Cellular Aging: Why Your Body May Be Aging Faster Than You Think | Dr. Will Cole

27:05I don't want to demonize it, but it's just unnatural light too often. I think as we've seen, the overhead lights have changed, right? Like you used to have your regular run-of-the-mill light bulbs. I wasn't born in the 90s, you guys. So I'm also not aging so rapidly. But now we have all of these LED lights, right? I would call it dirty light because, you know, I will share with you that I have a friend, he's very like on his game when it comes to evening. And we went to their house, we stayed at their house overnight, and it was all red light bulbs only, which was really hard to navigate through a house, I will say, when it's not your house, and you're like, where are the stairs?

27:46Where's everything at? But we slept so well. And we were talking about just how well we slept. And I don't think we ever get the opportunity as humans to really have that unless you camp, right? And I don't know who's out there camping. I grew up camping. And like, how well did you sleep? Like you're out moving your body, you're in that light. But if we think about, I don't know, I would go so far as to call it dirty light, because that blue spectrum should not exist. and it does not exist anywhere in nature when it comes to the evening. It is only the morning. And so it is very disruptive. I mean, from the hormone perspective, it is incredibly disruptive.

28:25And as you were saying, it's not just your circadian rhythm. Your gut, your skin, your organs all have their own rhythm and light is influencing that. Yeah. Every cell has these zeitgebers, I think is the term for it. These sort of light givers, these cellular clocks, basically. And yeah, they're out of sync. And we all have cellular clocks. Every organ has a cellular clock. Back to that Stanford study is someone's heart cells are ticking and talking faster. Someone's brain cells are ticking faster. A lot, 25 million plus, I would assume more if they're looking beyond just these proteins that Stanford was looking at, they're aging faster.

29:02And that is why it is a cellular reason why we have all of this chronic disease. And then the last two real quick is I would say biotoxins like mold, bacteria, viruses. And then the last piece is stress and trauma, the mental, emotional, spiritual piece. I think those five areas are what's accelerating our cellular clock and creating the cellular confusion, the static that's inhibiting our cells to recognize what they're supposed to do. Okay, so in a minute, I want to make this all really practical. I'm going to ask you to build a protocol. We're going to talk about interventions. We're going to also take some things away because I think sometimes we're doing too much or we're told to do too much.

29:45Before we get into that, though, I do just want to ask, what does mitochondrial dysfunction actually feel like? Because I don't think, I think people hear about mitochondrial dysfunction all the time, but no one's really spoken to them about like, what does it feel like when your mitochondria are not working optimally? It exists on a spectrum. So there's mild symptoms to severe. It's pretty much every chronic disease, nearly every one, science has shown has a mitochondrial dysfunction component to it, meaning cancer, heart disease, autoimmune conditions, any sort of chronic disease. The mitochondria is not working well.

30:25By the time somebody's diagnosed as one of those issues, researchers estimate it's about four to 10 years prior to that diagnosis that there's some cellular dysfunction going on. So that's a decade. And so that didn't happen overnight for most people. It's there underneath the surface. So for the most part, what I would say the telltale signs of the check engine light that wakes people up to, hey, something's off, it's brain fog and fatigue. I would say that's what I see the most of what I hear. It's I'm tired. I'm wired and tired. I'm anxious, but exhausted. I think that neuro-immuno-endocrine axis dysregulation is what I see as far as people's wake-up call.

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31:57What propels you? Propel with Gatorade electrolytes. More than anything, but we know it's far more than that. I mean, the fertility issues oftentimes has a mitochondrial component, diabetes. I went on and on, but it's everything. but I would say the brain and the nervous system, I think I hear the most often. Yeah. I mean, even when you look at endometriosis, the number one symptom that women report is fatigue. And doctors are always like, how do you have fatigue? It's just a period problem. No, it's a full body systemic inflammatory condition. And what does inflammation do? It wreaks havoc on the powerhouse of your cell.

