Dumping zombie cells, ditching doomscrolling: A journey to better health

James Schmachtenberger: [00:00:00] Though I am a big proponent of formal, hard, rigorous sciences, I also think that there is a innate wisdom and intuition in the body. And you know, this idea of trusting one’s gut also goes a long distance.

Peter Bowes: [00:00:23] Hello again. Welcome to the Live Long podcast, I’m Peter Bowes. This is where we explore the science and stories behind human longevity. James Schmachtenberger is the founder of Qualia Life Sciences and is one of the key people behind, amongst other things, the brain boosting supplement Qualia Mind, a so-called cognitive enhancer. We’ll break down exactly what that means during this conversation. Jameshas had, and I think it’s fair to say, a pretty wild and inspiring journey that led him to this point in his career. Today, we’ll get into his story, why he’s so passionate about brain health and why magnesium in particular might be doing more for your mind than you think. James, welcome to the podcast.

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:01:04] Thank you for having me here.

Peter Bowes: [00:01:05] Before we talk about Qualia life, let’s just delve into your life. And I say it’s been a little unconventional so far, at least as far as your education was concerned. Your route to this point. So just talk me through your life. And really, what’s inspired you and what interested you initially that promotes  you to get into this sphere?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:01:25] So yeah, I had a relatively unconventional life, probably particularly in the domain of education. I was homeschooled off and on for most of my childhood. and, you know, my, my parents and particularly my father had a deep fascination with complex system science. And so a lot of my early education, a lot of my kind of ideation development came from this perspective of understanding individual sciences, but also looking at and understanding the interconnectivity of it all. Understanding how different pieces work together. and that shaped my my way of thinking and my psychology quite a bit. And I think that sort of paired with a lifelong fascination and curiosity with what it is to be human and understanding the human experience, understanding how to to maximize it, to live it fully. and, you know, that drove me into the exploration of all things around psychology, personal development, physiology, the interconnectedness between psychology and physiology. and, you know, has has had a number of different expressions over the years. But, all of it eventually sort of led its way to the, the creation of qualia, part of my personal, you know, drive and mission and starting qualia was that I, I had a number of health issues throughout my life. Diagnosed with ADD when I was five, had some neurological disorder that no one could ever figure out had Lyme and Epstein-Barr and, you know, all kinds of things. and so, you know, I spent a decent amount of my early life in various forms of suffering, physically, psychologically, and really wanted to find a path to healing. And despite my interest, the things that I was struggling with made it hard to do the research that was necessary to find the solutions. And so many of the solutions I could find didn’t work or weren’t properly substantiated. And so, you know, I was fortunate to be supported and introduced by a lot of really brilliant people to various kinds of tools and technologies that helped. And as I started to kind of come out of that challenge, I was struck with the recognition that, you know, most people, particularly if they’re in an area where they’re struggling with life, they don’t necessarily have the capacity to figure out exactly what is needed. They want a solution, and they want to know that there’s a trusted solution that is validated and will actually do the thing they need it to do. and there weren’t a lot of resources for that that I could find in the market. And so I wanted to create an organization that could do the kinds of research that was actually necessary to to do the hard work, to not just look at things from a kind of simplistic, reductionist approach, but to really dive in and understand the nuance of physiology, of the mind body connection, and, and develop products that were highly effective but also highly accessible.

Peter Bowes: [00:04:49] And this idea that everything is connected, which I guess is the basis of holistic medicine, the kind of medicine that many functional doctors practice today. Were there any light bulb moments for you when you really suddenly realized that yes, everything is connected and that is part of the solution?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:05:10] Yeah, I mean, there was a number of them, but one of the things that stood out for me as, as a really kind of pivotal life experience was when I was 21, I had a pretty extreme degree of burnout. Three years prior, I had taken over running a vocational college, teaching alternative medicine and psychology, and as an 18 year old, I had no idea I was doing. And so the pressure of it.

Peter Bowes: [00:05:37] I was actually going to get you to repeat that. So 18 years old when you took over a college?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:05:42] Yeah. This is part of the wild life experience.

