LISTEN:
We appreciate all feedback, and questions for Q&A shows, emailed to podcast@bradventures.com. If you have a moment, please share an episode you like with a quick text message, or leave a review on your podcast app. Thank you!

Check out each of these companies because they are absolutely awesome or they wouldn’t occupy this revered space. Seriously, I won’t promote anything that I don’t absolutely love and use in daily life:

• Peluva: Comfortable, functional, stylish five-toe minimalist shoe to reawaken optimal foot function. Use code BRADPODCAST for 15% off!
• Mito Red Light: Photobiomodulation light panels to enhance cellular energy production, improve recovery, and optimize circadian rhythm. Use code BRAD for 5% discount!
• Wild Health: Comprehensive online health consultation with blood and DNA testing, personal coaching and precision medicine. Get things dialed in! Use discount code BRAD20 for 20% off!
• Take The (Cold) Plunge online course!
• B.rad Whey + Creatine Superfuel: Premium quality, all-natural supplement for peak performance, recovery, and longevity. New Cocoa Bean flavor!
• Online educational courses: Numerous great offerings for an immersive home-study educational experience
• NEW: B.rad Superfruits: Organic Freeze-Dried Exotic Fruit Powder! Natural Electrolyte Hydration & Energy Powder
• Primal Fitness Expert Certification: The most comprehensive online course on all aspects of traditional fitness programming and a total immersion fitness lifestyle. Save 25% on tuition with code BRAD!
• Male Optimization Formula with Organs (MOFO): Optimize testosterone naturally with 100% grassfed animal organ supplement

Brad’s Favorites on Amazon

I have a newly organized shopping experience at BradKearns.com/Shop. Visit here and you can navigate to my B.rad Nutrition products (for direct order or Amazon order), my library of online multimedia educational courses, great discounts from my affiliate favorites, and my recommended health&fitness products on Amazon.

TRANSCRIPT:

Brad (00:00:00):
Welcome to the B.rad podcast, where we explore ways to pursue peak performance with passion throughout life without taking ourselves too seriously. I’m Brad Kearns, New York Times bestselling author, former number three world-ranked professional triathlete and Guinness World Record Masters athlete. I connect with experts in diet, fitness, and personal growth, and deliver short breather shows where you get simple, actionable tips to improve your life right away. Let’s explore beyond the hype, hacks, shortcuts, and sciencey talk to laugh, have fun and appreciate the journey. It’s time to B.rad.

Brad (00:00:38):
You get your annual blood work and, uh, the doctor comes back in the room and says, well, everything looks normal or average. Uh, you can, uh, kind of take a step back and go, normal, average. That’s terrible. <laugh>, because we’re talking about,

Brad (00:00:51):
Okay, let’s talk about longevity and how the science is sometimes BS. A listener shared with me recently, a prominent news story that suggests that humanity is hitting the upper limit of life expectancy. Human life expectancy has just about peaked. According to a study published in the Journal Nature Aging and barring a transformative breakthrough in medical science, people will top out at a maximum age of around 87, 90 for women and 84 for men. Wow. What a spread there. Huh? Here’s the quote from the lead study author, S.J. .Olshansky, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at University of Illinois, Chicago. We’re basically suggesting that as long as we live now is about as long as we’re going to live, we’re squeezing less and less life out of these life extending technologies. End quote. And then back to quoting the article, advances in medical technology and genetic research, not to mention larger numbers of people making it to 100, are not translating into market jumps in lifespan overall. According to the researchers who found that shrinking longevity increases in countries with the longest living populations. Quote, we have to recognize there’s a limit and perhaps reassess assumptions about when people should retire and how much money they’ll need to live out their lives. Says Olshanky,. Mark Hayward, a University of Texas researcher not involved in the study, called a quote, a valuable addition to the mortality literature, and agreed that we are reaching a plateau. It’s always possible some breakthrough could push survival to greater heights, but we don’t have that now. <laugh>,

Brad (00:02:31):
Okay. Listen, brothers, here’s what we have. We have an edict. Quit eating all the crappy processed food that is shortening our lifespan. Quit being addicted to digital technology that is causing us to compromise our necessary restoration and brain health and mental health. Quit tolerating and engaging in dysfunctional relationships, and do your best to avoid industrial and environmental pollution, which is increasing every day. Oh, and start exercising more and moving more in general everyday life. Instead of sitting and reviewing research about how humans have reached a maximum lifespan. I’m gonna call total BS on this, but I wanna be clear that these researchers are doing excellent work, and they’re evaluating data and they’re following the protocols. Uh, this is not a kind of, uh, a BS research that we often see, like in the nutrition game where there’s, um, propaganda or flawed methods, you know, not adhering to scientific protocols.

Brad (00:03:36):
So I’m not criticizing the researchers themselves or the conclusions that they have come up with, but I just want to illustrate by recording this show that we’re kind of sitting inside a box. We’re stuck in the modern lifestyle paradigm and working with the circumstances, the dynamics and the information that we have. So, if we are generally immersed into a hectic, high stress, modern life, filled with processed foods, filled with all kinds of stressors, as I mentioned, relationships, lack of exercise, industrial pollutions, yes, 87 average might be, you know, what we’re, what we’re looking at as, uh, good luck and all we can expect given the shitty circumstances. But we have so much control today over how we live our lives, especially if we have the resources and we’re not, uh, struggling to survive and make it through day-to-day existence.

Brad (00:04:35):
As seen with a great percentage of the global population where they’re not really concerned about the term longevity all. They’re just concerned about getting through the day and making it through war torn countries or poverty-stricken countries. So we have the luxury now sitting back and saying, how can I optimize my life based on my circumstances and doing the best I can? And on a very minimal budget change we can have tremendous health transformations. And I wanna mention the budget aspect because as we, uh, see the continued growth of the biohacking craze and the expensive tools and tricks and tips and technology that certainly can add value and perhaps contribute to your health span and enjoying your life and all that, preventing disease, um, it’s not necessary. And that sometimes we are, uh, missing, uh, the big picture, the low hanging fruit when we obsess about dudes like Brian Johnson, the guy who spends $2 million a year on his health and undergoes all these advanced testings and blood transfusions and taking 147 pills and capsules every day to optimize health and live forever.

Brad (00:05:51):
So that’s a nice contribution overall to the entertainment value and the knowledge acquisition of, uh, what he’s doing at the cutting edge. But for most of us, we need to get focused on the basics. I’m gonna present, uh, some ideas, uh, in this show after I’ve teed up the premise here that we need to, uh, have a healthy skepticism on what science is telling us, rather than look at the headline article and say, oh, isn’t this interesting? Hey, honey, look at this. We’ve reached <laugh>. We’ve reached a maximum life, ex life expectancy these days. Isn’t that interesting? No, not really. It’s upsetting. So, uh, here comes my fighting back here. Back to the commentary from the article. Life expectancy estimating the average time a baby born any given year how long the person might expect to live is one of the world’s most important health measures, although it is imperfect.

Brad (00:06:57):
And the Associated Press article says, quote, it cannot account for deadly pandemics, miracle cures, or other unforeseen developments that might kill or save millions of people. Of course, those outside variables, we all can understand how those influence statistics. Interestingly, you know, when it, about a hundred years ago, we figured out sanitation and advanced medical care. We had a dramatic rise in life expectancy just ’cause people weren’t dying from, uh, random illnesses that were now easily to be treated with antibiotics and things like that. But now that we have, you know, advanced medical care for, uh, the relevant people listening to the show here, and we’re not gonna die from an infected knee that we don’t get treated, now we gotta look deeper here. And that’s the problem, is the scientists are just looking at the data from a population that’s leading a very, very unhealthy lifestyle in general.

