Protecting Your Brain As You Age w/ Thoryn Stephens
Welcome to Journey to the Sunnyside, the podcast where we have thoughtful conversations to explore the science of habits, uncover the secrets to mindful living, and of course, your own mindful drinking journey. Today's episode is a little different than some of our others, but I promise it's one you'll want to stick around for. If you've ever dealt with brain fog, low energy, mood swings, or you've just found yourself wondering, Why don't I feel like myself lately? This one's for you. We're talking with Thorin Stephens, a biotech exec turned data scientist turned longevity pioneer.
Speaker 1:He's the founder of Brain One, a company that's helping people improve their brain fitness with small, measurable changes, and it's all grounded in science. He's worked in molecular biology, built AI driven health platforms, and now he's leading a movement around personalized protocols to help people protect their brain long before problems show up. If you're in your 40s or 50s and want to stay ahead of things like memory loss, mood dips, or mental fatigue, come join us for an exploration. Thorin, it's great to have you here. Thanks a lot for coming on.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Great to meet you.
Speaker 1:Well, so you've got a really unique background. Can you walk us through what that background is and your most recent project that you're so passionate and is a very exciting thing to talk about, which is Brain One?
Speaker 2:Awesome. Yeah. Absolutely. My background's in molecular and cell biology. I began my career as a bench scientist in biotechnology doing small molecule drug therapeutics.
Speaker 2:So we were looking for novel biological targets that we would then, you know, ultimately hit with small molecules to try to impede an action like infectious disease, cardiovascular, some oncology, and so forth. And spent the first half third of my career basically in biotech, and then I transitioned into data science and measurement and moved to LA from San Francisco. I was living in Venice for about ten years and very much focused on an optimization of human behavior online, you know, whether it's, you know, ecommerce or different industries. And what I found was that, you know, you can pretty much optimize any human behavior, but oftentimes, these tools are not really being used for, you know, the greater good. So redirected my efforts essentially into one of the areas I'm very passionate about, and that is brain and and ultimately biological health, and then the measurement thereby.
Speaker 2:And so I have been very passionate about that for the last number of years. And Brain One, a company that I I founded, is focused initially in the concept of brain fitness, and we can talk about that definition. But, you know, just having the strongest mind that you can, and then even a bit more broadly, developing protocols different areas of health. So brain fitness is one. You know, there's a a multitude that we're now developing into as we speak.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You have such a specialized background. I mean, there's more words there that I couldn't pronounce, to be honest. Okay. Which means you know what you're talking I mean,
Speaker 2:ask any question. I'm I'm an open book on these things. So,
Speaker 1:Oh, it's awesome. I love it. So, I actually, I'm pretty familiar with your story because I always do research on all of our guests and it makes for such a better interview but of the stories I heard is how you got into all this. You were actually an athlete yourself, and you were training for triathlon. Yep.
Speaker 1:What were the insights that you learned during that period of your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I, I was born here in Colorado. I grew up in San Francisco, and backcountry snowboarding is really integral to who I am as a human. And I have been, you know, essentially skiing and snowboarding since I was, like, five or six years old, currently calling here from from Colorado. And I never really was a runner, though.
Speaker 2:And, it was in my twenties. I'd graduated. I was working in biotech. And, ultimately, one day, my mother is like, get out of bed. We're gonna go do a Susan G.
Speaker 2:Komen ten k. And I was like, okay. I've never gone running in my life. And we started doing 10 k's and then half marathons and marathons, and then ultimately triathlons and started off, you know, half ironmans, ironmans, you know, the whole deal. And it was through that experience that I learned how you can optimize your biology through data, ultimately.
Speaker 2:And at the time, you know, this is whatever, ten, some years ago, you know, we had the big chunky Garmins. I mean, they were much bigger and, you know, very limited in the actual, metrics that they could deliver. But, you know, the idea that you could even just with the basics of heart rate, you could really begin to see how you could attenuate your elastic threshold. So, ultimately, you can go faster, stronger, you know, further, and so forth. And I was using a trainer at the time, and all of that data was being kept in just an Excel document.
Speaker 2:And the Excel document was broken down by micro habits, things that you do, nutrition, you know, hydration, like full, you know, plans around supplements and, you know, so forth. And it was all on Excel. And that was kind of the the beginning of what became Brain One and that concept of following a health protocol to reach a desired action. And, what I saw personally is that it was very, very effective. And, I started Brain One, you know, roughly about three years ago now, two and a half years ago, and we were actually training for the Malibu Triathlon and had athletes here in Colorado and California, for Children's Hospital LA.