Peter Bowes: [00:05:46] Yeah, exactly.

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:05:47] I ended up I went there as a student originally and just absolutely fell in love with the work I was seeing Seen myself heal and grow. I was watching other people go through these huge life transformations, both physiologically and psychologically, and I was just like this. This is what I want to do in life. And right around the time I was graduating there ended up being, the man who founded the college had announced that he wanted to still teach, but semi-retire and sell the school. And in my 18 year old naivete, I was like, this seems like a great idea. and so I stopped everything I was doing, went out and raised money, bought the school, and and it was spectacular. it was, you know, it was work that was absolutely on purpose.

Peter Bowes: [00:06:37] And quite a trust to put in you at such a young age for someone to sell you a school.

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:06:43] It really was. And, you know, to his credit, he was able to see and recognize something that wasn’t reasonable to see and recognize. I think there was something that he saw in my passion and my tenacity that he realized that even though I had an extraordinary lack of knowledge and skill, the pure love and dedication to the work would somehow find its way to success. And ultimately, that is what happened. You know, the first period was rough. I had a strong learning curve, made every mistake that when ideally would not make. But after that, things really did grow and turn around and was able to significantly grow the college. bring in a lot more students, do a lot more education, and it was an incredible experience. You know, one of the things that really stood out to me, especially at that time, my focus was more in like psychology and personal development, and I would watch people go through these, these very extensive processes and try to heal childhood trauma, try to change belief systems, become version of themselves they wanted to be. And one thing that I hadn’t really noticed previous to that was the people who were physically healthier, had a far easier time being able to do the inner work. And the people who were struggling more physically could do the same practices, could show up with the same kind of dedication, and it would take longer and be more painful to do the inner work. And it started to make me realize that, you know, the psyche and the body are not these separate things. they are fundamentally intertwined and interconnected. And, you know, no matter how much beautiful internal work you do, if your blood sugar is all over the place, if your hormones are unbalanced, if your brain chemistry is out of whack, your experience of life is going to largely be difficult. And so, you know, there was this passion to want to enhance and improve the human experience at scale. At first, I thought that that was going to be more through paths around psychology, but as I looked at, I was like, I don’t know how to scale that. But what I did start to see and identify was that with the right use of, we’ll call it biochemistry, we could make people’s quality of life dramatically better. We could increase their sense of capacity, their sense of aliveness, their intelligence, their vibrancy, and inherently make the quality of life better, but also give the resources and predispose people to then do the other types of work. And that was really the the birth of Qualia.

Peter Bowes: [00:09:47] So I assume the qual is quality in Qualia life. That’s what led to the name?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:09:53] No, actually, that’s that’s what most people seem to think. Qualia. It’s actually quite extraordinary. I, my business partner is the one who came up with the name, but it’s a term from philosophy. Qualia means the subjective experience of what it is to be you and to be human and alive. so qualia refers to instances of uniquely you. Subjective experience. What is it like to fall in love? What is it like to go through heartbreak? What is it like to experience the sunset? These are moments of qualia. and so the the naming was really this recognition that, you know, the experience of life is fundamentally the most important, the most beautiful thing. And our aim was to enhance that, to give people the support and the capacity to be able to live into that fully.

Peter Bowes: [00:10:54] Right. So how did you go about gaining the knowledge that you needed to eventually produce the products that you’re selling now through the company you. I read about an interesting trip that you had to Mexico, for example, and your introduction to IV therapy.

