6 Experts Share Tips on how to Live a Healthier Life

Hello, members and subscribers! Our nineteenth Moonshots Master episode is here, and we are paying close attention to Health!

We study 6 health gurus in this show, including Andrew Huberman and Michael Pollen. You will learn about six health and wellness habits you can adopt right now.

To listen to the entire show, please become a member here.

To kick start our show, we understand how sleep is where we do our best work, and Matthew Walker discusses how we should pay close attention to how we rest. Next is Dan Buettner, the author of Blue Zones, who talks about the Power of Nine and the rituals he discovered worldwide for living a long life.

Moving us forward and getting us to stand up straight is Roger Frampton, who breaks down the teachings of Dr Esther Gokhale, and why sitting too long is back for your back. As we turn our attention to our diets, we learn from Michael Pollan and his mantra: Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not Too Much.

Helping us breathe correctly is Patrick McKeown, helps us understand how we can influence our nervous system, decrease stress and build resilience, all through practising good breathwork. Closing the show - and helping us create a new dawn for ourselves - we have the legendary Andrew Huberman, who gives us three tips on how to start (and end) every day with a straightforward morning activity.

Our recommended reading list on Health includes some key titles that will inspire you and help you go even deeper into the topic:

What key lessons have inspired you in the Master Series? Get in touch and let us know! Thanks for listening. That’s a wrap.

TRANSCRIPT

Mike Parsons: Hi everyone. It's Mike here again, and it is great to share with you a preview of our latest Moonshots Master series. This series is where we collect all the wisdom that we've learned from over 140 plus shows. And what we do is we study a particular topic and we bring all the best clips and practices together.

Mike Parsons: So you get your own little masterclass. And what you'll get in each of the Moonshots Master series is a show dedicated to your personal transformation or perhaps to. Problem solving, decision making, thinking better or that kind of good stuff. Or lastly, it will be about leadership. Those are the three big buckets that all the moonshots thinking fits into personal transformation, thinking better, and leadership.

Mike Parsons: That's right. And we pick all of those great clips from superstars, entrepreneurs, and authors, and wrap it all up together. Now you're only getting a preview of this. If you'd like to listen to the full show, get all the tools and all the goodies that comes with the Moonshots Master Series. Visit moonshots.ao, click on the members area and sign up.

Mike Parsons: Be our patron. It's only a dollar a week, and you'll get a complete masterclass just for you every single month. So head over to Min Shots AO, and become a member. But for now, enjoy the.

Mike Parsons: Hello, and welcome to the Moonshot's Master Series. It's episode 19. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Hey, good morning, Mike, and good morning members and subscribers. We have not just an action packed, but also a very informative we could so say healthy episode ahead of us today, don't we, Mike?

Mike Parsons: We are all about health and all the dimensions of health. We are covering some of the best thinking that we've covered in the podcast, but for this master series, we've also found some new material. So this is everything you would want in like a playbook for healthy living Mark. And it's not that easy to find out there in the

Mark Pearson Freeland: world, is it?

Mark Pearson Freeland: No. Th this is exactly the. Insight that we ran into, wasn't it Mike? As, as you and I and the moonshot's family started digging in and trying to find the definitive one-stop shop to en encourage us, inspire us, as well as to educate us with regards to our own health and the key steps that we all need to take in order to be that best version of ourselves.

Mark Pearson Freeland: You are right. There wasn't necessarily a, let's call it one stop shop. We obviously found a group of very interesting individuals and researchers who had provided so much data for us, but actually finding that that encapsulated knowledge was a little bit more of a challenge. And I think what we've tried to do today in the clips that we've discovered and the topics that we've uncovered today, Is really bringing to light the confidence that you can get and the ownership that you can take over your own health and that great feeling that comes with just being in control of your body to a lesser extent, your mind as well as your fitness and eating habits.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Don't you think?

Mike Parsons: I do. And I wanna make the case that if you or I or any of our members or listeners really wanna shoot for the moon, do something special, push themselves for example, build a company, build a project if they want to go out, build new friendships and relationships. I think a prerequisite.

Mike Parsons: To doing great on the sports field, doing great in the office or at home. You need to be of good health and that's multidimensional. And the crazy thing is there's not really a textbook or a playbook to go to for that. And so we are really hoping that this master series is something that can start your journey into great health because if you are feeling healthy, if you are healthy, you wake up and you can get after the day.

Mike Parsons: And that's what we all want if we're gonna shoot for the moon. And, I think what I've recognized in my life is that using some of the practices that we're gonna discuss today is it's really helped me think clearer, make better decisions. But it is also made me more aware of how to leave a complete full, healthy and well life.

Mike Parsons: So we have so much ahead of us in the show. We're gonna cover sleep, breathing, stretching, eating, you name it, we're covering it, all the things that you need so that your body is full of positive energy. So it can be like a platform to, launch yourself into the world and, I think for me the most crucial, fundamental starting point to good health is my sleep.

Mark Pearson Freeland: What about you? Yeah, I think you're totally right. It's something that is unavoidable and at some point in our lives, we are probably going to need to start taking a little bit more control. Maybe it's a little bit more control when it comes to going to bed, or maybe it's more control when we wake up. So let's, first of all though, Mike set the scene, let's get inspired about health and figuring out how we can prioritize it so we can be the best as well as positive individuals we can be.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Let's hear from Arthur Matthew Walker, who is gonna break down the importance of sleep for us and help us all appreciate that. Sleep is a way of saving information. Let

Michael Walker: me start with the brain and the functions of learning and memory. Because what we've discovered over the past 10 or so years is that you need sleep after learning to essentially hit the save button on those new memories so that you don't forget.

Michael Walker: But recently we discovered that you also need sleep before learning, and now to actually prepare your brain almost like a dry sponge, ready to initially soak up new information and without sleep, the memory circuits of the brain essentially become waterlogged, as it were. And you can't absorb new memories.

Michael Walker: So let me show you the data. Here in this study, we decided to test the hypothesis that pulling the all-nighter was a good idea. So we took a group of individuals and we assigned them to one of two experimental groups, a sleep group and a sleep deprivation group. Now, the sleep group, they're going to get a full eight hours of slumber.

Michael Walker: But the deprivation group, we're going to keep them awake in the laboratory under full supervision. There's no naps or caffeine, by the way. So it's miserable for everyone involved. And then the next day, we're going to place those participants inside an M R I scanner, and we're going to have them try and learn a whole list of new facts as we're taking snapshots of brain activity.

Michael Walker: And then we're going to test them to see how effective that learning has been. And that's what you're looking at here on the vertical axis. And when you put those two groups head to head, what you find is a quite significant 40% deficit in the ability of the brain to make new memories without sleep. I think this should be concerning considering what we know is happening to sleep in our education populations right now.

Michael Walker: In fact, to put that in context, it would be the difference in a child acing an exam versus failing it miserably. 40%. And we've gone on to discover what goes wrong within your brain to produce these types of learning disabilities. And there's a structure that sits on the left and the right side of your brain called the hippocampus.