Brad (00:07:58):
Some scientists predicted that life expectancy would continue to rise dramatically as it had during the 20th century for the reasons I just mentioned, sanitation, antibiotics and so forth. However, Olshanky says, look, even if we make it through those rudimentary challenges that had, that took people in previous centuries, um, now, um, we’re not gonna go, uh, that long because, quote, our organs will eventually fail. Olshanky said, the only way to radically increase our longevity would be to slow the aging process the normal aging process. And he’s optimistic about that happening someday. But this is where the goofy stuff that we’re, uh, you know, you see once in a while where, oh, let’s just freeze ourselves for a hundred years and then they’re gonna be able to cure cancer, and you can get unfrozen and come back.

Brad (00:08:49):
So, beyond that nonsense of amazing sci-fi scientific breakthroughs, let’s deal with what we can deal with right now. Um, so again, the researchers are doing great work. It’s not junk science, but we’re completely, you know, blindsided and ignoring the day-to-day life variables. Okay? This is something that happens a lot in science, because science, you’re trying to control everything and deliver a conclusion with a narrow focus. You see this a lot in, uh, exercise physiology research about athletic performance, where they might deliver what could be considered a distorted conclusion due to all the controls that were put into place, especially, duration of the study. So the classic one is where you go and pick some, uh, willing college kids willing to get paid 60 bucks a week or whatever to go pedal a stationary bike for a six week study, or a 12 week study.

Brad (00:09:52):
And one group does sprint workouts and the other group pedals slowly and guess who gets in better shape after six or 12 weeks? That’s right. The group that sprinted their butts off, but when we talk about athletic training, uh, on the whole over the long term, the truth of elite performance and scientific research, uh, going back decades, is that you have to develop, uh, an aerobic conditioning base before you can reach your potential in endurance activity. Which means lots of slow pedaling is the true path to becoming a high performer, even though you can hack that system by sprinting your butt off for six weeks and then performing better. On the final test, in this example of a, a research study on sprint training for exercise bike riders, okay? Um, and of course, the, uh, the diet stuff is riddled with, um, problematic outside variables when you have the documentaries where, uh, the one twin ate a vegan diet, and the other twin ate a bunch of meat, and, uh, supposedly one performed better than the other, or lost two more pounds than the other twin.

Brad (00:11:08):
And we make these sweeping conclusions and get headline articles about it when there’s really so many other variables involved. Just with cleaning up your diet in general a lot of people go on a cleanse or they go plant-based, and they eliminate all that nasty stuff that we’ve been told is bad for you, like eggs and red meat. And instead they’re having lentil soup and brown rice and kale smoothies, and they feel better, and they lose a bunch of weight after six weeks or 12 weeks of cleaning up their diet. But what we’re really talking about is staying away from fast food hamburgers and oh, french fries. Were on that order too. So it’s kind of like, you know, the, the method, uh, produced a result because you, uh, eliminated processed food, but you’re trying to blame or credit the plant-based protocol when really, the massive benefits came from what you eliminated, not what you added in.

Brad (00:12:07):
Okay. Enough rambling about that. And back to longevity. The researchers and this is a quoting from the article, the researchers are looking at quote, available data without realizing that humans are eating like crap and using technology all day long instead of exercising. My personal view is that almost everyone has the potential to sail smoothly to a hundred, taking advantage of modern medical intervention when necessary, but mainly by simply not getting in our own way. This includes people who’ve been dealt a bad hand with genetics, such as a family predisposition for things like obesity, heart disease, cancer, and so forth. I recently had to give my mom a hard time ’cause she was complaining about her quote Gilbert back, that’s her maiden name, and reflecting how both of her parents and a couple siblings suffered from serious back conditions as she does now.

Brad (00:13:04):
Her statement is entirely true, and we know from research, including great emerging research that familial genetic predispositions are strong influencers on our fate. And we can even test this stuff now, where you go through genetic testing. I just recently talked about the report I got from wild health.com, where they test your blood and your genetics, and they put together a wonderful online profile that can predict your disease risk. It will identify whether you have an elevated need for vitamin D for example. It identifies whether you’re a fast or slow metabolizer of caffeine. And perhaps there’s, I mean, I know there’s genetics that’ll, uh, show, uh, for your propensity for, uh, bone health or bone loss and, uh, chances of developing things like a back condition. So, uh, the Gilbert genes probably have a genetic predisposition for, uh, arthritis and, and spinal degeneration.

Brad (00:14:03):
However, your dispositions are there. And as we know from reading the Primal Blueprint and talking about this stuff for 16 years, you need the environmental influences to trigger genetic expression. It’s called epigenetics, or epidemiology field where we’re studying the effects of the environment on gene expression. So if you have a high risk and a genetic marker for lung cancer and you smoke, you have a great chance of getting lung cancer. And if you don’t smoke, you have a very good chance of not activating those genes that lead to lung cancer, because you’re eliminating that huge risk factor of being a smoker. Same with obesity, same with heart disease, and all the things that might be, quote, running in your family. And, you’re answering these questions on the medical questionnaire. They’re doing their best to try to predict your risk.

Brad (00:15:02):
But I’m not worried about, um, any of my, uh, familial genetic predispositions for alcoholism, for example, because I do not consume alcohol. So I got that one dialed, right? It’s a non-issue. And this many, many things that are in your handed cards can become non-issue when you take care of them and, uh, do, um, environmental, I mean, uh, lifestyle behaviors that, uh, trigger optimal gene expression. So, develop strong core muscles and ease the lifelong strain upon your spine and upon the muscles in the lower back, which are often challenged because we’re sitting and not getting enough exercise and not working the core properly. That can go a long way to neutralizing any predispositions you have, uh, for back trouble. Okay? So the statement is true, and you can take on these predispositions and do really well.

Brad (00:16:03):
And that was the centerpiece message in the Primal Blueprint, as well as the Primal Blueprint, 21 day total Body Transformation. I learned from my Wild Health DNA genetic test that I’m a poor methylator. Have you heard that term? Methylator? It describes a chemical reaction in the body where a small molecule called a methyl group gets added to DNA proteins or other molecules. Huh? What does that mean? It basically describes how you, let’s say, for example, process energy and how that influences gene expression. So when I drink my protein smoothie, can I digest, absorb, and assimilate that protein and rebuild my muscles that I have challenged during a workout and recover quickly? So I had some low scores on methylation, and upon reflection, I realized when I was training really hard as a professional triathlete, I seemed to recover more slowly and could handle less overall training volume and intensity than my peers.

Brad (00:17:05):
I could race pretty well when everything was dialed in, and I was following my own protocols and what was best for me. But when I compared my training regimen to others, it seemed like I got more tired and broken down than the next person, because perhaps they were better at methylation and recovery and processing energy and breathing oxygen and, uh, recurring the cells after that. So, uh, interesting insights, but we do the best we can with the cards that were dealt, is my essential point here.

Brad (00:17:38):
So we’re gonna talk here now about some ways where instead of just becoming a statistic and reading an article saying that males are gonna live around 84, and then they’re gonna croak, and females are gonna live around 90, and then they’re gonna croak, let’s see if we can do something about it.

Brad (00:17:57):
And, I’m gonna give a sneak preview of one of my last category, which is, you know, form that empowering mindset and say, gee, I’m going to form the mindset and the belief that I have the power to sail to a hundred without much trouble, um, without, without having the last 10 years be in a wheelchair and operate from that assumption, rather than reading this BS article. Uh, can it, trying to program you to believe that if you’re a man, you got 84 in you, and if a woman, you got 90 instead of, um, subject to either bad luck or good luck bumping those numbers one way or the other. Ridiculous. We’re, we’re in, we’re in total control. We’re in tremendous control of our destiny if we sit down and think about it. So, I’m gonna get into some categories of how you can optimize your longevity and minimize your risk of falling victim to becoming a modern statistic of the as a part of the fattest sickest population in the history of humanity.

