Episode 182: Aaron Alexander – Movement Coach, Creator of the Align Method, Author and Podcast Host
01:28:25 Share

Thanks for listening to the Habits and Hustle podcast made possible by our friends at True Niagen. So I've been a huge fan of True Niagen for years, and that's why I am so excited to be partnering with them because I literally don't miss a day taking it. And think if you're going to be using any one supplement, this is the one. And here is why. With, of course, an added science lesson for you from me. Our bodies produce a molecule called NAD.

which supports energy production that starts in our cells. But the levels sadly decline by up to 50% between the ages of 40 and 60. A nutrient that could help increase our NAD is a form of vitamin B3 called nicomatide riboside, otherwise known as NR.

And the most efficient, proven and safe way to get this is with TruNiagen because it's the best NAD precursor. Meaning that it's not just a supplement, but precursors, it helps our own bodies produce NAD. TruNiagen helps support our bodies against everyday stressors that can really damage our cells like overeating, drinking, staying up too late.

So in my opinion, no one is too young to take it. I wish I had this in my early 30s. What's most amazing is that True Niagen is backed by over 200 published scientific studies and is researched by the world's top scientific institutions. So go check it out at trueniagen.com. That's T-R-U-N-I-A-G-E-N. And we have a special offer for new customers to receive 20% off

all orders $100 or more using the code HUSTLE20 until August 30th, 2022. So definitely run, don't walk and scoop some up now. Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

Today on the podcast, we have Aaron Alexander. Aaron is a movement coach. He is the founder and creator of the Align Method, the author of the Align Method book, and of course, the Align Method podcast.

He really is about true mind-body connection. And as a result, he helps people align their body, their mind, their environment, their posture, movement to achieving incredible results. On this episode, we talk about becoming physically and mentally healthier along the way he tells his own family story

of a father addicted to crack cocaine. We talk all about posture. We talk about how to infuse better movement into your daily life and like practical ways and solutions to do this.

the impact of your environment for your postural patterns and physiology. It was really an interesting conversation and he's an interesting guy just altogether. So I really think that you're going to enjoy this podcast and get a lot of very valuable ways to integrate these practical things to help optimize your mind, your body, and your spirit. Enjoy.

I'm very curious about you. I mean, are you kind of like the, you're the Align guy. Your book obviously was, well, it's called The Align Method. You created The Align Method. Are you just like a guru in mind-body connection and mobility? Like, who are you? Give me like the origin story of who you are and what you're...

What your thing is. That's so funny. I mean, I think guru is like actually, that's like a bad word. I would use guru personally. Who would you say? Expert? I think the actual meaning of guru is teacher. Okay. So, you know, I would say we're all gurus in our own right.

Okay, Tony Robbins, isn't that what you know, you are your own guru or whatever that movie was doc. Yeah, I think I mean, I think there's I think there's there's a lot of truth to that. Like, like, we have the answers to many things to life's, you know, predicaments within ourselves.

And we are in a circumstance where we're bombarded with so much information from all angles. Totally true. And that tends to drown out the internal deeper knowing that we all do have. So in that sense, as like kind of, I don't know, maybe soft or like metaphysical or, you know, a bit like...

I don't like to fall into like the new age type category as new agey as that sounds like I think there that it is a lot of a lot of truth to that like we all really are our own gurus in a sense and we do have a deeper knowing and I think there's many processes and paths to get us all closer to that relationship with ourselves and a part of that would just be a very simple

pragmatic process of cutting out static from our lives, you know, and that's like Bruce Lee. I think like everybody's a big fan of Bruce Lee, myself included. One of the things he's said various different iterations of is, you know, life or martial arts or anything relevant is about subtraction. It's not about addition. And so some of the potential statics that we may

be encumbered by in our modern lives. A lot of beautiful things in our lives as well might be nutritional related, static, you know, having different things that might make us feel a little stirred up, make us feel a little aggressive, make us feel a little anxious, make us feel a little tired. We're continually yearning for something to pep us back up because we just feel

Kind of like our energy is like pooled. Movement or lack of movement. The lighting in our environments or a lack of light. If we're not getting adequate exposure, we'll start from light. Relationships, a sensation of purpose. Like feeling like what the hell am I doing here? What is the point of anything? Like why do I care to exercise in the first place? I think it's a reasonable question to ask. Because if your goal is,

of exercising is just coming from a place of like lack of self-acceptance and I will accept myself when my ass doesn't jiggle in this way or when I have six pack abs, which is just a story of that indicating health. Um, that's problematic.

So in short, I guess if the shorter version, if you're asking like, who am I? I think I'm just very interested in these questions. And I really enjoy looking at the body from a broader lens than just,

like merely exercise. And I'm really interested in like the psychosomatic relationships. Like that mind body relationship is the thing that I, it like, it, you know, winds me up. I'm very interested in that conversation. So then what would you say? Cause you created the, you have your, your whole brand is the align method, right? So what would you, how would you define if someone says, Aaron in elevator pitch me, what is the align method? What is it?

Lyme method is a manual on how to make it so that fitness is who you are as opposed to a thing that you do. If I had to put into like a sentence, can you hear the rain in the background? Yeah, I can. I'm going to shut my window, but the rain is awesome. Wow. That sounds actually. Yeah, it's very soothing. Yeah. So fitness is who you are. It's not a thing that you do. As you're having a conversation with somebody, are you going to comment on something?

No, I'm listening to you. I think that's a great way of summing it up, actually. Because what would you, how did you kind of, what was your evolution for it, though? Like, what did you start doing? How did you become the person that is, I mean, for all great, for all intents purposes here, like an expert in music?

this in this kind of, uh, what would you call it? Uh, would you call it mobility overall, overall movement? I think holistic, holistic physical health, holistic physical health. Okay. What was your evolution? How did you start? Um, insecure bodybuilding, all of the supplements, all of, all of like just the very, um, just basic, um,

muscle and fitness workouts and just a lot of time staring in the mirror, making muscles, trying to like manifest myself into being like a mini Arnold Schwarzenegger as a young person.

Really? Like just working out at the gym day in, day out? All the time, obsessively. Really? Everything. I put on like 60 pounds in a matter of like, I don't remember what it was, very short amount of time, like six months or less than a year or something like that. A part of that was puberty. So it wasn't like, I mean, I was essentially on steroids, but they were like, you know, endogenous. Yeah.

Um, but it was, it was that compounded with just like complete utter obsession around getting as big as I possibly could because I felt like a deep lack of acceptance of myself. And within that, that was, I would, if there was ever like a time of like taking a picture or something, there was a picture in this day and age, which was, I'm not super old, I'm 35, but it was before like cell phone cameras and stuff. Um, you know, but so there was less pictures at that timeframe, but when there was a picture, um,

I would immediately leave the room. I would run out and I would go do a bunch of pushups. I'd go find a doorway to do pull-ups on or something. And I would like try to get this like pump in my muscles, get good circulation, you know, get a good, good, get a good hue. Yeah. I totally know what you mean. Yeah. And then I'd come back in for the photo. So that was just like, just like, that was kind of like where my mind was at.

