Use These Biohacks to Heal Faster, Sleep Better & Upgrade Your Skin - With Andy Mant

29:53Shawn Stevenson:And so that's another thing that really makes you special is also providing like, this isn't just about the blue light blocking glasses. If anything, you can encourage people. And that's what you did for me is make sure you get these natural light inputs that are free. And so what do you do for yourself when it comes to your sun exposure and to start the day and at the end of the day to kind of help to synchronize a circadian clock? Yeah. And you're right. There are so many free things people can do. And that's the stuff they should be doing, first of all. right you need to the issue we've got as a population work we're living in an environment that's not not optimal for our biology okay so we need to create an environment that optimizes and is optimal for our biology that's that's one option option number two is you can go and live in the middle of a field somewhere although i've got a story about that someone went to live in the middle of a field somewhere and the government put a 5g tower up right next to them so that that That doesn't even work.

30:53So option one's better. So we need to tailor an environment that our body and biology understands as being succinct and optimal for our ancient circadian rhythm. So the way you do that, there's a lot of free things you can do and a couple of products that I weave in along the way as well. So the way I operate is, first of all, if we talk from a seasonality standpoint, first of all, and then we'll go sort of dial it into more of a day in the life of. My natural light exposure is 365 days a year. So in the winter, I'm not hibernating. I'm not staying indoors. I'm out there with just my bed shorts on in the morning as the sun's rising, getting cold exposure.

31:39I'm getting grounding with my feet on the earth to produce more negative ions to help my inflammation. And I'm also ensuring that my circadian clock is entrained by natural light. The first light I will see in the morning will be sunlight. But also during the winter, I'm also going into spring and autumn, fall before the summer. Another reason I'm out there is melanin production. I want throughout the year to be producing melanin. So that when I go out during high UV periods in the day, maybe in the summer or in the spring, now that temperatures have shifted a little bit, I want to be protected from the sun.

32:19Like big mistakes people make is they come on podcasts and say, UV is great. You need all the UV light. And then people go out in the middle of the day after not being out in the morning and burn. And that's that's bad for them. So you've got to build up to be able to tolerate that ultraviolet light later on in the day. So melanin is super important. That's why you need to be out not just during the high UV periods, low UV periods and from a seasonal perspective. So on a day, a daily basis, I will always wake and watch the sunrise. Now, that's easy right now, but it's harder in the winter. So in the winter, I get up before the sunrise, but I put the red lens, blue light blocking glasses on.

33:00So and I put on my circadian friendly lighting and then I'm in the house, like maybe having maybe having a coffee, maybe just relaxing coming around in the morning and then when the sun rises in the winter then i go outside take my glasses off and that's the light i'm seeing so i'm trying to mimic what my ancestors would have seen if they had woken up in the winter before the sun rose they would have seen the campfire so putting the red lens blue light blocking glasses on would mimic that so i do that because three things the the melanin the cold or the first sort of natural temperature exposure but also the light so the reason i want the light is i want dopamine which is great i want cortisol which is great in the morning but i also want serotonin now a lot of people don't understand this they think oh you just make sleep hormones in the in the evening it's like well you need something to be able to help optimize that production and serotonin is as you rightly mentioned earlier the gut's heavily involved in storage and production of of melatonin and serotonin is a precursor to it.

34:00It helps in the synthesis of melatonin with tryptophan later on in the evening in the absence of blue and green light. So I want that in the morning. I need that. And then I typically have to do a lot of work on my laptop. So I'll try and work outside where I can. But I know that's not practical for a lot of people. They work in an office. So one thing I would recommend if you work in an office is don't sit near a window, okay? People often say sit near a window. I'm a firm believer that any kind of filtered light is junk light. If you're sat by a window, you're going to have filtered light coming in from the window.

34:34And a lot of these windows have UV tints that are taking out parts of UV light, not all of it. Infrared light isn't passing through, which is very restorative for the body, not far near infrared. And it's changing the frequencies. And there have been some preliminary studies that have shown that, you know, like truck drivers have an issue when they sit by a window, their arm is more likely to develop non-cancerous or cancerous melanoma on the arms. So I would be away from the window myself personally. I'd be in the center of the office and I would balance the light around my computer. So I'd always have my computer on night shift mode because Apple seemed to think that night shift mode is great for the night.

35:18It's not, but it's good for the day because it reduces blue light. It doesn't block it. But then I would balance the light around my computer. So I'd use red light lamps, salt lamps, those types of things. So I've got a more balanced frequency around me. But what you also want to do is you want to have breaks outside so your eyes can take in the natural light. people go out and have i don't don't do it so much they don't do it so much these days but they go out and have smoke breaks and things like that go out and have five minutes out in the out in the outside whether it's sunny rainy whatever cloudy and just get out there no sunglasses on five minutes walk around stand whatever and just let the light cues touch your skin and go through your eyes and then go back in carry on working eat lunch outside you know don't just go and sit in a canteen that's got no windows like a lot of people do that it's one of the worst things you can do and then you do your morning break you have your lunch break your afternoon break you're outside and then in the evening if you can do it watch the sun set that's also very very good now it's really interesting i tested on a spectrometer the levels of blue light throughout the day so i got a little spectrometer that i go around testing everything with it wherever i go and i tested sunset every minute leading up to when the sun actually sets.