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:11:11] When I was 21, I had very severe burnout, running that college. I had only slept like two hours a night for three years. I was under incredible stress. I ended up going into adrenal failure, starting to have all kinds of health issues, inability to focus, depression. As I was on my healing journey, I got introduced to this research physician in Mexico,named Doctor William Hitt, and he was one of the early kind of main pioneers behind, NAD IV therapy. And I didn’t understand it, didn’t know anything about it at the time, but I went down to meet with him. I’d heard good things, and he met me, did a bunch of diagnostics and was like, well, you know, I’ve developed this particular therapy for primarily for the treatment of people with severe addiction. And he’s like, even though you don’t have addiction, your brain is basically that of a heroin addict from the amount of stress that you’ve been under. And I think we can do some, some positive work here. and so I went down and I ended up spending three days in a row doing nine hours a day of very, very high dose NAD with a mix of various amino acids and some secret ingredient that I still don’t know what it was. And it was life changing. Like many therapies are helpful. This was absolutely pivotal. I went in depressed, exhausted, unable to focus. And at the end of three days, I came out with a kind of cognitive function and clarity that I had never experienced before. the sense of depression and heaviness had gone away and was replaced with this, just like fascination with life. My sense of capacity increased. But one of the things that also really, really stood out to me was my sense of empathy. Just fundamentally changed and expanded. It was like from that moment forward, I didn’t have the ability to think about what I wanted to do without automatically being aware of its broader implications. And then, you know, having that experience, I was like, this is this is incredible. And people need to know about this.

Peter Bowes: [00:13:41] And did it concern you at the time that you were putting into your body things that you didn’t fully understand? You said that you didn’t know the complete ingredients, that you were consuming. That would have worried me.

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:13:54] Yeah. It did. And you know, the fact that it was in, you know, a random small clinic in Mexico, didn’t necessarily help. there were definitely concerns. And I was struggling enough that I was willing to take the risk for the potential benefit. And I’m an experimental person. I you know, a lot of my learning has come through curiosity and experimentation. I’ve put a lot of weird supplements into my body, weird things into my veins. You know, I’ve tried a lot of different therapies. And, you know, some have sucked. many have been extraordinary, but they’ve all taught me a lot. And, yeah, it was it was definitely scary. But it was worth the scary to have the potential benefit. And, you know, it turned out to be incredibly worthwhile.

Peter Bowes: [00:14:49] So let’s come up to date Qualia Life Science. Could you just give me a more broad definition of what it is now, what it has grown to, and how you are aiming to help people?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:15:00] Yeah. So we you know, the first product that we launched was Qualia Mind, which is pretty well known at this point. as you know, a broad spectrum cognitive support, being able to increase many different kinds of intelligence, increase resilience, confidence, energy. And that was kind of the core of the company for the first few years. but then, you know, as that began to grow, we recognize that the scientific model that we had developed for being able to produce that product had applications in pretty much every domain of health and gave us the opportunity to do really innovative product development in any area that mattered. And so then a lot of what we started to look at was, what are the areas that have incredibly high degrees of impact on the actual quality of life and longevity of life that are currently not being done or being underserved? So, you know, when you look at our product lineup now there, you know, there are some products like the magnesium product we recently launched, which is in a category that people are familiar with. But a lot of the things that we’ve put out have been in spaces that, you know, people aren’t really that aware of. Like are Senolytic products helping to to support the body in eliminating what are often referred to as zombie cells? Yeah.

Peter Bowes: [00:16:33]  these are kind of cells that have passed their sell by date. They need to be they’re not really doing you any good, but they are perhaps blocking other positive processes within your body. And you want to get rid of them, right?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:16:45] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These senescent cells, You know, basically have finished their effective life cycle. They’re no longer able to do the function they were supposed to, but they still take up resources that could go to the healthy cells. And even worse, they they emit these sort of inflammatory proteins that cause other cells around them to become senescent faster. And the immune system in, in an ideal healthy scenario would rid the body of these. But as we age, they tend to linger in ways that you don’t want. So, you know, that was a very new area of research. like the science community has known that senescent cells existed since about the 60s, but didn’t know that anything could be done about it. That research only started in like 2015, so incredibly recently. but as we dove into that research, it was like, wow, this is this is a really powerful domain. This is an area that, though not yet well understood by the masses, the positive effects associated with eliminating senescent cells is incredibly high. And so even though it was a very strange product, and, you know, myself and a lot of the team were like, we don’t know if this thing will ever sell. it’s a weird product. No one’s ever even heard the terminology, but it’s important. And so let’s try it anyways. And, you know, luckily, it’s turned out to be something that has become quite popular and, and people have responded very positively to. There’s a very central focus on longevity, both in terms of an attempt at extending lifespan. But, even more important, I would say, is supporting Healthspan. Right. You know, if it’s great to be on the planet for more years, but if those more years are suffering and in pain and immobile, that’s not really the experience that anyone wants.