Brad (00:19:01):
We’re talking about specifically the American population, and the percentages where, uh, there’s a hundred million pre-diabetic, that’s 28% of America is pre-diabetic. 64% is classified as either overweight or obese. So, boy, when you go to the, you get your annual blood work, and, uh, the doctor comes back in the room and says, well, everything looks normal or average, you can kind of take a step back and go, normal, average. That’s terrible, <laugh>, because we’re talking about the fattest sickest population in the history of humanity. And for the first time in recorded history, today’s children, the offspring of today’s, uh, adults have a lower life expectancy than their parents for the first time ever. So, since recorded history, we’ve always improved life expectancy, starting, let’s say, from the all time low of the Roman Empire, where human life expectancy accidentally dropped to the all time low of 18.

Brad (00:19:57):
That’s right. The life expectancy on the planet was 18 during the Roman Empire. Why was that? Of course, due to early civilization and the problems with disease, sanitation, you know, people would get sick and die. And then of course, warfare, took a lot of lives to that, uh, at that time period in history. Um, so it, it bumped up from 18, and it got back up in the early 20th century. So in the early 19 hundreds, it finally caught up to caveman times. So everyone who dis disparages the ancestral diet and lifestyle protocols saying, wait, didn’t a caveman only live to be like 33 years old? Yes, indeed. Human life expectancy 10,000 years ago was around 33, and then it dropped when civilization occurred because of germs living in close quarters, illnesses, pandemics and warfare.

Brad (00:20:52):
It dropped steadily down to 18, and then it trickled and climbed back up to around 30, in the early, uh, 20th century. That’s right. Human life expectancy was incredibly low in the time of whoever’s listening, your grandparents or your great-grandparents. Then it skyrocketed when we figured out sanitation, modern medical care, antibiotics, and so forth. And you, you know, quickly jumped up to what we’re seeing today, depending on the country, around the world. Mostly we’re in, you know, high seventies, early eighties. We still have problems in the developing nations, especially when, AIDs and other pandemics were prevalent. But the poorest countries in the world and Africa have life expectancy only in the early fifties due to their adverse living circumstances. But in the developed world, now we’re up in high seventies, early eighties, and the scientists say, that’s all we’re gonna get.

Brad (00:21:45):
And boy, let’s, let’s just try to take this on as a personal challenge. So, he first category I want to talk about here is sleep, rest, relaxation, recovery, and downtime. Notice I didn’t just say sleep and getting a good night’s sleep and having your evening rituals and your wind down and waking up without an alarm. The evening sleep block is critically important and could likely be considered the number one driver of human health and longevity, potential health span potential. But I also wanted to add all those other things in there because our days are so crazy. Now, for the first time ever in the history of humanity, we have the ability to be hyper connected and hyperstimulated all day long with no downtime, no rest and reflection and private personal time to sit on the rocking chair on the porch and stare off into space. That’s gone and been replaced with fun and games with our mobile device or our technology.

Brad (00:22:54):
When we finally have a free moment from looking after kids all day or working hard at a job or traveling around, we plop down on the couch, and now we can be highly entertained all the way up until the moment that we turn off the screen, and then we’re supposed to immediately go to bed. So, life has changed dramatically in the digital age, and we have to prioritize rest, relaxation, recovery, and downtime. And I mentioned recovery that’s usually used in the context of physical fitness, athletic training because we have a small sliver of the population that has, again, for likely the first time in the history of humanity drifted into this, um, category of overly stressful exercise and fitness habits to the extent that it can compromise your longevity. And I’ve talked so much about the troubles with extreme endurance athletes.

Brad (00:23:47):
This is a huge element of our new book that Mark Sisson and I are releasing in January, 2025 called Born to Walk, where the extreme endurance training athlete might look good and have a ripped physique, but the level of training is extreme to the extent that it can bring about an increased risk of heart problems and can actually accelerate aging rather than promote longevity. So for the over exercises, we need exercises. We need to prioritize recovery and for everyone, we need to build in downtime into this hectic, high-stress modern life. And no downtime does not count sitting and watching Netflix or playing video games. We’re talking about true rest restoration and reflective time for the brain, as well as the physical body. Uh, but sleep being the preeminent one. Interestingly Dr. Jack Kruse, the Wild and w wacky Dr. Jack Kruse, but I love listening to him and extracting relevant insights and maybe passing on some of the statements that are pretty extreme.

Brad (00:24:54):
But he contends strongly that circadian rhythm, optimizing your circadian rhythm, is the number one health promoting behavior. And when he gets into his list, guess where he puts food? Number six, <laugh>. So mostly, uh, in health scene, we’re talking about diet. It’s usually the first, you know, area that we cover, and then we go to exercise, and then we go to, uh, whatever’s next biohacking and doing your red light therapy and your cold plunging, whatever. But that’s very, very strong statement to say that, uh, trying to align our lifestyle with the rising and setting of the sun, which how is, how our, um, our being has operated for the last 2 million years and now has been e extremely compromised and, and trashed only in recent generations with the advent of modern society and artificial light and digital stimulation after dark.

Brad (00:25:53):
Boy, we are at a huge genetic disconnect from our expectation of having our, uh, rest and sleep and wake cycles aligned with the rising and setting of the sun. So, Dr. Kruse is so big on this and have more sun exposure, more light exposure, and things that he believes is the foundation of all cellular function and energy production. Dr. Casey means has been, uh, mentioning circadian rhythm frequently on her many interviews, promoting her bestselling book, good Energy, and how mitochondrial function, mitochondrial health, energy production in the body is the essence of health. Uh, that’s hard to argue that statement. It’s, uh, universal. And so when we get better at energy production, because we align our lifestyle better with the rising and setting of the sun, that’s when we can have wonderful health awakenings.

Brad (00:26:56):
After all we are diurnal creatures where <laugh>, we are to rest and repair in the dark, and we are to operate and perform and get busy and get productive in the light. So over time throughout history, when the sunset in our environment, not much was going down after sunset. Remember, when we light up candles and natural sources of yellow or orange hued light, they do not disrupt our circadian rhythm in the manner that today’s modern light, we call it blue light. When I say that I mean white light bulbs and artificial lighting sources, those are defined as blue light because that’s the where they land on the UV spectrum. And so, when you blast your eyeballs with artificial light, and especially digital stimulation beyond just lighting up your environment, but also entertaining yourself and getting some stressful, even if it’s positive, stressful stimulation, in that way, you are messing with your circadian rhythm.

Brad (00:28:02):
We are supposed to chill as soon as the sun sets and transition gracefully with what’s called dim light melatonin onset, uh, which happens when, when it gets dark. The dim light melatonin onset helps us feel, think slower, slow down, and eventually get sleepy as the melatonin chemical rises in the bloodstream, and then lay our heads down for wonderful night’s sleep. And then we are also designed to awaken at sunrise with these wonderful chemical reactions that allow us to build energy naturally. So the suppression of melatonin in favor of a spike in serotonin and cortisol in the morning, giving us that natural alertness and ability to maintain an energetic and enthusiastic mindset throughout the day. And that’s not the reality for many people. I don’t know. Raise your hand if you pop up outta bed right around sunrise, feeling alert and energized, and then carrying on for hours.