36:35And it was really interesting, and I didn't predict this would happen. Just before the sun dropped down behind the horizon, a massive spike of blue light came up. And I tested it three days in a row. It was the same thing, just to make sure it wasn't an anomaly. This massive spike of blue light, and then it just dropped to nothing and disappeared. And I'm a firm believer myself, and this is anecdotal, I haven't seen any studies on this, that that is the trigger for us to go, our body clock to say now is now is the time to drop the cortisol we've seen that big spike and it's dropped and now it's gone to nothing and i always sleep better when i see the sunset i really do um the data shows that from my whoop and i my resting heart rates less um heart rate variability increases and i sleep better i get more deep sleep um and then in the evening this is this this is the setup that really counts we've done all those free things throughout the day now this is where this is where people will will have to purchase something which is a pair of blue light blocking glasses um as long as a pair is blocking between 400 and 550 nanometers that's fine like you know pick your favorite brand and get them on but you want to be wearing them immediately after sunset ideally worst case scenario two hours before you want to go to bed if you've got something to do but then i always follow the the three to one rule right i keep it nice and nice and simple so three hours before bed, I will stop eating.

37:57Okay. So don't, don't eat any food because the reason I don't want to eat any food is because it goes back to the gut brain connection. Again, if the gut is processing food, melatonin production could be impaired as well. So I want that free to produce melatonin two hours before I stop any fluid intake. So no water, no electrolytes, no, no, no, no drinks, basically nothing um if you want to take drinks like before bed two hours before glycine chamomile together is very good and then one hour before power down everything no devices no artificial blue light no tv no work nothing it's parasympathetic time it's breath work it's red light therapy it's yoga it's stretching it's whatever someone wants to do like reading maybe as well and then at that point my phone's on airplane mode when i sleep so i've got no blue light in my room at all 100 blackout i will ensure that i've i travel a lot so i travel with black electrical tape that's the best thing you can travel with because i go around the hotel and covering up all the little blue things um sometimes i'm lucky enough i can turn the wi-fi off if i'm at home so i'll switch the wi-fi off that's been shown to impact sleep in hotels is a little bit more different so phone on airplane mode away from the away from the bed i mouth tape as well so i find that nasal breathing helps more restorative sleep for me and it helps my respiratory rate a lot more so i mouth tape everyone's always scared that they're wake up dead wearing mouth tape you're not you're good you're all good um i had to um convince my wife that and now she swears by it but that's really good for me and then when i go to sleep i then i then just wake up with with so much energy once i've done that routine for a for a few weeks it becomes just so inherent and where i used to feel groggy and like the the alarm would go off i'd be oh no another hour another hour and that doesn't happen anymore i crave jumping out of literally springing out of bed, going outside and just, just being outside for a few minutes.

40:05And that's how I, that's how I typically set up my day.

40:09Shawn Stevenson:Amazing. I saw an interview with you and your wife and she of course was not necessarily jumping on board with the mouth taping and she saw a measurable difference with her sleep by doing that. And if you could, so the three, two, one process, why stop with the liquids two hours before bed? Well, this is the thing, and this is where I'm always about testing things based on how you perceive things and the issues that you may have. So I had a major issue for 15 years of my life. Since I went through puberty, if I couldn't sleep through the night, I kept getting up to have to urinate in the night, and that was a big problem for me.

40:51So I had to stop fluids two hours before bed because I would then have to get up at, you know, 2, 3 a.m. every single night to just go and use the bathroom. And I didn't want to do that because that was impacting my sleep cycles. So that's personally why I did that. So if people don't have a problem, you know, they have, you know, a lot of liquid maybe before bed and they can sleep through and they do all the other practices, then maybe that's not necessary. But that's that was why I did it. Yeah, it's very practical.

41:19Shawn Stevenson:You know, some people have those big bladders, you know, where they could, you know, chug down a bunch of water before bed. But for many people and who are maybe even sometimes frustrated about getting up in the night, a lot of these things we just don't think about. It's just like, how soon before you go to bed are you chugging a bunch of water or whatever the case might be? And just be like, you know what? I always drink like, you know, a quart of water, you know, right before bed or whatever. Like that's really when I'm most thirsty, you know? And so it's just retraining your habits to be able to get your hydration in a little bit earlier, give your body time to process and get that last batch out before you go to bed.

41:57Shawn Stevenson:It's just, again, very practical. And this does not mean that you have to dehydrate yourself again. It's just strategizing so you're getting in more water throughout the day. And in particular, to start your day. It's one of those things that I've been talking about for over 20 years is just starting with that morning bath, internal bath. get up, have a nice chunk of water. I've been doing it every single day to start my day. And just helping to flesh out, as you mentioned, going through your sleep cycles, there's so much going on. When you said, I didn't dream, that was shocking for me to hear because now you are a vibrant dreamer and you're bringing your dreams to reality and helping so many people, right?

42:39Shawn Stevenson:It's so powerful. But different stages of sleep bring about different capacities and changes with the body. During REM sleep, a lot of memory processing is taking place. And also dreaming, of course, rapid eye movement sleep is associated with a lot of our dream sequences. And even, we don't know. We don't even understand. Your brain creates these elaborate, full-length motion pictures, you know, with extras and like sound effects and special, all the things, you know, it's incredible. but a lot of data is now pointed to this impact on the glymphatic system which is kind of this extracellular waste management system you know we have the lymphatic system with our bodies but the brain is very protective of what's going on and we know about the blood brain barrier for example but the glymphatic system uh and shout out to the glial cells that help to run this we know that but it's 10 times more active at helping to eliminate and create a pathway for elimination of waste in the brain when we're sleeping.

43:41Shawn Stevenson:And we now have very strong associations between an inability of your glymphatic system to work properly being strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease and dementia, right? And so we know the impact that sleep has on all manner of our health. But this part of like really helping to support our sleep for our longevity, for the health of our brain, for disease prevention, and the list goes on and on and on. And so by the way, if everybody is wondering where to get some of these blue light blocking glasses that I personally have been utilizing myself and my family, if you go right now to bondcharge.com forward slash model, you're going to get a special 15 % off discount.