Peter Bowes: [00:18:45] Is it possible to quantify in terms of the the very short term gain that you get from using your products in terms of mental clarity, that kind of thing versus the long term gains. And you’ve mentioned healthspan and lifespan with the umbrella of longevity. Are you focused still primarily on the here and now and how we feel, and that any longevity benefits are a bonus?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:19:14] I would say primarily that’s true, but there is definitely a real, you know, like first and foremost, the focus is how do we improve health, vitality and quality of life now? and the recognition that anything you do to really support health now is going to have a downstream effect on longevity. But we also do pay a lot of attention and do a lot of research in longevity and look at, you know, which particular compounds or which combinations of compounds have the strongest research to be able to actually extend longevity. And most of that research comes from animal models. there’s there’s because human lives are so long, there’s not as much research in showing definitively the extension of human life, but there’s all kinds of compounds that have been tested in mouse and rats and various different creatures that have shown 20, 30, 40% extensions in life. And so for us, we really look at both, and it’s fundamentally hard to study the long tail side of that. But we do get to see really key indicators like we’ve had we’ve done some pilot studies of our own. We’ve had a lot of people who have done some of their own lab work and shared it with us, you know, looking at things like true diagnostics, for instance, which looks at what is your biological logical age versus your chronological age and looking at that broadly. But then also what is the biological age of different systems within the body? And, you know, many, many cases, what we’ve seen is that, you know, as people are taking the products, their biological age goes down as their chronological age goes up, and sometimes by pretty significant amounts.

Peter Bowes: [00:21:08] To what extent are these claims? And you say that you’ve done your own in-house studies, but to what extent? This is often a question that I hear about products like this. To what extent are the benefits, the claimed benefits supported by independent, peer reviewed science in terms of the combining of these different compounds, you mentioned that there’s a lot of science, fascinating science about individual elements, but the way that you are combining these different things to produce the kind of results that you’re talking about.

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:21:44] Yeah, I mean, this this has been a really important area for us, because, you know, there there is good science on a lot of individual ingredients, and most companies just rely on that. But what that doesn’t tell you is even if, you know, let’s say these three ingredients all independently look great, what happens when you put them together? Do they support each other? Do they compete for absorption pathways? Does one cancel the other out? you can scientifically model that to a certain extent, but ultimately, to know it, you need to do human studies. and so it’s something that we, we’ve done a lot of and then once products are in market, we’ll continue to do additional studies. Some products we’ve had an opportunity to do more research on than others. But you know, like our our NAD supplement, for instance, is one that we’ve done two separate double blind, placebo controlled clinical trials on, looking at the changes in NAD levels in blood and plasma before taking the product and then after being on it for 30 days and the results have been awesome. You know, the first study we saw an average 74% increase. The second study we saw an average 67% increase. That’s really high. There are other NAD supplements on the market. Most haven’t been studied. The best other one that has been studied in terms of research I’ve seen, is able to show a 50% increase after 45 days. So we’ve been able to see a notably higher increase in a shorter time frame. And then, you know, when you understand the implications of NAD, you know, as sort of the primary molecule of energy for your cells, it has an incredible set of benefits. So, you know, we’ve been able to do some really great research there. We’ve done a double blind, placebo controlled study on senolytic products. And that one, we weren’t able to test the difference in number of senescent cells. The only way to do that is through tissue biopsy. So it’s quite invasive study. So what we did instead was we looked at what is the primary symptomology associated with people having a build up of senescent cells. And what all the research shows is the the main thing that will show up there are joint issues. So we did a joint study. So that particular product is it’s quite different than many things on the market where you only take it two days a month. all the research around getting rid of senescent cells shows that you want very high doses of the effective compounds, and then you want to give your body a break. And so that’s how we designed it. So we had people do three cycles of the product. And we saw a little bit. But off the top of my head I want to say it was a 68% reduction in joint discomfort and a 51% reduction in joint stiffness. And that’s fascinating because it’s not a joint product. Right? And yet it has a more significant effect on joint health than almost any joint product. And so what that tells you is not only is it great in terms of joint health, but it’s an indicator of a whole series of other positive things that are likely happening that we just haven’t yet had a chance to do all the studies on.