And then that turned into a lot of muscular imbalance. I was very focused on the glamour muscles, the beach muscles. If I didn't see it, it probably didn't matter that much. I'd touch up on those muscles every now and again, but it just wasn't that relevant. And then a lot of pain, a lot of injuries, chronic lingering type pain, like many people are accustomed to, particularly back pain. And that turned into...

I was going to go to school for physical therapy. I went to school for rolfing, structural integration instead. So manual therapy. I was doing personal training, working with clients at the time. Moved to Hawaii. I was doing like beach boot camps and got into jujitsu and surfing and various different forms of manual therapy or like massage therapy. And so it was more like getting into like yin side now of like, okay, how do we start to reassemble yin?

the system as opposed to just like, just like making everything bigger just for bigger sake. Um, and you know, that's, I'm still like in that process. Like I, like still sorting it out. Well, it's interesting because looking at you, like even on your Instagram or just in general, you were like, it's like, it,

extraordinarily fit looking. I mean, I can't imagine you like if you said that that's how you used to be, like, I would think that you you are like a 10 pack right now. So how did like, are you? How did you or are you still? How did you kind of like pivot from being that bodybuilder? I need to like work out for vanity purpose and

What triggered you to kind of get more into this other holistic side, but yet still look the same? I mean, you still look amazing. I'm not hitting on you. I'm just telling you, you just do, right? I appreciate that. You look great too. Thank you. Are you just like a genetic freak that way? Like your baseline is so good? Or what's the secret? So I mean, I, like anybody, have been...

uh, you know, working on it for a while. Like I, I've, I've been working out quote unquote in some capacity very intently since I was 14. Like I just never stopped.

And then it turned into my career. Like I started personal training when I was 16, I got a job at LA fitness, got my, my NSCA personal training certification, uh, you know, and, and yeah, that, that was kind of like the beginning of that. And so it's always been just a part of, I've had the accountability of showing up for like adults,

So I was 16 showing up to like train adults. It was like 30, you know, 40 whatever year old people with like real jobs, real lives, partners, you know, like they're like, they're like real people. And I'm just like this, this little insecure kid that's kind of jacked, you know, trying to try to precociously just like garner as much information to be able to regurgitate to these people as possible. Um, and yeah,

So, I think it's just been a process of continual slow work. And now, I'm very grateful that my body and anybody's body, we do have a certain level of muscle memory, which is kind of a soft, a bit of a soft, flimsy term. But

my endocrine system, my neurochemical system, like all the systems, they're kind of exposed, like they understand training.

They understand cold. They understand heat. They understand hypertrophy. They understand fasting. And you can kind of work those systems into the body through exposure. And I've just been continually exposing myself. I haven't stopped exposing myself. I think of each day as an experiment. Are you basically saying you've always been kind of... What I'm gathering is you have never stopped being active in some capacity. So it is muscle memory. What are you doing now, though, to stay this...

and fit and, you know, to move. Are you not a gym person? Do you not work out at a traditional gym? Oh, you do. You still do that. Yeah, but the gym I go to is largely, I train outside quite a bit. So it's here in Austin, it's a place called Squatch. And I really like it because I can get like sunlight

So sun, that's one of the primary factors for, again, neurochemical health, hormonal health, testosterone, libido, all that just generally skin tone, looking, feeling attractive. There's various different research around that.

So I'm a big advocate for spending time in the sun. I'm a big advocate for, like right now as we're having this conversation, you've already noticed, I've changed positions, you know,

15 times. Yeah, you're moving a lot. It's like you're you're you're by the way, you're sitting on the floor as we do this podcast. Yeah, I'm sitting on the floor, which isn't I don't think is very strange. It's like welcome to the whole world. Like, like, that's true. Most of the world slash before just complete transition to like becoming a chair based culture. You know, spending time on the ground is just is very, very normal. Like spending time on the ground actually is the normal thing.

So as I'm on the ground, and normal is a dumb word, it's a subjective word. But as far as like norm, if my definition of normal would be like most conducive for cellular health, you know, musculoskeletal wellbeing. I said skeletal like a British person.

So if that if we were just do we were just to put normal as something that's like, okay, like what just what makes your cells function best? We'll just call that normal just for lack of, you know, for just to find a definition. And so that's very normal. Like our body, there's actually a book called Muscles and Meridians by Philip Beach that's been quite impactful for me.

and in that book he refers to spending time on the ground which again most all healthy cultures around the world do that cultures that have minimal incidence of osteoarthritis in the hips and the knees have mental minimal issues around like you know incontinence like pelvic floor issues um you know just like like like uh spine pathologies things of the sort like just going through those ranges of motion it heals the joints it brings new fluids to the joints

It's good for them. Circulates lymphatic fluid. Better for digestion because your legs are closer to your viscera, your heart, your organs, so you don't have all this blood pooling up in your lower compartments.

Think like cankles when you're on a plane. It's gross. It doesn't look good. It doesn't feel good. Right. It makes you feel drained. Standing in a museum for too long, you're just like, ugh. So sitting on the floor, is there a position that we should be sitting in or just our legs crossed? Or what's the ideal position to be sitting on the floor? There's no best position. So this, I mean, I have a whole chapter in the Align Method book about just spending time on the ground. I mean, it feels so stupid to talk about. It feels like dumb.

Because it's so, it's like childish. But it actually is not because I think that people, it's the most basic things in life I feel and find that we just, we don't kind of, we don't think about, right? And we just, we just don't, we forget. Yeah.

And now what's our normal, quote unquote, is sitting in a chair like I am. But you're saying that there's so many more extra, there's so many benefits to actually being on the ground, which is why, and what I want to get to, like, I want you to talk about, like you have been, what are the benefits of sitting on the ground versus being in a chair? Like where I'm sitting right now in a chair, you're saying it's not great for my back, my hips, it helps with it.

like you know like if I just sat on the floor let's just put it this way if I sat on the floor versus sitting in a chair what would the benefits be what would I kind of get from that or not just me but everybody

So a bunch. So, so, all right. So a few things, one, there's been various different research around this studying different cultures that happen to spend more time on the ground. So like Northern Africa, Southeastern Asia, Eastern Mediterranean, um, these places, there's also other things, you know, at least Northern Africa and Eastern Mediterranean, they tend to drink like, you know, eat pretty good, eat a lot of olive oil, which is also good for the joints. Very low incidence of osteoarthritis in the hips and the knees.