44:23Shawn Stevenson:This is exclusive with us. That's bondcharge.com forward slash model, B-O-N-C-H-A-R-G-E.com forward slash model. Use the code model at checkout to make sure you get 15 % off storewide. They've got a bunch of different frames. That was one of the things that really jumped out to me too, because, you know, a lot of people, we have different styles, you know what I mean? Different styles. And also there's different sizes as well of the frames. And so, you know, this is one of my favorite gifts to give. As I share with you, as soon as you got here, Like the next person that I'm seeing, I brought them a little gift bag with a pair of Bond cards, blue-eyed, blackened glasses.

45:03Shawn Stevenson:You know, it's one of my favorite gifts to give just to support people in their sleep, in their wellness practices. And so again, hop over there, check out all these incredible frames. And also there's so many other wellness

45:18Shawn Stevenson:supportive devices that you guys have. And we're gonna talk more about that as well. But, you know, I wanna shift gears right now. and ask you about something that a lot of people don't think about or talk about. And there's some really great science on this. I haven't told you this yet. You don't even know what I'm about to say right now. But literally for a couple of years, if I'm under an exceeding amount of stress or I'm trying to heal, you know, if something happened, you know, like maybe some kind of an injury or, you know, hurting somewhere, I jump on my PEMF mat and I can't even tell you.

46:00Shawn Stevenson:And the crazy thing is every time I use it, my sleep is a little better too, but it's just one of those things where if I need to heal, I double down on utilizing that mat and that technology. Talk about, if people are like, what the hell does that even mean? Talk about the PEMF. Yeah, it's one of those products that is starting to gain a lot of traction. It's been around in the niche biohacking spaces for quite a number of years. And you would have heard of it four or five years ago. But it's starting now to come into the mainstream, which is good. Always starts at that sort of elite biohacking level and then it slowly comes through.

46:39Now, what it stands for is PEMF. Some people call it PEMF. It's Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy. Now, it's not to be confused with EMFs like the harmful ones like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. So the way it works is the body cells always looking to conserve energy. And the way they look to conserve energy is they mimic what the energy is in the environment you're in. So if you're in a busy airport, busy supermarket around some screaming children, maybe that aren't your own or maybe they are your own, that's going to stress you out. Right. You're going to start to feel like a little bit more pent up and your body is mimicking the energy in the environment.

47:20now the same is true for for bad emfs like wi-fi and and cellular energy can can mimic the the cells will speed up and that's not a good thing but that's a whole whole new topic now the way the body likes to receive energy is in its natural state so the body loves energies like the schumann resonance so that's 7.8 hertz and what the schumann resonance is for instance for example it's the spin of the earth the the magnetism that the earth gives out and it's it's what you receive when you ground barefoot to the earth anti-inflammatory negative ions it's amazing for for healing um there's also other natural frequencies that are produced within the body of electromagnetic fields like delta waves so when we go into deep sleep delta waves are most active so we get more restorative sleep you've got alpha waves beta waves which help with creativity deeper meditation things like that now a p emf mat allows you to cut through the ubiquitous non-native emfs that are in your environment and allow your body to receive natural frequencies now it's not taking away of going outside and grounding that's fantastic but we can't always do that so we lie on a p emf mat and pulse through a frequency of energy that we want to receive So for instance, a lot of people that use our PEMF map have reported really significant improvements in their sleep.

48:47So what they do is maybe 20 minutes before bed to an hour, however long it may be, they'll lie on the PEMF map. They will dial into delta waves and they will just close their eyes and relax. And then they'll go to bed and get more restorative sleep because our body will start to mimic the delta waves being pulsed into it, which will get you into that deep sleep quicker, more restorative sleep quicker. And when you're in that phase of sleep, it will be even deeper. Now, you can also have a real stressful day and want to de-stress. So you'd get on and dial into 8 hertz, theta waves, close to the Schumann resonance, and you'd start to feel relaxed and de-stress.

49:24That's really advantageous as well. Now, on a medical side, there's been some studies that have shown that between 13 and 30 hertz, which are found in general wellness pen mats, can actually help heal fractures in the bones. Now what happens to allow that to take place is that when a fracture takes place on the bones, the communication pathway is also severed. So one side of the fracture can't talk to the other, and over time it will heal by putting it into a cast, and then the electromagnetic communication pathway will slowly restore. What PEMF has been shown to do is it immediately restores that communication pathway, which fuses the bone back together quicker.

50:09So that's how it's starting to heal. And it's being used in medical settings around the world. And there's going to be more and more studies that prove this even more as time goes by. But you touched upon it a little bit earlier as well. We're all about trying to help people not have to do 100 different biohacks in a day because who has time? No one has time. Got to work, got to raise the kids, got to cook, got to go to the gym. And then I'm sitting here saying, right, now you've got to do three hours biohacking as well. It's not going to happen. so the p emf mat we decided that rather than just have a p emf mat that is the same as every other mat out there we wanted to have up to 30 frequencies individually that you can dial into others have like four settings or something but we were like well let's put far infrared heat in there let's heat this mat up to 176 fahrenheit if that's what we want so we can flush out our toxins detoxify um burn more calories boost our heart rate variability over time by using far infrared light and then we were like well let's get some red light therapy in there as well like people can do red light therapy whilst doing their sauna whilst doing their p emf so we got some um 660 nanometer red light skin level um improvements helps fibroblasts and collagen production all the way through to um near infrared at 850 which helps the muscles and joints relax and heal after a hard day at the gym or even just sitting at a desk all day because you're going to be a bit achy so that's in a nutshell how PEMF works and yeah it's it's a new mode new mode newish modality um but the the anecdotal feedback we're getting in reviews of people that are using it are saying significant sleep improvements has been number one number two people helping to recover from muscle issues, sore muscles, and also the de-stressing as well, like putting us into that parasympathetic state, which is so, so critical because our lives at the moment are sympathetic almost 24-7.

