The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #313 - Ben Greenfield

TRANSCRIPT

Ben Greenfield
Post-menopausal women, when given a matriarchal position of caring for the community, of bringing up future generations, of passing on wisdom, wind up with an altogether different purpose in life that I think lends itself to longevity, just as much as say, the ability to, or the inability to bear children. The most important thing when it came to longevity was relationships. And while that doesn't necessarily have to mean your own children, I think it does speak volumes about just community friendships and potentially family in general.

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast where we meet the world's top experts to explore the secrets of health, mindset, longevity, and so much more. Are you ready to take charge of your existence and biohack your life? This show is for you. Please keep in mind we're not dispensing medical advice and are not responsible for any outcomes you may experience from implementing the tactics lying here in.

So friends, are you ready to join me? Let's do this. Welcome back to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. Friends, I am just smiling right now with so much gratitude. I have been following Ben Greenfield for years and years. He is one of the main figures in the biohacking movement and has had such a profound effect on my own journey in the world of biohacking. It was such an honor to sit down with him today and Ben does a lot of podcasts and I feel like today's conversation, we kind of covered some nuances that he doesn't typically talk about. In fact, one of the things we talked about, he said that nobody has ever asked him before on a podcast or probably ever in general.

I really think you guys are going to enjoy this conversation. We talk about things I love like the role of wine and health and Ben's ultimate hangover protocol. We talk about whether or not having kids is good or bad for your longevity, how attractiveness relates to health, the importance of finding purpose, and even the role of biohacking in the Bible. The show notes for today's conversation will be at melanieavalon.com slash Ben Greenfield. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out. I can't wait to hear what you guys think. Definitely let me know in my Facebook group, I have biohackers intermittent fasting plus real foods plus life comments, something you learned or something that resonated with you on the pinned post to enter to win something that I love. And then check out my Instagram, find the Friday announcement post. And again, comments there to enter to win something that I love. All right. I think that's all the things without further ado, please enjoy this fabulous conversation with Ben Greenfield.

Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I'm about to have. Oh, actually, this is a moment of gratitude because this is a long time coming because when I first got into the whole biohacking world, I mean, one of the first people that exposed me to all of this content was the legend Ben Greenfield, who I'm here with today.

Ben Greenfield
I'm sorry about that.

Melanie Avalon
It's all good when we are here we are and i'm yes this is a really really exciting moment for me and we're talking before i did briefly meet bread been in person at the by yourself from here in vegas which was awesome you gave me a hard time.

Ben Greenfield
I think they call it the Oscars of longevity.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, yes, indeed. I was actually hosting on the red carpet or one of the red carpets there. So that was fun.

You gave me a hard time about having the egotism of having my name and the title of my show. So we match, we match there.

Ben Greenfield
Yeah, so, so narcissistic of you.

Melanie Avalon
I know. But in any case, so Ben has this book called Boundless. And actually, true story, Ben, so when you first released this book, okay, the first version, what year did you release it in?

Ben Greenfield
I don't know, life's life is a blur. I have a hard enough time figuring out if it's Wednesday or Thursday. So boundless, I guess it was like six years ago. So maybe 2019.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, that tracks because true story, when it came out, I think it came out when I first launched the show and I was still having to aggressively reach out to people and pitch people and your book came out and I was like, I really, really want to reach out to him. But I was so intimidated by how long it was.

I was like, I don't know if I have 40 hours to listen to this.

Ben Greenfield
You know what my trick is when I'm going to interview somebody who has a really big book Because I just did this with it's not that big of a book But I just interviewed Sahil bloom who wrote the five types of wealth. I'm like every section on Relationship wealth and money wealth and time wealth was so good.

I'll just like choose one category So I told them look your books great, but let's just focus on time wealth because I you know My book has kind of chunked into you know sleep Detoxification Fitness fat loss longevity, etc. So I I sometimes just approach it from the angle of you know What if folks want to read the whole book they can and let's just focus on like, you know one chapter or one chunk

Melanie Avalon
So that is excellent advice. I was tempted to do that. I actually did read all of it. So I have a million notes, but I did kind of like what you were saying.

I was like, when I, in this interview, I'm just going to ask the really random questions from the things that came up that I have questions about and I will let listeners know that friends, if you want, which you do want the Bible of biohacking, everything you could ever want to know ever about diet, sleep, stress, sauna supplements, literally everything in life you need this book. And it's so big that when I was taking selfies with it to post later, it took me probably a minute to figure out like how do I hold it in one hand and like balance and take pictures.

Ben Greenfield
Yeah. That's, and that's the tricky part too, about, you know, a book like this, it's kind of a reference book is I think that books like this, you know, done in a standard way, our grads are going to be phased out now that we're in a GPT era where you could get super up to date information on a lot of this stuff with, you know, a quick grok query.

But what I try to do when I'm writing is come at it from a more personal kind of in the trenches standpoint. So whereas like, whatever, you know, grok or GPT or any AI model could tell you, well, you know, here are the benefits of, let's say, I don't know, something I'm into right now, Melanie, like haptic sensation for relaxation or turning down the nervous system or light and sound stimulation or PMF or, you know, I don't know, like gravity blankets, but what it won't tell you is, okay, one of my favorite things to do right now is to go into my lounge and sit on this shift wave chair that vibrates your entire body and was designed to increase HRV because you're wearing like a fingertip monitor that's tracking your heart rate and it'll vibrate in correlation to that heart rate and then put a light sound stimulation machine above that, pull on a gravity blanket, put on some recovery boots and kind of create like this ultimate stack that, you know, GPT doesn't know about, but that I'm experimenting with in my Batman cave. So, you know, I try and tell people stuff that they might not get from just a simple, you know, Google query or whatever.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, exactly. That was actually some of my favorite parts of the books was when you gave your personal stacks of things.

It was like, it's like, this is the real, this is the information that I really want to know. And honestly, Chad is probably, Chad TBT is probably referencing you a lot anyways.

Ben Greenfield
Yeah. And it's the stuff that granted doesn't have like long-term human clinical research behind it, but that's kind of part of the fun slash danger of biohacking is trying things out, seeing how your body responds as an N equals one, passing information about what you found off to the world.

And of course, Brian Johnson has probably been the biggest pioneer of late in doing something like that. And I think brought a lot of interest to the whole longevity anti-aging biohacking scene.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And speaking of interest, this is really interesting to me.