Michael Walker: And you can think of the hippocampus, almost like the informational inbox of your brain. It's very good at receiving new memory files and then holding onto them. And when you look at this structure in those people who'd had a full night of sleep, we saw lots of healthy learning related activity. Yet in those people who were sleep deprived, we actually couldn't find any significant signal whatsoever.

Michael Walker: So it's almost as though sleep deprivation had shut down your memory inbox and any new incoming files, they were just being bounced. You couldn't effectively commit new experiences

Mark Pearson Freeland: to memory

Mike Parsons: sleep. Mark is my priority number one. It is the non-negotiable . Yes. . I might be showing my age here, but I tell you what, if I can sustain good sleep habits, everything in life gets a lot easier.

Mike Parsons: Mark how do you prioritize sleep as part of your health routine?

Mark Pearson Freeland: It's definitely been a huge priority for me over the last few years and one that I. Definitely similar to what we're hearing from Matthew Walker in that clip, this idea of 40% deficit if you've, pulled an all-nighter.

Mike Parsons: So true though, isn't it? You just a bad sleep, like a really bad sleep. It is. Like you think you consume two bottles of red wine. Yeah. You're just so foggy, aren't you there?

Mark Pearson Freeland: There's nothing I, let's see if I can make the case here for you, Mike, and as well as our members. I don't think there's anything more singularly oppressive to my ability to function.

Mark Pearson Freeland: To function creatively, strategically, eloquently and to string insights, thoughts together. There's nothing more detrimental than getting a bad night's sleep for me. I think that's probably case in point, the thing that will put me off the most. Ooh. And for me it is, I know it's big, it's a big claim, but I would say that having a lack of good sleep.

Mark Pearson Freeland: And by good restful probably quite long, maybe six plus hours, ideally maybe eight in an ideal world. And consistent as well. Consistent times so that I can wake up at a similar time each day helps me unlock my ability for the next day. It helps me feel more confident. It helps me feel more comfortable.

Mark Pearson Freeland: It helps me go out and achieve maybe the physical challenges I've got in mind with some exercise perhaps, as well as try to be the best version of myself at work or in my relationships. Sleep for me is an absolute, like you just said, non-negotiable with work, travel, coming back. That's a bit of a challenge, isn't it?

Mike Parsons: Yeah. It is a little bit, a couple of quick builds on this as I violently agree with you about the importance of sleep. I'm gonna say that the biggest steps, let's imagine. We are going to go through a quick fire list of best practices on getting your sleep sorted.

Mike Parsons: I think, I have got a very good grip on my sleep. I've seen what it looks like when I don't sleep well and how I perform physically and mentally. M my moods terrible. So here's like my go-to list. First of all, number one work out my circadian rhythm, find the time that is naturally when I want to go to sleep and naturally wanna wake up and mark that is be in bed by 10, get up about six.

Mike Parsons: , that is my rhythm and I try to stick to that throughout the entire week. And the real sleep masters will say that when you have gotten to bed late, you should actually get up at your normal time. So that you don't break your rhythm because you may have broken the go to bedtime, but you can keep your rise time, maybe throw in a nap later in the day.

Mike Parsons: , because you have to almost protect your habit cycle. Because if you blow the two bed and the wake up, then you're making it that much harder for the following day. So the routine, the sleep routine is the foundation for me. 10 to six. What's another tip we've got for our members, mark, you think in mastering sleep?

Mike Parsons: I'll tell you

Mark Pearson Freeland: what really helps me get to bed at a reasonable time, and I'm similar to you, Mike. If I don't have, if I'm blessed and I don't have any evening calls, then maybe it's even a little bit before 10 and I'll be decompressing reading my book in bed. Otherwise, similar to yourself, it's probably around the 10 o'clock.

Mark Pearson Freeland: What I therefore try and do is work back. So that I make sure I eat at least a couple of hours before I'm trying to settle down and go to sleep.

Mike Parsons: Very good. Yeah. Very good, isn't it? It's crazy how eating too late stuffs up your sleep. And as well, another good one for the list is watch out for the alcohol.

Mike Parsons: That one's got that a lot of sugar, right?

Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah and I, same with sweets. Or dessert. I try and make sure that's well before I try to go to bed at least an hour or so because that sugar just will keep me going. Maybe I'm more susceptible to it nowadays as you get older, I dunno. . . But regardless if I have something sweet or maybe that one more drink before bed.

Mark Pearson Freeland: That's enough to, keep me awake for a while.

Mike Parsons: For sure. Yeah. And so I think another build on that is I have this thing where in the mornings I really focus on no devices, tranquility, stretch, breathe, meditate, do all that kind of good stuff. Don't, whatever. Whatever I do is I don't check my email, no, be when I wake up, nor do I do it before I go to bed.

Mike Parsons: In fact some small things that make a big difference. Don't put your phone next to your bed. , this to me, has been hugely powerful. And basically I treat the last 30 to 45 minutes of the evening. Like I'm just getting into monk mode. I'm winding down, lights are going down, devices are going off. Like it's this whole practice.

Mike Parsons: And I only use a Kindle in bed. I don't read on the iPad or anything like that. I certainly don't read anything work related in the evening. It's all, fiction. Because I just do not want to stir up all my thinking about the podcast or the work or clients or products, what, whatever I'm doing.

Mike Parsons: , that would be my quickfire shot at like improving sleep. There is one other though, mark. And that is to measure your sleep. Whether you use your Apple watch, your ordering, whatever device you use doesn't really matter. But looking at the data of my sleep and seeing the reason, I know the best rhythm is from the data, the reason that I.

Mike Parsons: Maximize my readiness through sleep is by my aing. It is a huge piece of me mastering my sleep. What about you? Are you looking at the data much or do you feel like you've got it under control? You know the rhythm. You don't need more data. How does it work for you? No

Mark Pearson Freeland: I'm still relatively new to the data.

Mark Pearson Freeland: I would say for the last few months, maybe six months, I've definitely taken more of an interest. I'll see and feel relieved if I've got a particularly good night's sleep. Sometimes it'll be one of the first things I check in the mornings, not in bed, but once I'm up and about , I'll have a look, review the sleep score, see how the periods of the night went, whether that has influenced me.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Enough. I probably couldn't say it's quite the same level as yourself yet, but it's just fascinating being able to look at all the data and you're totally right. Being able to compare your behavior. Maybe it's eating later, maybe it's gonna bed a bit later, and then comparing it like for like against yourself a couple of days ago, last week, whatever it might be.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Being able to look at those patterns like anything in life. Any pattern recognition is so clear cut when you have access to that data, whether it's your Apple Watch, Garmin, or a. It's an incredible, powerful tool, I think for those who want to take it to that next level. Yeah. Who want to understand and pay attention to the rest that they are getting and therefore the knock and effect that they have for the following day.

Mike Parsons: The one little anecdote to this point mark is that when before I even got my Aura ring, my Apple Watch was measuring my sleep, and I only discovered a few years ago through the data on my Apple Watch, I was always under the impression that particularly on the weekends or Friday nights, you'd have a nice meal and you'd have glass of wine or a beer, maybe two.

Mike Parsons: Maybe three. And I was always under the impression that have a drink in your sleep like a baby. Nothing further from the truth because the data started showing that my sleep was more restless. Yes. And then I would sleep really well Monday through Thursday, , and then there would be these spots where if I had alcohol in the evening, it would run riot.