52:12Like we're on the go constantly, social media, work, traffic, commuting, work, like all these things are just keeping our body in this fight or flight condition all the time. And we need to put modalities in that help us to get in the parasympathetic state. Maybe it's candlelight one night. Maybe it's a, my sister does this a lot with her partner. They do a digital free night once a night where nothing's on bar the fire and they'll just sit and talk and eat their food by firelight. they're lucky enough they've got a nice fireplace they can put that on but candles could be put on maybe it's just reading maybe it's a pemf maybe it's red light therapy maybe it's human-centric lighting um we need to start doing more of that we really do otherwise we're going to be running our central nervous systems on overdrive damaging our sleep and our metabolic health is just going to

53:01Shawn Stevenson:deteriorate as we age yeah wow thank you for that i mean the parasympathetic state is a healing state and how frequently can you get your body in that? And by the way, the PEMF mat with the heat is so soothing as well. I think a lot of people that have chronic lower back pain or even acute stuff that comes up will find a lot of relief by utilizing the mat, let alone getting better sleep so that you're, because this is when you're really healing. Yes. It's the ultimate anabolic stage. And so, wow, thank you for sharing that. And by the way, just, I'm so grateful to have this conversation because some of these things we don't dive into very frequently.

53:40Shawn Stevenson:And it's for us to remember that we are literally made of energy. And so all of these different energy implements that are becoming more and more popular in conventional medicine as well, that have been around for decades. And matter of fact, many of these things have been around since the evolution of our species period, but now using them therapeutically, right? Light inputs, sound inputs. Sound has been used in medicine for decades. Ultrasound, this is another one of those treatments where we can see an increased rate of healing from certain conditions, being able to just simply measure and manage the particular symptoms or the injury to get a picture of what that looks like as well.

54:26Shawn Stevenson:and this is from sound, right? Being able to break apart, you mentioned the kidney stones earlier, right? This is a science-backed treatment using sound as a treatment for people to heal. And we overlook that. Like what sound? Like literally sound is being used to manipulate our biology. Absolutely. And the same thing holds very true when it comes to frequencies, right? Because even sound is operating in that same space with frequency. and that's what we're really picking up when we are thinking about sound it's just electrical signals for you know and interacting and it's communicating with parts of our brain and our nervous system but there are certain frequencies that are getting disrupted today you know like if we think about you mentioned turning off the wi-fi yeah there have been a lot of really big kind of court cases involving EMFs and wifi already.

55:25Shawn Stevenson:And it's still like the jury is out. So you're using the, it's because of Daredevil. All right, he's a lawyer. All right, so I'm still thinking in those terms, but the jury is still out on conclusive. This is impacting us in a negative way. We do know that it's impacting us. Even sitting in this room, the wifi is able to easily pass through the walls, right? It's easily passing through your delicate human cells. And the question is, what is the impact that it's having? And we can just turn a blind eye and say, well, it's no big deal, we're fine. But we don't know, especially the accumulation of these things.

56:00Shawn Stevenson:But we do know that it is influencing our cells all the way down to our mitochondria. And so this is about illumination, empowerment, education. And also, again, we wanna be in this world, but not necessarily of this world and being able to be aware, like I can do things a certain way to stack conditions in my favor. And so this leads me to, you've already discussed some of the very simple practical ways we can get free light inputs to help to synchronize a circadian rhythm, improve our sleep, accelerate healing, the list goes on and on. And just getting into that parasympathetic state. With that being said, for many people today, you know this, their big catalyst is, this is superficial.

56:47Shawn Stevenson:And that's okay. All right. Nobody's waking up like, I want to look terrible today. You know, everybody wants to look good, to feel their best. As Deion Sanders says, look good, play good. Right. Your skin is phenomenal. Oh, thank you. Phenomenal. And there's, and it's not, you're a guy too. So I would imagine you're not, you don't got to elaborate 13 step skincare routine, getting ready with me. You know what I mean? A lot of guys, same soap for your balls, same soap for your face. But with this being said, there is something exceptional about your skin. And many people are now utilizing and taking advantage of red light therapy.

57:31Shawn Stevenson:And I remember my wife, like maybe, it's getting close to 10 years ago, but she went for like a facial and got a skincare treatment, all the thing. And they use red light afterwards. She told me all about it. And it just was like this kind of very fancy experience. And now this is something that is like ever present, very popular. And the question is why? What is so remarkable about red light when it comes to the health of our skin? Yeah, I think red light therapy has really gained a lot of traction. When you start looking the last few years, more and more people are waking up to its benefits.

58:04When it was once just in the salons, it's now everywhere. And it's really interesting because the one thing that has brought red light therapy to the forefront is from that aesthetic cosmetic standpoint. The beauty industry has got hold of it in terms of LED masks, LED treatments for the face. But that's not where it began. Like you and I will remember, you know, 10, 15 years ago, it was panels. It was big panels. It was used for recovery, biohacks. And that was taken, put into the beauty. and now we're seeing it swing back the other way the panels are becoming now more popular again um the amount of people we spoke to that have a mask that are like we didn't realize you could use this for your whole body it was it was crazy but it's like okay so more re-education but that's that's fine it's different journeys and and i'm grateful for the beauty industry for bringing it to the forefront now the way it works is it's i'm going to try and explain this as simply as i can because it is quite complex how red light therapy works but i'll try and explain it basically so we have something in our in our cells that produces energy so energy is often referred to as atp or adenosine triphosphate now when electron train transport happens there's four phases and it's the fourth phase that's really important in terms of red light therapy and There's something there called cytochrome C oxidase, which we'll come onto in a minute.