32:35And so, you know, I think so many people listening here, their doctors have dismissed them. A woman goes to the doctor and she says fatigue, and they say, sleep more, drink more water, stop stressing so much, and possibly have you tried losing weight. It's something that really gets brushed off. And I don't think fatigue is a badge of honor. And on the other side of the spectrum, fatigue is not something that anybody should be ignoring. So I want to go into a segment we call protocol playground. And so we've been talking about cellular aging, mitochondria, inflammation, all the things that can move us away from health.

33:08And so I want to move us back towards health. So in the first round, I want to ask you, these are questions that come from our listeners. So this person said, I wake up tomorrow and I want to start taking better care of my cells. Walk me through the first 30 minutes of my morning. I love this. This is a great segment, Dr. Brighton. I think this is super smart and helpful. We look at cellular aging. We have to get a lot done in 30. No, I'm just kidding. There's a lot of amazing things you can do, but I would say a lot of this is based on the concept of adversity mimetics. That's the best science that I would say shows us, starts to allow that cell to recognize what it is again, to decrease that cellular confusion, that cellular noise and static that's going on.

33:55It's what are things that stimulate these rejuvenative pathways, start to downregulate mTOR, start to increase autophagy pathways, start to increase the sirtuins to start to be able to catch up with all the cleanup that they have to do, start to activate AMPK, these NRF2, these pro-antioxidant healing pathways has to do with what stresses out your cell a bit to make it more resilient. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, the concept of hormesis. The dose makes the poison, the dose also makes the medicine. So fasting is a tool that can be used and we're not talking about aggressive fasting, we're not talking about disordered eating, we're talking about what's right for my body at this point in my health journey.

34:45First 30 minutes, polyphenol rich, something polyphenol rich is not gonna break the fast. So I would say a deep, pungent, bitter green tea. It's not going to break your fast, but it's going to like the, these plant tannins, these polyphenols, EGCG catechins are what researchers call xenohormetic. So they are, the plant went through some stress because it's in the sun. It's having to protect itself. It's maybe growing in some arid area. the more bitter the plant is, specifically the first 30 minutes we're drinking a tea here and we're fasting, the cells from that plant is gonna be communication to our cells to stimulate.

35:30It's saying basically in my mind, the tea is nudging your cells and saying, you know who you are, remember who you are. And it's making your, what made the plant more resilient is gonna make your cells more resilient. So that would be first 30 minutes is something simple, I would say fasting. And then a third thing, some sort of prayer, gratitude practice, which we talked about earlier, lower inflammation markers, lower cellular aging. Whenever somebody has some sort of spiritual practice, you could do that in 30 days, right? That's not too wacky wellness for me to say that, right? Yeah, I think it is something that I always talk about with patients of not letting anyone else control like the first hour of your day.

36:14and that's what going on social media do will do exactly like social media is designed to try to dictate what your day will be like and I think part of that gratitude practice is being able to reset there's a lot of misinformation and often for marketing purposes that tell women that they can't fast and so what you said was a 12 12 this is very normal you close the kitchen at 8 p.m you wake up at 8 a.m maybe maybe you close the kitchen at 6 p.m you wake up at 6 a.m any patient that I have that says I'm unable to do that, I have concerns about their metabolic health because the body is designed to take that 12 hours.

36:51And for everybody listening, this is actually how you were designed to optimally have a good bowel movement in the morning for your microbiome to be moved down into the large intestine to stay there. There's a lot of evidence along with the longevity of what this can do. And as you said, this is not extreme. And you're saying don't break the fast, drink green tea. When they break the fast, what would you recommend they eat? Another thing that I think you could have that would be in the sort of fasting mimicking state that is also xenohormetic is like a pungent olive oil. So the olive oil that have the highest levels of these flavonoids, these polyphenols, these anthocyanins, these plant compounds, it makes it bitter again.