Speaker 2:And we had a, you know, team of about 12 people. I hadn't even launched the company, but we had a Brain One Triathlon team. And it was through that experience where everyone was following a structured framework, a protocol, or a routine. It's all the same thing, that ultimately, you know, we we did quite well in the race, and and I began to see that there was something around human health protocols. And then, you know, accelerate that forward.
Speaker 2:Now you hear it. It's kind of all the rage. You know, if you watch, Huberman, you know, as a Stanford neurobiologist, I mean, he actually has a book coming out this month called protocols that literally is about the same topic. What we've built is a database of hundreds going to thousands of health protocols people can download for free. We also have subscriptions and AI, but that that vision that you can ultimately improve something, you know, by following a health protocol or behavioral modifications.
Speaker 1:Now I love that. And, you know, it kinda sparked the thought in my mind. You're you're talking about almost ten years ago. You were talking about clunky wearables and tracking data a certain way that it would be antiquated in some ways to now.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:You had a crystal ball now. What would it look like in ten years from now for you? And and be before you answer, let me just say to anybody listening, don't worry. We're gonna get into some things that are actionable that you guys might understand. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I personally wanna ask, you know, what does the future look like before we get into some more action?
Speaker 2:Sure. I mean, what does the future look like? You know, AI and robotics and, you know, neurotechnology. I do believe BCI, brain computer interfaces, are absolutely, you know, the, you know, the path of the future. And when you talk about BCI or brain computer interfaces, there's you know, it's a bit of a spectrum.
Speaker 2:Like, over here, you have Neuralink. Neuralink essentially is a invasive BCI. They drill a, you know, hole in your skull, and they implant, you know, essentially a measurement device with prongs into your, you know, your your head. There's many other BCIs out there. There's also BlackRock Neuro, which is a company out of Utah that has the BlackRock Neuro array.
Speaker 2:It's just another array. They've been around twice, three times as long as as Neuralink. And, there's multiple human trials happening right now. And, you know, the idea is that, you know, it's really the the fusion of biology with machines. You know, we are literally that generation.
Speaker 2:Like, the matrix and da da da. Like, it's happening right now, literally. And so, at Brain One, our chief brain futurist is a a man named doctor Galen Buckwalter. She is, he's a quadriplegic, amazing AI scientist. But his, you know, kind of, mechanism, you know, to give back to the world has been science.
Speaker 2:So he's been an amazing scientist for many years. And also, you know, being bound by a wheelchair, he qualified essentially for a clinical trial, for these, essentially chips. He has six neural chips, one in the prefrontal, five in the neocortex, and he's currently doing a clinical trial at Caltech. So we're seeing this firsthand right now in front of us unfold. And the idea with Galen is he can use his brain and AI to ultimately, understand the electrical impulses to, you know, control a robotic arm.
Speaker 2:And that's happening right now as we speak. And so relative to where it's going, you have invasive and then noninvasive. What's more interesting for the normal human is not drilling a hole in your skull, but is, again, noninvasive, and that's just a brain cap. And so, you know, there's a lot of recent innovation happening here where with these brain caps. It's, you know, essentially an EEG, so it's measuring electrical activity.
Speaker 2:Now it's it doesn't have a high, you know, level of resolution compared to QEG or even, you know, more advanced, again, BCI. But, you know, point being is that, there's now noninvasive BCI that can almost read your thoughts. So you can, like, type an email, and it's gonna finish the email in, like, a third of the time or, you know, da da da, essentially by, you know, reading the electrical activity through your skull is a nutshell. But yeah. So all of these areas, I think, are super exciting and definitely, like, where the puck is going.
Speaker 2:And, you know, you said ten years. I mean, I would give it, you know, half that amount of time. We're seeing advances here so quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Absolute I mean, the technology is advancing so much faster. You know, when you think about just what cell phones look like not that long. You know?
Speaker 2:Yes. And, you know, the the releases of these new AI models so we're very much an AI friendly, you know, AI first company, you know, with guardrails. You know, that said, I mean, you know, we've tested every model you can imagine. And we use AI for actually helping generate the health protocols. So there's the concept you, and you can go in.
Speaker 2:If you want, you opt in, you can share your biometrics, and we'll give a more optimized health protocol to you right now. And we're testing this as we speak. You can also go more advanced with genomics, and then we're getting, you know, that my vision is proteomics and transcriptome and so forth. But the idea is getting an optimized health protocol based on AI. So we've been, you know, from day one, you know, building these models.