59:32But basically, it's the precursor to produce optimal energy. Now, what happens is when we become inflamed, so this could just be from stress, from pollution, from just being in a sympathetic state too long. So I'm not talking like major medical issues here. I'm talking just general information of existing in cities or the world these days. could be from emfs even we actually increase the level of nitric oxide within that electron chain transport system and that's not a good thing and it's not a good thing because cytochrome c oxidase needs oxygen to produce the energy and what nitric oxide does is it starts to take that oxygen away from that fourth phase so there's not as much oxygen free to produce energy efficiently so our cells might produce, or mitochondria might produce energy, but maybe at 80 % of its threshold, 70%, 60%, whatever it may be, depending on how much nitric oxide inflammation is in the body.

1:00:29Now, what was really interesting with red light therapy is they studied certain frequencies of red light at different radiances, different power densities. And it seemed between sort of 630 and 660 nanometers red light and around 800 to 880 near infrared which is an invisible light this seemed to when shined on an area of the body reduce down the amount of oxygen that was required by nitric oxide to produce to neutralize itself because it's trying to get out of that system which freed up the oxygen to react with cytochrome c oxidase and produce more energy efficiently. So by utilizing red light therapy, we're providing more oxygen at the fourth phase.

1:01:17Cytochrome C oxidase reacts to it. More energy is produced efficiently. So what that means is when a cell is allowed to perform optimally, we're giving it the right fuel, 100 % fuel tank put in there with high octane fuel from red light therapy. It can do what the cell is supposed to do. So each cell does different things. So when it comes to the skin, it's called something, it's something called fibroblasts so those cells are then optimized from their energy efficiency standpoint and what they do what their purpose is is produce something called collagen and collagen is the elasticity in the skin it allows you to keep your skin glowing it reduces appearances of fine lines and wrinkles it contours the face it allows like an even skin tone and that's what it's meant to do and as as we age every year that we age we our body's ability to produce collagen decreases and And that's why we see people age, right?

1:02:11A face of a 20-year-old looks very different to a 40-year-old, to a 60-year-old, to an 80-year-old, because collagen levels are decreasing. But you can actually slow the pace of collagen degradation down by utilizing red light therapy, because it works at the cellular level to optimize the cells, making them more efficient. So that's why things like red light face masks have been super popular, because the results speak for themselves. If you get a good mask that has the right irradiance, the right level of LED placement on problem areas of the skin, with the right frequencies of red and near infrared light, you're going to boost your skin health by producing more collagen.

1:02:47Now that's from the red light. So that's the visible frequency that you see. There's also near infrared in these masks, which is around 850 nanometers. And what that does is that penetrates further than red light. Red light only penetrates into the skin, the dermis level. Near infrared goes into the muscles and it goes into the joints. So it's typically used for recovery. So if you had bad knees, shine it on the red lights will improve osteoblasts which will then help with joint recovery the energy efficiency will be much better there but it works at a skin level because it relaxes the muscles so when your muscles are all tight all the time that's when you're going to start seeing the sort of wrinkles appear and the fine lines both on guys and on women and you know there's horrible things you can do to relax the muscles in your face um you know you can use injectables and things like that, which, you know, botulism is not really going to be great.

1:03:41You're poisoning your skin, but you're using near infrared light to relax the muscles. It's a more natural way to do it. So that's how it works at a skin level. Wow.

1:03:50Shawn Stevenson:Holy mackerel. That's one of the things that I'm seeing a lot now are the red light therapy mask. And I, and I believe that it's because of the ability to stack, right? The habit stack. Yes. You don't have to stop what you're doing to put the mask on. You know, you could do other things. You could do your meditation and have the mask on and also get those inputs. And also a big part of this success when it comes to getting the benefits from red light therapy is consistency. Yes. And that's one of the things that a lot of people don't get. We're very big in our culture. We want things immediately.

1:04:25Shawn Stevenson:You know this. Yeah. I want my package, not just tomorrow. I want it today. You know, I got Amazon Prime. I wanted today. And, you know, but health just doesn't work like that, you know, but here's the thing. We do see immediate change if we're looking at the cells. We know this, but to see that outer change really show up, it takes a couple of weeks. And as a matter of fact, this was one of the most fascinating studies that I've seen in this subject matter. This was a double blind, randomized, placebo controlled trial. And this was published in the journal of phytochemistry and photobiology. The gold standard.

1:05:02Shawn Stevenson:It doesn't get better than this because they actually used fake red light. And it's just like, how would you do that? Well, you know, it's the irradiance. A light can appear to be red, but it's not in that spectrum of therapeutic. And so they treated people's faces. They took 76 patients with notable wrinkles and treated half of their face with red light therapy, near infrared therapy, by the way, or both while the other patients received a fake light treatment that was used as a placebo. participants received two light therapy treatments each week. And that's the key. They're two, two sessions a week being consistent for four weeks.

1:05:38Shawn Stevenson:Here's what happened with just four weeks of treatment. Participants who utilize the red light therapy, the actual red light therapy had a 36 % reduction in wrinkles and up to 20 % increase in skin elasticity. Wow. That's crazy. That is crazy. In just four weeks. And only twice a week. Two sessions a week. Wow. okay it's powerful powerful stuff and so we could take this as a daily implement or maybe we get 10 12 minutes a session in yeah you know a few times a week we'll say four to five sessions a week but also that can cap out just like with anything there's going to be diminishing returns and so a big part of leveraging when it comes to biohacking in particular is that minimum effective dose yes and so doing whatever you can to get in at least two to three sessions a week is ideal.