Brad (00:29:05):
If that’s your morning, then you are doing some things really well. And, <laugh>, II talked about my mom and her Gilbert back earlier. Now I’m gonna say she’s one of those people. She pops up before sunrise routinely and is full of energy and ready to attack her busy, active, energetic day, even at the age of 87. I am not raising my hand right now because I sometimes, or frequently take a while to get going in the morning. And I’m definitely gonna blame my athletic training regimen where I am, uh, fighting hard to perform and recover, and oftentimes just, you know, struggling to recover to the extent that I don’t feel alert and energized as soon as I open my eyes after an eight and a half or nine hour sleep is what my optimal time is, even nine and a half sometimes, uh, when it comes on the heels of hard training.

Brad (00:29:55):
So I need a ton of sleep, and I need a few minutes to get going in the morning. But as you know, from listening to the show, I wake up and immediately jump into a morning movement exercise routine, and that gets the blood flowing and helps me feel alert and energized. Same with that quick hit on my mito red light panel. Somehow it seems to awaken me and clear the cobwebs outta my brain in a very short time. So I get going in the morning, but I’m not one of those people that jumps up right at sunrise. Okay? So, this is our goal is to just prioritize sleep, rest, relaxation, recovery, and downtime. Reference my show that I did covering the lengthy blog post on Jack Cruz’s website where he talked about all the things that happened in the hormone optimization relating to a 24 hour day.

Brad (00:30:47):
So he talked about the best time to exercise, the best time to eat, the best time to have sex, and also how important it is in the middle of the night from 12:00 AM to 3:00 AM that he said was the key time for the key restorative hormone, human growth hormone to come out and play in your bloodstream and work its wonders. So when we feel restored and rejuvenated after a good night’s sleep, it is particularly important to sleep in a pitch dark environment, especially that three-hour period in the middle of the night. So today, when we have the tendency, if you have trouble sleeping for a variety of reasons relating to modern lifestyle, I’m sure, you reach for your phone and look at the screen and see the time is 1:37 or 2:48, um, that is going to have a disruptive effect on the important and very, very light sensitive delicate hormones that come out to play only when it’s pitch dark.

Brad (00:31:44):
So prioritizing sleep starts with your sleep environment, getting your environment really mellow, austere, so you don’t have visual stressors like piles of paperwork. You don’t have a television or a screen in the room. That would be a huge no-no. You want it to be cool, and you want it to be pitch dark so you can sleep in a pitch dark environment. And oh, boy, is it a pleasure when I, hang out at my friend’s house, big George, and he has the complete room darkening blinds. It is so awesome to be able to sleep for the exact amount of hours that you need, where you wake up naturally, without being disturbed by that early light or that, uh, evening light that’s still shining in from outside source street light or whatever. So try to create as best you can, a pitch dark sleeping environment and get enough sleep such that you don’t have to wake up to a blaring alarm.

Brad (00:32:36):
You wake up naturally, ideally near sunrise when you got everything else dialed in, including a sensible bedtime where you have minimized artificial light and digital stimulation after dark. So I’m not saying we need to shut down our modern lifestyle when it, when the sun sets, but what I’d like you to do for the rest of your life, when the sun does set, take a mental note, maybe look outside and nod and say, goodbye sun. Take your one year old or 2-year-old kid and say, bye-Bye, son. Sunset. And when that sun sets, make a mental note that your body is meant to wind down from that point forward. Yes, you can still illuminate your home. You don’t have to walk around in the dark, but try to minimize the sources of light. Perhaps get one of those amazing mito desk lamps that I’m totally obsessed with.

Brad (00:33:27):
Now, I think it’s one of the greatest inventions of modern times. It’s this really, small lightweight, portable red light lamp that you can use at your bedside and swap that for more harsh, uh, light bulbs that are shining, uh, blue light, especially in your bedroom in the final hour before bedtime. So I got, uh, desk lamps for both sides of the bed. Mia Moore is on, on board as well. And now we have a sort of a red hued bedroom that really helps set the tone for a mellow mood, rather than having a super bright light, and then you switch it off and expect your brain and body to go to bed right after. So we wanna minimize light after dark. Of course, people are fond of using the blue light blocking glasses in, typically in yellow or orange, and you can put those on if you’re gonna watch some shows in the evening.

Brad (00:34:22):
But try to reserve that final hour before bed for a really mellow environment. You can use the Himalayan salt lamps that have the orange hue when you light ’em up. Those are really cool. And just kind of put that in the back of your mind that we’re trying to minimize light, uh, from the time the sun sets. And that will be, uh, a great, uh, health priority for predicting longevity, disease prevention, and feeling rest and restored and energetic every day. So that was number one, is to prioritize sleep, rest, relaxation, recovery, downtime.

Brad (00:34:58):
And then number two, I’m going to title this one, Clean Up Your Act, because you can’t really focus on longevity or health span if you have <laugh> crap happening in your life. And we’re gonna expand the definition of cleaning up your act beyond just getting rid of your junk food. But of course, that’s the first thing that comes to mind, is to go in and do what we’ve long called a kitchen and pantry purge. So you can go in and look at the labels, realize that your salad dressing contains refined industrial seed oils and toss ’em in the garbage can. Toss out those refined industrial seed oil cooking oils like canola, corn, soybean, sunflower, safflower, Dr. Cate Shanahan did a whole show on this with her release of her new book identifying these oils as the main culprit in the diet, the main health offender. So also all the packaged, processed frozen foods that are harming your health, actively harming your health as soon as you consume them, get rid of that and then stock your home with fresh, nutritious foods. As I talk about often, you can go to brad kearns.com and please download the carnivore scores food rankings chart.

Brad (00:36:08):
Print that out, place it on your refrigerator, and it’ll help you emphasize the categories of the most nutritious foods on Earth. And if it’s not on the chart anywhere, you can think twice, because really the big health awakening is gonna come when you, clean up the clean the crap out of your diet. And that includes making the best possible choices, dining out, realizing that almost all restaurants, whether they’re fast food or medium, you know, chain restaurant fair, or even, higher priced, you know, elite restaurants, they’re typically using these offensive oils in their cooking. And so you want to ask to have your meal cooked differently or just navigate to the most health aware restaurants. So that’s cleaning up your act. Number one is the processed food. Number two, we’re gonna try to clean up those toxic relationships.

Brad (00:37:00):
And as we hear from the relationship experts on my show, like Dr. John Gray, Jillian Turecki, great show, how health destructive it is to be immersed into toxic dynamics where your stress hormones are predominating over the love bonding and connection hormones like tonin and serotonin. Instead, you’re awash and cortisol because you’re arguing, you’re nitpicking, you’re not honoring John Gray’s essential male and female relationship assignments, which he’s talked about on probably each of his four interviews with me. And I also dedicated a whole show where I just read through and got really focused on the main assignments for the male and the female. Of course, the romantic the love relationship is gonna be having the most influence making or breaking your health and your longevity potential. So, John Gray says that a positive, loving relationship can add seven years to your life, whatever research he’s citing there, and that is higher than any other factor.

Brad (00:38:03):
And then a negative, toxic, dysfunctional relationship can chop many years off your life, I believe, he said, to the same extent that smoking, like smoking costs you eight years of lifespan, and so does a crappy marriage that you’re immersed in. And continuing to exercise these toxic dynamics outside of the love relationship. We also have to look at our friends, our inner circle and our workplace circumstances, and simply not tolerate. Do whatever you can to extricate from relationships that make you feel crappy and stressed and do something to change your life. You’ve heard many peak performance experts talk about how you are the sum total of the five people you spend the most time around. So if you have some close friends or family members that are negative and complaining and anxious and stressed and angry and whatever, those are going to ooze into your pores and become part of your life too.