Speaker 2:That's a core component of our IP, as well as, you know, content, and how do you really personalize the experience ultimately for the humor, the user based on, you know, what they're looking for. So my general perspective on AI is you need to be embracive. It's better to control it, you know, or to understand it and then put the guardrails in place than, you know, not.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No. I mean, I think that's a great perspective. And, you know, one of the things that I've heard you say, and I think that's great, is that you can take a lot of these things that you, you know, listed here that are quite complex, but your goal is to really break it down that so, like, anybody's grandma can do this stuff.
Speaker 2:Literally, anyone's grandma, including my own. Yes. We've tested copy with her. A %. And, you know, a a big component of what we've built at Brain One is the idea that we can democratize or just give away, you know, a good number of these protocols, and there are things that anyone can do.
Speaker 2:You know? If you're looking for nervous system regulation, you can do cryotherapy. You know? You can do cold plunging, or you can literally go, like, in the river, which is what I do here in Colorado. You know?
Speaker 2:And, I mean, so, or breath work is another example for, you know, managing your nervous system. So we are really trying to build protocols and then micro habits, you know, that are, really available to everyone.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I love that. And, you know, I've I've been doing breath work since 2015, and I've been doing cold plunges for some reason, and I'm just drawn to the cold ever since I was young. So I love hearing that because I don't have to change much, but let's go let's go back, take it a step back, and, like, really zoom out a little bit. And, you know, there is that term brain health and brain fitness.
Speaker 1:What's that all about?
Speaker 2:Yes. So when we went into the space, you know, we initially were razor focused on the concept of brain fitness. And the idea that you are optimizing, you know, your brain as you have it today, and which generally does not mean, you know, neurodegeneration. So when you talk about brain health, generally, you're talking about things like Alzheimer's, you know, and dementia, and and so forth. So we initially really have been razor focused on the concept of brain fitness, where you can go through, you know, essentially one of our programs.
Speaker 2:You can do a subjective objective test where you do cognition in some very basic blood biomarkers, and then you see after the end of three and six months, can you actually improve those biomarkers in your cognition. And so that's kind of the general framework. Now, again, that's for a, you know, a normal human at the end of the day. Neurodegeneration and, you know, specifically Alzheimer's and dementia are areas that we're very passionate about. It's just not where we started and have put the greatest amount of our research into.
Speaker 2:But yeah. And and, you know, diving in super quick onto the the concept of brain health, you know, we're, again, a big, believer in you've heard the hypothesis dementia is preventable. Have you heard that offhand? It's kind of floated around.
Speaker 1:No. I have. Well, I have only because I heard you say it.
Speaker 2:Okay. So there's a paper, we can share with the audience, and it's it's generally referred to as the Lancet 2020. If you Google it, it'll come up.
Speaker 1:It definitely peaked me. You had me leaning forward. Awesome. No doubt.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's, you know, it's it's so the basis of this paper is that there are 12 modifiable, what we call microhabits, but, you know, essentially risk factors, things that you can, you know, ultimately do or, you know, you're doing every day that you could optimize to prevent dementia. And this would you know, I think they say thirty to forty percent of total, like, fifty five million dementia cases worldwide right now today could be, you know, ultimately curbed or supported at least by following, you know, again, these 12 micro habits. And that's the, you know, the very basics of it. Like, what?
Speaker 2:Well, it's gonna be things like connection. You know, surprisingly, optimal brain health actually has a direct, you know, essentially connection, you know, to having purpose and, you know, people in your life and, you know, doing social events and things like that. You know, people who don't have purpose or are less connected, you know, generally have lower life expectancy, and it's pretty considerable. And so that's one example, and there's just a multitude. And so you can actually can Google it, or you can go to brain one, and and we have the editorial.
Speaker 2:And so what we've done is we've taken that scientific paper peer reviewed, and we send it through AI, and it builds a editorial that, again, you know, our grandmas could could read and understand, as well as, a protocol that a human can follow and download for free that has these basic guidelines of microhabits, gets a bit into nutrition. And then if you want, you know, you can do, you know, measurement, totally up to you as the human. And, you know, yeah, I mean, that's the the kind of the general framing. But, really, it's that idea that if we gave away this protocol to millions of people, would, you know, that help provide them at least the guardrails how to, you know, ultimately, try to avoid dementia as an example.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's super fascinating because I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding is basically the sequential way it went is that at first, we were trying to prevent heart disease, then it was trying to prevent cancer, and now it really the frontier right now is preventative on neurodegeneration?
Speaker 2:I mean, a %. These things, again, if you compare Eastern to Western or the idea of curing the disease versus preventing it, that's very much functional medicine in general. Right? You're treating the whole human, not just a specific indication. And, yeah, that's a really critical point.