37:33So when in doubt, go bitter. Locally grown, foraged berries, things like this, the dark color, the pigments. these xenohermetic compounds in things like pomegranates and blackberries and blueberries and olive oils and even things like dark chocolate, it's that slight bitterness. It's that tartness. It's that rich pigment that are the compounds that the plant made during times of stress that will then help to cellularly communicate to your cells to become more resilient. So I would break a fast with maybe you could have the olive oil, like a shot of olive oil. What made me think about this is the waking your digestion up.

38:14So you could do sort of an olive oil, extra virgin, pungent olive oil with like a little bit of apple cider vinegar in the morning too in the first 30 minutes. That's going to wake up your digestion, not break your fast. Yes, it's going to stimulate digestion, but it's not going to impact mTOR, that mammalian or mechanistic target of rapamycin, which you want lower during that time of fast. You need it to build muscle, but you don't want it up whenever you're trying to help the cellular debris to be cleaned up, to upregulate autophagy and mitochondrial renewal or mitophagy, you want mTOR to be low.

38:44When you break the FAST, whatever that is for you. So when you might do a 16-8, maybe you're progressed past a 12-12 and you're like, okay, I wanna do a bit more than that. I feel good. Then play around with it. Get creative and see how you feel on any given day and don't hold it so tightly and make it your personality because especially if you have a menstrual cycle, each day is gonna be different. Just show up intuitively for your body at that day. How are you feeling? How did you sleep the night before? Because if you didn't sleep well, maybe you're not going to do a big long fast. It's okay.

39:14So play around with some intuitive fasting. How I would break the fast is honestly, I would do probably waking up, especially the longer fasts, doing something that's gut friendly. Because what's happening, the villi and the gut are a bit blunted. Cortisol is a bit higher whenever you're coming out of fast, especially longer types of fasts, that's how it's supposed to be. That's the hormetic, good stress, cellular, like the sirtuins, the guardian angels of the genome are actually cleaning things up. Autophagy is cleaning things up. So you don't want to really have a bolus of high fruits or something like that right out of the gate, I would say wouldn't be ideal.

39:57If they're eating real food, I'd be fine with it. Look, I don't want to be picky, but if I had to be like specific, I would say maybe sort of a good, hearty, nourishing stew or soup, something that's grounding, nourishing, that's good with filled with clean protein, complex carbohydrates from something like sweet potatoes and something that's nourishing to the gut, like a bone broth. That would be how I would break the fast meal. It's not your typical break fast, but I think it's one of the best things you could do, especially after a longer fast. I just had a curry for breakfast yesterday and I shared it on my Instagram and people are like, you're eating dinner for breakfast.

40:37I'm like, I do this all the time. That's the secret where I'm like, I'm like, I have a big day ahead of me. And like, it's, and also it was, you know, coming back to where I live and acclimating. I went from, you know, 90 degree weather to like 56 degree weather. And I'm like, my body doesn't need like yogurt and granola. My body needs something hearty, warm. I need to like feel like I'm restored and ready for the day. Let me ask you, if someone had to pick one thing to do before 9am that would help their cells, what would you say? A lot of these compounds in these foods, like green tea, there's studies looking at puerh tea, turmeric can act like this.

41:20They call them methyl adaptogens. They basically sort of regulate methylation, which helps to clean up that cellular confusion. Since we didn't, and we talked about prayer and gratitude already, if you're talking about 9am or pushing it past the morning, I would say still be in the fasting state maybe, unless you can't, but you could do, you could break the fast. Let's just say we're breaking the fast with a good soup, and then we are doing a workout. So I would do re-hit. So if you want to say something that's cellular provocative, cellularly provocative, that's adversity mimetic, it's reduced exertional high intensity interval training.

41:56And what's beautiful about this, it's still bio-individual because what's high intensity for one person isn't going to be high intensity for the next person. So the concept of re-hit, which in my mind is kind of like hit training to the next level. It's like level up from hit because it's pulsed, let's just say 20 seconds or so of an all out sprint. You can do this on a bike, you can increase the resistance and it's you're being chased by a tiger for 20 seconds and then you rest for a few minutes and you're just doing two or three rounds of that all outburst of energy either on a bike which is what i do you could do it other ways as well but that is an adversity memetic memetic your cells are upregulated it's enhancing mitochondrial biogenesis your cells making more mitochondria It's been showed over, I think, 16 weeks to increase VO2 max, one of the best longevity markers to show what's your cellular oxygen capacity.