1:06:28Shawn Stevenson:And what's so special about this for me, now, of course, the masks are one thing, but you mentioned the panels are really coming back into form right now, is because it's a whole body benefit. It's not just the skin on your face, right? This can help to accelerate recovery. This can help to release and relieve pain. And I want to share one more quick study with everybody, because in particular with reducing pain, this was a massive meta-analysis published in the British Medical Journal, the BMJ. This is one of the top tier journals in the world. And it sought to see if red light therapy could reduce pain in people with osteoarthritis versus a placebo.

1:07:07Shawn Stevenson:The study included over a thousand people and found that red light therapy significantly reduced knee pain in participants, but not only that, and this goes back to what you were sharing earlier. the results appear to have semi-lasting effects with benefits seen up to three months after treatment and the researchers stated quote the positive effect from red light therapy seems to last longer than those of widely recommended painkiller drugs and the icing on that end quote and the icing on the cake is that the red light therapy was found to not only reduce pain but to improve function it didn't just release and relieve pain it improved function there was some repair happening.

1:07:49And this speaks to the impact that you were sharing about the mitochondria. Yeah, absolutely. It's the most studied frequencies of light red light therapies, over 4 ,000 studies, over 400 of them, a double blind placebo. The first one you read was one of those, the gold standard. Anyone that disputes red light therapy, it's, yeah, it would confuse me because there is so much out there. And so many studies, almost all of them show no side effects to this modality as well. It's not as though you're going to pop a pill and end up with a whole host of side effects, but then the knee feels a little bit better.

1:08:26And it's those whole lasting effects as well. A lot of people will turn around and say, the naysayers, be like, it's because it's warm. It just warms the joint and relieves it temporarily. It doesn't. That study truly shows that the effects last for a long period of time. And it's not just the effects of helping a symptom the functionality is is improving as well so people can actually get out and exercise more and you know do the things that makes them biologically healthy so yeah it's it's it's fascinating and you know it's good to see panels coming back as well and you know again we touched upon it earlier it's this whole habit stacking thing panels panels are great because you can do some stretching some breath work you can sit in front of them that's great but some people don't do that and maybe they're not ready in their journey to start doing those sort of yoga-y breathwork-y things that that a lot of us do and swear by so that's why it was really important for us to have different ways we can administer red light therapy whether it be from a mask a wand a panel and then we came up with another product it's now our number one best seller it's much better than the um much more popular than the mask it's a different modality is the red light therapy blanket this thing's like a sleeping bag you get into it and you've got 360 degree red light therapy so let's just say you're not at the phase yet of your breath work in the evening but you like watching um you know dancing on the ice or whatever your favorite um show is um you slip into that for 40 minutes watch your show on tv with your blue light glasses on you're you're getting your red light therapy without having to do something different and and to make time to do this thing.

1:10:12And that's been super popular.

1:10:17Everything in health and wellness is only as good as adherence. I could sit here and say to you, the best diet in the world is X, Y, Z, carnivore diet, or vegan diet, whatever it is. If you hate vegetables, you ain't going to follow a vegan diet. It's just not going to adhere, even if we say that's the most healthy diet. if you if i say carnivore is the most healthy diet and you hate meat like you're not going to follow that it's just not going to work and the same with with red light therapy if we're saying you've got to sit in front of a panel every night like to me that's like no problem absolutely no issue but to someone else would be like no i'm not doing that it's just not going to happen so i'm not going to do red light therapy so we've got to make sure there's different applications of this modality that people can choose from so they can choose one that fits seamlessly into their routines Yeah.

1:11:06Thank you for that, man.

1:11:07Shawn Stevenson:Because again, I know it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work behind the scenes to make these things available. And it's just more and more catering to the way that society is structured. A lot of people, we want change, but we don't want to change that much to get that change. And so it's just making it easier to stack conditions. And so you mentioned earlier too, people can pop over to Amazon and grab these different devices, but this is where things get really sketchy. Your red light therapy mask is the one that has emerged as the best in the world. And you guys are going through and actually checking the boxes and have third party verification for the irradiance.

1:11:48Shawn Stevenson:You've got devices and including the blue light blocking glasses that are FDA registered. And you guys are going above and beyond to make sure that what people are wanting, they're actually getting. And it gets sketchy when you're getting this from random companies. And so it's just like, you're also going through and doing what is necessary to make sure that people can trust that what you say they're going to get, they're actually going to get. And I appreciate that. Why was that so important? It's so important because there's, the problem is you get, you get two types of companies that come out when it comes to anything in wellness.

1:12:28You get the ones that care. And from what I've seen, that's not many people. And you get, let's just say 10%. These are just sort of random numbers. Then you've got the other 90 % that seem to just see a trend. They're marketers. They'll pull something out of, you know, Alibaba, China, slap their logo on it, and then just sell it through Google ads, meta ads those types of things and that annoys me because it's not just bond charge that are doing the whole scientific third-party testing there are other brands out there that do it and there's some phenomenal brands out there that offer red light therapy and i want to caveat that but there's just so many that are out there trying to make a quick buck con people into buying things that are that are cheap off amazon that have no testing for emf levels so when you're sat in front of a panel frying your your cells because the emf levels are so high even though you're getting some red light therapy the irradiance hasn't been tested they're just saying oh i've heard 100 milliwatts per centimeter squared's great so let's just say that you need to have it third party tested but also but also things like what what's important to me is i want to educate we've always been education first that's how we started the brand I wanted to explain to people what has helped me, what I've read in the studies and people to adopt that and know what kind of questions to ask when purchasing these devices.