So the night before an interview, I always go and read all the Amazon reviews of a book. This new 2.0 came out. So it doesn't have that many reviews yet, but the original one has like hundreds of reviews. Hey, the reviews are almost as long as the book be overwhelmingly positive. The only thing people seem to complain about, and I find this so interesting people get upset about it being too much information. And I'm like, how is that offensive? I don't understand. How is like, how is like providing information to people, a problem? Can somebody please explain to me?

Ben Greenfield
Yeah, I would say maybe not offensive, but you know, like, inconvenient, just like when, you know, I don't know, you know, Christmas rolls around and you get seven pretty cool gifts and two new books to read, and some complex puzzle to assemble. And you're kind of sort of grateful, but at the same time, you're like, gosh, and you'd like an extra two weeks of my life now to catch up on all my Christmas gifts.

Melanie Avalon
I guess it shows you everything you could be doing and you're not doing. Okay, so like I said, I have just random questions for you because there's so much here.

When you decided to, okay, you decided to release, you know, Boundless 2.0, which we are here for today, the updated and revised edition. How quickly does the information change? Like when you finished the book the first time, did you automatically already kind of want to update things? That's the big problem about a book is you're kind of like crystallizing everything into this, you know, physical form.

Ben Greenfield
you know, opening the kimono on the publishing industry, you finish a book, you know, and typically, for me, it's a good six to nine months before that book has gone through all the processes from editing to cover design, to printing to distribution to making it into the hands of someone. So even by the time the book has come out, you know, I'm already thinking, gosh, I should have added this or whatever.

I just did an interview yesterday, Melanie, about like, some C15 new fatty acid that's apparently the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in 90 years, and it's not in the book, because I just found out about it. And so things like that pop up. And as an author, you kind of have to be comfortable with the idea that, yeah, there's there's always going to be information in the book, especially in a book related to science, that's going to be constantly evolving based on research. And then if we're talking about biohacking, new technologies, new supplements, like I was just talking about, so you almost have to accept the fact as an author, in more of like the science industry, that stuff is going to get outdated. And if you do decide to write a book, you're either going to need to write another one, typically to answer your question directly in the next two to three years, I think is a pretty appropriate timeframe, or kind of like what I did just go through an overhaul, the first one, add all the new information, take out outdated information, you know, tweak it, reassemble, turn around and have a fresh product.

Melanie Avalon
Are you gonna re-record the audiobook?

Ben Greenfield
I haven't decided yet because, well, there's a few reasons. So first of all, a book of that magnitude, we're talking about like 70 hours of studio time. And so I have to ask myself, how much do I value my own voice recording the audio versus 70 hours spent with my family and especially my sons who are 17 who are like, you know, probably not gonna be living at home that much longer. And a lot of times I look at life through that lens.

I'm like, this is an amazing opportunity, an incredible speaking opportunity, an incredible product creation opportunity, you know, a cool conference I could attend and speak at or whatever. But for me, my family and my spiritual life are number one. And if I have to meaningfully sacrifice those, I usually analyze that decision pretty carefully. So that's part of it is, you know, I haven't yet decided if I'm going to duck into a studio for like 70 hours. And then the other part is that, especially with as many podcasts as I've produced and as much of my voice is out there, AI can do a real, I mean, really decent rendering. Like, you know, I don't wanna deceive people. I would always tell people if it's AI recorded, but I've gotten some samples back and you can barely tell that it's not me reading the book if we went with AI. The problem with that is right now, and I don't know if I quite understand why, I guess I kinda sorta get it in that they wanna make sure they really maintain good quality control, but Amazon does not permit AI recordings, even in the author's voice of an audio book right now, which makes sense, but it seems like for a podcaster, you know, who already has thousands of hours of audio that audible could be trained on or that, you know, an AI voice could be trained not to submit to audible. For me, it's like, gosh, you know, I wish I could just have AI do it cause technically, you know, it's kinda sorta me, you know, cause it's all the words that I'd say in the way that I'd say them anyways.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, like three years ago, I remember I got approached about a company wanting to do that for ads, but that was like three years ago, and I was like, oh no, no, no, no. But now, I mean, my mind's kind of changing if it actually could sound and be me. And like you said, it is us, it's not identity theft of yourself. So yeah, I guess we'll see how that whole world goes.

Your kids, 17, do they do all this stuff?

Ben Greenfield
All this stuff is a pretty broad term, but so, you know, my sons, they've grown up in the Greenfield household and just by the nature of growing up in a household that's focused on health, you know, they ate sardines and liver and avocado and, you know, not much cereal or sugar from an early age, you know, when we have pizza at the house, it's like grass-fed, grass-finished carpaccio or something like that or, you know, and so from a nutrition standpoint, they've always kind of grown up in an environment very unlike the environment I grew up in, which was taking baked pizza and 29 cent hamburger and 39 cent cheeseburger day and, you know, basically anything my parents could do to feed me and my four hungry siblings without a knowledge of, you know, seed oils and sugars and a lot of the issues in a modern food environment. So they've grown up eating really healthy and it's just what they've always known.

So they don't really do it consciously. It's just like when you open the refrigerator or the pantry in our house, it's all healthy stuff, which I think is one of the ways to get your kids to eat healthy is just like don't have a lot of other options around. And at the same time, you know, whatever, like I, you know, we live in a little town and I was out and about and they were off doing something. I went into a local coffee shop and they were in the back room having a party with some of their friends eating Domino's pizza. Right. And so, you know, in many cases that are, I would say overall, they're not like super duper orthorexic or like scared of gluten and seed oils. They, but they wouldn't lie to you and tell you they don't know that, you know, it's bad for their biology Domino's pizza, but we don't really, you know, set down these hard and fast carrier. I'm allergic to seed oils card to the restaurant type of scenario with our sons. And then, you know, as far as like biohacking, they certainly try just about anything that's around the house, right? Like they were in like hyperbaric chambers, huddled up, giggling and hanging out when they were six years old. And you know, they'll do, you know, the, you know, Roxie, the lamp sessions, if they're bored and want to do some kind of a light sound journey or, you know, they'll toss on some BFR bands for a training session or come out in the gym and work out with dad. But they really, you know, they're, they have a card game business, right? Their job is not biohacking and health. So they dabble in a lot of this stuff. And then my wife laughs at me because one of my favorite things is one of one of our friends or family members gets injured because I get to like help them with all the stuff I have laying around the house, you know, sometimes doesn't get put to enough use. Like my son tweaked his knee in the cross last week and within an hour, you know, he's doing red light therapy with the wraparound red light device and PMF and scraping and a transdermal CBD oil. And then, you know, going to bed with it wrapped in like an infrared knee wrap.