And a part of their culture is they're just taking their hips and their knees through a full range of motion. It's very simple. You know, that would be one thing that's pretty interesting. Another thing is like I had already mentioned digestion. So if you're eating and you're in order for you to build, to digest food, you're going to pull like why you get sleepy when you're eating food is you're pulling a bunch of blood from your periphery and it's going into your viscera and your organs and your stomach and

to break that stuff down and then recirculate it and carry those nutrients through the rest of the body. So when your legs are closer to your heart, like think if you ever injured your ankle, if you ever sprained an ankle, everybody's sprained an ankle at some point in their lives,

your physical therapist, first thing they're going to say, you know, compression and elevation. Right. It used to, it used to be a rice rest, ice compression, elevation, then Merkin, the doctor fellow that created that in like the late seventies. He recently recalled that I think in like the early two thousands. So it's like, Oh, like my bad ice is actually a bummer. You know, you don't want to slow down the inflammatory response and, and, and, and,

stop that action. You want to actually support it. You just want to keep it circulating. So actually warmth, elevation, movement, stay out of pain. But elevation and compression, that's essentially what you're doing when you're sitting in any of those childish positions when you're on the ground. So if you're laying on your back,

That's be obviously it's going to be more advantageous for better circulation. The way that you circulate lymphatic fluid is through muscular contraction. If you are just sitting on a sofa, just kind of pulling your fluids, it's not bad. It's not like a moralistic thing. It's just disadvantageous for the circulation of the vital fluids throughout your body. So if you are sitting on the ground like any kid,

would do or person in, you know, culture that does this, you'll just naturally kind of move your body around. Like that's a healthy body, a body that just kind of wiggles a little bit. And you know, that's, there's a, there's a fancy term for those wiggles, right?

called NEAT. It's, it's, what is it called? Non-exercise activity thermogenesis is the unnecessary definition of the, of the acronym. And so what that is, is non-exercise. So it's not like, like the idea of exercise, I think is cute. Like, like you think you're gonna like work yourself out into some new form. It's like, what about like, that's one hour of

three or four days a week. Like, what are you even talking about? That is, it's like so minuscule. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

So it's like the rest of the day, like that's the aligned method. Like all I care about is like, what are you doing with the rest of it? Like you've so many coaches and magazines and muscle and fitness and everything to do the perfect Tybo workout or plyometrics or knees over toes or like whatever you do. Um, the rest of the day is all I'm really interested in as far as like working with, well, I like both honestly, cause I do enjoy like nerding out about training.

But the rest of the daytime, that NEAT, that non-exercise activity thermogenesis time, you'd be burning upwards of 2000 extra, in quotations, calories just from living a little bit more of like a wiggly lifestyle. And if you were to take yourself into, you know, so you'd say to go like northern Tanzania where there's been a ton of research, like gut biome stuff, also with movement,

Researchers from Southern California, from your part of the world, my old part, they went out there in the last few years and they attached these sensory systems, bio something, motor whatever, to the tribal folks' hips, hips and knees.

to track the range of motion they're going through the day. And what they found was that these hunter gatherer ancestral, like the romanticized people that the whole world is like, Oh, whatever they're doing is the right thing. They are in resting positions about as much as industrialized cultures. So on average it was, it was like the exact number was 9.82 hours per day if I remember correctly. And so that's like, okay, they're not, they're, they're not just like running all day or like climbing trees all

all day, you know, or doing like capoeira dancing and like playing drums. Like they're resting a lot. Like they're, they're trying to, they're trying to preserve energy. So they're resting about as much as we are, like we, you know, representing like, you know, industrialized Western culture, whatever. So the, the difference is how are they resting?

the way they're resting is, is they're in kneeling positions, they're in squatting positions, they're in, you know, that various different floor sitting positions, like that pretty much outlined in the in the in the book slash, you know, everywhere, right? You know, and it's, it's, they're actually, they're actively engaging in their resting positions. It's not just,

outsourcing all of their mechanical efficiency to, you know, a device in this case, the device being the chair and you outsource what your body would naturally do. Then you begin to atrophy. When you atrophy, you start to become trapped. If you actually too much,

then you're in a tight spot. Right. That's right. That's right. Does that mean, by the way, the wigglies, is it because, are you wiggling because you're uncomfortable on the floor and so therefore you're trying to get, you're adjusting yourself constantly to find a comfortable position? Because like right now, I'm going to, if you're in an uncomfortable chair, you can wiggle a lot. You know, I'm wiggling a ton right now. That's great. That's how a kid would sit in a chair until they were advised that they're sick and they like need medication.

That's how a healthy kid would sit in a chair. They'd rock back on the chair. They'd go on the left side. They'd go on the right side. They're working their whole proprioceptive system. That's neurology. Like that's education. So does that mean I'm, uh, I'm getting the same benefits in this chair as you are on the floor because I'm like, yeah, I'm moving around. Okay. So the chair chair is just a thing. It doesn't matter. It's just, who are you in the chair? Who are you on the floor? Right.

But can you sit on a cushion on the chair, on the floor? Oh yeah, I'm on a cushion. My whole setup. Okay, let me look at your setup. I'm just curious. So I got this cute little cushion situation about that wide. Okay. My hips are semi-flexible. Uh,

I would say they're more than semi. They would be very flexible. So I'm just saying that cushion is kind of small for a lot of folks. For most people, I'd say make your cushion like at least, I don't know, a foot high, 10 inches high or something like that. The big thing, if you want to have biomechanical efficiency within your sacrum, just your spine, your hips, you want to make sure your hips are up above the height of your knees. Okay.

If your hips are above the height of your knees, that will put your lower back, particularly the L5 S1 vertebra. They are in a bit of a shape of a wedge with the wide angle of the wedge facing out towards your belly button. And so what that suggests is that you want to kind of have the hips ever so slightly kind of like tilting forward.

And that's kind of like a ready position. Yeah. So if you roll your hips backward and you sit down on the ground without like having your hips up above the height of your knees, then you're going to be in that like sad puppy dog kind of like, like rolled forward position. It's, there's nothing wrong with it, but it's just putting a little like undue stress on the discs in your spine and such. So you can really relax into the architecture of your spine and

When you set your hips up above the height of your, your knees, that in and of itself, whether you're on a chair or on the floor or whatever, if you just take away that tip, you know, those of you still, still engaged in this conversation or monologue, if you just take away that one tip, this whole thing was worth it. You can stop listening, just do that. And it will make a massive difference in your life.

Wow, that's amazing. So then how about sleeping? Do you sleep on the floor or do you sleep on a mattress? That'd be so cool if I could. I'm such a baby. Like I spent a lot of time, I lived in Colorado for a while, I lived in Bend, Oregon for a while.

And I've identified as a mountain climber person. But it's so hard for me to sleep if I'm not on a comfortable-- it has to be a really comfortable, expensive mat from REI, like a thick one, or just a good mattress. But ideally, you would have enough adaptability in your joints and your connective tissue to be able to sleep on something that's fairly firm.