1:13:55And something I always say when I'm on podcasts is I'm not fussed if you buy from Bond Charge or not. What I want to give you guys is a checklist of what to ask for, because you can't take people's word for anything. So you want to be asking for red light therapy. You want to be asking for a radiance and seeing third party reports for a radiance. so irradiance is the power density that the um red light will will emit into the body and if it's too low you might as well not bother if it's too high it can actually be dangerous if it's over like sort of 150s 160s it can start to get dangerous um because people just think oh i want the highest irradiance it just means that you'll spend the higher the irradiance the less time you have to spend in front of it so you want to be making sure that that's right you want to be making sure that But people aren't just, I like to call it wellness washing.

1:14:45And it's used in so much as everything now is described as science backed. And that annoys me because there's no backing of science behind that product. So yes, we get the third party testing reports for EMF, irradiance. We check that it is actually 660 nanometer LED. We make sure our manufacturers are registered as ND SAP medical suppliers. These aren't just factories banging out products. These are ones that are audited every year by the FDA. They come out and they audit their laboratories where they're making things. And that comes with a price. So, yes, it's going to be more expensive than the ones you'll see on Amazon, but they work and they've been independently verified that they will work.

1:15:28But the other thing that was important to us was about nine months ago now, we started our scientific advisory board and we started with two or three doctors. It's now up to six on there. And, you know, you're obviously part of that as well. I'm very humbled that you would join such an esteemed collection of people that are really inputting into how we do business. And I'll talk to the mask because one of the first doctors we brought on, Dr. Shabana Dyer. So she is qualified in dermatology, aesthetics, and a few other sort of aesthetic qualifications as well that she has. So she's based in London, massive experience in dermatology.

1:16:12And we gave her our mask and we said, tell us what's wrong with this. And she looked at it and said, look, your radiance is perfect. Your number of LEDs is perfect. but you're getting full face coverage. But there's one thing in there that you could do better. And this is where our ears pricked up, and this is exactly what we wanted. She said, there are specific areas on the face where fibroblast production will happen more. So there's more degradation happening in certain areas of the face because the fibroblasts are being suboptimal performing at that area. And she was saying, you haven't got LEDs here, just by the top of the eyes.

1:16:52So we went back. We got two PhDs in Sydney as well that develop products. So these aren't people that are just buying products. They're PhDs that are developing products. Now, they went back to our supplier. We got them changed. And then the face mask evolves three months later. Those are on there. So that's important to us as well. We want to continually evolve our products. What we think is perfect might not be perfect in the eyes of someone that has studied dermatology for 20 years of their life. And pulling on that expertise is so important. And we got people across all different areas of expertise in research, in the PhD qualifications that they have to be able to look at our products and continually improve them based on what science is constantly coming out.

1:17:39So we're just also about to launch to version four of our face mask in three years because more information is coming out on another frequency that should be put into the red light mask. And I won't say what it is at the moment because it's embargoed, but that will be coming out around July, August time, which will be a 4.0 mask because we found more studies that have said there's another frequency of light that needs to be in there that doesn't disrupt your circadian rhythm. It's still within the bounds of red light therapy that should be in there to intensify results. So we will always evolve our products as well.

1:18:21Shawn Stevenson:Amazing. Amazing. And one of the other reasons that you're out here, and of course, this is preliminary. We're not gonna share all the details right now, but you are investing in putting your products through trials and actually, again, verifying so that you can really check all those boxes for people who are very much looking to improve their life. People are struggling right now. People are in pain. People are struggling with their sleep. They're wanting to look better. They're wanting to feel better. And this means a lot. This means a lot to you. This means a lot to me to make sure that we're able to provide real world solutions and to take some of this complexity out.

1:19:01Shawn Stevenson:Right. So, of course, we want to provide the education, but also you don't need to know all the ins and outs. You just need to be able to trust that it actually works. Yes. And so we're leaning into some of the most powerful inroads into human biology, which, again, is these light inputs. and this whole subject of circadian biology, circadian medicine, this is really the, what we're going to see in the next decade, it's going to be leading as far as this discussion around health. You're going to see more and more supplements, medications, all of these kind of trying to point towards influencing this circadian clock.

1:19:43Shawn Stevenson:And with that being said, I got another question for you regarding best practices on some of these inputs. So we know the best time to put on the blue light, black and glasses, but what about something like red light therapy? Is there like an optimal time for us to utilize red light therapy? Yeah, that's an interesting one because I feel that really comes down to individuality and how you respond to red light therapy. I find red light therapy personally really relaxes me. It puts me into a real chilled state. It's probably because of the practices I'm doing around it, like breath work and things like that.

1:20:18But some people have reported that it energizes them. It makes them feel like, oh, great. I'm like, go and do red light therapy. Then I can go and pump out, you know, 100 kilometers on the peloton or go and do 100 chin ups or something like that. So a lot of people can use it before the gym because it energizes them. So you really want to see how it makes you feel. I think that's probably the best thing to do. I mean, typically I would, I always look at things from an ancestral standpoint. When would the frequencies of light in that, in a specific product, be available to you naturally? And it just so happens that near infrared and red light is available to us 24-7.

1:20:58Fire light, our ancestors would have saw throughout the night, that contains near, far and red. During the day, sunlight has near, far, red and all the other frequencies. So I don't think there's any particular time that makes it more optimal than another. And I think it really just comes down to testing it yourself. How do you feel after using it? Maybe try it at different times of the day. Does it impact your sleep positively or negatively? In the mornings, are you feeling more energized? Or are you just feeling a bit too relaxed in the mornings when you want to be a bit more energetic? So that's where I position that one.

1:21:29That's such a great answer.