42:56Do you want to be doing that fasted, a re-hit fasted? Probably not. So I'm just thinking you might want to break your fast, then do re-hit. Some people do fine on a fasted workout. I don't want to poo-poo that if that works for you, but just be mindful. On the fly, I'm giving you sort of a high-intensity workout. You don't have to do that. That's great studies to show that zone two exercise. By 9 a.m., maybe do a brisk morning walk. That's probably even better. So getting out, taking your shoes off, walk in the grass, get some grounding. So you're going to sort of habit stack with some grounding, some earthing, if you will, with some zone two exercise.

43:31That is staying in the cardiometabolic zone two. A good way to see if you're in zone two more or less is the talk test. Can you talk and it be doable, but still be not at rest? You're not doing it as intense. But that just shows you that variety is the spice of life. You don't have to do the same thing. You don't have to punish yourself. The re-hit that I mentioned earlier, that sort of aggro hit, you're only supposed to do that two or three times a week every other day. It's nothing. It's a few minutes, 10 minutes max at a pop two or three times a week. The zone two really, and you should be doing this, you mentioned before 9 a.m., morning walks are one of the best ways to enhance metabolic flexibility, which is the cellular rejuvenation at its finest.

44:16There's another question that we had from listeners and it was more of a statement. So they said, if I'm standing in my kitchen and I have to build a plate, what is the best plate I can build for longevity? So I guess we could start with like, how much protein would you have them put on there? Well, it's based on somebody's activity level and age, but I would say one to two palm sizes, depending on where you're at. The goal would be 30 grams a meal. That's going to be 15 to 30, depending on if some people are having lighter protein at certain meals and then maybe having more protein in the other meal.

44:55I want you at least minimum, minimum around 90 grams of protein in a day. But some people stack that 30-30-30. Some people are doing protein sparing and not and keeping mTOR lower in the morning and doing higher, higher protein in the evening. You have to do what works for you. So the totality of the day, every plate could look different. But about one to two palm sizes minimum of some sort of high quality complete protein. So grass fed beef, wild caught fish, something like that. And then lots of good, brightly colored fruits and vegetables, depending on what your body can handle from a digestive standpoint.

45:34So this is kind of the intersection between the longevity health span world and sort of my sort of gut health autoimmune world. Yet sometimes something that may be good for one thing and not the other. So meaning that if there's a lot of colored, colorful plants, but it's causing bloating and digestion issues, we have to look at the proper preparing of it to make it more gut friendly. meet your gut where it's at, don't shame yourself about it. So maybe that's more soups and stews. Maybe that's even cooking this fruits that I mentioned that have all these amazing polyphenols and flavonoids. It's cooking them down to sort of a compote, like inside of a pie without the pie part, which breaks down some of those plant fibers, making it more digestible.

46:14So I mean, I'm coming from the sort of autoimmune gut health world. And sometimes the longevity science isn't there for the people in the autoimmune world. And it's like, oh, that sounds great, My stomach would be wrecked if I had all that raw plant food. So cooking fruits down if you need. Blending it in smoothies can be another way to do it too. And then soups and stews would be another thing that I would consider. So maybe a good compote, berry compote. Maybe asparagus comes to mind. Sulfur rich. Things that are higher in sulforaphane. Maybe sprinkle some broccoli sprouts on it. A good grass-fed steaks.

46:50You get B vitamins, folate, protein, vitamin A. I think that's a solid plate right there, baby. If your ADHD feels different across your cycle, postpartum, or in perimenopause, ADHD in Women explains why hormones can change your brain and what you can do about it. Pre-order now and for a limited time, get the first chapter audio read by me, Dr. Jolene Brighton, for free. Plus a bunch of other bonuses like a free recipe guide and a PMDD workshop. Claim your bonuses at drbrighton.com slash ADHD and women. That's D-R-B-R-I-G-H-T-E-N dot com slash ADHD and women. Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins.