Ben Greenfield
So if they, if they need anything, it's kind of at their disposal and they'll use it, but they are, um, I think it's kind of like the shoemaker's wife wears no shoes. And my wife is like this, right?

I go to bed, I pull on my sleep mask and my foam earplugs and I'm playing my binaural beats and have like a PMF mat under my side of the bed. And one of those Apollo ankle bands on to kind of vibrate myself into relaxation. And she just basically like lays down and goes to bed. So, you know, at the same time though, like she probably wears a red light face mask in the morning a lot more than I do. So, you know, there's certain things that, that she or my sons will do that kind of catch on, but usually not because I told them, but because they discovered it themselves or somebody else told them, like, you know, my, my secret is that if I want to get my wife, for example, to, I don't know, let's say for example, like two years ago, start doing a little bit of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, I could talk to her about it till I'm blue in the face. And you know, because I'm just her silly biohacking husband at home, she doesn't listen that much. But then if I connect her to one of my cool female doctor friends who has like a phone conversation with her, or I leave a book out on the table and it catches her eye and she checks it out, then she'll act on that information. So it's kind of, it's kind of paradoxical. It's like a, you know, like a biohacking version of familiarity breeds, just a little bit of a disinterest, I suppose.

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. Well, I will say that was something I so I don't have kids. I don't Anticipate having kids one of the reasons I don't want kids is having to deal with I don't know just the whole having a healthy mindset surrounding everything is it just feels like a big a lot to do I really appreciate it throughout the book all the different tips and tricks and things that like like the nutrients kids need to pay attention to More or the whole section on kids how they actually need to get dirty in life, which I think can scare some people Yeah, it was it was really really helpful.

I actually have a question about kids and longevity. I'm really curious about this Do you have thoughts on? Since the like for a female since supposedly yeah So basically since the females purpose is to have kids and you know, everything is going towards this reproduction Moment if a woman doesn't have a kid with that in theory increase her longevity because the body's still like waiting to have kids Do you have thoughts on women and longevity and kids?

Ben Greenfield
You are correct that a premenopausal woman's ancestral, or if you want to call it evolutionary, purpose from a biological standpoint is to engage in pretty meaningful propagation of the species that a man is unable to engage in. That's why a woman is born with a certain storehouse of eggs to accomplish that purpose.

Eventually, she runs out and there's this theory that, well, once a woman is out of eggs from an evolutionary standpoint, there are very, very rough ancestral terms. She's no longer handy to nature, and so she should just slowly die and be killed off, whereas a man can produce sperm for most of his life and can propagate the species much later into life. A man, therefore, would have better longevity than a woman who's burning through her eggs too fast or whatever. It's a little bit more complex than that, though, because if we look at things from a more socioeconomic or epidemiological standpoint postmenopausal women, and there's even some research to back this up, when given a matriarchal position of caring for the community, of bringing up future generations, of passing on wisdom, wind up with an altogether different purpose in life that I think lends itself to longevity just as much as, say, the ability to or the inability to bear children.

To give you an example, a woman who, let's say, has four children and then goes on to be a mentor and great matriarchal figure in the lives of her grandchildren and perhaps even her great-grandchildren, would theoretically have as much lifespan extension capability as a woman who has zero children to conserve her biological battery, so to speak, but maybe isn't in a position later on in life to have such a meaningful matriarchal role. You could certainly say, well, what if you have no kids, but then maybe you're an aunt and you have a bunch of nieces and nephews that you take care of so you can have the best of both worlds? Well, maybe, but I also, maybe I'm biased because I just love family. I also think that kids are pretty darn cool to have around, and let's just say that you're right. It does take, let's say, four years off your life to have kids versus how long you would have lived if you'd conserved that aspect of your biology. I think that the happiness and the joy and the meaning and the connection and the laughter derived from those extra four human beings around is well worth it.

Even with a man, research has shown when a man has children, his testosterone decreases. It probably is some type of a mechanism to decrease a man's proneness to wander and leave the family and move on to other mating environments. A man can start to have a slowing of the metabolism, more body fat, less time to work out, less time to focus on business perhaps, but again, I would never trade for the world the joy of being a father for the longevity derived for maybe not having kids.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, no, it's such a valid point. I wonder if a lot of it involves kind of like you were saying, you derive so much happiness from that and it's really important to you.

And you mentioned the word spirituality earlier and purpose. And so how much of it involves the person's personal relationship, stress, thoughts, happiness from like kids specifically versus not. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield
Yeah, a big part of it is, I think, potentially your worldview also. There's certainly, I think, and honestly, I have no clue what your political background is so I could totally be offending you or giving someone's position incorrectly here, but I think there is that global warming, depopulation, environmentalist, earth-first mentality that says that we should have like 1.3 kids if that and that human beings should be super careful about propagation of the species and we should probably also build a bunch of spaceships to get human beings off the planet as soon as possible and onto Mars. Anyway, there's kind of like that mentality and then there's the mentality that I just want to have a bunch of grandchildren huddled around my feet hearing me read a Christmas story at Christmas time when I'm 75 years old and I just love having little human beings around me and I probably fall into the latter category of have a bunch of kids even though I only have two I realize, but hey, have a bunch of kids or at least a couple or one and live a really full life and enjoy it and I think there's certainly a great deal of meaning I derive too from the whole purpose and legacy aspect of having kids.

I never really thought about things like a trust and my insurance policies and a family bank and building meaningful wealth and passing on wealth and wisdom to future generations and any of those things that kind of turned me into a little bit more of an adulting person until I had kids because up until that point, it's pretty easy to have just like a lone wolf. I'm going to do just fine. I don't really have to sock up much for the future because it's just me type of mentality.