Peter Bowes: [00:25:06] This is the live Long podcast. Our guest is James Schmachtenberg, the co-founder and CEO of Qualia.

Peter Bowes: [00:25:13] You mentioned magnesium a few minutes ago. Your magnesium plus product. What is the plus? What is the the extra ingredient and what can we expect from it?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:25:24] Yeah. So that’s a that’s a newer product for us. Magnesium is is one of the few ingredients in the field that I would say lives up to the hype and possibly even exceeds the hype in terms of its benefits. It’s crucial in, you know, essentially every physiological function, it’s necessary for effective synaptic firing of the brain. It’s going to have huge implications on brain function. It serves processes in literally every single cell of the body. But, you know, one of the things that we saw was that with a lot of magnesium products on the market, they. Didn’t necessarily have great absorption or retention. And we focus a lot on on the retention piece specifically, you’ll see a lot in the field talking about bioavailability and having magnesium or anything potentially be highly bioavailable. But really all that means is that once you’ve taken it, there’s more magnesium in the bloodstream. And though that is probably a good thing, it doesn’t necessarily tell you if it’s getting from the bloodstream into the tissues. And then, you know, that’s where it would be able to actually do its function. so we, you know, we scoured the world for every study that had ever been done on actual retention, looking at magnesium levels in various tissue types, and then looking at which types of magnesium were able to make their way into all the various types of tissues in the body. And then we created this formulation of nine different forms of magnesium that each were the the most scientifically supported, that were able to increase both bioavailability and retention in as much of the body as was possible. And then, in addition to the nine different forms, we also have that paired with 70 trace minerals. And if we kind of look back in history at how humans historically got their magnesium, it was through food. And largely through water. and, you know, glacial melt and things like this, where the water was highly dense with magnesium, but also all of the other minerals. and that’s something that we, for the most part, don’t have anymore. The water supplies that people drink now are highly filtered, largely stripped of minerals. and so we’re looking to supplement that. And even though certain aspects of it aren’t fully studied and understood, what has been studied and understood is that there is a link between magnesium and other trace minerals where you get significantly more positive effect from magnesium itself when paired with all the other minerals. and so that seems to be working very well.

Peter Bowes: [00:28:21] And you say it lives up to the hype. What are the supplementation products around that don’t live up to the hype at the moment?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:28:31] Sadly, most of them, I mean, there’s a lot of great products in the market, but there’s so many ingredients that are are really popular and well marketed, but where the claims that are associated with them are not substantiated and not just not substantiated, but in often cases, the actual research is opposite what the claims are, you know, so there’s ingredients, but then there’s also the delivery methods, right? Like in the last few years, liposomal anything has blown up. because there’s this idea, there’s the story that if something is liposomal, it’s going to have dramatically higher bioavailability and absorption. And that’s only partially true. Story. Right. Liposomes will increase absorption of fat soluble nutrients. But when you’re talking about water soluble nutrients makes no difference. And the vast, vast majority of liposomal products on the market aren’t actually liposomes, they’re emulsions. The technology for doing true liposomes is much harder and more expensive. and so you’ve got this hype around, you know, you make anything liposomal and it’s supposed to be better and it’s just not true. It ends up being a way that people spend more money for a perception of better quality, but in many cases it doesn’t actually do anything. And this is, you know, one of the areas that we we focus a lot, and it’s, you know, it’s difficult because when, when people want a particular thing because they’ve already been preconditioned to it, it is easier to sell that thing. But fundamentally, our commitment as an organization is not to participate in or sell hype, but to actually bring forward the best things that we know how to make, and to then find the ways of communicating that, that people will understand, even if it differs from the popular opinion.