47:41Propel Hydrates Better Than Water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolytes. Then we can go from there. I agree. If somebody could just add five things to their grocery cart this week, what five things could really make a difference? Five things, some sort of high quality protein, long chain omega fatty acids. So some like, well, like pink, think of like the pinkest salmon, these carotenoids that are so important. And these are also very helpful for the cellular repair mechanisms. I would say sulfur-rich plant foods is a great way to activate NRF2, this antioxidant cellular repair pathway.

48:27It activates a lot of these longevity pathways, basically. It also activates glutathione, which is the cellular master antioxidant. broccoli sprouts, asparagus, Brussels sprouts. These are the type of the things that maybe could be beneficial. Cooking them down, if most of these you would cook anyways, but having them pureed. If you have digestive problems, if you have autoimmune problems, meet your gut where it's at. So I'm saying that because the preparation is important for someone that has GI issues. And then I would say some sort of richly colored fruit. So I would say blackberry, blueberry, pomegranate, these flavonoids, they're rich in elagic acid.

49:12And elagic acid helps when your gut consumes elagic acid, will produce your lithin, these postbiotics. That's the products of bacterial fermentation, which produces mitophagy. It upregulates mitophagy or this mitochondrial renewal pathway. So that's five, right? And then tea, there's just so much good studies around the tea compounds. So get a good pungent tea. Maybe it's a puerh tea, oolong tea, black tea, a good solid tea, and then get organic whenever you can for all of these things. But don't stress about it. I think for the vast majority of people, just doing the best they can and giving the rest to God and not stressing about things that are healthy, which isn't good for your health either, is good enough.

49:54You don't have to be perfect to start to nourish yourselves. My question to you would be, what food should we not be eliminating? So there's a lot of static on the internet saying like, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad. Want something that you would say, like if your gut can handle it, if it's good for you, you know, good for your system, this is a food you shouldn't be eliminating. So things like bone broth, as I mentioned earlier with soups and stews, it's great for one person, then can cause a histamine response for the next person. So does that make bone broth bad? It's just there's so much bioindividuality and nuance and context to this.

50:30So yes, you can make a low histamine broth. Yes, you could avoid it for a time. Maybe it's not loving your body back for now. And then, yeah, another food that came to mind is fermented foods. Fermented foods like not just the sourdough piece, but the kimchi's and the kefir's and the kvass's and the kombucha's and the sauerkraut's, wonderful foods for the gut, but are also higher in histamines. So I have to modify nutrition protocols all the time to be low histamine while we're healing the histamine intolerance. So those are some foods that came to mind of, yes, try to bring them in, but they don't work for everybody.

51:05Yeah. And I think to the same point, what I think is important for people to understand as well is loss of oral tolerance is real. And sometimes your problem was never with the food. It was with your restricting of the food. So people get into where they're like, I can't eat any of these things. So they start restricting all of these things. You know, we see this a lot in chronic illness patients who are having digestive issues and they restrict and they restrict and they restrict. And before we know it, nothing feels safe anymore. And part of that can be because you restricted so much and we have to retrain the palate, retrain like, you know, the entire tube so that you can actually be able to tolerate these foods.

51:45And I think that's just important for people to hear and understand because sometimes you can feel like your body is so broken and like something has gone so wrong. But clinicians like us are able to actually help you reintroduce things. And this is, you know, as I'm saying that, you know, some mentioned like medical doctors, you know, and osteopathic doctors, they don't get any nutrition training. This is where I think there shouldn't be a healthcare visit where it's not considered a referral for a dietician, a nutritionist, someone like that. I would even say then I'd love to see the medical paradigm shift to where the intake begins with food and it begins with the nutrition professional and then they go into the intake with the doctor and then there's a collaboration there because I think doctors have a lot to learn and I don't think that they have to be nutrition experts but I think they need to have some respect and reverence for the fact that everything we eat does become us at the cellular level.