Melanie Avalon
I did an interview with, the book was called Don't Trust Your Gut, and it was about data driven results for things that we might think instinctually go one way, but actually might go another way. And that sounds vague, but basically they talked about happiness in the book.

And he found that actually people without kids were happier, like objectively, with the exception that on your death bed, apparently, like on your death bed, people without kids are like, I should have had kids. But I'm like up until that.

Ben Greenfield
Right. And that, I mean, that, that is a pretty, pretty big, a potential regret.

Melanie Avalon
have the type though, who, you know, don't want kids. So I'm assuming that's not people who wanted kids and don't have them. It's probably people who didn't want kids.

Ben Greenfield
Yeah, if you look at Harvard's longest study on longevity in which they took a bunch of Harvard men, I think it started in 1938, and they followed a few hundred men for something like 80, 85 years, isolating for all other variables. The most important thing when it came to longevity was relationships.

And while that doesn't necessarily have to mean your own children, I think it does speak volumes about just community friendships and potentially family in general. And then if you look at the original Dan Buettner work in the Blue Zones, despite there being some controversy around birth record data and was there a plant-based agenda around some of that, et cetera, the initial six factors identified for a long and happy life for not smoking, low-level physical activity throughout the day, like I'm literally walking on a treadmill. I'm replicate that in a modern indoor environment. Consumption of legumes. I'm not a huge refried bean fan myself, but I think the idea there is like low glycemic index, nutrient-dense diet, wide variety of plants and herbs and spices. And then the last big two were quality of your friendships and connection to family. And so I think there's probably some other studies, like you mentioned, that might show that having kids could or not having kids could increase one's happiness. But I think it's a different kind of happiness. I think it might be a little bit more of like, again, not wanting to offend anyone, but like almost like a little bit more of a hedonistic selfish happiness. Whereas when you're giving yourself away to a tiny human being for at least 18 years and probably beyond that, there's a different kind of happiness that you get out of that. It's like a similar type of happiness you might get from volunteering or service work or charity versus the happiness that you might get from being out, I don't know, clubbing and dancing with your friends and having a martini, right? There's kind of different forms of happiness. And I would say the form that comes with family and high quality community relationships might be a little less hedonistic and perhaps even a little bit more stoic, less Epicurean form of happiness. But I've chosen that form of happiness personally.

Melanie Avalon
So you have two thoughts there. One, I guess that the form of happiness I've chosen is career, like career purpose happiness and creating things, just not creating kids, but creating other things.

I'm fascinated by the, like altruism, is that even possible? Because if you really step back, it's like whatever you do is releasing a neurotransmitter that makes you feel good. So how is it different doing something that helps somebody else experiencing that neurotransmitter versus doing something that seemingly just benefits you and you experience that neurotransmitter? Like either way, you're experiencing the, you're doing it for the neurotransmitter, maybe, in the end, it's a complicated topic.

Ben Greenfield
Yeah. And when it comes to family, I think there's something about the biological DNA sharing component. I think that even though this is getting a little bit more woo and esoteric, I think that based on a little bit of what we know about epigenetics and DNA data transfer, that when you have children, you are creating almost a little bit of like a quantum entanglement version of yourself that you have around. And there's almost something a little bit spiritually magical about that, just like being able to hang out with another version of you.

And I think that from a mental standpoint, it definitely made me less selfish and I think makes me less concerned about living as long as possible because there's this built-in legacy and propagation of myself and kind of like future greenfields that's going to continue after I die. And I don't use that as an excuse to just like sit around and smoke weed and eat Cheetos all day, but it doesn't make me as desperate to live as long as possible. I think that combined with the fact that I'm also a Christian and I believe in eternal life after our body passes away on this planet, that also makes me less concerned about living as long as possible. And it also makes me a little bit less, it gives me a little less FOMO because there's so many things, especially information error that you get FOMO about. Like I want to learn to play guitar and I want to read these hundred books. Oh, and also piano. And someday I want to do an open mic stand up comedy night and I want to hike these three trails. And gosh, like I'm going to die before I have time to check off all these bucket list items. But my own personal belief is that heaven is not going to be like a bunch of clouds and us, you know, sitting on the edge of them with fluffy wings and a harp. I think heaven is just going to be exactly the scenario that we're in right now, except perfect without people doing bad things to each other. And so if you think about that, you know, whenever I'm like, gosh, I wish I had like 30 extra minutes to practice guitar today. I tell myself, you know what, 15 is good because I'm going to be around forever. And, you know, there's going to be like guitars and books and people and amazing food and all the animals ever want to be around and everything else in heaven. So, you know, I don't have to just like desperately try to squeeze it all in during my life here, you know, in this current body.

Melanie Avalon
Well, I love that. And it's really interesting.

So out of the entirety of your massive book, you do say at one time that the most potent tip is, and I'm going to fill in the blank, it's interesting because I recently interviewed another Ben Benizati for his new book. And he said a similar thing that the most potent thing and for what he was talking about was the context of to combat obesity actually, and mostly obesity. But it was this idea of purpose. I just find that so, so interesting because there's all these biohacks, all these physical things we could do, diet, all these things. But in the end, the role of purpose and whether or not you achieve health and wellness and happiness and longevity is just so important. And I just, I love that.

Ben Greenfield
Yeah, I think purpose that would build on that, you know, just by that mindset that we are souls with bodies and not bodies with souls. And I have a whole book about this, you know, I think some people don't know I write some spiritual books too. Like I have one called fit soul. I have one called indoor. And then I have this journal called the spiritual disciplines journal. And in fit soul, I talk about this idea that we are, you know, souls with bodies. And therefore, if this one invisible spark inside of us is the one part of us that's going to go on to exist for eternity, then it's the very best thing that we can care for.

And if you look at the spiritual disciplines, they're a lot different than the physical disciplines, right? The physical disciplines are VO two max and lactic acid threshold and mobility and strength and power and grip and, you know, mitochondrial health and, you know, absence of senescent cell accumulation and all these things that we can tackle from a biological standpoint. But then the spiritual disciplines are, you know, journaling relationships and friendships, family and community, you know, singing, you might throw dancing into the mix, anything that, that kind of addresses you from an emotional standpoint, silence, solitude, prayer, worship connection with a higher power. And I think that especially in the biohacking world, we can get so carried away with all these other things. And sometimes I even have to check myself and remind myself, Hey, look, at the end of the day, you know, let's say, you know, via all these cool biohacks, I achieved lifespan extension that if you look at the average greenfield man, you know, I should technically be programmed to die of something like colon cancer, cardiovascular disease, sometime between the age of 70 and 80, well, maybe I can get to 100. But at the end of the day, I'm still just going to be an old wrinkled up sarcopenic corpse in a coffin. And, you know, if I haven't cared for the one part of me that's going to go on after that, then once at all for, you know,

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, actually to that point, do you think there are any Bible verses that foreshadow biohacking or do you think Jesus would have been a biohacker? I mean, we know you like...