Speaker 2:And I would say, you know, for things like brain health, I mean, these are things, know, you should we should you should start now. You know, you shouldn't be waiting. I mean, following this very basic protocol, even though you're gonna read it and be like, oh, these are, you know, things you probably should be doing anyway. You know, at least it starts to reinforce, again, these patterns behavior. And then the goal is with brain one is that over time, you know, you would do the thing more, whatever it might be.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, this is all very much, you know, based in preventions. That's a it's a good call up.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, I mean, I think what my understanding is sooner that is always better, but I think when is the right time? Is it our forties that we really, like, brain health really starts to matter more than we think it should? Because I think, you know, you don't really tend to think about it maybe until you might think about it, but you don't think about needing to do something about it in your forties necessarily.
Speaker 2:You I mean, we haven't historically, but that's changing, you know, and and, like, why? Well, part of the reason again is, like, you have BCI, but you also have just EEG. I did a brain cap measurement at a coffee shop here in Colorado, you know, and it was, it was called WAVI, and they came in. It was, like, 19 notes, and it took, you know, fifteen minutes and gave me, like, 30 pages of brain data. So, you know, now the brain data is more pervasive than ever.
Speaker 2:So I personally feel actually, you know, starting in your out of your thirties, I mean, you know, as soon as you can afford it, potentially, doing these types of diagnostics is actually very important. And having a time series, you know, of your EEGs over, like, from the period from being 30 to 80, I mean, there's an immense, you know, amount of value in that type of data, whether it's EEG imaging, you know, so forth. So I think it's actually becoming more and more prevalent in general. And, you know, you see this with the rise of of certain tools or certain companies like funk Function Health as an example. You know, they're now measuring, like, a hundred biomarkers.
Speaker 2:And, again, it's that, you know, lens of prevention. And so there are tools now that we have, you know, ultimately to, you know, utilize, and they're getting lower cost and, you know, more democratized. So, you know, I think, yeah. As an example, though, I I you know, my opinion is you should start immediately. There's no reason to wait, you know, whether it's the measurement side, you know, without getting, like, OCD about it.
Speaker 2:You know, you always wanna keep it in check, because you can over measure like Brian Johnson. You know? I think, he's Yeah. Over here relative to the scale. You know, I look at all things in spectrums and scales, and, like, he is he is over here.
Speaker 2:Although, he doesn't have a BCI yet. He's not measuring his brain activity. So, you know, technically, doctor Galen on our team is more measured than him, at least relative to brain activity. But, but yeah. You know?
Speaker 2:So it's about Yeah.
Speaker 1:No. It's yeah, you know, you know what I'm really interested to know and I'm, I mean, this probably maybe, I don't know. There's probably other people like me but you know, a lot a lot of people think that brain is one of those things that you cannot not necessarily like repair in in the same way you can other parts of your body, you know, and so like, I've had a little apprehension of like, should I go and get a full diagnostic on what's going on with my brain and what if it's bad news and I can't do anything about it? What good is that to me? Like, what would you answer to that, you know?
Speaker 2:Sure. I mean, I think that's a really important question. You know, we see you know, again, it's it's a spectrum relative to things like TBI. You know, there absolutely is a state beyond repair, you know, if you through, you know, subsequent concussions and so forth. That said, you know, the other side of the spectrum is that, you know, there still is the concept of neuroplasticity that, you know, goes to a fairly, you know, late age.
Speaker 2:Right? And there are absolutely things you can do to stimulate neuroplasticity, the rewiring of the brain, you know, ultimately, to improve your overall brain fitness. You know? And so, again, things like learning a new language or learning, a musical instrument, doing something creative. You know?
Speaker 2:These are just, you know, very, you know, quick examples. But, so I always I believe, personally, you, you know, again, in all things, you know, you should start sooner than later. And, you know, we should be giving these protocols to our grandparents and and our parents, you know, who are all terrified about dementia and Alzheimer's. You can have a genetic predisposition for something like Alzheimer's that you can't necessarily you can't stave off, but what you can do is potentially help, you know, stabilize the progression of the disease. You know?
Speaker 2:You have what are called tau proteins and, you know, amyloid plaques and so forth. And and so there are things, again, around these behavioral modifications you can do to support your health. And I do think it's better personally to start, you know, as as soon as you can, as soon as it makes sense. But
Speaker 1:it's personal. No, I mean, I definitely I'm I'm saying these things that are, like, at times, you know, you know, maybe I'm not being logical in things in this, but at the same time, I'm like, do I really want to know, but, but honestly, I really do want to know, like, you know, where am I at, what can I improve, and and that's what I think is important and and new when it comes to brain health and brain fitness? So, you know, maybe somebody hasn't had any sort of measurement or even necessarily even knew about it before they listen to this. Right. What are some maybe, like, early signs that maybe we do need some support even before, like, it's even something, you know, that where maybe I should talk to my doctor.