Brad (00:39:05):
So you wanna surround yourself with people that have aspirational qualities and really work hard and reflect and see how you’re spending your time and the dynamics that you engage in. And of course, it doesn’t mean you have to <laugh> ditch your, erase your contacts on your mobile phone and start over. But we can probably do a great job optimizing the relationships that we do choose to engage in or seem to be obligated to, right? If it has to do with a family or workplace, we can probably clean those up just with reflecting on our own behavior. But there’s times like Christine Hassler talks about, uh, relationships do indeed have an expiration date, such that it might be time to just move on and indeed find some new playing partners for golf or your bowling league because the relationships have run their course.

Brad (00:39:57):
Same with a partnership. It’s tough and it takes a lot of courage, and it takes a lot of resilience to realize that this relationship has reached its expiration date and it’s time to move on. And then there’s other relationships where it’s just time to time to, uh, clean up, uh, some of the loose ends and the, uh, bad reactionary dynamics that are making you feel bad. So that was number two. We gotta junk clean up our act with the food, clean up our act with your relationships.

Brad (00:40:22):
And then number three on my list of cleaning up your act, yourself, limiting beliefs and behavior patterns. So, if you are spouting, you are referencing this article that was published on ABC news and all over the place that, Hey, guess what? We’re only gonna live to 84 or 90. And boy, that’s nice to have that knowledge in my brain so I can act that out and actualize that belief system by doing whatever you’re doing, just bouncing along, going along for the ride, and engaging in culturally acceptable and culturally normal eating habits, exercise habits, mobile device usage habits, and even typical relationships where we complain and argue and get negative. Guess what? You are going to land right on that statistical chart with maximum longevity potential being limited by your modern lifestyle habits. Or you can envision an empowering new world where you are setting the course, you’re the captain of the ship, and you’re going to sail gracefully to 100 buoyed by great food choices, buoyed by cleaning up your act, buoyed by prioritizing sleep, rest, relaxation, recovery, and downtime. So the belief systems lead to the behavior patterns.

Brad (00:41:41):
And when we’re stuck in habits and not even aware of how we reach for processed food, when we’re feeling stressed and anxious or whatever is coming up, how we’re intimidated by going into a gym environment, because it can be intimidating, but that’s our excuse or our reason that we haven’t exercised enough, or whatever’s going on that’s keeping you stuck. It’s time to open that stuff up, examine it, and envision a more empowering choice. And as I’ve talked about a few times recently, the number one bestselling book in the world for the last several years is Atomic Habits by James Clear. And one of the big recommendations he says, is, when you’re trying to establish an empowering, new healthy habit, let’s say, make something that’s really sensible, achievable, and doable, so not this daunting new lifestyle change where you say, that’s it.

Brad (00:42:37):
I’m going to the gym every day since I haven’t been in two years, and I’m gonna get back hardcore and take a class every morning at 6:00 AM That’s kind of a recipe for failure because it is possibly too daunting and is not gonna be a smooth and convenient fit into your everyday life responsibilities and obligations and schedule. So instead, you can, you know, resolve to spend five minutes first thing in the morning, walking the dog around the block, rather than reaching for your phone and something like that. You’re gonna nod your head when I suggest it and say, gee, I can handle that five minutes. That’s it. And when you set these little when you establish these small behavior changes, they will gracefully turn into an actual habit where you don’t have to think about it or apply willpower or those tenuous tools that oftentimes get depleted and then lead to lack of compliance. So, make things easy. Make little victories every day and have yourself, building momentum and building upon those little victories because they are doable and achievable rather than too daunting.

Brad (00:43:49):
Okay. Then number four. So self limiting beliefs and behavior patterns. Relatedly, I wrote cleaning up your act with toxic thoughts and mindsets such as fear and scarcity disposition that is strongly generated by mainstream media. Hmm. Can you think of an example I can, the stupid ass longevity article that says, we’re only gonna live to a certain limit, and that’s, uh, we’ve reached maximum human lifespan potential. That’s absolutely, um, a, a beautiful example of where the media is programming us to believe something. And of course, we can drift into, politics and other areas where the fear based programming is highly evident, and it’s all driven by the desire to, reel you in and capture your attention using the lowest common denominator strategies, such as eliciting fear.

Brad (00:44:44):
So when you turn on the nightly news in whatever city, and they lead with a few teasers, or they throw them in throughout the day about the could your child’s playground rubber, uh, rubber, uh, nodules be toxic,? We’ll find out, on the evening news. And so now you’re scared that you’re letting your kid crawl around on the new rubber bits that form the floor of the playground, and you better learn about it because they, they could be toxic. And all of a sudden, you’re in a fear-based disposition. Not to say you need to ignore all the information about how to create a healthy, happy environment for yourself and your kids. But it, there’s a huge difference from operating from a, a fear and a scarcity position as opposed to an abundance mindset and seeing the potential for, uh, doing something better with your life, especially as it relates to longevity.

Brad (00:45:40):
Okay. Now we can get a little bit of summary overview besides cleaning up your act, sleep and rest is number one, cleaning up your act. And then number three, of course, we’re gonna go into diet, and I’m just gonna gloss over some of the main principles since we have so much content about that already. I want you to emphasize maximum nutrient density diets cleaning up your act and, and getting rid of the processed foods. And then wherever you wanna land on if you’re, if you’re really called to a plant-based eating pattern or a hardcore carnivore eating pattern, you’re just gonna be, you know, testing and evaluating and seeing how your diet makes you feel. You can actually do some blood testing and, and get some real reports or just, you know, notice how your digestion feels and your daily energy and recovery from exercise.

Brad (00:46:35):
And that’s gonna be your best guide, rather than, you know, listening to all the dogmatic programming out there today telling you that this is the best diet for you. One thing I want to caution or point out here is that there’s a lot of momentum toward clean eating. A lot of momentum toward plant-based eating these days where we’re seemingly making good choices of healthy, nutritious, organic food. But if you are getting into this pattern, this hip, slick, cool pattern of, for example, having a kale smoothie in the morning, a chicken salad for lunch, and, uh, lentil soup and steamed broccoli for dinner, let’s point out that you are systematically, um, eliminating many of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet, which for the last 2 million years have been well sourced animal foods high in protein. So it’s becoming very popular now to contend that protein is the number one dietary priority, and it’s very difficult to argue that that’s our greatest dietary need.

Brad (00:47:38):
Of course, we also need some essential fatty acids, and we also in many cases can benefit where you could say, need some healthy, nutritious carbohydrates. Although, as the keto and the carnivore, uh, voices will tell you that we don’t actually have a dietary requirement in human nutrition for carbohydrates ’cause we can make our own. But that’s kind of a silly notion to plant a eating strategy on. So, we will say that, uh, natural nutritious carbohydrates and sources of fat are really important for the diet, but protein is by far the single greatest priority. So if you’re eliminating high protein foods in the name of eating cleanly and avoiding animal products for whatever reason that you’re coming up with, you are now immersed into a high risk dietary pattern because you are systematically eliminating the most nutrient-dense foods on earth.

Brad (00:48:37):
And this is not an opinion. It is actually, you know, proven under a microscope with a micronutrient analysis. If you Google kale versus liver, you will see a chart of what is contained in these two popular foods. One on the ancestral side and one on the plant-based side. But there’s no, there’s no contest there in terms of nutrient density. So, think about eating cleanly on different levels. First is, of course, eliminating the crap that humans have been fueling themselves with. And that’s the person that’s chowing down the kale smoothie, the chicken salad, and the lentil soup, and the steamed broccoli. You’re definitely not gonna die or get heart disease or get cancer from the foods mentioned. However, this it’s like driving without a seatbelt. You’re probably not gonna die if you take your next four trips without a seatbelt.