Um, you know, and if, and if you, you don't, it's pretty, you know, it's kind of an indication that there, there is some room for growth there. But for me, my suggestion is sleep is kind of like the most important thing you can do over a lot of things. So if you're getting whatever your metaphoric eight hours of sleep is, it doesn't need to be eight hours, but like whatever your, your, your eight hours, like where you feel like you got your eight hours, um,

that's like the foundation to rest most other practices on top of. So for me, I'm like, I just want you to sleep, like make sure you sleep. And then from there, let's draw back and say maybe every once in a while experiment and sleep on, you know, go camping outside someplace, you know, and within that you're going to naturally be, be actually taking your body through a bit of like a myofascial release session in a way.

So when you're on a feather soft, whatever bed, there's not a lot of pressure on your connective tissue, on your joints, on your muscles. When you're on some like a hard ground, you're getting more pressure. So if you went and got a massage,

Like a big Russian lady or something. And she was putting elbows into different parts of your body. If you have a healthy body, you know, Elga can drop a ton of weight into all sorts of weird spots in your body. And you're like, yeah, I can just breathe through this. Like this actually feels good. If you're in a,

dis-eased body you know yes yes then then alga is going to be is going to be like bringing the pain so the healthier the body the more dynamic and flexible it is to its environment if a body is more kind of stuck then the idea of like laying down on the ground would be like would be really hard because you know their tissue is sensitive it's sensitive because it's like it's

You know, pain is a, I borrowed this from a podcast guest I've had in the past called Perry Nicholson. But he said, pain is a request for change.

It's just so cool. Oh, I like that. Pain's a big, very robust topic. I've done like tens of episodes exclusively just asking the question, what is pain? Like the smartest people on the planet around the conversation of pain. Right. And nobody really knows what pain is, but I really like that, that one. If there's pain, it's like, if there's, it's, we don't define exactly what it is, but there's some suggestion of,

From the body saying like, can we change? Right, right. And do you feel that most pain comes from the fact that, like you were saying, there's 24 hours in a day. Even if you work out a lot, you still have, let's say you have, even if you work out once an hour a day, you still have 23 hours to like be fit. And your definition of fitness is?

is very different. So what is your approach to fitness? Like what, in a day in the life, like what would you do? Give me what you do, what time you wake up, all the different habits that you've incorporated, how you've went from this like muscle building meathead type of thing to this like, you know, this new Aaron who's now you, not guru, but expert in holistic movement. Yeah.

Well, I think that I'm, I don't, honestly, I don't think I'm the best example. Like I think that I've, one thing that I am is I've been consistent for, you know, the last 20 years. So I can pat myself on the back about that. I have kind of augmented my perception somehow towards enjoying some bout of discomfort pretty much every day.

Um, so whether it's like doing cold plunge or sitting in a sauna for, you know, extended period or like fasting or exercising and getting into the part where like the training starts to be like, Oh, it's uncomfortable. It's like, Oh, this is fine. It's just a thing. It's not something to run away from. It's just a thing. You know, I have like a, I have like a, these sadhu nail board things sitting behind me here. It's called a sadhu nail board. I can, I can grab it. So this is a sadhu nail board.

And it's just covered in a bunch of sharp nails. And so that's an example of something that it's like, you know, I like. You sit on it or you stand on it? No, you stand your feet on it.

Oh, it's one of those. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, it's cool. I'm not like bragging about this. I think this is very minor, whatever. This doesn't matter. But I'm just saying like this is an example of like it induces this sensation that we call pain. For the most part, pain is a thing to like, like, oh, like, stop it.

That is a perception. Pain is just a sensation. It's just like chemicals and it just is. - Right. - And so some bout of that is something that I typically, I'll try to find something like that each day. I organize my relationships around that. So most of my relationships and friends this morning, met up with friends and we boxed, so we sparred. So that was like community connection.

All of that stuff, challenge, a lot of hand-eye coordination. It's just a lot packed into that. That was like a date. That was meeting up with a buddy and doing that. So organizing relationships around things that catalyze you to be some version of yourself that would be more preferable is, I think that's advisable.

So that's something that, and now I've kind of organized my life around that and my career and my brand. So now there's a certain expectation of that of me, which is cool.

So now if people meet up with me, they're like, okay, let's like swim across some river thing or do cold plunge or there's like this certain level of expectation. I'm like, fucking amazing. Great. Like, that's so cool. Like, yeah, like let's do hard things together. Like we always feel better afterwards. Yeah.

It's also bonding. It's a bonding thing. Of course. You don't bond over soft stuff. You don't bond over coffee like you do. 100%. No, you don't. You don't bond over coffee, even dinner. My husband's a big believer in that. You have to experience...

You have to have life experience with people in order to build a true relationship and connection that's long lasting, right? Like how many people have you had coffee with? I can, I have so many coffee, lunch, dinner meetings. And like, you forget about the person the next day. It's like when you like do an activity, like you're talking about,

is how you really build real bond and real like connection. You're putting your body into like a pseudo psychedelic state. You're getting flooded with opiates. So when you're doing something hard, like your skin is an endocrine organ. Your muscles are also endocrine organs. When you're contracting and pumping and exposing them to sun or cold temperatures or hot temperatures, the pores are opening, expanding contraction, like...

That's not like your, your skin is continuous with the same embryological layer as your brain. It's called the ectoderm. They merge. It's the same dermal layer. So when you're having contact and, and that's why I like my suggestion with meeting people is like, Oh, like,

Let me flip you upside down for 10 minutes and decompress your spine and do this weird, ridiculous thing called acroyoga. That's what... Now I get it. Now I know why you said that to me all those years ago. Like, hey, let's meet up and do some acroyoga as opposed to, hey, let's meet up and have a coffee. Yeah, I find myself... And that's probably my own neuroses where I kind of like... I don't really...

love and this is my work like for me sitting in stillness is that's like really like the path towards greatest growth for me I think I've really I've like established the wiggly aspect of life and the doing hard things like the doing hard things things I find easy sitting it like I have a darkness a seven-day darkness retreat that I'm scheduled to do in November 15th or something

And so that would be something where it's an example of like, ooh, okay. That's doing hard things for me. That's like the hard, hard thing. That's hard, hard. Wait, what is that? I've never heard of this. Tell me what this darkness retreat is. Are you sitting in like darkness for seven days, literally like pitch black darkness? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a thing. I wrote about it in my book. I didn't see that in the book. Maybe I missed that page. I think it's in, it might've been in the vision chapter or it was probably in the visual chapter. I would imagine the visual chapter. So there's a whole chapter about how your, you know, your, your eyes affect your physiology and such.