Speaker 1:Are there, like, little early warning signs? It's like, you should be doing some of this stuff.
Speaker 2:I mean, they, you know, the common things are, you know, forgetfulness. You know? Do you forget where your keys are? Do you forget people's names? Again, that's one dimension.
Speaker 2:You know? It's it's worthwhile to keep tabs on, ultimately. Yeah. I mean, again, these things, you know, we're not a medical device. I'm not a doctor.
Speaker 2:I'm a researcher. You know? So it's always best to talk to your doctor, you know, about these things fundamentally. But, yeah, it's, you know, it's all it's all always very much a personal choice. But, you know, I'd rather be prepared and know, you know, than not.
Speaker 2:But, you know, I mean, there's, you know, there's a lot of ethical considerations around genetic testing, ultimately. And if you know your genetic predisposition, again, it doesn't necessarily mean the gene will express. Right? Like, 60 to 70% of your gene expression is based on your environment. So, you know, again, going back to that the Lancet 2020 study, you know, you know, with these behavioral modifications, I mean, that is a your environment is a huge driver of both your, you know, your, your brain health, your physical health, also, of course, your mental health.
Speaker 2:And mental health has different criterias for measurement. You know? We can measure your brain activity at an EEG. We can't measure that you as a human are happy. And so there's clinical measures, you know, that can measure that ultimately.
Speaker 2:And so we're actually looking at doing some research studies about that now. Can you improve both mental health as well as, you know, these specific biomarkers and just, you know, general well-being, you know, based on essentially these types of criteria? So
Speaker 1:What are what is something that that you see often that seems like a harmless thing that most people or many people do that can actually take a toll on our brain health over time?
Speaker 2:I mean, the most obvious is alcohol. You know? Like, we have a social conditioning that alcohol is a integral part of, you know, culture, and and it is, you know, in in in definitely in certain areas. But alcohol is one. I mean, you know, there's not a lot of positive benefits of, you know, continual alcohol use as an example.
Speaker 2:Another just very prevalent, of course, is sleep, you know, and, you know, the importance of sleep. We're actually building protocols around, like, sleep maximization right now. There's so much interest in this. And I I think that's really a positive thing, you know, and is that people are now becoming very, very conscious about their sleep habits and behavior and optimizing. You know?
Speaker 2:And these were pretty small things that we can do to optimize your sleep, but, know, meaningful, ultimately. And then just a third is nutrition. You know? People are now becoming more and more interested in nutrition, and I think that's awesome. And, you know, ultimately, your body, you know, your mind all being a reflection ultimately of what you put into your body, you know, at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:So
Speaker 1:Well, no. I think that's a great tie in to everything because everyone listening here is wanting to be mindful about their drinking, keep it in a healthier space. And so if you drink, that's not a great too much. That's not a great thing. If you drink too much, your sleep gets kinda crappier.
Speaker 1:And depending who you are, you might eat pretty crappy on top of that. So they all kinda go in one loop there that cannot be in the right direction.
Speaker 2:I mean, a %. And, you know, you take a step back and you look at, you know, the everyone's fascinated with longevity. You know, again, you have, like, the Hubermans, Peter Attia, Kayla Barnes is doing some really awesome work there. She's a female longevity expert. But it really comes back to these very basic principles.
Speaker 2:Like, if you're not getting the right amount of sleep, you're not gonna have, you know, your highest brain fitness possible, just period. You know? Similar with hydration, similar with nutrition. And so as I've you know, we've studied and we looked at protocols from, you know, all these different humans. I mean, again, it's there's always that baseline of almost nonnegotiables, you know, that all of us as humans need.
Speaker 2:You know? Direct sunlight, fifty minutes in the morning, you know, circadian regulation. You know? And and so that's kinda how we've approached it as, like, you have the nonnegotiables, you know, it's it's hard for people living in cities, living, you know, da da da. I mean, you don't necessarily have all of your you know, the opportunity to have, like, plein air as an example.
Speaker 2:You know? But, you know, again, at least just having these base you know, principles as a frame of reference, you know, we believe is is super helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I've heard you say something like, there's five things that we can do to live better and and be more healthier in our lives. Are there, like, five things that you could just grab out of the air and say, like, these are really good principles that you should be thinking about?