Mike Parsons: And just to prove this out. So I've really eliminated alcohol, not only from my weeks, but it's a rare occasion that I drink these days Anyway. But check this out, mark. So recently we had Christmas, new Year's, and we had the National Day of Australia, three occasions where you are always enjoying a drink with family and friends.

Mike Parsons: Every single time my sleep that evening was distinctly poorer. I'm talking 20% worse than a non-a alcohol evening, and I knew it was coming, so I consumed a little bit more water during those nights to try and minimize the effect. And someone like me, who's doing lots of running, watching their health, it still had a 15, 20% degradation effect on my quality of sleep.

Mike Parsons: Crazy Mark. That's

Mark Pearson Freeland: substantial, isn't it? So mixed in with the fact. So let's do a very quick bit of math, Mike. If we're hearing from Matthew Walker that an all-nighter or maybe just a shortened night of sleep can dis, can affect you negatively up to 40%. Plus, on top of that, the impact of drinking, maybe bringing it down by another 60%.

Mark Pearson Freeland: We're looking at least perhaps a 50% decrease day on day by just, drinking or staying up too late. That's a substantial insight for me when I compare myself to maybe when I was a bit younger maybe thinking that I could burn the candle at both end. We are really making the case, I think here, Mike, that it's just not possible to be that best version of yourself.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Proactive. That's right. Confident, curious. If you don't have that rest.

Mike Parsons: So the day after the national day, I was 76 out of a hundredth for my readiness because we drank and it is just crazy to actually really study this. And that's what the benefit of the data does. You can actually see that you don't feel great the 1st of January after New's Eve.

Mike Parsons: 73 out of a hundred, even worse. So this shows you, you can look at that data and you go, I thought I was feeling a bit dusty, foggy, shabby the following day. And the, then when you see data like this, it helps you connect the dots and go okay, how can I minimize that impact? And certainly you can make much better decisions that when you do wanna enjoy friends and family, you do.

Mike Parsons: So knowing that you have absolutely nothing crucial to do the next day. Like a crucial thing I don't know, becoming a member of the Moonshots podcast. What do you think? That's

Mark Pearson Freeland: exactly right. If there's one other habit that I think we've gotta make the case for Mike, it's celebrating the members who are with us week in, week out, month over month, as well as year over year.

Mark Pearson Freeland: So please everybody stand up and give each other a pat on the back as we celebrate all Bob, John, Terry Mar and Ken Ditmar, Margie, Connor, Yasmin, Lisa, Sid, and Mr. Bonjour, all of whom Mike have been with us supporting the Moonshots show and family for over a year. Isn't that amazing? Now hot on their tails though is Paul Berg, Kaman, David, Joe, crystal, Ivo, and Christian, Sam Kelly, Barbara and Andre, Matthew, Eric Abbey and Chris Debra Lase.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Steve and Craig, Javier, Daniel, Andrew, and Ravi. Yvette, L G V. Karen and Raul, pj, Nico, Ola and Ingram, Dirk, Emily, Harry, Karthik, Vanatta, Vira, Marco, and Sund, as well as our brand new members who have joined us since the last episode. Jet Pablo, Roger and Steph mean. Mike. We're gonna have to have a master series episode just for the names, I think soon,

Mike Parsons: aren't we?

Mike Parsons: Luckily we have a clip on breathing because it's like you have to study the art of breathing in between all those names. I really do. absolutely. So much thankfulness, grateful feelings towards you, our members, because it really does play such a massive role in us being able to pay for all the different services that we have to use in order to publish our podcast and our master series.

Mike Parsons: Thank you. We really do appreciate your support and we are really looking forward to diving into the word of health with you, our members over the coming 45 minutes. But, we've we've nailed the sleep thing and that kind of makes up, part of a healthy lifestyle. But we can go next level, can't you, mark, when we talk about raising the game for not only a good life, but a long life, we have some great inspiration ahead, don't we?

Mike Parsons: Yeah, that's right.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Some of a topic that some of our listeners and members may have heard before, but something that you and I and the Moonshots family want to dig into even more is this idea of blue zones and the secret of L objectivity. So let's hear from Dan Bna, who's gonna break down the power of nine and introduce us to some of the rituals heist covered around the world for living a long life.

Mark Pearson Freeland: You begin

Dan Buettener: your book by breaking down the power of nine that you described to be the habits of the world's healthiest and longest living people. And these are people, as you mentioned, from people from Greece, Japan, Costa Rica. What are those commonalities that you discovered in your research? Yeah, so these are people who are not suffering from diabetes and heart disease and many of the cancers that are for shortening our lives.

Dan Buettener: And they don't exercise as much as they live in environments where they're nudged into movement every 20 minutes or so. So walkable communities, they have gardens out back. They, their houses aren't full of conveniences. They have sacred daily rituals to reduce the stress of everyday life. 65% of their dietary intake comes from complex carbohydrates.

Dan Buettener: This is largely a whole food plant-based diet. And by the way, eating this way can confer about six extra years of life expectancy over eating the standard American diet. So less processed food clearly. Now, give us a sense of some of those rituals that you talked about. That's intriguing to me. What are those things that help with longevity?

Dan Buettener: Yeah. So every time you're in a hurry or feel worried or stressed, it triggers the inflammatory response. And inflammation is at the root of every major age related disease. So in Okinawa, they spend a few minutes every day remembering their ancestors, where they came from in Costa Rica, what we're looking at now, they tend to take a nap.

Dan Buettener: Same with grease. What we're looking at right now taking a nap five days a week is associated with about a third lower rate of cardiovascular disease. And then in the advent, just say prayer. They tend to start their day and their meals with the prayer. And that in its own way is meditation as well.

Dan Buettener: The Sardinia just do happy hour, which believe it or not, is a good way to downshift. This is Sarnia, right? . I see. And I see, the Happy Hour wine cooler behind you. I see you're taking your practice as well as she's up in this interview, . Absolutely. And so what do you think makes these places so special?

Dan Buettener: Is there anything scientifically different about these Blue Zones? They say they have the same genes we have they have the same level of discipline and self-control, but what they have that we don't is environments that make the healthy choice the easy choice. And this is the big insight because we tend to think, especially with the holidays coming up, that we're gonna make New Year's resolutions and get on a new diet.

Dan Buettener: And no diet in the history of the world has ever worked for more than 3% of the people after two years. The reason people in Blue Zones are living a long time is because the healthiest food is cheapest and most successful. I'm dying to know how you suggest we inject purpose into our lives, but short of moving to Greece, which after looking at that video I want to do, you ask readers to give the plan 30 days.

Dan Buettener: That's what specific things can people do in 30 days that you think will help people live longer? . Yeah. The first I, I'm not gonna ask them dip into self-control. I'm gonna ask them to shape their surroundings. And the big thing though is to really pay attention to your immediate social circle. Those three or four friends that you spend the most time with, we know that if your three best friends are obese and unhealthy, there's 150% better chance that you'll be overweight yourself.