Peter Bowes: [00:30:36] Right. And how do you suggest that the consumer wades through the hype. The consumer who acknowledges that they want a certain product or a certain combination of compounds that they read about that maybe they’ve seen the advertising, but there’s that little alarm bell that maybe this product isn’t what it seems, that it won’t produce the results, that it is advertising. Maybe the purity isn’t going to be what it should be. How does the ordinary person filter through all of that information to make the right decision?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:31:10] It’s tricky. I mean, one answer is as much as possible, work with highly trained, skilled practitioners that have the right kinds of background to be able to read the studies and you know, where people want to do things independently. One key area to look at is are the products that a company is putting out, studied and validated, not just like you’ll you’ll see a lot of companies that will say things like, you know, clinically studied ingredients. and that means that individual ingredients within the product were studied but not studied in combination. so, you know, sort of the gold standard would be looking at has the company actually done formal studies on the complete ingredient or the complete formulation? And what were the effects of those studies? And to the extent possible, try to read the actual study and not just the synopsis. because often the synopsis is written by a marketing team, not a science team. and doesn’t necessarily always correlate to what’s inside. Now, that’s easier said than done in some cases, because reading the entire study often gets into some technical language, but ideally that that’s one key area. another thing that’s simpler is trust your own experience. Means trying different products, experimenting with them, and really paying close attention to how they affect you. like allowing yourself to not just be caught up in the busyness of life when you’re trying something new, but to really notice. Does this affect my body, my mood, my psychology in the ways that I think it’s intended to? If it does, awesome. If it doesn’t, you know it might be doing something at a molecular level that’s beneficial, that, you know, you won’t notice for years, but it might also just not be doing anything. So I’m a big proponent of formal, hard, rigorous sciences. I also think that there is a innate wisdom and intuition in the body. And, you know, this idea of trusting one’s gut also goes a long distance.

Peter Bowes: [00:33:28] I’m often asked because I do this podcast, what I think the most exciting longevity intervention is as we move forward looking at the science, whether it be supplementation, whether it be red light therapy or cryotherapy or stem cells, you know, the whole raft of interventions that we hear about a lot. And I usually answer that by saying, well, look, and it’s impossible to put a number on this, a percentage, but I would maybe guess 80%, 90% is the fundamentals of nutrition, good nutrition, exercise, especially sleep, reducing the stress in our daily lives and paying attention to our social connections, the people that we have around us. I think if we get all of those things right, if we optimize them all and let’s face it, none of us do optimize all of those things. But if we did, we would be a long way on that scale of percentage towards having the perfect life, at least as far as we could. So I’m interested to see what your take on that is, and where the kind of interventions that you’re involved in fit in into this, this scale of of benefits that we can get from from new science.

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:34:36] It’s a great question. I would I would absolutely say that I agree with you. Right. The fundamentals are the vast, vast majority of the picture. Eating well, sleeping well, exercising, moving the body. I love that you mentioned social connection, because that is so profoundly underrated in not just its improvement on the subjective experience of life, but there’s a lot of research now regarding the impacts on longevity that are determined based on the quality and depth of human connection. And I guess the one other one that wasn’t included, there was time in nature. that those in combination are 8,090% of the picture. Everything else layers in for additional benefit. in terms of specific technologies, probably the most effective thing is sauna. It’s been understood for a long time, but recently there was some some meta analysis done that indicates that regular sauna use three days a week or more in decreases all cause mortality by 40%, which is stunning like nothing does that other than exercise.