Speaker 2:I mean, again, it's pretty much everything we've already said. You know? And it's, again, the same from, you know, cubramen to a tia and so forth. But so circadian regulation and sunlight, you know, number one. I'm definitely top of the list.
Speaker 2:Of course, nutrition, doing everything you can to eat non processed foods fundamentally, you know, and then ideally more organic based foods to minimize things like glyphosate, you know, which is an herbicide that's totally pervasive in The US food chain. You know, sleep is massively important as we know, all the aforementioned reasons. You know, we we believe in this hustle society. You know, you you know, it's like grind. You don't wanna sleep.
Speaker 2:That's just bullshit. And now the data's, you know, showing it, and now people have wearables like the Oura Rings and so forth, you know, to actually track that. For me, personally, activity is is everything. I live here in Colorado. I try to ski every day I can in the winter, and then I try to run or mountain bike or cycle, you know, like yourself, mountain biker, every day in the in the summer as much as I can.
Speaker 2:I do hot Pilates three days a week with a sweat. And so I think the combination again of the sweat plus, you know, again, something like a cross training, like a Pilates yoga with a core activity is, you know so those are really some of the the key, you know, top five, more or less, that I I would recommend personally, and, again, what we also see in the data. So pretty simple. But the rigor or the practice is doing the thing. You know?
Speaker 2:It's like, we can build protocol. It's up to the human, you know, to do it. That's always the hardest, but it's up to them. And it depends on their motivation, and it depends on their goals, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, because a lot of these things are fairly simple.
Speaker 1:When it comes to sleep, what you have access to a lot of data, and I'm sure you have your own conclusions, and I listen to things on sleep here and there, and so I hear different conclusions on, is there a a set number in your mind that minimum you have, or is it is it really could it be person to person? Their number's gonna be a lot different. And I ask also from personal interest because Yeah. I do a lot of things right, but sleep is one that I still struggle with.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, it's a great question. I think that number one, would stop. Start with the tracker, you know, of some kind. I like the noninvasive lower EMF trackers just personally.
Speaker 2:So an Oura Ring is what I use to sleep with. I use Oura for sleep in Garmin and then Apple Watch, you know, for activity, and sometimes I wear all three at the same time and, you know, see which is the most accurate. But Aura is, again, you can, you know, put it in airplane mode, pretty pretty darn noninvasive, and then upload it in the morning. And so when you start with the tracker, you began to see your patterns of behavior. You know?
Speaker 2:You know, what time do you actually go to bed? And what does that look like relative to your circadian regulation and so forth? You know? And so there's definitely basic patterns all of us as humans should be following. At the same time, you know, we have different, you know, behavioral kind of profiles and, you know, so forth.
Speaker 2:So we're we are all a bit different, you know, at the end of the day. That said, you know, once you have some basic data, you start to lock in, you know, your your patterns of, you know, when you sleep, then you can really get into your sleep regulation and look at deeper patterns, things like REM and deep sleep. And then how does, you know, having a glass of wine, you know, before bed actually impact your REM, you know, or your deep sleep. I will tell you, generally, I see less deep sleep if I do things like, you know, drinking alcohol. And you start to see, oh, there's, you know, these correlations, that are happening, within, you know, the sleep, and then your your actual data.
Speaker 2:So, you know, that's you know, those are like, that's one example. Again, when you, you know, the concept of intermittent fasting, but even if you don't intermittent fast, when do you stop eating? You know? Like, literally, like, end your meal cycle for the day. You know?
Speaker 2:Is it six, seven, eight? You know? And the closer you are from ending your meal cycle to, you know, actually going to sleep, I mean, your body's doing all that digestion, and that absolutely impacts your HRV. Like, guaranteed. You know, your hurry, your ability, and your ability your parasympathetic nervous system, your ability to, you know, relax absolutely is impacted by alcohol, you know, you know, food digestion, and, of course, when you go to bed.
Speaker 2:And then there's so many other little tips. You know? It's like things like not being on phones for ideally two hours or screens of any kind, you know, the different types of light, you know, and so forth. So, I have a protocol we can share with you that outlines, you know, maybe the top 10 things you can do just to help support sleep.
Speaker 1:I would love that. I would love to have that. I mean, I I feel like I do a lot right. Like, I wake up in the morning. I do the sun.
Speaker 1:I do a liter and a half of water with Celtic salt and.
Speaker 2:I drank the night out of
Speaker 1:the dinner. Permanent pass.
Speaker 2:Yes. Great.