Dan Buettener: So we're gonna show you how to curate your social circle to have a few more friends whose idea of recreation is walking or playing pickleball. It's eating plant-based and people who care about you on a bad day. And that's probably the most powerful thing you can do for the future. To change your healthy habits because when it comes to longevity, there's no short term fix.

Dan Buettener: There's no pill, there's no supplement, there's no superfood. If you're not gonna do something for years or decades, it's not gonna add years to your life. And the Blue Zone challenge takes you over the course of four weeks, holds you by the hand, and shows you how to engineer your surroundings. So you will unconsciously make the better choice all day long.

Dan Buettener: I have to say that with the new year right around the corner, many of us are gonna make resolutions to live a healthier, more meaningful new year. And yet so often people struggle to make that lasting change. What advice would you give someone who's looking for long-term change in the new. . It goes back again to, to not thinking you're gonna change your behavior.

Dan Buettener: We never successfully changed your behavior but shaping your environment. So again, we're asking you to engineer surroundings, not trying to change your mind, not trying, asking you to be disciplined, not asking you to exert inhuman self-control

Mike Parsons: engineer your surroundings market. It's really interesting that it's not only about doing these things, but it's designing the environment around them, which is a topic that was a massive part of James clear's atomic habits.

Mike Parsons: He talks about make a habit obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying. And I think where we're going there with the author of Blue Zones is he's really alluding to the fact that we need to design our lifestyle, our office, our homes, to. Encourage situations where we can move naturally, have the right outlook on life, eat wisely and belong with our family and friends.

Mike Parsons: It's. As closest thing I've heard to a living system Yeah. That you can adopt to, in order to live a healthy and well life. I, for me, Matt, there is so much to take from this, but what I found most interesting is he's almost like hanging out with James Clear and saying you've gotta design your environment to support the healthy lifestyle.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah I think the big insight that he's learned from joining happy Hour in Sarnia get traveling into Japan to see these cultures where people live these extraordinarily long lives, is that the healthy choice is the easy choice. And I think you've hit the nail on the head right there. If you can create an environment in your working area, so for example, your study, if you can cultivate the type of food that you have in the house, if you can build a habit around daily exercise in the circadian rhythm that works for you with regards to sleep, suddenly you're going to unavoidably stop benefiting, aren't you?

Mark Pearson Freeland: Because you will. Sleeping the right length, finding the food and the snacks that you want, that are naturally much, much healthier, you'll be able to engineer that mindset much less aggressively perhaps, than I think some people think by just changing what's around you.

Mike Parsons: What's the classic thing that we all do if we want to eat better is you get the junk food out of the house.

Mike Parsons: Just don't make it an option. If it's not in the cupboards or the fridge, you can't eat it, can you? That's

Mark Pearson Freeland: exactly it. If you remove the choice, the the ability to reach for, I dunno, let's say it's another glass of wine at night, or maybe it is a box of chocolates. If you remove that from the environment what's next?

Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. And it is quite quickly for myself, I've realized that if I don't have access to whatever it is that I'm craving, maybe it's a, an extra slab of chocolate. I don't have it. I'll forget about it almost immediately. Yeah. . It's and I'll, and then I'll find, I'll sleep better. .

Mike Parsons: Yeah. You asked what's next and I think that, we've started with these ideas of, really looking after sleep getting some inspiration from these blue zones with this idea of natural movement, have the right outlook on life, eat wisely and belong socially, now gives us a chance to pivot and really look at the body itself.

Mike Parsons: We have a chance to really have a look at sitting, standing. Flexibility. And the key thing in all of those parts is our back. We have to nurture our backs. So many people that we know have bad backs. It's crazy. We're gonna have a listen now to Roger Frampton discussing how sitting too long is not a recipe for success.

Mike Parsons: Biochemist

Roger Frampton: Esther Gotley spent time traveling the world and researched places where back pain hardly exists. What she noticed was people's spines with a flatter lumbar curvature didn't suffer from back pain. She referred to this as a J shaped spine, and you can see the difference in the images here between the S-shaped spine taught in the Western world and the J shaped spine in people where back pain doesn't exist.

Roger Frampton: Go. Clay states. The J shaped spine is what in Greek statues and in young children universally. What she's saying is we are all born with a J shaped spine. Now, you may have noticed when young children pick things up from the ground, they drop down into this perfect squat. This is, in fact a co-chair resting human position.

Roger Frampton: But unfortunately, as a consequence of our current human conditioning or our culture, this natural resting position is about to be taken away from this child. He's about to be torn. A resting position is in fact a chair. And when he soon starts school, seven hours of his day, every day, he will be asked to sit in this, quite frankly, weird and unhuman position.

Roger Frampton: Now, I didn't even take into account the amount of hours this kid spends watching

Mark Pearson Freeland: Pepper Pig

Roger Frampton: a. According to the British Chiropractic Association, the total number of people off sick from work with back pain increased last year by 29% from the survey. The reason for back pain was sitting too long in one

Mark Pearson Freeland: position.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Mike, this is a topic that, I think a lot of us have become more aware of potentially as we get older, but also as it becomes a little bit more well documented, negative effects that we will have from rounding shoulders, working on laptops, but also leaning over our devices, our phones, and so on.

Mark Pearson Freeland: And I think that Roger Frampton does a really. Visual and vivid job here at helping us appreciate the difference that specifically this j shaped spine has in children being able to bend down, being a little bit more flexible, and that, that problem that a lot of us have as we get older, which is stiffness, being able to pick up things from the floor or, suffering from backaches and back pains, people going into operations and so on.

Mark Pearson Freeland: And this is something that, for me, having worked on laptops for many years I've certainly noticed, I can see when I look in a mirror, if I'm sitting down in my study, I can see myself slumping over the desk. And when I catch myself doing that, what I've started doing is trying to change the chair.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Or even better if the capability is there, use a standing desk. So that I can get that little bit of stretch. Obviously a short-term solution would be to walk around the office or the house, but actually working and conducting meetings in a way that straightens that back and straightens those hips, I think is, can only be good at delivering and living up to what Roger MPS's making the case for here, which is being that little bit more, I think relaxed when it comes to our back by being a little bit straighter.

Mark Pearson Freeland: What are you hearing from Roger

Mike Parsons: there? Oh, listen. I just listened to that. Immediately did you find yourself like correcting your posture? Oh yes. look, I think if we want to talk about and take a theme a little bit from the Blue Zones, which was the previous clip, and incorporate that into, to Roger Frampton's thoughts, I think the question becomes, How do we prevent lower back pain and how do we have better posture and just generally feel more flexible in our back?

Mike Parsons: I think the first thing you can do, and I'm gonna assume a lot of people listening to this show are working from a desk for the most part of the day, whether that's they're working on documents, doing calls, that kind of thing. And I think that the best thing, the most transformative thing you can do is think about your work in segments.

Mike Parsons: Be it 30, 45 or 60 minutes and that transition get out of your chair, right? , I think what we heard and what we've discussed is that it's when you are dwelling in the seat for hours upon hours, and remember this, our body is not designed to be folded like that permanently. We were never designed to sit in chairs for eight hours a day.

