you're loving, not online, preferably in person. If not, have a FaceTime call with a loved one. It's okay if it's messy. Say you're sorry about something, whatever.

28:59Be real. You are a social species. We require connection. You were designed for belonging. You belong. I'm talking to you. You belong. Don't let the architecture of the modern life that was created well before you even born, don't let that dictate your happiness, your joy, and your longevity. Find your people. Show up for them. Let them show up for you. Receive them because that's super life. that's what it's all about that's also why i'm here to break some of these patterns so we can share and stand for one another beyond some of this bullshit that we have been born into like and subscribe share this message but but more importantly be this be your super life Be your connection.

30:02Be love. Share yourself. Open your heart. Risk a little bit more today. I feel you. I see you. We're the same. I love you all. And I'll see you next time.