52:39I want to ask you so this person said okay I have metabolic instability I don't have diabetes yet but there are signs of insulin resistance. My fasting insulin's been elevated. I just finished dinner. Is there a 10 minute protocol that helps improve what's happening metabolically after that meal? Yeah, well, welcome to the club, right? I mean, it's 93 % of the United States is metabolically unhealthy from mild versions of that to more extreme. So it's only about 7%. I think one of the more latest reports of the United States is metabolically healthy. So you're part of the 93%. But the difference is you know it and you're empowered to do something different.

53:18So yeah, after a meal, I would say walking is one of the best things to do. It can lower postprandial blood sugar pretty significantly, just 10, 15 minute brisk walk. It's back to that zone two exercise. You don't even need to be zone two. I mean, you really don't need to be measuring your cardiometabolic rate per se, but I would say a good, solid, brisk walk, I'd be happy with just moving your body. You could, and we test this on patients, but you could test for yourself on a CGM and watch that blood sugar come down. And it's completely free. other than your time. So yeah, that's something that comes to mind.

53:50I mean, apple cider vinegar, these sort of start back to these sort of bitter things that can stimulate digestion. Olive oil could help digestion too, as well, because a lot of people have this sort of slowed digestion that's impacting their blood sugar longer. I love that you use that word safety. Like so many people on a cellular level feel unsafe, their cells feel unsafe. So the more you can support the parasympathetic, which is like the, it's the resting, digesting, it's improving vagal tone, that largest cranial nerve in the body. So a brisk walk can do it. Getting out in nature, hearing those sounds will help do it.

54:29It's stimulating digestion. That vagus nerve is going to be helpful to do it. Humming can do it. All of these things that are making your body feel safe, resting, digesting, it will help your blood sugar tremendously. And then lean into the fasting, which I mentioned earlier. Someone that's insulin resistant, for this person to ask this question, someone that's insulin resistant but is also a woman tends to, as far as the research is concerned, to do pretty dang good with some appropriately paced fasting. That's some of the best studies we have is improving insulin resistance with some intermittent fasting.

55:04But don't just try to fast your way out of a poor diet. You have to be eating, starting with food first and then building that plate to be building blood sugar stability throughout the day. I love that. I definitely recommend the evening walk and you get your bird song and you get your nature. It can be quite lovely. So we've done breakfast. We've done like, you know, around the 9 a.m. We talked about exercise. We're talking about after dinner. Let's move into bedtime. So what would you say is some of the most optimal things that you can do that hour leading up to bed when it comes to cellular health and aging?

55:40ideally i would want the person to to turn off their screen like get away from the screen a few hours before bed and if you have to and i use the word half very loosely to wear some blue light blocking glasses like i have these ones right here these are the like you can see i don't know if you can see on the camera they're like the um if you're watching this and not listening to this they're uh very like a deep yellow like let's just say pee urine yellow uh for those people that are listening and watching this dehydrated dehydrated pee maybe lots of b vitamin p uh but and then at nighttime you want to wear like the dark like i look like bono from u2 blue colored glasses.

56:30So that's going to really back to that dirty light that we talked about. That's going to help those cellular clocks to know, hey, it's time to wind down. So cortisol has a nice circadian rhythm can start coming down throughout the evening. Melatonin will start coming up. That sleepy time neurotransmitter will convert from serotonin. So you can get proper sleep at night, that REM and deep sleep and heart rate variability. That's where your autophagy, the cellular cleaning pathways are kind of doing their job as you're fasting while you sleep. Really be mindful of your light, like clean up your light hygiene is going to be very important.

57:07I love to tell telehealth patients like a nice, gentle contrast shower, even like do a hot shower and then end on a cool shower. I'm not talking about some agro-hormetic cold plunge at night That's too aggressive. But ending to cool your core temperature is going to be a good idea. I think a good eye mask to block as much light as you can. Blackout curtains can be great. I think a nice frequency sound machine can be great. We talk about nature sounds. These different frequencies of sound, they are naturally in nature. You can mimic through frequency medicine through devices and use devices in a smart, thoughtful way.