Brad (00:49:34):
But you are putting yourself at risk. And in the diet example there, you’re putting yourself at risk of nutrient deficiency, suboptimal health, um, because you’re systematically eliminating the foods that nourish human, uh, evolution. Okay? So that’s the diet thing, is eat cleanly, but also navigate toward nutritious foods with the emphasis on getting sufficient protein every day.

Brad (00:49:57):
Now with exercise, as you’re gonna hear a lot more about in the coming months with the release of the book, Born to Walk, a movement oriented lifestyle with the foundation of walking is the single most essential requirement. It is more important to your health and longevity than adhering to have devoted fitness regimen and otherwise leading a sedentary life. In the book, we talk about research from Denmark where they categorize people into four categories based on their lifestyle habits. And so you had people that were devoted to exercise, but otherwise sedentary.

Brad (00:50:34):
They were called the active couch potatoes. Then you had people who didn’t do much actual fitness, but moved around a lot and had an active life, let’s say a farmer or someone who’s delivering male on foot, that kind of person that has a lot of steps every day. And then the other categories of, um, not exercising, no fitness and no movement and all that. And interestingly the people who were just generally active came out better than the active couch potatoes. So what we see a lot of times in the fitness scene is someone who is really devoted to getting to the gym for the 6:00 AM class on Monday it’s bootcamp, and on Wednesday it’s spinning. And, uh, they also go on Saturday morning for a, a CrossFit session, whatever they’re putting in a good commitment to fitness, but otherwise immersed into deeply sedentary patterns.

Brad (00:51:29):
So maybe they do the 6:00 AM class, then they come home they, they shower up, have breakfast, get on the subway, sit, uh, get into a tall building, sit for eight hours, take the subway home, and then sit on the couch. And in many cases, if the fitness regimen is too exhausting, they’ll be hitting another pint of Ben and Jerry’s in the evening because they’re so exhausted and depleted from waking up early, slamming a difficult workout, and then sitting all day. So it is more important to just increase your overall daily activity. Of course, walking is the most obvious and sensible centerpiece to that than it is to slam it around the weights and the hard classes at the gym. Okay? So that would be for many of us, the number one objective is to just move more, especially taking breaks from prolonged periods of stillness and devoted cognitive function, because if you don’t, breaks will be taken for you.

Brad (00:52:28):
The brain is only capable of truly focusing on a peak cognitive task for around 20 minutes before it requires a break. Do you know how the shifts work in Las Vegas card dealers as well as in air traffic control? They have a day that’s characterized by frequent lengthy breaks. Believe the car dealers are on for 40 minutes and off for 20, and the air traffic controllers this is written in one of our books. I don’t have it off the top of my head, but you can easily Google it, but I think they are on for, maybe they’re the ones on for 40 off for 20. But you get the point, the dealers who have to be focused every second on every card and the air traffic controllers, hopefully they’re not spacing and playing with their phone underneath the desk, <laugh> playing the little place the place the dots on the puzzle game.

Brad (00:53:22):
No, they’re looking at blips on the screen that you’re sitting on one of those, and you’re hoping they are in total focus every second that they’re on duty. And thankfully, with their eight hour shift, they have a ton of breaks where they can just unwind and do whatever they want and give the brain a break. So if you’re in control of your schedule and you’re staring at a screen and you’re not getting up every 20 minutes and walking around, you are sacrificing cognitive productivity. So I know you’re super busy and super slammed, but if you don’t have two minutes to balance against that 20 minutes, things are going to take longer. There’s research on sleep deprivation that if you are sleep deprived and working in an office environment and a cognitive task on the screen, it can take up to 20% longer. So on an eight hour day, right, what’s, um, what’s 20% more <laugh>?

Brad (00:54:14):
You’re, you’re staying late at the office every night and compromising your sleep because you’re so slow, because you compromise your sleep. So that is a crappy pattern to get immersed in, and it’s unnecessary. So take those frequent movement breaks, and even as a fitness enthusiast, you’re going to recover faster. For example, from a sprint workout, if you can get up and move and increase your step count for the rest of the day, it gets the blood flowing, it gets the oxygen delivery, it gets the waste products removed. So for everyone, we have a critical obligation to get up and move more. And remember, again, for the first time in recorded history, we are now immersed into a screen life such that we’re sitting for hours and hours on end. Our great-grandparents had no such business because almost no one had that. I mean, very few people had that seated job and many people had more physical jobs.

Brad (00:55:09):
And even someone who did have a desk job, 50 years ago or a hundred years ago, they were not calling DoorDash to get their meal. They were up and hustling around the garden, uh, picking the berries, chopping the potatoes. It was way more physically arduous lifestyle. And of course, we don’t need to rewind the clock and go back to the days where we have to walk a half a mile to get a, you know, get something we need for tonight’s dinner. Um, we have more convenience, we can take advantage of that, but that also means we have to build in more time for movement, the walking-based lifestyle. And then as I’m continuing on the topic of exercise, right, the next thing I wanna mention here is that instead of this chronic cardio pattern where you’re devoted to fitness, but really you’re just pushing yourself a little bit too hard and focused on the narrow sliver of fitness that is

Brad (00:56:10):
We also have a critical obligation to engage in regular brief intense resistance exercise. So putting our muscles under resistance load at whatever age for the rest of our life, we have to challenge those muscles to maintain our longevity potential and overall health and fitness. So if you are one who’s really devoted to cardio, but you’re falling short on the resistance part, that is a huge void. And to the extent that Dr. Peter Atilla in his book Outlive, focused on the topic of longevity, suggests that you spend half of your exercise time on resistance training half. So if you’re out there running for four or five hours a week, and oh, you do a few weights one day for 20 minutes, you’re out of balance to the extent that if you have four to five or six hours a week of exercise, three of those hours should be resistance exercise, and the other three can be whatever it may be.

Brad (00:57:13):
You play tennis, you play pickleball, you like cardio you do bicycle riding, you do jogging. Uh, but we need, in many cases to put, pay much more attention to putting those muscles under resistance load. And this doesn’t mean, uh, spending all day in the gym doing, uh, 20 stations or three sets of this, or five sets of that. I’m talking about workouts as brief as 10 minutes can have a massive impact on your fitness, but the goal is to challenge those muscles to the extent that you’re running out of energy and performing to near failure. So I’m talking about standing up in your work cubicle and doing a set of 20 deep squats or just sitting on the chair and then standing back up and sitting back down on the chair. If you do 20, guess what, even if you’re a fit person, you’re gonna feel it, you’re gonna feel a little bit of burn and you’re gonna start breathing hard.

Brad (00:58:04):
And that is, uh, those are aspects of an effective resistance training session. So the training sessions can be very short. You can sprinkle them in throughout your day. I call those micro workouts, and I’ve done entire podcasts on that topic. Wonderful topic of micro workouts where we don’t have to have these elaborate sessions to count as a workout. You can just sprinkle in micro workouts by pulling on some stretch tubing that’s hanging from your doorway. Or I always use the example of whenever I encounter a flight of stairs in my daily life. So just going throughout the house and I have to go upstairs. I have a tendency to sprint up the stairs, and that’s just what I do with stairs. And so that is a micro workout that’s built into my lifestyle. You can also look on YouTube, the title of the videos Micro Workouts for the Home and Office.