Speaker 1:I work out. I walk. I I, you know, but I eat too late. I work too late. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it doesn't matter when I go to bed. It's five, six, seven. I never get eight hours. I just never feel like I get eight hours. But
Speaker 2:It's tough. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I need to clean that up. And so if anybody's listening, you're not alone. That's you too.
Speaker 2:You are definitely not alone. And it also goes through Pat. You know? Like, there's, you you have cyclical shifts in your behavior and around these things, you know, too, whether it's based on the seasons or just for play out or da da da. You know?
Speaker 2:And I think it's important to just to meet your, you know, your body and your routines where they're at. You know? You you can only do the best you can do, and you wanna do better, but, you know, you have to also be realistic with kids and training and, you know, work and travel. I mean, travel's another, you know, horrendous one relative to sleep. I mean so, we've developed protocols for that, you know, to help the, you know, integration when you're traveling.
Speaker 2:What does that look like for your workout routine? Well, you could do a hundred, you know, sit ups and a hundred push ups and da da da. So you know? But that that concept of having these different protocols depending where you're at is, yeah, it's, you know, very, very important, but also being easy on yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I like that approach that you have. It's like, still gotta live your life a little. I mean, it's good to know this and take steps towards the right direction, but you also, you know, you you can't become your north star that everything you do is built around that one thing, you know, to optimize.
Speaker 2:That's it. And and it really isn't just one thing. I mean, again, you wanna optimize for sleep. Yes. But you also wanna optimize for, you know, your mental health at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:You know? Like and so, you know, all of these things I look at as a spectrum and, you know, you just you do the best you can, given your your situation. But the good news is, you know, there are tools that are out there that you can use for free. You know? So if you can't afford the advanced measurement of, you know, your EEG, QEG, brain imaging, I mean, there's, you know, other mechanisms you can use to measure your cognition and, you know, your current state of both your, you know, your brain fitness as well as your
Speaker 1:Is that really what you kinda like are do you wanna democratize this a bit for people to be able to get their their their mind right, so to speak?
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, the vision is yes.
Speaker 1:With Brain One?
Speaker 2:Is to give away these, you know, a set of the protocols for free. Again, like, neurodegeneration, dementia prevention, absolutely, as an example. Another one that continues to come up on a daily basis is women's health and longevity and things like perimenopause and menopause. And so 100%. I mean, we we have developed hundreds of these protocols.
Speaker 2:We are giving away a good chunk of them for anyone to come and to use for free. So, absolutely, like, that is 100% the vision. And, you know, our you know, the brand the grand vision is to reach a billion humans, you know, through this idea. And I just I truly believe people cannot optimize their health unless unless they have some sort of a plan. And I believe you need a structured framework.
Speaker 2:Now it's a spectrum of humans, like, relative to how many things they can do and where they start. But by just at least giving them the plan, I believe that, you know, that is a step in in the right direction. And then we can nerd out like you and I, you know, get in the advanced measurement and optimization and all those things, but at least giving them plan is number one, and then, know, it it hopefully can improve from there.
Speaker 1:I think that's the thing is that everybody assumes anything that comes. The words are so big and the talk can be confusing and I think the biggest challenge is just people realizing that, oh, you mean I can train my brain by doing a musical instrument, doing, you know, this puzzle, doing this they like, the protocols, even though the word protocol even sounds scientific, they don't necessarily have to be complicated.
Speaker 2:It's just a routine, literally. You know? It's just a routine. It's and that's actually one of the first things we, you know, ask them at Brain One is you start just by documenting your daily routine. You know?
Speaker 2:And, I mean, the most successful people in the world generally have a daily routine, ultimately. You know? And and it's exact I mean, honestly, it's more or less everything you just said, you know, from the, you know, the sleep the nutrition, to the hydration, to the sunlight. I mean, those are all the basics. And then once you at least have that routine done and you're cognizant of it, then you can start to optimize.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And a lot of the people that are using Sunnyside here, it's all about tracking and planning and that's the baseline of that and you know, like, my personality a little bit with routines is I want this free spirit. I don't want to be locked into a routine but until I realize that like there's actually freedom in a routine. You're not being locked up into a routine that you actually start to see so much benefit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, I completely agree. You know, I've done, like, full iron man training, you know, where you're training every day and, you know, you're trying to reach this goal. And, like, that's cool. You know, what's also cool is not having a training routine and just, you know, I can go ski because, like, there's great snow, and it's beautiful out.
Speaker 2:You know? And I don't need to go, like, on the grind and train. So, you know, it's it's and, again, I'm a highly measured person at the same time. Like, I absolutely can disappear in the backwoods and unplug for a week and, you know, not have that as well. And so it's interesting.