Mike Parsons: We are designed to walk. That means standing. So if we are gonna sit, for me, I really think about it at, for every half hour of a sit, I need five, 10 minutes of a stand. And I think if you want to take it next level, mark, the game changer that you mentioned is to get a standing desk so you don't have to actually, you've got all your gear, all your equipment, computers, whatever you need to do your work.

Mike Parsons: And you hit a button and you're standing game changer.

Mark Pearson Freeland: It really is a game changer, isn't it? It,

Mike Parsons: and for me, it means like we, we are talking a lot about making health easy and I think the fact that you can press a button and just keep working and you're standing, you don't even have to walk away and take a break.

Mike Parsons: You can just hit a different button and up your go. That, for me is critical. I think the other crazy thing related to this is the more you exercise, the less back pain that you have. Yes. And I've even had occasions where I've had lower back pain and I've gone for a run and the run fixed it, if that sounds crazy.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Yes. I now, I have also experienced this. I went to a stretch. Experience over the Christmas break, where you get stretched, your legs, your hips, your back, and so on. And I always thought, okay, I'm gonna be pretty stiff because I think that's something that I can always take a little bit more ownership over.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Standing up more when doing meetings, stretching a little bit more and so on. But actually, conversely, the insight the takeaway was exactly what you've just said. By being active, you actually keep those joints moving a little bit more by being active, that lower back pain can be stretched out because you are rotating, you're doing a stretch to a certain extent as you are exercising and running, which I think is a perfect call out here, , you can start to just stretch yourself out and wake up those limbs and relieve any mild pain by just simply going for a walk every morning.

Mike Parsons: So let's say that you don't have a. Sit standing desk that is adjustable. Okay. I had up until recently I didn't have a standing desk, so what I had was a very affordable, I think it was like honestly $20 on Amazon a standing desk shelf that you put on your regular desk and then you can rest your laptop on it.

Mike Parsons: And so you instantly could transition to that. It doesn't mean spending a lot of money to do it. So that's the first thing. The second thing I wanna touch upon, and particularly for those people who do a lot of desk work and are quite sedentary, I'm interested to know what advice would you give Mark to someone who doesn't have a team sport or a gym membership, and they're not a runner?

Mike Parsons: How would you encourage them to incorporate exercise into their day?

Mark Pearson Freeland: I think the simplest thing. The lowest hanging fruit would be going for a walk around the block. I think there's obviously, depending on the type of situation that people. Live in, whether it's, a huge block of flats or whatever.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Taking the stairs is something that I think is always a really Oh, that's a good one. Easy thing to do as well. Yeah. Whether it's between meetings and you wanna stretch out, maybe you've had another coffee, or maybe you'll think about another coffee. Take the stairs instead. Of the elevator.

Mark Pearson Freeland: I think walking around the block for me, if I get a little bit fatigued during the day, maybe I've just had a big heavy meeting. I'll want to go for a walk just to limber up a little bit. And get the blood pumping. You don't necessarily, I don't necessarily need to put on the running shoes and run around the neighborhood.

Mark Pearson Freeland: I don't need to jump in the ocean for a swim. , ah. Obviously those are great for me, but you're quite right Mike. Not everybody is gonna be able to do that. Any time during the day. So I think it's just starting small, isn't it? It's totally, it's working around the office. Maybe it's walking around the house.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Maybe it's finding an excuse to go out. Go to the shop or go and buy a coffee, or maybe it's just to go out, have a break, not only from the laptop, bend down and smell the flowers while you're out in the

Mike Parsons: neighborhood. Yeah, I would building on that, definitely. If you can just start with a 20 minute walk every day.

Mike Parsons: If you're starting out, I think that's a really good way to, to start things because not only would you get upright, get some exercise before you go and sit down, I think you're gonna experience, you're gonna take in a lot more oxygen. You're gonna feel more awake, more alert. I think that's a good way to start.

Mike Parsons: And I, I would hope that for anyone that built a habit for a couple of weeks of going for a morning walk, will be tempted to take a lunchtime. And it doesn't have to be long. It can be as short as 10, 15 minutes and close the day out with a little walk. If you could do those things, those are really smart.

Mike Parsons: Now, let's say you are super busy and you're like, Mike, oh, that's way too hard. The other thing you can do is particularly if you are in an office environment, ask yourself if you have an internal meeting, particularly with a small number of people, potentially just two people. Why not do a walk and talk?

Mike Parsons: Yes. Why does it have to be sitting down at a desk? You can walk and talk. The other thing is, if you're joining a lot of conference calls, you can also do your conference call while you walk around the park. That's these are options. I successfully do all of the above . And I would encourage anyone to, to embrace movement get started with it, but I think my golden rule is three times a day.

Mike Parsons: It really needs to be that kind of movement. And as a benchmark, you'd be looking for. A minimum of 30 minutes of walking a day. And I think that would be transformational. Beyond sitting correctly beyond living that kind of, those nine golden rules of the blue zones beyond sleep.

Mike Parsons: The next thing you can do with a good sleep, the really good approach to wellness. You can start incorporating movement into your life. But all of that requires fuel mark. And this is why it's so exciting now to turn to Michael Poland, who's one of my favorite food and diet authors. And he just makes things so beautiful and elegant.

Mike Parsons: And what we're gonna hear now is what I think is his most powerful mantra about how we can think about diet.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Michael,

Mike Parsons: you use a simple framework for delivering a lot of your advice on how to approach one's relationship with food. And what comes to mind is your kind of mantra, eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

Mike Parsons: Yes.

Michael Pollan: Coming up with those seven words, which I'm afraid will be on my gravestone unless I don't, unless I come up with something better soon is is the result of a very long process of examining the science of nutrition. But as I got deeper and deeper, I realized actually the key issue is, are you eating real food or what I like to call edible food like substances, which is to say processed foods.

Michael Pollan: And so the phrase eat food, I realized that's really what you need to know to eat. Eat food, by which

Mark Pearson Freeland: I mean real food. But then I realized

Michael Pollan: that isn't quite enough because we're also eating too many calories. So not too much became part of the mantra. And then lastly, I was like within. A range of foods.

Michael Pollan: Is there a class that's better than another class? And one of the things we know is that people who eat lots of plant foods tend to have much better health and better longevity than people who eat a heavy meat diet. So mostly plants, not all plants mostly is I'm trying to be very reasonable and although it tends to offend both vegetarians and carnivores, when you say mostly plants, so eat food, not too much.

Michael Pollan: Mostly plants is basically, I think all you need to know. Now, eat food is probably the hardest part of that to understand because isn't all that stuff in the supermarket food? I would argue it's not, and I would argue a lot of it are relatively new, highly processed, edible food-like substances that really are what gets most people into trouble around eating.

Michael Pollan: They tend to have lots of refined sugars, lots of refined fats, and very little fiber. Very little. Of the antioxidants you find in plants and basically they were designed for long shelf life, these processed foods. And the way you make a food last longer is you take out what is nutritionally valuable.

Michael Pollan: I'm talking about omega-3 fatty acids. I'm talking about fiber. All these things don't store well. So we've gone down a path of eating a lot of things that shouldn't be dignified with that beautiful word food.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Michael Poland coming at us with some hard truths there, Mike, particularly around real food.