Ben Greenfield
I've never been asked that question before. I think that in the Bible, there's a teacher named Paul. He was a pretty great kind of stoic philosopher and follower of Jesus. And he does acknowledge the benefits of physical training. And if you look at other passages throughout the Bible, it's kind of based on this idea that oftentimes taking care of our endurance, character, all those things that tend to spill into other aspects of life to make us people who are better equipped to serve our life's purpose.

And I think that if your goal, when let's say training or biohacking is to be able to, and then this would be my own purpose, to serve others and to serve God more fully, it's super meaningful. And like, you know, be God, or somehow, you know, simulate God by hacking my own biology, I think that's a different way to approach things. And I don't think it's as meaningful. And I don't think that's the way that that to directly answer your question, like Jesus would have addressed biological enhancement versus like, you know, let's like terrier, take care of your human, you know, it's all even referred to as like the temple in the Bible, like take care of temple, so that you're better able to achieve your purpose on this planet without waking up feeling sick and sore, and low on energy, unable to love others as fully as you could with a really optimized biology.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, exactly. And I was raised Christian, so I was immersed in a lot of this. And I remember, like, obviously, you know, the role or the verse about, you know, your body is your temple. And I think that relates to all of this.

And I remember when I first started following, because I found my way into the whole diet world, first with Atkins, low-carb and then fasting and all the things. And it used to, at the beginning, it really bothered my mom. She would try to use this one Bible verse against me that was talking about people eating different things at the table. And I was like, Mom, in this verse, it's literally saying, like, accept everybody with what they're eating at the table. So I just, I'm in flashbacks.

Ben Greenfield
That's actually really interesting that you bring that up. I didn't expect to be talking this much about the bible But like you know in um in the book of romans in the bible, it talks about not harshly judging others or even the way it phrases it is causing them to stumble by refusing to Like socialize with them or hang out with them based on their dietary beliefs Simultaneously being considerate of others when it comes to in this case their own dietary practices now now The reason that it's addressed in romans is back to paul who wrote that book He's specifically talking about the fact that the jews had a bunch of these customs that you know everybody listening is probably familiar with like don't eat shellfish and don't eat pork and you know, don't touch the blood of an animal and you know, all these things are very precise and yet a Lot of other people who would have been hanging around with them in that day They didn't have these same dietary convictions And basically what paul was saying was look like if you're let me give an example if you're hanging around with someone and you're totally into let's say the longevity benefits of having a glass of wine every now and again And yet the person who you're at at a restaurant with Or maybe who's over at your house for a dinner party has a family history Of alcoholism or a history of like father or mother abuse related to alcohol or They have a lot of difficulty controlling themselves around alcohol.

Well, then the best move is to sacrifice your own dietary habits for that person and just you know, whatever have ketones at night or you know, another example would be if You're going over to someone's house and they're plant-based and you're a carnivore Take one for the team make that person feel really special eat the wonderful whatever quinoa, you know quinoa nut salad that they've made and Just basically don't put your diet or your fitness or your biology above Just accepting other people and making other people feel special and comfortable around you

Melanie Avalon
Exactly. I'm having so many flashbacks because I remember we were reading these verses and interpreting them differently because she was interpreting and maybe we were both interpreting it too severely in our own bias because her interpretation was always do the thing that the other like always conform to what is being done in the situation and my interpretation was no respect everybody's diet and I feel like it's kind of in between like what you're saying right now.

You should have been there, Ben. You could have helped us out with this debate. And actually speaking of the wine, okay, I have a theory. So we do know that Jesus's first miracle was turning water into wine.

Ben Greenfield
That's a pretty good one. I wish I could do that.

Melanie Avalon
I know, right? I know.

And so what I love about this story, A, I love that it's his first miracle, I'm pretty sure. B, I love the throw away verse that nobody mentions at the end is when basically the host of the wedding comments, and I'm paraphrasing severely, but comments that usually at weddings, they bring the cheap stuff out at the end. And he's like, but you saved the best for last. So I think this was like Jai Farm wine's caliber of wine that Jesus turned it into.

Ben Greenfield
Yeah. The, uh, well, actually, I don't know if you're going to ask a question about the wine, but, but yeah, like the, you know, traditional Jewish approach to a wedding feast, such as the one in Kana where you're correct. Jesus performed his first miracle was, you know, once everybody is all liquored up, bringing out the cheap wine, because at that point they're not going to care.

And then Jesus apparently makes this amazing, you know, like the, yeah, like the organic dry farm wines version of wine for the biohacking community first thing up, you know, out of water and the person hosting the wedding feast is just totally blown away. And then it is kind of funny that, you know, nowadays there is kind of like a rift in the Christian community about, well, as I'll call good as I'll call bad. But, you know, for me, if I show up to a church and they're serving like, what's the popular brand of grape juice that just tastes like pure sugar, I don't, I don't remember it's well, but you know, it's just like cheapo grape juice. And the church that we go to has like really, really great wine, you know, for communion. You know, I always think in the back of my head, well, Jesus turned water into wine and I'm pretty sure that he was okay with people drinking wine based on the fact that he did that.

Melanie Avalon
It's really mind blowing to me. I don't know how it can be interpreted any other way, unless maybe, I don't know, was Jesus not actually drinking it?

But that would not track if he, I don't think he would create something that he thought was a problem for people. That wouldn't really make sense.