Speaker 2:You know? And, again, people are it's a spectrum of of how they view, you know, their their health and and ultimately how they wanna manage it. And some people will absolutely use the protocol protocols, and people never will. We're also seeing in the protocols, the people who wanna print them actually and not use a digital device and have a printed copy, a book of their protocols that they can just check off every day. And then they could upload into AI if they want.
Speaker 2:You know? But yeah. So there's this interesting piece there too where, again, it's really just meeting people where they are. You know? But number one, giving them the plan.
Speaker 2:Number two, are they doing the plan? Number three, are they tracking the plan? And that's ultimately up to them, you know, relative to, you know, their interest in in all of these different areas that we've touched.
Speaker 1:So good. So I have two more questions. One is and I don't know if there's a good answer to this, but you'll tell me, is is there one brain health or brain fitness myth that you'd love to clear up?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think they're you know, one of the most prevalent, I kind of touched on this a minute ago, but is the the concept that we as humans can multitask. You know? Like, we are programmed to be on the ground and, you know, like, for so many years, you know, like, that was, like, what was fashionable. And it's kind of bullshit.
Speaker 2:It burns people out. You know? And it's just not the most efficient. But further to brain health, there's amazing research that came out of the University, of Texas, and it's the Center for Brain Health. And it really had showed clearly that when people are single tasking versus multitasking, they actually have, you know, essentially stronger brain fitness, to put it simply.
Speaker 2:And and you're less, you know, neurologically optimized when you're trying to do three things at You know, you've got the car keys. You got the phone. You got the TV and the kids and, like, ta ta ta, and you're trying to do all these things. If you just focus on one activity for twenty minutes as opposed to trying to do three things for an hour, you will be highly more efficient and ultimately, you know, have a higher neurological optimization you can think of.
Speaker 1:So agree with that. And do you remember back in long time ago when you used to put that on? I don't know if people do now. I haven't applied to anything, but put that on your resume. Very good at multitasking, basically?
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's like ingrained. So So Yeah. The American psyche. It's very unfortunate, but now there's good data showing otherwise.
Speaker 1:I don't know. When I when I heard it was when it was BS, I was the first one to adopt it because I always knew Yes. If there was such a thing, I couldn't do it anyways.
Speaker 2:I mean, just just do that one exercise. You're doing three things over the course of one hour. Just try to focus on one for twenty minutes and see. You know? And, like, put the phone down and just single task.
Speaker 2:And it's hard, you know, because we're, I mean, you know, the erosion of our attention, you know, it's just it's getting shorter and shorter and, you know, to to all the things. But, you know, I also think it's actually very important to, you know, use things like, you know, meditation as an example where you can really try to just focus and concentrate on one thing, whatever it is, or nothing, you know, ultimately. Well,
Speaker 1:so quick question because this is gonna come from a a mountain biker that takes his mountain biking as his form of meditation because you're solely focused.
Speaker 2:Totally got it.
Speaker 1:On one thing. Yeah. Can you think about anything else? It's too high risk. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you get the same thing with your skiing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And cycling and snow yeah.
Speaker 1:All of Meditation doesn't always have to be sitting there, you know, like this.
Speaker 2:100%. I consider that active meditation versus, you know, ultimately, like, mindfulness sitting meditation. But absolutely. I mean, I'm a, you know, I'm a long distance cyclist, trail runner, you know, da da da, and and that's a % true. And I would consider that, you know, active versus passive meditation ultimately.
Speaker 2:And I think they're both great, and I think they're both awesome tools.
Speaker 1:Well, Doran, thanks so much for coming on today. This has been amazing. If somebody wants to find out more about your work, about your projects, well, first of all, I want to say, is there any upcoming things you want to mention that that you're excited about and and also where people can learn more about?
Speaker 2:I'm super excited about, you know, just the future for humanity. And while we're seeing this intersection of biology and machine, I'm just an optimist. And and I believe people are stronger when they're empowered. And so that's really Cool question. Put the forefront, you know, of of what we've built at Brain One.
Speaker 2:People can go to Brain.1 and sign up for our wait list. We're pushing people through as quickly as possible. We have a quick question, you know, if anyone recommends or quick questions, put them to the top of list and focus on human health and forefront. Break.1 is great. If you want to drop a line, hello at 1.
Speaker 2:You can reach myself or any of the team.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom, insights, and I know anybody listening got some benefit from it. I know I did. So have a great time on the ski slopes. I didn't mention he's got ski slopes right behind him, and he's gonna go jump out.
Speaker 2:Hello. This
Speaker 1:podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform. And if you could benefit from drinking a bit less, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free fifteen day trial.
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