57:58I would limit EMFs as much as you can sleep with your phone outside of the room. If you can, turn off your Wi-Fi at night unless you have some sort of medical device where you need your Wi-Fi. My next level would be to, if your bedroom electricity is on its own breaker, to turn off your bedroom electricity at night if it's possible. You have to do what you can. Lean into it. I mean, people can do a Faraday cage and block out EMFs entirely. I think the more you connect with, again, nature to decrease this man-made EMF frequency that we're exposed to all day, whether that's light or EMFs, the better you're going to sleep over time.

58:37So to prepare yourself, prepare this amazing nighttime siesta oasis that you're giving your body through the night. Cellular siesta. So last question, and then you're off the hook of the protocol playground. So I'm a working parent. I have kids. I'm already overwhelmed. What would be like five things that I could do in the day that's going to help my longevity, that's not going to create an exhaustive morning routine, nighttime routine, or it require like extensive meal prep? I think one thing that comes to mind for someone that's busy, that's looking for time is to meal prep. It's to sort of batch make things, freeze things, having things ready at the start of your week.

59:22So you're not bound to the whim of your busy week. I think it's a really, yes, it's a pain. I get it. Not everybody likes to sort of, when I say that, they're like, oh, I don't want to sit in the kitchen for extra time on a Sunday or whatever. But it's for someone that's busy, you have to be set yourself up for success and you can't always control the week. You're not going to control all the aspects of the week. So let's set yourself up for success there. All right. We're going to do a rapid fire. You were saying before, I'm not good at rapid fire. I suck at it, Dr. Biden. We're going to do rapid fire to wrap this up.

59:56And you can just give me like one word answer. Like you don't have to give me very much at all. So if you had to pick sauna or cold plunge, which would it be? Wow. I would say sauna probably for the average person. I like both. I think contrast therapy has its place, but the dose makes the medicine. You don't have to be aggressive with it. But I would say for most people, if I had to pick, I would say sauna. Yeah, I would agree as well. But I also have to share that when I was in Finland, I posted online that I was doing the sauna. I went to Finland just to do saunas and cold plunges. Oh, I love that.

1:00:30I grew up like we would snowboard, then we would do sauna and then you would jump in the snow. And that's like how I grew up. But people were posting online, don't you know, women can't cold plunge. I'm like, someone tell the Finns because these women are like, I get in the Baltic Ocean and I'm like, and then I see these women just swimming laps and I'm like, oh my God, like I aspire. I mean, like the Russian Banya and the Scandinavian Banya. I mean, women do it all the time. They're some of the longest living people. So please, we need a little bit more grit there. All right. Is alcohol compatible with optimal longevity?

1:01:03No. What's something you believed about health 10 years ago that you no longer believe? Wow, that's a good question. And I actually was thinking about this the other day. I don't know if there is anything. Is that bad? I just think I'm pretty middle of the road. And by that - Because we're so basic. I know. We're so basic. We're not these sort of carnivore people that - Because we're like, eat well, exercise, sleep. I don't know if there is. Well, this is what it is. This is more than 10 years ago. This is like 30 years ago. I was like 20, let's just say 25, 30 years ago. I was a vegan for a time.

1:01:40So that definitely, and I talk about that in Ketotarian, but sort of a flexible, cyclical, seasonal approach to eating. I pretty much add that my whole professional and personal life. So I think other than my early 20s, which I thought I knew everything, but I didn't, comes, shocker, I know, guys, It's shocking. People in their early 20s think they know everything. I was a vegetarian, so I'm with you. Yeah. But look, it's like we are not sort of ideologues in the sense of, I mean, you look at some of these carnivore guys. God bless them. Now they're eating more fruit than vegans or eating more honey than Winnie the Pooh.