Brad (00:58:59):
And I show you where I’m pulling on the stretch cords, or I have another scene where I’m taking the garbage out and on my way to the garbage can guess what’s sitting there. It’s a very, uh, lightly weighted hexagonal deadlift bar. So I will typically just perform one set of very light deadlifts. Not that I have to warm up for that but I’m careful and it’s well under my capacity. So I’m just kind of going through the motions and the movements. And when I sprinkle these in throughout the day, it elevates the platform from which I launch all of my formal athletic training sessions. So if I can do, let’s say one set of pull-ups when I walk underneath the pull-up bar once a day, or even just a few times a week, um, when you add that up over the course of a year, I’m doing hundreds and hundreds of extra pull-ups outside of my formal workouts that’s helping me increase my competency.

Brad (00:59:56):
So there’s so many benefits to just sprinkling in more movement, including brief intense exercises counting into that micro workouts category. And then of course, we have a critical obligation, obligation to perform, uh, occasional explosive, all-out sprints. And this is the classic natural law of use it or lose it. So we still want to push ourselves to maximum effort for very short duration, and it’s something we can do throughout our lives to promote longevity at a rate or at an impact that’s greater than any other workout. So yes, walking for an hour and hiking for two hours is great for your health. It’s great for your fitness, it’s great for your longevity. But a brief, explosive all-out sprint session, as I’ve talked about frequently, my favorite template is to perform just four to eight of ’em lasting between 10 and 20 seconds with extensive rest in between the efforts so that the efforts are truly explosive.

Brad (01:01:01):
And usually when you hear sprint, you’re thinking of running down the track and high impact sprints are indeed, the most effective for things like bone density and fat reduction. But if you’re not adapted, and it takes a long time to adapt, to be able to be running sprints, if it’s been a while since you were on the high school athletic team, you can quote sprint with no or low impact activities such as sprinting on a stationary bike sprinting on the rowing machine, sprinting in the swimming pool, and even performing a sprint workout in the form of kettlebell swings where you are swinging the implement for 10 seconds and then resting for a minute and doing a set of those anything that’s challenging you to, to near maximum effort, paired with extensive rest and is very short in duration.

Brad (01:01:58):
Because if you try to sprint longer than 20 seconds, you’re turning it into a high intensity interval training session. Of course, those have benefits, but they’re also challenging, can be overly stressful and depleting and exhausting, especially for a fitness novice. So when I say sprint, I’m talking about really, really short in duration where you can really put out, uh, maximum explosive power. So, uh, again, getting on a stationary bicycle, um, warming up sufficiently with cardiovascular, so you’re warm and your muscles are ready to go, and then sprinting for 10, 15 or 20 seconds, and then resting for one or two minutes and only doing that a handful of times. That is a great addition to your fitness regimen and has a dramatic impact on your longevity potential to a greater extent than any other kind of workout. So a workout lasting, let’s say only 10 minutes on the stationary bike can have, can deliver greater benefits than hiking for an hour every single day in an extreme example.

Brad (01:03:05):
Okay. And when I mention the exercise obligations of moving more engaging in brief intense resistance exercise on a regular basis, and then occasional explosive, all-out sprints, I say occasional because it takes longer to recover from sprinting than it does from, uh, resistance training. So resistance exercise should be a couple, few times a week. Micro workouts, as much as you can sprinkle in there and sprinting once a week is plenty. And then there’s kind of a fourth pillar when we’re talking about exercise, and that is to avoid any sniff of a chronic pattern, which seems to be predominant in the, uh, devoted fitness enthusiasts world. So we have our endurance training community. Uh, we’re gonna talk about that in detail in the book Born to Walk, where running is quite likely bad for you for the vast maturity of participants. Running is too stressful of an activity, and you have to be really, really fit and slender and well adapted, uh, physically overall, uh, to be able to even dream about or consider running more than a mile or two.

Brad (01:04:15):
Because the actual act of running and the impact trauma that it incurs and the tendency to run with poor form as exhibited by 80 to 95% of recreational runners in the estimation of Harvard research. It’s just too much. And it leads to breakdown, burnout, illness, and injury. Even jogging at a seemingly slow pace is far too stressful. Whereas a sprint workout where you’re walking and resting in between spurts of ten second bursts of energy can have tremendous fitness benefits. It’s not gonna cause you to be exhausted or burnt out because again, I’m saying you only do four to eight of them, and then you wrap it up. That can have massive payoff, less risk of these chronic patterns that I want you to avoid any sniff of. We also see the chronic patterns at place with people who are highly devoted to CrossFit, where the workouts are extremely challenging and challenge different metabolic and energy systems and require a lot of recovery, but people are so jacked up getting that endorphin high that they want to get in there 3, 4, 5, 6 days a week and push their selves really hard.

Brad (01:05:23):
And that oftentimes leads to negative outcomes over months and years in the form of injury. And in the big picture, the classic form of accelerated aging because you are pushing yourself too hard and, uh, generating too much stress from your from your exercise efforts.

Brad (01:05:42):
Okay, I have two more categories to cover, and this one I’m gonna call personal lifestyle circumstances. So after cleaning up your act and escaping from true destruction, John Gray shows talk about how healthy romantic relationship can add seven years to your life, more than any other stat. And we also have loneliness research today, especially emerging after the pandemic where people were forced to be isolated. But the research reveals that the digital world as well as the lasting repercussions of pandemic and the habits that we formed to not, uh, you know, congregate, uh, naturally or frequently, um, it puts many people at risk of loneliness, and that’s a huge, uh, destructive factor to health and longevity.

Brad (01:06:30):
One of my podcast guests was citing research about statistics about, uh, friendship. And some huge percentage of Americans listed only one close friend, and you had to divine close friend someone, someone you see frequently or talk to every day or whatever, whatever. And it, it went down from like an average of 3.7 to now an average of one. So there’s all kinds of stats like that, that are alarming and disturbing, and we realize the driving forces are things like digital technology where we’re no longer sitting around super bored on our rocking chair on the porch, staring at the sky and wishing that we had two or three friends to sit around and just engage in a casual manner. Now we are binging on our shows, and we kind of don’t need that immediate social contact. And then as the weeks and months and years go by, we realize that we’re getting, uh, further and further isolated.

Brad (01:07:25):
So, I think it’s along the same lines as avoiding, uh, tech addiction, where you have to go out of your way to power down your phone. We now have to go out of our way to put ourselves into winning social opportunities. We have to make the effort unlike any other time in, uh, the memory of our life where we were naturally immersed into social circumstances, because that was the nature of life. You’re hanging around in the workplace, or you’re interacting with kids and mixing with other parents, and now everyone’s just rushing off in their vehicles rather than lingering because, uh, there’s more important things to do, and life moves at a faster pace, and technology is, uh, part of that. So, you know, they make fun of parents and kids these days having to make play dates, but at least they’re making play dates because they have to make play dates to see other kids, because right now these days, there’s no kids just wandering around the neighborhood unattended and cruising down your driveway saying, Hey, what’s going on, <laugh>?

Brad (01:08:35):
So if there’s no kids materializing at your door, then you better find some play dates for your kids to get healthy social interaction outside of the obligations of school and and so forth. Um, so then I’m gonna say, uh, the final category here is you gotta fricking care about this stuff. And I think, you know, we tend to get so busy and so distracted and so continually entertained slash distracted that we kind of put things like our health and longevity potential in the back burner. So I’m here voting and advocating that you put this stuff at the forefront. I mean, our physical body is the vessel with which we experience everything in life, but it seems like it has become the third or fourth or seventh priority to people these days. And I’m talking about even close friends, associates, family members where, hey, have you reached every single required or recommended medical checkup over the last, uh, five or 10 or 20 years?