Ben Greenfield
Yeah i think that anything is a problem for people money is a problem for people i'll cause a problem for people is a problem for people to my topic of focus on your diet here, what does all these idols are even propped up in the so-called healthy community i don't think any of that is bad it's when it becomes your idol and the thing that you are addicted or attached to that it becomes harmful for you you know it's even back to this whole debate about whatever like plant medicines you know like whatever mushrooms or the fungus that preceded LSD or you know or you know ayahuasca or any of these other things and where those fit into Christian belief patterns and my own conviction on those is just like anything else it's like don't let it rule you and use it responsibly like in the bible for example using plant medicines to divine with the spirit world to call up spirits and afford your power or find or like predict your path in life that was actually referred to as sorcery as pharmacia and kind of forbidden and i think god just had our best interest in mind when he warned us against that because when you cross and when you pierce the veil and cross into another spiritual portal using high amounts of psychedelics sometimes there are entities on that other side that don't have your best interest in mind and i'm talking about you know things like demons and dark spirits and things that may affect you or influence you in a negative way but yet if you have a creative writing about and you want to take like a whatever like a quarter gram of psilocybin to have an incredible surge of creativity or you know you're tired and you got to focus for the day and you need some energy and you you know pop 10 micrograms of LSD i think those type of uses are just fine right so sometimes it's not the compound itself right because we even read in the bible that god made all things good it's how we humans use them and potentially bastardize their use or just use too much of them

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, and it's kind of like what I feel like one of the most like the most common misconceptions about the Bible is people think the verses that money is the root of all evil, but that's not the verse. It's the love of money is the root, which is very different thing, very different thing.

So and speaking of the wine, so like, I really appreciate your approach to wine in the book and you even have your, like you, you make the comment that you haven't had a hangover and you know, X amount of years with the exception of some like men's journal shoot or something. But, uh, so for me, like I have my whole process down, I get, I get not upset, but I feel like we mentioned a second ago that there's this whole like conversation today about alcohol and is it good for you? Is it not something I think is so important that nobody is really pointing out is all these studies on alcohol, they tend to lump alcohol into either alcohol or not alcohol or like wine, beer, like these big categories. They're not looking at the type of it. So they're not looking at like a dry farm wines, organic, lower alcohol, you know, version versus this conventional high sugar, high alcohol with all these additives, like pesticide written. Those are very different things to me. So I have my whole protocol and I feel great if I do my protocol, which is like criteria with wine. I do Z biotics, NAD, glutathione, what all do you do for your, your drinking protocol?

Ben Greenfield
Well, you are right. When we're talking about alcohol, we have to talk about it in the same context that we might talk about red meat, right? Certainly, you can draw up a great host of epidemiological data on the fact that red meat might decrease longevity or be associated with a higher risk of chronic diseases like, let's say, colon cancer. Yet at the same time, if you dig into the data, there's no differentiation between whether that red meat was processed, CAFO feedlot, red meat consumed at a fast food restaurant, along with a bun, a bunch of seed oils, fries, and a super-sized coke, or whether that red meat was consumed as like a grass-fed, grass-finished steak that, you know, whatever, you're sous vide-ing in your kitchen, right?

So, yeah, you're right. The quality of the alcohol is one thing that we need to take into consideration, you know, especially when you consider the fact there's, I think, 70-plus different preservatives and herbicides and pesticides and additives that are allowed in a typical California cab that would not be allowed in Europe. So, back to the dry farm wines thing, right? Like we, when we drink, we subscribe to dry farms, we get six bottles a month of organic, biodynamic wine grown in soil without a lot of water, which concentrates the antioxidants and decreases the amount of sugars in the wine. And you don't use that as an excuse to drink the whole bottle, just like, you know, you wouldn't mow through a whole bag of these new seed oil-free chips, like calories are calories, alcohol is alcohol. But still, the sourcing and the quality matters.

And if I'm out at a restaurant, you know, and I don't have, believe it or not, I don't put a bottle of dry farm wines in my bag at a restaurant. But, and you could, you could pay the corking fee and do that. I'm just, I'm usually not thinking that far ahead. But there are several countries that still do a really good job of organic, biodynamic farming methods for wine. So if I'm at a restaurant, I look for France, I look for New Zealand, and I look for Italy, right? And if I want to do hard alcohol, I'll look for an alcohol that has like a high amount of insoluble fibers in it. Like let's say, a Mezcal tequila, you know, has a gob and fibers in it that help with the gut and help to lower the glycemic index of the food that you're consuming, or I'll do something pretty clean, like bitters and vodka and a squeeze of lemon on soda water. So yeah, the source matters. And then and I'll get to what you kind of do before and after to mitigate some of the potential toxic byproduct of alcohol. But then the studies that show that alcohol is across the board problematic have a few other issues. First of all, when you hear people say that no amount of alcohol is good for you, they don't differentiate between, let's say, an average of seven drinks a week, spread across each night having a small glass of organic wine with your family, versus binging once a week on, you know, on seven glasses of wine all at once on a Saturday night and getting drunk.

Ben Greenfield
You, you mentioned about me, like it is true. I haven't been drunk in 16 years, except for that one time I had to test hangover pills for a men's health article, in which case I got like slightly inebriated just to test out, you know, how I felt using these things. But besides that, you know, I just don't drink to excess, but I drink small amounts each day.

And I think you can even make a case that the hormetic effect of alcohol or like small doses of something that would be bad for you in large amounts has a little bit of a longevity enhancing effect. And I'm not just saying that it turns out that when you consume alcohol, you up regulate your own antioxidant production. You turn your cells in little endogenous antioxidant producing factories for things like, you know, glutathione peroxidase or superoxide dismutase. And when you do that, the cells become better able to handle stressors such as free radicals outside of the alcohol consumption the rest of the day, the same way that, you know, a sauna is going to cause electrolyte depletion and a rise in heart rate and a rise in blood sugar. But then when you get out of the sauna, if you don't overdo it, the bounce back effect of that is stabilized blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, etc. Or and even the ability to be able to withstand greater amounts of heat based on the upregulation of heat shock proteins. Exercise, you know, we, you know, let's say I told you that running was good for you. Well, there's a big difference in the way your body responds to running, say like two miles every morning versus 28 miles all at once on a weekend, right? So it's the dose and the timing of the dose or how much is dosed all at once. That is also a factor here. And then if you dig into the data, I mean, there are certainly populations that should avoid alcohol. If you have psoriasis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, breast cancer, you know, there's a few other diseases that are just like, alcohol is totally bad news bears. But then others like kidney stones, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's dementia risk, and a few others, these actually seem to improve in men who average anywhere from one to two drinks a day and women who average somewhere in the range of 0.5 to one drinks per day. And if you look at decreased all cause risk of mortality, if you're averaging about 12 to 15 drinks a month, it appears to be better for longevity than not drinking any alcohol at all, which of course flies in the face of what you hear a lot of social media influencers or public health educators saying, but there certainly is benefits to small doses of alcohol, largely due to the hormetic effect. And yet, as you noted, Melanie, there's still, when you process alcohol, there's still a little bit of byproduct that can build up in the gut and can cause a little bit of stress, particularly on the liver and the mitochondria. If it hangs around, acetaldehyde is the aldehyde that can cause that. Now I should clarify that plants, herbs, spices, fruits, vegetables, et cetera, they all have more form of an aldehyde called mal and aldehyde than alcohol does.