1:02:13They've changed. But I to me, it's like trends come and go. The tribalism comes and goes. I just am in like what works for you, tribe. And that's why I've kind of, back to your earlier point that you said in passing, but it was an astute point. When people see people for their life and what works and what doesn't work, you kind of are intellectually flexible and can hold it, hold bio-individuality without feeling threatened by it. And it's something that you and I have always been able to do. What do you do every day specifically because you want to be there for your children when you're 80? Hmm.

1:02:54Wow. So I have two kids and I think about this oftentimes too. I would say strength train is one of those things is building like how I'm getting strong now and having good functional movement now is I know that I'm investing in my health down the line. And it's one of the best things you can do for cellular health too, is building lean muscle. It's a glucose sponge. It really is helpful from a cellular health standpoint profoundly. That would be one for sure as lean muscle, preserving lean muscle. I was going to say, Dr. Brighton, something I don't do that I want to confess in front of all the millions of people that listen to your show is that I don't stretch enough.

1:03:34And that's something that I need to do. Flexibility stretching is something that I need to do. I know as we age, I'm in my forties now that I just want to just to confess to everybody right now to hold me accountable, please. I don't stretch enough. My hamstrings are too tight and we need to, from a longevity standpoint, we need to be stretching. I think stretching is the most boring thing in the world. So boring. And so here's my tips for that. One is in the sauna while reading a book, I'll do stretches. And so then I'm just reading and, and my brain's like, we're off. We're doing something else.

1:04:07The second thing is I do mobility instead of stretching. And so I actually do mobility work. Every time I speak on stages, I usually do like a a pretty um intense workout not like a hit but I'm doing my zone two cardio I'm lifting heavy I just recently went to Estonia and spoke the time change I was like I'm not sleeping well I cannot do that type of exercise I instead did a 20 minute mobility workout that is now going to be my routine forever before I go on a stage the way I could move in my body the energy that I had, like everything about it changed. So I would highly recommend mobility over stretching because you are lengthening the muscle while you are also strengthening the joint capsule.

1:04:53And I think that's the biggest thing that we actually end up missing. So yes, flexibility is important, but especially like, you know, whenever I talk with people who have connective tissue disorders, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, I'm like, I need you to do mobility work. They're like, no, I can't stretch. It'll hurt. And it'll put, you know, dislocate a joint. And I'm like, No, mobility work is strengthening the joint capsule and the muscles that surround that specifically so you don't get injured and at the same time keeping the flexibility of the muscle. So those would be my two tips as somebody who finds stretching to be the most boring thing.

1:05:23Well, I don't do either flexibility, stretching or mobility. So you hold me accountable, Dr. Brighton. I need to do it. I'm going to text you. I'm going to be like, where are you at with that mobility? I was literally like doing the mobility work on my hotel, like bed, like rolling around, doing all this stuff. I'm just a basic loser guy. I'm like, it's like, it's a waste of time. And that's like, no, this is not a waste of time. We need to do it now. This is, this is for our future. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for this conversation. Your new book is out today. So where can people find it? Thank you so much, friend.

1:05:58I appreciate you. I'm so excited for your book too. It's so, your book's amazing. I'm super pumped. But yeah, Heal Your Cells is out now. You can get all the information at drwillcull.com. Just go to books, Heal Your Cells. And it's on Amazon. It's on healyourcells.com. It's on other different places, but support independent bookstores. Yeah, I'm really excited. This is my fifth book and I didn't know I was going to write another book. And this book just called me and I'm so excited for people to read it. Yeah, well, just so everybody knows who's listening, this was just a little taste of what you will find in the book.

1:06:32It is jam packed with so much information that is accessible, non dogmatic, which I think dogma is that I always say dogma equals death in my practice is the fastest way to ensure you don't live long. And I think your book does a really good job of making it accessible to the everyday person. And they don't feel like they have to have a wellness protocol that essentially requires them to quit their full-time job and only focus on their health. Yeah, no, definitely not that. But I thank you for the opportunity and I appreciate you. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Push your limits. Train with precision.

1:07:09See the results. At Equinox, that's high performance loving. Everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at Equinox. Start today at equinox.com.