Brad (01:09:43):
And I’m mentioning myself here too, because I’ve kind of blown some of that stuff off feeling that I’m invincible and I take care of my health, so I don’t really need to engage with the medical system. Sometimes they can send you on a detour where they’re prescribing medication, and it might have adverse consequences, and I might believe differently than the doctor, but I certainly have no excuse to not be completely taking advantage of all opportunities available to me, uh, that promote health, longevity, and disease prevention in modern life. So now I’m a regular at the dentist because I’ve had a few crowns in recent years and different pains and broken tooth. And so now I go in there and I get a cleaning on schedule every six months, and I get checkups where before I just kind of went in there when I had an emergency.

Brad (01:10:30):
So I’m, I guess I’m motivated by the idea that, oh, gee, after 60 years, my teeth are kind of, uh, falling apart and this could, could probably get worse. I’m gonna do the best I absolute can. And also the same with my dedication to mobility, flexibility, stretching, preparation and, uh, restoration around my workouts or outside of my workouts, because I think, uh, in previous decades, I could get away with heading over to the track warming up for a lap, and then going into an extreme high jump practice session where I’m, you know, attacking that bar and violently colliding my foot with the ground to launch myself with angular momentum over that bar and then walking away without any adverse consequences. Whereas today, I’m not taking a single jump without 20, 30, 40 minutes of extensive warmup and preparation drills and flu flexibility in mobility, because I’ll suffer negative consequences at this age, unlike I might have at age 30, 40 or 50.

Brad (01:11:38):
So, the category of caring is where we’re gonna close this off and get you really focused and psyched up. So physical health is number one. Without that, I mean, nothing else really matters as much. And secondly, when you make it health, health and fitness a priority, it gives you some built-in discipline against all the things that are present in modern life that try to compromise your devotion to a healthy, happy, well-balanced, well-adjusted lifestyle. I’m referring particularly to consumerism, the forces that are luring us into consumerism, tech, addiction, fear-based media programming, profit-based medical food, and pharmaceutical industries and other monsters out there that are trying to take your dollar at the expense of your health unless you do something about it. Remember, a corporation is an independent entity. It’s a legal entity that has no heart, no soul, and exists by definition exists for the sole purpose of making a profit.

Brad (01:12:41):
And of course, there are many wonderful contributions made by corporations to the economy, to human wellbeing and progress and happiness and all that. But we have to use extreme discipline in order to engage with corporate scene and consumerism in ways that are healthy, and then make a strong effort to disengage from the BS. And we’ll put, uh, media and, uh, programming and scientific research in there with this BS contention that humans have reached their maximum lifespan. Okay? I think also in this category of caring and prioritizing is the idea of formulating and empowering mindset. Don’t just see yourself as a statistic <laugh> with the Social Security Administration’s actuarial life tables chart. Otherwise, you will be a statistic. And I’m referring to that chart. I think I covered this in another show, but it’s really fascinating. I keep looking at it and mentioning it and bringing it up on my phone to show other people.

Brad (01:13:38):
Sut, uh, I’ll put the link in the show notes, but it’s the SSA Social Security Administration’s Actuarial Life Tables chart. And this is, as I referenced earlier in this show where they take ,m na baby’s born. So I was born in 1965, so I can, uh, refer to this chart and realize that out of the 100,000 babies born in 1965, but I think it’s 68,000 are still alive, uh, and so forth. And you can look when you’re age 80 that only 20,000 are still alive and, and so on down the list and the predicted when you get to 100 out of a hundred thousand babies born, guess how many are still alive? 698. So only one in a thousand, less than one in a thousand is going to make it to a hundred. And hopefully listeners to this show will be populating that nice little box on the chart still around at age 100 to marvel at the actuarial life tables chart and realize, wow, where’d all those other people go?

Brad (01:14:43):
They’re people that didn’t care as much. That’s why it caring here is the big one. And unfortunately, I hear, uh, a lot of negative and self-limiting beliefs and behavior patterns in everyday life as it relates to health span and longevity. Again, I see it effectively being placed as number five, number six, or number seven, on people’s priority lists. What’s in front of that indulgent instant gratification and dopamine addiction as referenced in Dr. Robert Lustig’s wonderful book, the Hacking of the American Mind. Yes, those are ranked higher than health span for many people because they’ve been lured into the trap of going for pleasure, indulgence, instant gratification, rather than thinking about the long-term consequences of their daily behaviors. Humans also like to complain and commiserate. That’s sort of a natural human tendency. So we can read this article together and go, oh, gee, what a bummer.

Brad (01:15:47):
Males are only expected to live to be 84, and females are only expected to live to be 90. Wow. It’s gonna be lonely for a lot of females as they pass by their partners and their social circle where the males are dropping earlier. So I don’t wanna be some guy that drops before the females in my life, you know what I mean? Like, forget that. What a bunch of nonsense, because I care and I wanna do something about it. And there’s a lot of fascinating reasons why male life expectancy is lower. Some of them are so old and dated where, you know, the man got beat up more at the factory with backbreaking work and the woman got to stay home. So, I mean, come on, we can transition past a male human having a built in six year reduction in life expectancy by just dealing with the nonsense.

Brad (01:16:34):
Okay? So, when I hear this, these self-limiting beliefs and behavior patterns every day, I want you to check on those and think of a more empowering mindset to formulate. We are going to slide into aging. It’s inexorable. We can’t help it, right? So, uh, we probably are going to face illness and decline and incapacitation at some point. But the goal here, as we used to print on shirts that we made at Primal Blueprint, the graphic said, uh, live long, drop dead. So what we wanna do is do everything in our power to live a healthy, active, energetic lifestyle to the extent that when our organs do wear out, as the wonderful study researcher explained earlier in the show, yes, indeed, the organs are gonna wear out. But some respected scientists, I think Deepak Chopra has cited information in this area.

Brad (01:17:33):
The human organs, uh, will indeed wear out after about 120 years of use on the planet. Just like when you put a banana out in the sun, it’s gonna turn brown and completely, you know, degrade in a matter of days. The same is true for the liver, the kidney, the heart, and all that. So, I am definitely okay with my organs wearing out after 120 years on planet Earth, but prior to that, I’m gonna be concerned that I don’t want to, you know, do something to accelerate the natural wearing out of the organs <laugh>. Now, we also don’t know, um, if we’re gonna get hit by a bus tomorrow, so we don’t really need to predict a future and, and count on a future of living to a hundred. But of course, the experts in manifestation and brain training and brain programming, John Asraf comes to mind.

Brad (01:18:32):
They will assert that this stuff that how you believe and how you think about this stuff really does matter, and it really does have an effect on your present, everyday state of health as well as your health span potential. So, almost done here. I want to leave you with an empowering thought. If you’ve been running the wrong programming in your brain for a while and feeling the effects of choices that have adverse health consequences or otherwise starting at some disappointing level, let’s turn the corner right now and make tomorrow the best day that you can make it and build momentum from there. Remember, James Clear’s ideas in atomic habits. You wanna set simple, doable goals rather than get overwhelmed with how your life has gone so far, or how your lack of commitment to fitness as a resulted in your body feeling, lousy and, uh, packing on excess body fat, and all those things that you can lament and be negative about. So, uh, thank you for listening and getting, uh, a different perspective on the headline story about how humans have reached maximum longevity potential. No, thank you. Let’s keep going. Let’s keep going. People sail to a hundred. Let me know what your thoughts, comments, questions podcast@bradventures.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Speaker 3 (01:19:51):
Thank you so much for listening to the B.rad Podcast. We appreciate all feedback and suggestions. Email, podcast@bradventures.com and visit brad kearns.com to download five free eBooks and learn some great long cuts to a longer life. How to optimize testosterone naturally, become a dark chocolate connoisseur and transition to a barefoot and minimalist shoe lifestyle.