Mark Pearson Freeland: And what I wanna build on from what we just heard from Michael, there is. A quick lesson that we learned from hearing from him around how to define food. And one of the great turns of phrases, that Michael Poll had was, don't eat anything that your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize his food.

Mark Pearson Freeland: How good we just, how good and simple is that? Yeah. Things that in contain ingredients that you can't even pronounce, let alone understand, are being consumed by us every day. And he's calling out very simply here, try to avoid those foods where you either, a, don't know what it is, or B, can't even pronounce

Mike Parsons: the ingredient ingredients.

Mike Parsons: Yeah. And building, and that he says, don't eat anything with more than five ingredients, the ones that you can't pronounce and go for real foods. Now, just as a follow up to that I have a couple of thoughts here, Matt. One is, when I eat a fresh. Salad with Whole Foods. I just feel so good.

Mike Parsons: It like, let's just start at that first principle. When you eat a good fresh salad mark, don't you just feel like light and Yes. Energized and you're not in some sort of coma as your body tries to digest. It's the opposite. It's so seamless and it's almost invisible, isn't it?

Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah.

Mark Pearson Freeland: It's a funny concept. When I was a, when I was younger, I'd always seek out the, I was always the greediest. Maybe that's the best way of putting it. Like I'd have many different portions. Two or three, I'd feel full and I'd sit there with reflection. Probably not that content. I think it was an illusion, the idea of stuffing your face until you feel full.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. And that being the perfect situation, I don't think it was, and I'd always end up either very tired, I'd probably end up a little bit grumpy because my body was trying to cope with staying stimulated and having a conversation with somebody while dealing with the digestion of maybe three portions of a dinner.

Mark Pearson Freeland: If you flip that and now look at what you've just said, having a good, healthy salad, maybe a bit of a protein in there, not eating too much as Michael Poland would call out. , you do, you walk away think feeling satisfied. Okay.

Mike Parsons: I do. Fine by the way. Ready? Interesting. Side note, the blue zone, a big piece of that is that they always they talk about the 80% rule, only 80% of what you think you need.

Mike Parsons: That's

Mark Pearson Freeland: a great concept, isn't it? If you can identify when you're getting to about that level, call it. Stop there.

Mike Parsons: Yeah. And there's two diets that are great lifestyles. One is the paleo diet and the other one is the FODMAP diet, both of which are, if you're really interested in diet at the moment and you're thinking, oh, I want to follow up, of course, dive into anything that Michael Poland has written.

Mike Parsons: But in addition to that, I would say both the paleo and the fmat diet are ways of getting rid of stuff that's not really food and how you can go to a mostly plant-based diet. But also what's really interesting if you study the Blue Zones, this is a really interesting follow up.

Mike Parsons: There's some great documentaries on YouTube, so check those out. Is what you notice is that the plates, this is such a crazy it's so much habit and lifestyle design in this, isn't it? My, but the plates they use are very small.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Ah,

Mike Parsons: so they serve each food. So let's say, take the classic analogy that most people recognize, meat and three veg, they would have four little plates or little kind of bowls rather than one enormous classic Western style plate.

Mike Parsons: And that is how they design to eating less, is that they have small balls that don't accommodate large servings.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Oh, how funny is that? That's so simple. Yeah. Such a simple little behavior and habit to get into. . And again, if we call back to the topic of earlier with regards to Daniel.

Mark Pearson Freeland: With the blue zone, healthier choices are the ones that you can make easily. So if you remove, again, the big plates from your house, , as well as the junk, it's gonna be something that's so easy for you to achieve because it's naturally the only status quo that you have smaller portions.

Mike Parsons: And so I just think here what we are seeing is those rules that we spoke about from James Clear and a Tommy Harris, making it easy, making it rewarding and just like you would get the junk food outta the house.

Mike Parsons: So it's just not even an option. What you can make a an option is all the good stuff, small portions, healthy options, stuff that is actually real foods. And one of the biggest things that prevent people from doing this is the idea that preparation takes too long. And what I would propose to that mark is on your Sunday, do some meal preparation.

Mike Parsons: Basically get out your veggies, get out your healthy foods, and make. If you want to be like, really go for it. Make five portions for the week, or alternatively make two different meals and make 10 portions so you've got the next two weeks covered. Whilst this might sound like crazy, do you know how fantastic it is?

Mike Parsons: Like on a Wednesday night you can go to the freezer and you go, ah, there's this really yummy, healthy meal and all they need to do is heat it up. That's all they need to do. Yep. And I think that's again, that, that lifestyle design. So I wanna ask you, mark, do you have any sort of habits or little hacks to make healthy diet an always a good option and an easy option for you?

Mark Pearson Freeland: I think like all of us, you can start by just removing as we've already discuss. Removing the distractions or the temptations from the house. Obviously around this time of year, following Christmas and holidays and so on, it's possible that your house is full of chocolates, little Snackables and so on.

Mark Pearson Freeland: For me, what I try and do is pick up, things, vegetables, for example, ar apples or bananas that I can snack on as I'm walking out the door. So rather than associating Ryan, I'm gonna sit down and have a bag of crisps. I'll try and think, okay, I'm a little bit hungry. Maybe what I'll do is I'll take a carrot and I'll go for a walk and try to pair the movement with the idea of snacking on something healthier, to try and build this association idea, the association.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Being in a mood where I want to chill out or snack on something, I'm tempted to, take the easy path perhaps, or get a takeaway instead, try and choose that more healthy option by just making it the only thing that's available. That's obviously first port of cool, isn't

Mike Parsons: it?

Mike Parsons: Yeah. Like you inspire me. There what I love is like a simple hack is don't buy traditional cucumbers. Buy mini cucumbers. Don't buy traditional carrots, buy mini carrots so that they're really portable for snacking. And if you really are into your cucumbers, you might like to get a healthy tiki dip.

Mike Parsons: Or if you're like your carrots, you might get a hummus dip. So you can bring some extra taste to the, to, to the party with those sorts of things. But each of those steps are, make those readily available because if you see a whopping big cucumber or carrot it in the fridge, you're like, oh, I've gotta peel it, cut it, if you get the mini versions and you don't get a nutritional, Reduction there, they still have good punch from a nutrition perspective, which as you said, mark, you can get out and about and you can eat that snack. And that's a healthy way of going about it. Yeah. And as I said, like just get those crisps, get the chocolate out of the house.

Mike Parsons: Yeah. Because when it's there, it's like calling me Mark. It's eat. Yeah, exactly. You eat me. You work so hard. You deserve this very unhealthy snack. . And we know, we've seen a lot of science about how addictive particularly sugar can be. And that our brain reacts somewhat it does on cocaine when we have sugar.

Mike Parsons: So that's like some crazy science that we could get into. But Mark, I think we've still got more, more good health stuff to, to dive into. Where should we gotta do a good service to all our members and make sure we get all the basic plays for a healthy life. Done. What's up next?