Can we talk about that? Let's stay on that. That's very interesting. The eyes affecting your physiology and the darkness. So tell me about this darkness retreat first. Well, yeah. So it's originally, I think people started doing this in Germany. It has a German name that I'm, the name, the German name is escaping me right now. It's a cool name though. I remember I liked to say it back in the day that I remembered what the term was. And it might come to me at some point in this conversation. Yeah.

And yeah, you go and you are essentially locked up. Well, not locked. You could leave if you want to. In a room. There's a bathroom, like a little tub at the place that I'm going to. They bring you food, I think twice a day or something. And they pass it underneath a little thing. And you remove all contact to human beings and light there.

It varies the times, like five to 10 days typically is common. I'm doing seven days coming up. And you pay for this? People pay for it. They're offering it to me. But yeah, it's a paid thing. It's called prison. It's like being in solitary confinement. Well, I mean, that's the thing is, I think that without the color black, you know, white's not very brilliant.

you know, so, so without juxtaposition of things that are really uncomfortable, then we're in like, uh,

a place that a lot of people are, I'm in some level of this, like a, just like a comfortably numb experience, just avoiding discomfort to the point that eventually you suffocate on your own comfort. And by you, I mean me and like, you know, people that are maybe, maybe addicted to pharmaceutical drugs to, to support with anxiety or depression or, or,

Things of the sort, you know, people that want to hurt themselves, cut themselves, end their lives. You know, I think that's like a, it's like a cry for like, I just want to feel, you know? I think that is actually, so you're basically, you're saying you like, you put yourself in these like treacherous situations

hard places. So then you come back really appreciating and being grateful for what you then have, right? So you need that, or you need that, like you said, the juxtaposition. So let me get this straight. So do you go by yourself to this dark retreat? Do you go with a friend? Are you sitting in a dark room? Are you in a bed? Do you have like...

So it was going to be by myself. But then recently you probably know, you might know both the girls. The one is Krista from the almost 30 podcast. She's, she's going to go as well. And then another friend called, well, in another room, there's a place that I'm going is in Oregon. There's, they have three different rooms. I don't remember what it's called right now, but people could look up darkness retreat, Oregon, and you'll find it. It might even see a, like a blurb about me on there in a minute. Um,

And then another girl called Hannah Eden, who we just actually did this really other like hard motorcycle trip through the Pacific Northwest together. We did a group of us and it was like raining the whole time. Yes. Yeah, she does fitness stuff. Yeah. And she's got like pink hair or red hair or green hair. She used to have pink hair. But so the motorcycle trip, all that, both of those are examples of...

preparing the body from again, like an endocrine perspective from, you know, you could say from like a developing from like a cold riding motorcycle in the rain, developing brown adipose tissue, developing, you know, like your whole body adjusts to the structure and shape of your environment.

And so for me, I think it's sensible to... What's the quote from Roosevelt or whatever? He says, like, the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. So I'm a little bit like a prepper in a way. So I want to develop my...

the robusticity of my cells throughout my bones, muscles, endocrine organs, et cetera, while life is easy. And then a silly example is yesterday I rode my bike to the gym

And then it got like suddenly got like cold and raining. And so now I'm like semi stranded at the gym. And I'm like, okay, I'm at the gym. So I get in the sauna and I like get all sweaty. And then I ride my bike home and like the cold rain in my underpants and

They're like boxer briefs. They kind of look like shorts. I didn't think they pack one too. So it was kind of like covering up my, my situation. But that was an example where it's like, I'm like, I'm like, this is so totally fine. So this is an example of like life actually happening. Very simple, very like basic, low level, soft, the softest version of life. Oh my God, I'm biking home for 15 minutes in cold ish rain. Like not even that cold, but still,

there's a lot of human organisms out there that that would be devastating. - Totally true.

That is so true. But it's so, it's so what I prefer, I prefer more like peaks of like, like positive and quotations experience where it's like, wow, like, fuck yeah. Like, this is great. This feels good. Yes. The way, the only way to do that is to make yourself more adaptable to variety of life.

And if you do that through things like cold exposure, heat exposure, you know, some hermetic stressor in the form of exercise or maybe public speaking, you know, go join a... Whatever they call that. What's the club? The public speaking club? Toastmasters? No. Toastmasters. Yeah, I did Toastmasters for a little bit. You did? Anything that's just reorienting. Okay, so this is another...

Two things from the podcast that are relevant. One, make sure your hips are above the height of your knees when you're sitting. Try to get on the ground with more regularity. Fall risk is the number one leading reason that elderly need assisted living. Fall risk. I arrived on the ground in some way and I don't have the capacity to get my body off of the ground anymore. That is insane. Like that's unacceptable.

That is exclusively a product of divorcing yourself from getting up and down off of the ground while you can. Off the table, if we just start doing this now collectively as a society. Insane that it's that simple. Wow. So that's one thing. Then the other thing would be reorienting one's relationship with discomfort and

to being something that's actually not just like being okay with it, but actually seeking it out and actually inviting it because you know that it's inevitable. You will be uncomfortable in your life. A million percent. Like there's no way around it. You're going to get caught. It's going to happen. So right now, while you're chilling is the best time to invest and say, how could I elect to make myself uncomfortable right now?

Maybe I'll go for a little run. Maybe I'll go, you know, we'll just fill it, whatever thing you want, whatever, whatever makes you kind of go like, Oh, like, okay, ah, we made it. Exactly. Get in the habit of doing that. And that is the greatest insurance policy for your happiness and contentment in the future. And then, well, I mean, another great insurance policy would just be like focusing on relationships and like do good by people. When you come into interaction with someone, start developing the, the, the,

mantra for yourself of like making everyone a little bit better than they were not like forcing them to be better but like if you have an interaction with someone what can you do to make sure that they walk away from that interaction like feeling a little better than they did when they started like don't allow interactions to to end i mean sometimes you just got to whatever you got to move on or whatever it's like not your business to like try to make save everybody but

But the best you can with every interaction, the person serving your coffee at Starbucks or wherever, you know, your kids, your partner, your business people, like at the end of that conversation, like, did we both walk away like, all right, I feel good. Yeah, like, and you're intended, you have a very, you have an intention around that. So when you have any kind of interaction, you personally, Aaron, that's what's going through your head is like how, like, you want to leave that

You want to leave that conversation, that interaction, giving that person a, like a feeling that like, it's like a positive feeling. Like you think about that. Yeah. Like give gifts. So the gift could be physical gifts. The gift could be write somebody a letter. The gift could be sending a text to somebody in the morning. The gift could be just like you were. There's so many people that I see just in like in the streets, you know, of Austin, Texas or wherever the heck I'm at.