1:21:30Shawn Stevenson:That's such a great answer. And again, this is going back to we've got self-quantification. We've got these devices, we've got trackables and wearables that we can track to see that response. But also if we could just pay attention to how you feel based on these treatments as well. That's my favorite method of testing these things. Because again, for me, it's more meditative. That's how I feel. The first time I ever got into one of those big red light therapy beds back in the day, way back in the day, it's just like, for me, it was like almost instant meditative kind of state, more relaxing. And so this is something for me that I would prefer to do towards the end of the day and to help with that kind of relaxation and also recovery as well for me.

1:22:11Shawn Stevenson:But some people start the day with it, you know? And so again, just finding, but also it works if you work it. And that's one of the big takeaways from today as well. And, you know, there's so many different directions that we could go with this. I know I don't have you here for that much longer. And so I want to ask you some rapid fire questions. Sure. And, you know, again, we are focusing this episode for everyone around biohacking. And this mantra, this moniker of biohacking has, it's diverse in the way that people perceive it. But for you, number one, I want to ask you, what does biohacking mean for you?

1:22:51Biohacking means optimizing my biology in any way I can for the best. so by that i could that could mean changing my diet weighing my food not weighing my food taking certain supplements or really getting my body into a state where each and every cell

1:23:09Shawn Stevenson:functions optimally what would you recommend if you could give everybody one biohack that everybody could do throughout the world every day what would it be watch the sunrise

1:23:24Shawn Stevenson:would you recommend when it comes to you've already mentioned you know your your i think it was your friends or maybe your sister that does the one night one night a week yeah your sister yes the fireside chat once a week yes what is something that we all could do in the evening to help us to kind of wind down and set, dare I say, a sexy mood? A sexy mood. Okay.

1:23:53I think for me personally, I think get the circadian friendly lighting on. So dim the lights if you don't have it and just get some beautiful classical music on. That really resonates to me and puts me into a parasympathetic state. um and i think that you know try and biohack together as well couples that biohack together stay together as cliche as it is um me and my wife do it um a lot like she'll be on her penth mat and i'll be on my red light therapy blanket which comes apart into two mats so i'll lie on that so just doing things like that together but but for me the big one if it's a more sort of romantic, nice parasympathetic mood.

1:24:37It's, it's classical for me, the old classics, you know, the baroque sort of Bach and, um, that type of music is, is beautiful. It's just, it resonates with my cells.

1:24:45Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. There goes back to frequency. Yeah. We got sound science on its influence on our brain and nervous system. Incredible. And by the way, I'm asking that because as soon as I got, I've got a little red light lamp that I got from you. Yeah. And it's like, it just reminds me of TLC, Red Light Special. I don't know if you know, but do you know this song? Shout out to TLC. They're going on tour apparently now, but Red Light Special is sexy. It's some sexy stuff. And I want to ask you this. If everybody, there's thousands of different modalities when it comes to exercises and different things to do.

1:25:20Shawn Stevenson:If there was one exercise that you can recommend for everybody to do, what would it be?

1:25:27Shawn Stevenson:i would say walks in nature yep perfect perfect last question what is the model that you're here to set for everyone else with the way that you live your life personally i want people to not just listen to one person and make decisions on their health i want them to listen to multiple people, look at their own health journey and how it needs improving, and do everything that is right for you. Don't let anyone tell you that this is the only way to be healthy. Do your own research, listen to people you trust, and formulate your own plans. Otherwise, I think if you do it any other way, you're going to fail and run into problems.

1:26:16I think you've got to make your own decisions, and don't just take one person's word for this is optimal like it's it's down to yourself and there's so many people out there that can give amazing bits of information in different areas and take those bits that resonate to you and just make your own health plan i love it i love it just what we were talking about before

1:26:35Shawn Stevenson:the show evidence base absolutely but end of one all the time most valuable experiment that you can ever undertake is what works best for you right now where can people connect with you they can connect with me personally on my instagram that's probably where i'm most active i am andy mant um if you want the educational content our scientific advisory board filter through to a lot of our content that's on our bondcharge underscore instagram but also on articles on our web website as well um which i think is really vital join our newsletter so we can get out educational content to people that want to digest and understand more about how light impacts us physiologically so yeah the website and instagram are the best places amazing this has been amazing i appreciate you so much i mean i know you've come very very far distance to be here today and it's been it's been a pleasure man i appreciate you yeah i really appreciate you too and what an epic conversation thank you of course many more to come yes the one and only andy man to everybody Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today.

1:27:42Shawn Stevenson:I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. If you did, you already know what to do. Share this out with somebody that you care about. Keep this message going. Was there anything in particular that really jumped out at you that you want to try out, that you want to utilize? Is it the red light therapy mask? Is it the PEMF mats? Is it the blue light blocking glasses? I could tell you for myself personally, something that I use every single night are the blue light blocking glasses from Bond Charge. And again, you get 15 % off of everything store-wide when you go to bondcharge.com forward slash model.

1:28:22Shawn Stevenson:Use the code model at checkout and take advantage. Again, that's b-o-n-c-h-a-r-g-e.com forward slash model. And as with anything, it still boils down to the basics. We want to make sure that we're getting optimal sun exposure and helping to set those circadian rhythms to the best of our ability. And also being gentle with ourselves, being kind with ourselves. We don't have to have all this stuff perfect. And it's just about awareness and moving towards stacking conditions in our favor so that our amazing biology can do what it's designed to do, which is to deliver us better health, more energy, and the ability to create the life that we truly want.

1:29:06Shawn Stevenson:I appreciate you so much for tuning into this episode today. We've got some amazing master classes and world leading experts coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned. Take care. Have an amazing day. And I'll talk with you soon.