Ben Greenfield
Right. And so you're getting aldehydes all the time. It's not like your body can't handle aldehydes. It's just that, especially dependent on genetics, even depending on some micronutrient factors like your niacin status, for example, your body may need a little bit of help sopping up excess acetaldehyde. Now, if we're talking about one glass of wine, doesn't even matter. You don't really have to do much at all for one glass of wine.

But my rule is, you know, let's say date night with the wife, where it's not uncommon for me to have a cocktail while I'm visiting with her before the appetizers come out. And then we'll do either like a split pour or a glass of wine for each of us during dinner. And you know, for me, that's kind of like crossing the threshold of, okay, I'm going to have some acetaldehyde build up. So what do I do about that? You mentioned Z-biotics. That's like a genetically engineered probiotic that can digest aldehydes for you. That's a good option. I haven't used it lately, but it works pretty well.

You mentioned glutathione. I think you said activated charcoal as well. Those are also pretty decent options and I like those because if you've been eating out or partying, sometimes you've also been consuming seed oils, you know, other additives in the food that might also necessitate a need for a little bit of extra antioxidant and binder support. So if I'm going out in the town or, you know, a big restaurant or party, I'll usually have glutathione and activated charcoal afterwards anyways.

But then I think the one kind of like acetaldehyde digestive agent that flies under the radar. Yeah. If you look at the label of a lot of popular hangover remedies, it's in there. It's a dihydromericetin, DHM. DHM is so good at lowering liver enzymes, at processing some of the toxic byproducts of excess alcohol intake. And it's incredible.

You take it right after you drink. You can usually chase it the morning after, and this would be anything that puts stress on the liver, right? Medications, pharmaceuticals, painkillers, weed, like anything that you're consuming. When I say weed, I mean like an edible form. Anything like that that's going to put stress on the liver, DHM can really help afterwards. Now, the thing a lot of people don't know is DHM binds to GABA receptors. Why is that an issue? Well, GABA receptors or GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that gives you a lot of the feel good effects of alcohol. And so you kind of want to be socially lubricated and relaxed. That's why a lot of us will have a glass of wine in the evening, for example. But if you take DHM before you drink, your GABA receptors are bound up and you have to drink more alcohol and thus get more acetaldehyde and more calories to feel the effects of the alcohol. So you don't take the DHM before you drink. You take it after, unless you purposefully are taking it so you can, I don't know, keep up with your friends and drink more or something because you want to try two martinis off the menu and you're more concerned about flavor profile than you are about feeling your alcohol.

Ben Greenfield
But DHM would probably be like towards the top of the list as far as something really good for pairing with alcohol consumption.

And I mean, in the book, I've got a whole, they're like two full pages of like, if you really got to go, you know, whatever, at your best friend's wedding or you got a night out in Vegas, you know, all the stops you can pull, but those are a few of them.

Melanie Avalon
My goodness. Okay.

Now I want to make a DHM supplement really bad. I found if I do the z-biotics, wear a transdermal glutathione patch during the night of and a transdermal NAD patch the next day. I actually feel better the next day than my normal days because I did like all the things.

Ben Greenfield
And that holds true, by the way, for any oxidative stress, you know, those patches, those electrophoresis patches, where it's almost like a wearable IV flying jet lag, high amount of fast food or fried food consumption, alcohol, if you can pull out that glutathione NAD patch trick, I know they're not inexpensive, but I mean, even compared to, let's say you're really messed up driving to an IV clinic and paying for an IV and, you know, doing all that, the patches are still more convenient. And like any long haul plane flight I take these days, I definitely got an NAD patch on.

Melanie Avalon
Me too. Do you get in trouble with TSA ever? They've been not about it, especially because I opt out and then they're like, what is this?

Ben Greenfield
I've never had any trouble with the patch or with the continuous glucose monitor. I'll tell you the number one thing that my bag gets pulled in TSA for is I'm a total salt snob and I always have a bag of like really good salt in my backpack that I inevitably forget to take out.

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by this point, but if I don't take my salt out, my bag always gets pulled.

Melanie Avalon
That's so funny. I just remember I tried to opt out, I did opt out in London and they were not about it. They were like, you have to have a reason. I was like, I just don't want to.

They're like, you need a reason. I was like, medical. They're like, what's the medical reason? I was like, I just don't want to. I was like, they let me do this in America. They were like, this is not America. I was like, I'm not going through the scanner. And then they were not about the patches.

Ben Greenfield
Well, the, the worst country I've traveled in for that is India. Like I have literally had to be like strip searched in India and you know, you empty out your entire bag and then they still find something. And then even though I've learned my lesson about, so I realized this is kind of like geeked out, nerdy stuff, but I wear a, um, like an EMF protective suit when I'm doing long haul flights or really any flight that's longer than about five hours and the fabric that those suits are made of, of course, block radiation. And so if you walk through an X-ray scanner wearing one of those, you look like a ghost and people freak out. So I will usually stuff my EMF blocking suit in my bag, go through security. When I get through security, I'll just pull it on over whatever clothes I'm wearing, but I also have EMF blocking underwear and I obviously don't strip those off and so in India, I literally had to go into like a changing tent, take off my underwear, and they just went to town with like a magic wand on the underwear and, you know, going down by my butthole to see what kind of drugs I was smuggling out there. And so yeah, the, the EMF blocking, uh, the EMF, uh, protective clothing also sometimes backfires on you.