Peter Bowes: [00:36:04] So that’s quite an amazing statistic really, isn’t it?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:36:08] It is. So I think sauna is a really, really key area. And then supplementation in the right forms and in the right timing also are, you know, we live in a world where there’s extraordinary topsoil depletion or food has much less nutrient density than it used to. And that’s assuming that we’re actually eating healthy organic produce, meats, etc. most people are eating things that are food like, but not actually made from food, so we don’t get the full nutrient profile. The nutrient density that we need and supplements can play a key role there. And then, you know, not only do we not get what the body was originally accustomed to through human evolution, but we’re exposed to all kinds of stressors that we’re not actually adapted for, right? We didn’t physiologically adapt to be under extraordinary time pressure all of the time. We didn’t adapt to be in front of screens and exposed to all types of, you know, chemicals and various things. So, you know, even if you do all the lifestyle things that that’s most of it. And that’s where everyone should start. And on top of that, the right use of supplementation can help the body and the mind be able to adapt to a world that it is not biologically designed for. If you take, for instance, the NAD product, right. And that’s able to provide more cellular energy. Well, having that extra energy allows your body to become more capable, more adaptive to the stresses and challenges of life, right? If you take our mind product. Right. It supports the the production and the regulation of all of the various neurotransmitters. And so it gives you more capacity to adapt to the world in which you exist, to be able to shift into a creative state when you need to, to be able to drop into focus when you need to, to be able to drop into presence, when it’s time to be with your family. And then, you know, magnesium is just so foundational, right? Like it’s involved in every cellular process. It’s involved in virtually everything. and it’s something that, you know, most of the research shows that at least half of the population is deficient in. So that one, you know, simple, pretty inexpensive intervention for a lot of people makes an incredible difference.

Peter Bowes: [00:38:49] I’m just curious, some of the things you mentioned there, to what extent do you really positively think about making more time for nature during your day, perhaps removing some of those negative aspects of your life that are not going to be positive for you? Like putting down your phone and making time for for exercise and thinking about what you eat. Are you particular about these things and have you come up with a a lifestyle that can accommodate these things?

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:39:20] You know, it’s an area that I constantly work, constantly fail and have some successes. The last little while, I’ve actually been doing a practice that I have really, really loved. My fiance and I made an agreement about three months ago that at 10 p.m., our phones go off and they leave the bedroom. And so we now plug them in in the kitchen. They charge in there. And we so so we don’t have any screens in the wind down process, which of course helps the nervous system regulate and become ready for rest. And then when we wake up in the morning, there’s this commitment to nature and sunlight before screen light. And so we get up first thing in the morning and head down the road to some nearby trails and go on a walk and then come back and check our phones. It was a hard discipline to make happen initially, because we were very accustomed to doomscrolling and obsessively checking emails and all the things that, you know, we humans seem to like to do. But it has been a really extraordinary practice where there’s been a noticeable improvement in energy, in how we feel. You know, the morning walks give an opportunity to to check in and connect. and that in and of itself has great benefit. And, you know, as much as possible, try to actually, at least at some point in the walk, slow down and be present and listen to the birds and watch the wind in the trees and really, really take in the beauty of nature as much as possible.

Peter Bowes: [00:41:08] Interesting. And I’m very much with you on that one. My morning walk with my two dogs is without doubt the best hour of the day. I usually say, and I recently I used to say it’s also a good time to listen to podcasts, but I’ve actually changed my vision on that. In terms of what you’ve just said, that it’s actually even a better time to to not have the earbuds in and to just enjoy the the silence or it’s not silence, it’s nature. You can hear the birds. It’s it’s hugely beneficial. And I think until you actually and you’ve just expressed this until you do it and try it, you don’t really fully realize how good it can be for you.

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:41:42] Yeah.

Peter Bowes: [00:41:43] James, this has been a fascinating conversation. So many interesting topics. I’ll put notes into the show, notes about the products that we’ve talked about. If anyone wants to delve a little bit deeper, some links to your website of course, as well. And I hope we get to talk again. James, thanks so much.

James Schmachtenberger,: [00:41:58] I do too, thank you very much. This was great.

Peter Bowes: [00:42:00] The Livelong Podcast is a healthspan media production. I’m Peter Bowes, you can contact me through our website livelongpodcast.com, where you’ll also find show notes for this episode.