Mark Pearson Freeland: We've obviously covered and introduced this idea of the importance of sleep.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Setting the scene for our brains to recover as well as be prepared for the next day. We've learned a little bit about the power of nine and those rituals to longevity of which movement and keeping your body active is a key one. Roger Frampton obviously built upon that with regards to sitting in Poland, as we've just dived headfirst into with regards to food is something that we can really take ownership of.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Something that perhaps is more unconscious for a lot of us, but something that's equally very important to manage our ability to deal with stress and resistance, as well as build up enough confidence during the day to be the best version of ourselves is breathing. So now Mike, let's hear from Patrick McCowen, who's gonna talk to us about the cadence of good breathing.

Patrick McKeown: By gently slowing down your breadth, and a lot of the research is centering around six breaths per minute. So when I'm working with a client the first time we, what we'll do is we work in the biochemistry of breathing, so we generate a air hunger. Then I will spend so much time working on the biomechanics of breathing.

Patrick McKeown: Then I will work on the cadence of the breadth, and I have the client simply breathe in 2, 3, 4, and out, 3, 4, 5, 6. And I continue with that. And we are changing the respiratory rate from their normal spontaneous breathing down to six breaths per minute. Why? Because the research shows that you can influence the autonomic nervous system.

Patrick McKeown: Bodily systems, which have been disturbed by stress, especially long-term stress. And the research is looking at post-traumatic stress disorder irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, and also depression has been featured that when you slow down the respiratory rate to six breaths per minute, it's stimulating the vagus nerve.

Patrick McKeown: It's increasing heart rate variability. It's increasing the synchronicity between your respiration and the timing of your heartbeat, and it's also exercising or increasing the sensitivity of viral receptors. Now just talk about those for just one moment. Yeah, sure. Our body has an innate capability. And a need to be able to respond well to the environment.

Patrick McKeown: We need to have a balance between the parasympathetic and the sympathetic. If a challenge comes our way, we should be able to adapt to it. Life is always going to throw us a curved ball. How does our body react to it? This is about resilience and people with really good functioning of the autonomic nervous system, they can cope better with what life is throwing at them.

Patrick McKeown: Now, in terms of can you improve that? If you read a paper or an article by Mark Russell, it's called Slow breathing, you will see that they have done quite a lot of research looking at the application of slow. To general health. When you slow down the breath to six breaths per minute, you stimulate viral receptors, which are pressure receptors in the major blood vessels in the aorta and in the carotid arteries, and they become more sensitive.

Patrick McKeown: So when there's an increase of your blood pressure, the bar receptors send an immediate message to cause your blood vessels to dilate and your heart rate to slow down so that it brings down your blood pressure. But conversely, if your blood pressure is low, the viral receptors immediately react that by causing your blood vessels to constrict and your heart rate to increase, to normalize your blood pressure.

Patrick McKeown: But the sensitivity of your bowel receptors are a very good marker of your resilience

Mike Parsons: in life. Ooh, resilience in life. I had a funny experience listening to that clip. Mark. As Patrick McEwen was describing all the good things. That better breathing can bring to you to slow down your breathing.

Mike Parsons: Do you know what I was thinking, mark? I was thinking that's exactly what a good diet does too. That's what exercise does too. That's what good sleep does too. So imagine this, breathe well, sleep well, eat well, move exercise, be conscious of not eating too much. All of those things. Put 'em all together.

Mike Parsons: It's like the a, a massive compound effect. And let's say you, you stray on one of those, you know that you have three or four other practices that can compensate because life is always gonna throw challenges at us. So you can. Armed against the challenges of life and you're shooting for the moon.

Mike Parsons: So say you didn't sleep well, but you wait say you didn't eat well, but you slept well. It's pretty interesting that if you step back, why is it that the blue zone inhabitants always seem to be happier, healthier, and live longer than others because they do all of these things? This is pretty powerful stuff, Matt, isn't

Mark Pearson Freeland: it?

Mark Pearson Freeland: It's really making the case. I think for the idea that we can control more than we think. We can control the level of energy that we have in the day. We can control, or at least influence the attention spans that we have, the creativity levels that we experience, as well as how we can feel. We can all make those conscious decisions to eat better and more controlled, we can make ourselves motivated to maybe go for that walk or some kind of exercise, which all compound make us feel better.

Mark Pearson Freeland: And this was something that we obviously had uncovered during the Happiness series as well with the Dai Lama calling out that happiness is like a muscle. The more you work it out, the more you notice it, the better it becomes and the stronger it is and the more noticeable it is. I would argue the same thing with regards to health, Mike.

Mark Pearson Freeland: The more ownership that you take over what you're putting in your body, how you're breathing, obviously the level of sleep and the preparation that you're putting in before going to sleep, the better you are gonna feel. Compoundedly over time. Again, calling back to what you said at the beginning, it's James Clear, it's the atomic habits.

Mark Pearson Freeland: It's things that maybe were once easy or obvious to us that we've actually. Disregarded along the way and deprioritized, but I think these individuals and authors that we're obviously discussing today are really making the case that we should take ownership back and we should start controlling how we are responding to these core, fun, foundational elements of our lives so that we do become better versions, or whatever you wanna call it, more productive versions of ourselves than we were yesterday.

Mike Parsons: Absolutely, indeed. Said. And mark, I wanna play one more clip because it wouldn't be a health series without Andrew Huberman. I think we should ask the question, how do we feel more energized when we wake up? And let's listen because Homan, he's got the.

Andrew Huberman: I wake up in the morning and I want to reach for my phone, but I know that even if I were to crank up the brightness on that phone screen, it's not bright enough to trigger that cortisol spike and for me to be at my most alert and focus throughout the day and to optimize my sleep at night.

Andrew Huberman: So what I do is I get out of bed and I go outside, and if it's. Bright, clear day, and the sun is low in the sky, or the sun is, starting to get overhead, what we call low solar angle. Then I know I'm getting outside at the right time. If there's cloud cover and I can't see the sun, I also know I'm doing a good thing because it turns out, especially on cloudy days, you want to get outside and get as much light energy or photons in your eyes.

Andrew Huberman: But let's say it's a very clear day and I can see where the sun is. I do not need to stare directly into the sun. If it's very low in the sky, I might do that because it's not going to be very painful to my eyes. However, if the sun is a little bit brighter and a little bit higher in the sky, sometimes it could be painful to look at.

Andrew Huberman: So the way to get this sunlight viewing early in the. Is to look toward the sun. If it's too bright to look at directly, then don't do that. You just look toward it, but not directly at it. It's absolutely fine to blink. In fact, I encourage you to blink whenever you feel the impulse to blink. Never look at any light, sunlight or otherwise.

Andrew Huberman: That's so bright that it's painful to look at cuz you can damage your eyes. But for this morning, sunlight viewing it's best to not wear sunglasses. That's right. To not wear sunglasses, at least for this morning. Sunlight Viewing it is absolutely fine to wear eyeglasses or contact lenses, corrective lenses.

Andrew Huberman: In fact, those will serve you well in this practice where this tool, because they will focus the light onto your neural retina and onto those melanopsin, intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cells. If your eyeglasses or contact lenses have UV protection, that's okay. There's so many different wavelengths of light coming from the sun.

Andrew Huberman: And they are bright enough that they will trigger the mechanisms that you want triggered at this early time of day. So try and get outside, ideally within the first five minutes of waking, or maybe it's 15 minutes, but certainly within the first hour after waking. I wanna share with you three critical things about this tool of morning sunlight viewing.