That there's just like a sensation of like, I don't know, oftentimes people are like sad. Sometimes people are happy. There's a lot of things. But there's oftentimes you can kind of see this person just like not feeling, maybe they feel lonely. Maybe they feel disconnected. Maybe they feel purposeless. Maybe they're literally like thinking about ending their life. Like how many people do you walk? Statistically, you walk past a lot of people each week that literally are like,

ideating how do I turn the lights off on this thing? So in that scenario, it's just like, man, like what, what an opportunity to, as you're just walking down the street, as you're getting coffee, as you're doing whatever you're doing, just to like make eye contact with somebody and be like, ah, like just show them like there's people out here that care.

You know, like, like I care. I don't know you. Well, like I care. And what that is, it's incredibly selfish because upon you bridging that connection to someone else, it's, it's healing you. It's opening your heart. It's opening, you know, you would have at a mental, emotional, cellular level, you release the contraction and the defense, it comes into a place. And then when you release that contraction, so this is kind of like metaphoric, but also very literal. If you're in a defensive state,

So you think somebody wants your money or you think somebody wants to take advantage of you or whatever. Someone's going to attack you. What do you do? Your shoulders contract. You might need a rotation of the shoulders. Traps and sternocleidomastoid and mastoid might contract. Your blood will flush out to your periphery, out of your organs. Your pupils might dilate. Your mouth might get dry. So it's this...

It's this resistance contracted like ready to fight or freeze or run or whatever. There are many humans, myself included in this, that are chronically in that state more than would be ideal for their health and their longevity. And stress, like bar none, is the most consistent factor in any form of dis-ease.

Like, name a thing, stress is in there. Yeah, totally agree with that too. So you're saying that making eye contact is the key to this, right? Like with the going out every day and whatever interaction you have, even with strangers, you want to have like eye contact. Eye contact would be a fine bridge.

because it might be like, Whoa, like, wow, I'm like actually looking at somebody in their eyes. Don't be creepy about it. Cause there can be too much. Like this is what you get in like the kind of like the new age spiritual world. Like it's almost like this spiritual ego of like, I can stare you into your eyes for 35 seconds. And I'm like, and they're like kind of like barely even there, but they're like deep eye contact, bro. I'm like, no, no, no. Like too much. Like that's like, you're being intrusive.

Um, you know, but just, just, it's, it's like how you sit in the chair. It's it's or how you sit, you know, how do you sit anywhere? It's not about the chair. It's, it's about what's behind the eye contact. So actively engaging in a process of like just compassion, like I have compassion for your experience. And if you have compassion, you practice having compassion for someone else's experience. You are simultaneously practicing having compassion for yourself.

So many people are so hard on themselves. I'm in this category and it's, it's, it's not being enough. Like a big part of why I am, you know, I don't know, muscular is still lingering, lingering aspects of like feeling not enough.

Like if I lose the muscles, I think about that regularly. If I, if I wasn't, if I didn't fall into a category of being what modern culture, you know, happens to consider largely as being like, I don't know, like, like attractive, you know, or I didn't have, like, I wasn't fit. I didn't have that edge in a way.

it would be a lot of work for me. It would be a lot of like deep emotional like heart work. And so I kind of have that as a buffer to kind of lean on a little bit, but I realize that it's also can be almost like a barrier to like more authentic growth. And so I think within that, it's like the practice of compassion for other people

it really, it inevitably spills into yourself. And the more you do that, the more or more one does that, the more one begins to bridge that relationship and get out of the isolation of I'm alone in this. When I'm alone in this, then I hoard and then I protect, I build my walls up and then I build the walls up so big that no one can get in.

And this comes into relationships. Do you have a girlfriend? Are you married? What is your situation? I have a girlfriend, but these are all things that are part of my process with it. Because you just gave me a good segue into asking you how you...

What was that turning point when you went from being the, because I don't think you answered me, the gym guy, the meathead guy to this new, not new age person, but who you are now. Like, like if you were doing it because of insecurity and for whatever other reason it was in your past, what kind of made, is it just, what made you have that growth to, to kind of follow this path?

Probably challenge. I think probably like my, something I write about in my books, it's not like a secret or anything, I've talked about it a bunch. My dad was like really super like end of the line addicted to drugs growing up for me. And he ended up going to jail and it was like a whole thing. It was around like when I was like a teenager timeframe. Yeah.

And now he's doing amazing. He's like one of the sweetest humans you ever possibly could meet. And he like helps people with like rehab and all sorts of stuff. Like he's, it's unbelievable that he's totally clean now. Very clean. Yeah. Like he's like one in a million, like very rare to be at the edge of his, his, where he was. You know, he, he was as close to being not in his body anymore as you, as you could be, I think.

And he managed to like jail actually was really like one of the best, the best thing that could have happened to him. How long was he in jail for? A couple of years. It wasn't too bad. But it was, it was great for him because I think with him, it like stripped him of all of his defense mechanisms. Yeah.

So he was a stockbroker, he was doing fine financially, he was like the president of the Nature Conservancy, he was respected. My mom's Miss America pageant, she's like third runner up, Miss Pennsylvania, super hot, beautiful singer, songwriter. Like very like all the boxes check, right?

within that, when the person's, all person's boxes are checked, it's, it's almost a disadvantage into like deeper growth in a way because you can lean on your material world. You're like, no, no, no. Like everyone confirms, like I'm the shit. Fuck off. Like problems me like, no, get out of here. Like I'm the best. I, you're fired. You're done.

So true. It's easy to kind of stay up on that White Castle, right? Because you have all this, you're gorgeous and you're rich and you're this. It doesn't make you, force you to look inward. So he was like a finance dude and then, because he was addicted to, was it like crack cocaine or something like severe crack, right? Yeah, crack was his thing, yeah. How did that even happen? Probably cocaine originally. His story...

is that he's told me is that there was like, he has like a savior complex. He's always been big into Jesus and, and, and like dying on the cross, saving, you know, other people from their sins. I grew up very like deeply steeped in that world. And so I kind of, for me, I grew up in a, in a way that I remember, I don't know how you, how you grew up, but I remember in the way that I grew up,

very, you know, steeped in Christianity. I'm not mad at Christianity. I think, you know, Christ, consciousness, Jesus, all that stuff. I'm Jewish. That's how I grew up. Jewish. And so something that was interesting that I don't, I'd be curious if this relates to you or anyone listening. I kind of grew up like in a way respecting people that were in pain and

And like, if they were in pain, but they were like still doing good for other people, but they had this deep pain to me that like epitomized like a saint, like that was a good life, which I think is so interesting that that was like growing up. I was like, yeah, of course. And then my mom and you know, my more of my mom would iterate these kinds of stories of like,

my uncle or by this or that and she would tell these stories of like how he was really sick or how he was really had all this like chronic whatever terrible stuff he was you know that he was dealing with but he was always good to the children at the school or something like that he always did this thing I didn't really get the story of someone that just felt like liberated

and was healthy and confident and strong and playful and dynamic and like, yeah, they lived a good life. It was kind of this interesting, like Jesus type thing. Like they were hanging from the cross. I just thought that was very interesting. And the reason I say that is my dad had a bit of that like savior type complex to him.