Melanie Avalon
It's amazing. Well, I will say I'm a very law abiding citizen in general, like to a fault with the exception of I have become, I've become very good at sneaking in my dry from wines into like concert, like places where I know, cause you mentioned like ways that you order at restaurants, which is the same for me.

So like France, Italian, Italy, look up the winery, find the organic one. I asked for the ABB content. I taste like I got my protocol down. But if you're going to a concert, good luck. So I have my, I have my ways. One time actually, it actually fell out of my outfit, like all my wine that I was trying to sneak in. And I'm so honest, like I can't lie. Like I just can't lie. Like our parents raised us that like you just don't lie. So he literally asked me what it was. And I just straight up told him, I was like, I'm so sorry. I was like, I can only drink organic wine and they don't have organic wine here. And he was like, just don't tell anybody you can bring it in.

Ben Greenfield
Just tell them you're a follower of Jesus.

Melanie Avalon
I know, Jesus. One very last topic I would love to touch on, and it's because I don't think in any of the biohacking books I read ever have I come across this topic. And not only do you mention it briefly, you actually have like a very substantial section on it. And I'm fascinated by it. And I feel like it's a little bit controversial.

And it is the role of symmetry and attractiveness in health and wellness. I know it's a big topic and we're running out of time. But just briefly, A, I'm wondering, did your publishers push back at all on wanting to talk about that? No.

Ben Greenfield
I specifically published with a company called Victory Belt because they're pretty liberal about what they'll allow in the book and letting you design your own cover and your font style and everything. So they're pretty cool with a lot.

And yeah, the idea of symmetry is that if you actually dig into the angles and what are called the Fibonacci mathematical sequences behind the way that, say, like the human body or tree or flower or a leaf develops, there are certain symmetrical patterns found in nature that light up areas in the brain when the eyes perceive them related to things like serotonin, dopamine, the hormone oxytocin, wanting you to snuggle or touch that thing or that person. And even brainwave patterns associated with downregulation of stressed out beta waves and upregulation of, say, like delta, theta, and some of the higher alpha frequencies. And so what that means, long story short, is that human beings are drawn to order and symmetry, especially when it comes to the appearance of someone or something that they're around. This is even why, just to give a really fringe example, despite some of this research getting a little bit of flak, if you play water like super chaotic, heavy death metal, and then you play water, more ordered classical music, and then you freeze the water and look at the ice crystals that form, you actually see more symmetrical patterns in the water that was exposed to the less chaotic frequencies. And us human beings have a lot of water in us, and we also respond to symmetry in a pretty favorable manner. And so the reason I bring that up in the section of the book devoted to beauty is that I make a case for beauty not being just pure vanity, but it also helping you with success in life, with communication with other people, with attractiveness to either sex, and with your general success in life. And I make a case that you should actually focus on things like your mobility and the way that you train, and your waist to shoulder ratio, and addressing full body functional training for good muscle development, and the way that you care for your face, and even looking into things like biesthetic dentistry for the jaws and the teeth, because it is a little bit of a hack in terms of success in life. And the reason you probably said it was controversial is it sounds a little unfair, because we can't choose our parents. But we can choose to educate ourselves a little bit about how to work out for symmetry, how to address the way that we breathe for symmetry, how to address how we sleep with maybe like a mouth guard and some mouth tape for symmetry, and generally how we carry ourselves. And there's a huge section of the book on posture for symmetry. And even the person who might think that they're just born is the most ugly, asymmetrical person on the planet can actually achieve quite a bit with some simple beauty and training methods to enhance symmetry. And I think it is kind of like a cheat code for life.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I mean, I just was mind blown with that whole chapter. And actually, you introduced me to the incredible Cameron Chestnut.

So speaking of when I was reading that, what do you think about people got plastic surgery for symmetry for their face? Or is it more causation correlation? Like it's the genetic

Ben Greenfield
I think if your paycheck is dependent on something like that or if you're concerned about beauty or you're trying to You know make yourself more attractive for example No I mean you definitely want to check yourself if the number one reason that someone might be judging you is your attractiveness because maybe that's not The type of person you want to necessarily devote the rest of your life to anyways, but it is important and I think that if you can do a little bit of touch-up and you have the Resources to do so, you know, I think that uh that it can definitely help and I have nothing against it Especially if it's going to help you out with your career with your relationships, etc

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, well, I just I love that whole chapter. And like you said, there's literally exercises you can like sleep exercises, posture exercises, things you can do to change that. So well, listeners, this is just well been as well. This has just been such an honor.

Thank you for everything that you've been doing for so long. You are literally changing the world with everything that you've been doing. The last question actually that I ask every single guest on this show. And it's just because I am realizing more and more each day the important of mindset and I'm obsessed with gratitude. So what is something that you are grateful for?

Ben Greenfield
Oh, today I am grateful for, I'm grateful for the rain. It's a rainy morning and where I live in Idaho and it's a rainy morning, you know, the birds and the geese are out and the turkeys are strutting around.

You can see some whitetail deer out in the field. The animals seem to just like kind of come out in the rain and it's refreshing and it smells nice. And I accidentally left the door open last night and the whole kitchen smelled so fresh and clean when I woke up this morning. So yeah, I'm grateful for a little drizzle.

Melanie Avalon
It's amazing actually i said last question but now i just have to know because you said you got to design the cover of the book.

Ben Greenfield
I didn't personally draw it, but I said what I wanted on it and had had an artist draw the cover of the book. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
I'm staring at it and I'm wondering if there's a secret message.

Ben Greenfield
Why don't you start it for a while and tell me I'll let you know. I'm going to tell you there is just to see how long get you to start my book.

Melanie Avalon
I feel it's one of those images that like anybody is going to find a message that speaks to them. Well, thank you so much. This has been absolutely incredible.

I am so grateful for everything that you're doing and I look forward to all the things to come. You are the best. Thank you.

Ben Greenfield
Thank you so much, Melanie. This was such a fun conversation. So thanks to everybody for listening and yeah, have an incredible day.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. Have a good day. Bye.

Ben Greenfield
All right, see ya, bye.

Melanie Avalon
Thank you so much for listening to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. For more information and resources, you can check out my book, What Win Wine, as well as my supplement line, Avalon X.

Please visit melanieavalon.com to learn more about today's guest. And always feel free to contact me at contact at melanieavalon.com. And always remember, you got this.