Andrew Huberman: First of all, this is not some woo biology thing. This is grounded in the core of our physiology. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of quality peer reviewed papers showing that light viewing early in the day is the most powerful stimulus for wakefulness throughout the day, and it has a powerful positive impact on your ability to fall and stay asleep at night.

Andrew Huberman: So this is really the foundational power tool for ensuring a great night's sleep and for feeling more awake during the. . Second of all, if you wake up before the sun is out, you can and probably should flip on artificial lights in your internal home environment or apartment or wherever you happen to live.

Andrew Huberman: If your goal is to be awake, right? If you wake up at four in the morning and you need to be awake, then turn on artificial lights once the sun is out. However, once the sun has risen, then you still want to get outside and view sun. Some of you will wake up before the sun comes out, and if you're asking whether or not turning on artificial lights can replace sunlight at those hours, unfortunately the answer is no unless you have a very special light.

Andrew Huberman: We'll talk about what kind of light the bright artificial lights in your home environment are not, I repeat, are not going to be sufficiently bright to turn on the cortisol mechanism and the other wake up mechanisms that you need early in the day. The diabolical twist, however, is that those lights in your home or apartment, or even on your phone are bright enough to disrupt your sleep if you look at them too late at night or in the middle of the night.

Andrew Huberman: So there's this asymmetry. Retinal our eye biology and then our brains biology, whereby early in the day, right around waking, you need a lot of light, a lot of photons, a lot of light energy, and artificial lights generally just won't accomplish what you need them to accomplish. But at night, even a little bit of artificial light can really mess up your circadian, your 24 hour clocks, and all these mechanisms that we're talking about.

Andrew Huberman: So if you wake up before the sun is out and it's still dark, please turn on as many bright artificial lights as you possibly can or need. But then get outside once the sun is out.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Mike, I've, you've gotta hand it to Andrew Huberman PhD. Legend of Moonshots, , because he has such a natural way of breaking down something that you know, perhaps seems. I suppose simple, it, it should be obvious to us, but for most of us, it's not the simple act of brightness, of light being a stimulus that wakes up every nook and cranny of your brain.

Mark Pearson Freeland: It gets rid of the cobwebs. It makes obviously your eyes brighten. Then you, maybe you take a deep breath in. That's suddenly how I react as soon as I step out into the morning light. For me, this was, and still is such a powerful tip that I put into practice every single day. Now, I'll intentionally not take out any sunglasses.

Mark Pearson Freeland: I'll make sure to get out probably as early as I can so that I can maybe even see the passage of the sun change as I'm walking around with my dog. Nice. And it's really, Beneficial. I've found it really is a way of kickstarting myself in the morning, probably better even I might say, than coffee.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Something that does naturally freshen me up. What about you? How have you reacted to this idea of utilizing the sun to, to wake yourself up

Mike Parsons: more? I'm certainly giving it a try. I even did it this morning. And look, I think it's just, again, look at the natural intersection in invariably he's saying get outside.

Mike Parsons: Invariably that includes maybe taking a walk to get that sunshine. That's a good thing. So I think the. The reason that this clip is so good from Andrew Huberman is we invariably, unless we have like you mark a dog that needs a walk in the morning, a lot of us might be tempted to crack on with our work, right?

Mike Parsons: . Yeah. But what he's saying is no. Make sure you get within the first hour. Get direct sunlight, enjoy it. And which is, perfect. We were talking earlier, like a great way to start the days, even a 20 minute stroll around the neighborhood. Take a couple of blocks. All good. I think like we can see a real pattern of healthy habits here.

Mike Parsons: And just a fantastic way to close out what has been an action packed six part Health Master series, hasn't it? Mark?

Mark Pearson Freeland: What's captured me, particularly Mike, is, a how interconnected all of these clips have been. All of these tips and advice exactly as you called out, the benefit of good breathing, impacting blood pressure also, which is impacted by diet and so on.

Mark Pearson Freeland: It's all very interconnected. What I've also been struck by is just how actionable a lot of this is straight away. We can take these tips and piece of advice and put into action, right now and take ownership of each of these elements of our health, can't we to try and, improve upon us day by day.

Mark Pearson Freeland: It, none of it seems impossible to me.

Mike Parsons: It doesn't. Now I know that you're quite a healthy chap, so I'm not sure, I really don't know which of the six ideas and experts we studied today is one of them getting a little extra attention from you, mark.

Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah, I think the one that struck me when we first dove into the author as well as his book, and the one that keeps on coming back to me and that I'll reference occasionally when I want to get inspired is Roger Frampton.

Mark Pearson Freeland: And the idea and the work that he obviously put together with regards to our spines and how posture is so important. I believe posture for me is something that does impact my confidence, my ability to take on, particular challenges. If I'm about to get ready to go for a run or a swim I'll, stand up straight, much like you're about to go into battle or what it might be.

Mark Pearson Freeland: So for me it's the awareness of how I'm sitting, how I'm. Utilizing, whether it's standing desks or those desks that rise up so you can place your laptop on top of it. All of those elements are things that I'm gonna continue pushing day by day. What about you, Mike? Of those six and more, areas that we've learned from, which piece is really standing out to you as we reflect on health?

Mike Parsons: Listen, I'm gonna join you. I think the back, the sitting and the standing, Roger Franton, that's a good one to work on. In fact, I have in my to-do list, a recurring to-do of 30 minutes of standing work a day. So that combined with my stretching. That's definitely a part of my working routine.

Mike Parsons: What I would like to do is now that I have a standing desk, I'd like to incorporate more standing work. So I have to admit it's a bit of a special event for me. for me at the moment, oh, I'm gonna do some standing work. Wow. I'll come press the button and all that and that's great. I wonder how much I can make it as just a natural part of how I work so it's more subconscious.

Mike Parsons: So that's the work that I'm doing and I wanna thank you for you, mark, for the work that you did pulling this show together with me here on the Moonshots Podcast. And I wanna say thank you to you, our members. We wouldn't have this show without you guys. We really are grateful for your support. And today we learnt out loud together.

Mike Parsons: We did a master series, in fact, episode 19 of the Master. On health, and boy did we hear from some gurus. Our first and most important starting point was sleep with Matthew Walker, and we have to remember that sleep is where we do some of our best work. Saving information, getting ready for the next day.

Mike Parsons: We heard from Dam bna, it was all about blue zones, the people who've pulled it all together, and the power of those nine habits of living better and longer. We actually stood up straight, had good posture whilst we listened to Roger Frampton to study our back and make sure that we're sitting right and standing right.

Mike Parsons: We heard from one of our favorites, Michael Poland, on to eat food. Mostly plants and not too much. And while we're doing all of this, we're gonna breathe correctly, build that resilience. That's what we learned from Patrick Macon. And we brought it all together with the morning, the Rising to the New Dawn from Andrew Huberman who said, get out there, get some sunlight and you will feel better throughout the day.

Mike Parsons: More energy. So you can shoot for the moon so you can learn out loud, cuz that's exactly what we're all doing here together on the Moonshots Master series. Okay, that's a wrap.