And the story like a God comp. No, that's not. Is that kind of like a God complex or I think God complex would be more of a narcissist creating and destroying his is more. His is more like if you're if you're in a bad way, like I it fulfills my ego and my identity to save you because probably if I save you it denotes that I don't need saving because I'm the savior and

Right. But anyway, so there's like some gal that was like smoking crack or something like that. And she was like telling him about it. And the story goes that she like finally was like, watch, I'll like show you I can smoke crack and and, you know, it'd be OK with it. And like kind of like enter enter the chaos with you and like I'll pull you out from it.

And then the story goes that that was kind of, he was like, whoa, this is really good. And it kind of kept going down that direction. I don't know if that's a level of accuracy to that, but that was kind of what I've heard. But again, now he's doing like tremendous and I'm so grateful for all of that. Does he have a job? Yeah, he does like insurance stuff. He's still in like financial world. And you have a relationship with him? Yeah, I talked to him like two days ago. And your mom, what is she up to now? Like is she...

She's doing, she was, she's like now back in like singing, like making her art is her thing that she's really like the most excited about. But they split up when he went to jail. Yes. And your mom raised you, I would imagine then or? No, this happened, I was like semi-adult at this time. So this is, he had that experience when I was like 17 or bridging on like 18 or something like that.

And so I was like, I moved to Hawaii shortly after that. So I was, it was kind of, I had a bit of like a transition into like leaving that scenario. Thankfully. Thankfully. I mean, so. Yeah, it'd be a lot tougher. So what, so then I was going to say, were you always kind of.

Because the way you describe yourself is more like this gym guy, gym rat. Yeah, gym rat. But you seem very deep now and very evolved and kind of like, not like woo-woo, but a little woo-woo. Was that ever part of your vibe back then or not really? I was always interested. I started experimenting with psychedelics and stuff when I was like,

Pretty young, like 14, 15 years old or so. That's young. I don't like condone or not condone, you know, whatever, you know, to each his own. But I, in that time, and I was using a lot of like cannabis and very interested in just like altering my mind as a young person, probably some form of like escapism, I'd imagine, like in retrospect. And so that was, and also rite of passage. I was seeking rite of passage and probably like escape from whatever kind of like

mundane slash disjointed reality that I was experiencing. Right. And so that I think inevitably through experiences like that, it starts to catalyze the beginning of perceiving the world as like, okay, what else essentially? Like, yes, this is, this is the world in front of me.

But like, you know, like what else is there's, there's other layers to this. If you don't think there's other layers to what's going on here, like you're just not paying close enough attention. Like there's other, there's other things going on here.

You know? And so whether that's, I mean, you can look at it very scientifically. You can look at it as like the, the percentage of the acoustic spectrum that we're able to hear is like minuscule compared to the actual spectrum that exists. Same thing with visual spectrum, probably same thing with like, well not probably definitely with like olfactory, like our, our senses are, are, are very dumb in a lot of ways. Like our basic, you know, the ones that we, that we are accustomed to.

And so there's so much more information out there just from a very like strictly scientific five senses type perspective. So, you know, like what, what is that information?

Right, you got curious, you got curious. I got curious, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's kind of led you down this path. And also, before we even continue, the dark thing you're telling me about, what are you doing in the room for the 24 hours? Are they putting you in a dark room? They're giving you two meals through the door. What else are you doing? Can you see your feet? Can you exercise? What are you supposed to be doing in there for 24 hours? Yeah.

Sorry, for seven days. I'm sorry, for seven days. I guess it'll probably start off with a lot of sleep.

It'll probably transform into like chronic masturbation. And I'll probably get bored of that. And it'll probably enter into like deep introspective work. So that's basically the point. Just to like literally give you like some solitude. It's actually, it could be a vacation for a parent also. I mean, maybe I should go. I don't know. But that's basically what, and how much do they charge people for this? I have to know. I can look it up. I don't know. I don't know. Look it up. Yeah. I think people, it's an interesting question.

thing. I don't think it's, it's, it's, I've heard a lot of people like Aubrey Marcus. He's I, I, um, inspired him to do his first, I think maybe first and only darkness retreat. And then he went on to do like a documentary about it and all of that stuff. And I inspired him to do that in a podcast that we had recorded like years ago. And I was telling him about darkness retreat because I was writing about it in my book.

And then he went and did it. And he claims that to be, and I say Aubrey because he's like kind of like a psychonaut type figure in the world where he's tried all the plant medicines and all the different things. And he suggested that the darkness was like bar none, the most potent experience that he's ever had as far as, you know, I don't know, spiritual stuff, psychonaut stuff. And you've never done it yet. You've never done it yet.

No, no, I've been interested in it for a while. And you're not with, so does everybody have to be by themselves in isolation? You can't go with another person there, right? You probably could. Maybe you go with another person, I'm sure. That's not how it's set up. Typically, it's typically you, you, you alone on your own, but could be very interesting bonding relationship for, for, for, for two people. But I would, I would still, if I was going there with a partner, I would probably still, I would rent out the place that I'm going in Oregon, um,

And I'm a little bit bummed. I don't know the name of the place, but if people are interested, literally just look up like Oregon darkness retreat, you could probably literally even use, I don't know if I have a discount code per se, but I bet you, if you like mentioned me or like say a line or something, they'll probably give you some discount or something. So if it's something that's of interest, there's a very prominent one in Oregon and, um,

I know a lot of people that have gone through the experience and it's pretty unanimous. It's like that was the most potent thing I've ever done. Wow. It's fascinating. Okay, we haven't even finished what your daily routine is. What other things? Okay, so I don't even know. Okay, so what time are you up? Does it matter? I know you love, you think that sun exposure is one of the most important things to do daily, right? To maximize your...

Yeah, I mean, I think that I know that. I would say that I know that. I don't know that I really know anything, but I think that I know that. I think that's a known one, though, like having some type of sun exposure. You know, the question is how much sun exposure, right? Like it's about... It's a very... Depends on ethnicity. Depends on where you're at in the world. I agree. That's why the stuff around...

the like sun is very confusing. It's the same thing with nutrition. It's the same thing with like anything. We are all very biochemically individual. We come from different parts of the world. Our skin pigment's very different. And also our skin pigment's very adaptive. You know, so if you're a person that has not exposed themselves to a lot of sun, then your skin cells aren't gonna be prepared for sun. So a little bit will go a long way. If you're a person like me who like,

I really prioritize being in the sun. I don't feel well if I don't get enough sun. And the same way, which is why I'm surprised you moved away from California, just for that reason alone. Austin's sunny as all get out.

I didn't realize that. Oh man, I went literally just, I just like laid out on my little like porch stoop here for like 20 minutes and I was pouring in sweat and it was literally like a sauna. Like I was like, wow, that was impressive. Like that was a detox. That was awesome. Winter, it's less, you know, but for most of the year, yeah, it's like, you know, it's like 105 degrees and sunny, sunny as all get out. Does that mean that you don't believe in sunscreen? No.

I mean, I think that it exists. I think that it's real. It does exist, definitely. I can prove it to you by showing you a bottle. No, I think it's the same thing. The chair is not the problem. The sunscreen is not the problem. It's when are you using it and what are you using? So if you're using zinc oxide, if you're using something that's organic,

materials or products where you're like, oh yeah, like I know what that, I get it. Coconut oil, zinc oxide. Like you're like, uh-huh. Like I would, I would ingest that. Right. Don't, don't be fooled. Like,

chemicals going into your bloodstream is that's eating. You're essentially eating just because it didn't go down your gullet. It's still all entering the bloodstream. Especially your skin's a very fit. It's a derm, like your skin is like one of the most open, I mean, everything can go through your skin. Oh yeah. And you know when it's the most open is when you're hot baking in the sun. Yeah. So if you put yourself, if you put some like noxious, uh, hormone disrupting chemicals on your skin, uh,

It'd be one thing if you just got out of a cold plunge and you rubbed some toxic paste on your arm. Right. But if you go, you rub this stuff, disrupts your hormonal function, has all sorts of issues with like local riverways and like, you know, ocean, you know, just like the other creatures that are, that are existing. And then you go and open your pores full blast and bake that shit into you.

super not a good idea. Yeah, super not a good idea. That's a great way to put it. It's so scientific based. Super not a great idea. Okay, so some we know. Give us some other things that are on your list of like, if we could do five things to really kind of up our optimal, I don't know if it's like, like,

What would be the word like living or life or daily health habits? What would it be? One, just because I'm like, I'm like a language Nazi. I can be kind of uncomfortable to be around with it. I would...

one, just pay attention to language. You seem quite good with language, actually. Not like just that you're eloquent, but it seems like you don't tend to speak in ways that are disruptive to feeling well. Thank you. It's a bit of a bind, I think, in the modern world

digital age of productivity, productivity and efficiency. And like, you know, essentially like the, the, the, the runoff from the Tim Ferriss type optimal performance world. Right. I think it's nothing against Tim. But the idea of optimal, I think is a bit in like efficiency and things like that, I think is a bit of like machine language, right?

And like you optimize a computer, you optimize, you know, like, like devices, like the idea of, yeah, the idea of, of like you being optimized. Like, I just think that a lot of that we can kind of tie ourselves into knots and come into this place of like a lack of just, again, compassion and acceptance and like love for ourselves.

where I'm at in like right now. And this story that I gotta get optimized. I gotta get optimized. It's like, there is no optimized. Like there's no, like you, like it's, it's, you're, it's just a carrot. You keep pushing forward wherever you arrive. You're gonna be like, God, I get more optimized.

Yeah, I know what you mean. You mean like in this world we're living with, everything is biohacking ourselves to a place where... Yeah, you're not a machine. You're not a computer. You're like a living, breathing, mental, emotional... But with you saying that, right? You know, the reality is you're still doing all of these things to, I hate to say the word optimize, to optimize how you feel, right? You're doing the cold... Because all these hard things that you call, you're doing these harder things to feel...

the counter, the juxtaposition is to feel really good and optimized on the other side. So you're doing the plunge, you're doing the sauna, you're doing the sunlight, you're doing the exercise, right? You're sitting on the floor to optimize how your pelvic floor will work and then not being, you know, what's that word? I always get that. So you're incontinence. Incontinence. Yeah. Or so you're, you know, so you're, you know, your sick bones or whatever. These are all things to help

overall be the most healthy in body, in mind you can be, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I don't, I'm not, I'm not especially mad at optimized. It's more just the general idea of like, I think there's, I think there's also value, like the way that you think now and the operating systems that you're running probably aren't going to change based on your material experience.

manifestation, like what happens in the world, the operating system of the way that you think is probably just going to keep on running until you actually come into a place of like, what's going on in the OS here? And so that idea of like always needing to be more, always needing to be more efficient, always need to be more optimized, always need to be more like blah, blah, blah. Right. So the way it's kind of

you're taking the word optimize and like using it, it's kind of like for you, it sounds like to be the most efficient, highest purring, you know, vehicle. Yeah, sure. But okay, so let's just say in your how you feel. Like,

in an environment? Like what would you say, what would be your ideal environment that you continue to do? Like give me a, still, I want to know the day in the life. What time do you wake up? Do you eat plant-based? Are you eating animal protein? Are you? So the day in the life of what I think would be most ideal for a human, and this is what I tend to try to follow the best I can, would be getting up with the sun, getting your eyes exposed to sun as soon as you possibly can. Mm-hmm.

acknowledging that the sun is it's it's actually a material object photons like penetrating your eyes and within that that's you know one of the best things you can do to generally just tune your neurochemistry for the day set your circadian rhythm make it so you're actually sleepy you know 16 odd hours later after that just helps you make you feel good and then for

from there, get like some movement, wiggle your body around, go for a walk, you know, something of a sort, drink a bunch of water, probably spit some of the first like swig of water out because you got a bunch of stuff in your mouth you don't really want to swallow right away. You brush your teeth before you drink a bunch of water. You do like coconut pulling if you want. Coconut's antimicrobial, antibacterial, so that could be a nice thing as well. Plus just having the fats in the biome in your mouth is good for the bacteria in there, the healthy bacteria in your mouth. Do you do that every day?

No, but when I do it, it's always seems like a good idea. I do it maybe like once every like two weeks or something. I'm going to start doing this. I have it sitting right in my cabinet. I just, I just, just don't. I just feel like water, sunlight, walk, coffee typically. But I, but every time I decide to put coconut oil in my mouth and then go for a walk outside and kind of like swish around while I'm going for a walk,

I'm always like, this is awesome. Like my mouth feels really fucking good. Really? Because I did that. And then you spit out the coconut, uh, the coconut oil or do you swallow it? I literally spit it out, spit it on a bush. No, no, you don't swallow it. That's a good idea. I'm going to try that tomorrow. So you just basically walk around with the coconut oil in your mouth and swig it around. Yeah, you're supposed to do it for like, I don't know, whatever they say. Do it for some amount of time, three minutes, five minutes. And what does it do? It pulls out all the different. So coconut oil, I'm, I don't, I don't know exactly what it does to be

does to be honest. I know I've had podcast episodes. I had Dr. Steven Lin on my podcast recently, who he's like a biological dentist, I think is the term for him. And one of the things that he was suggesting is healthy fats such as coconut oil are really good for feeding the good in quotations bacteria in your oral biome, so your mouth.

And so that's a good thing. It's kind of like maybe like prebiotic fiber in a way. It's like eating, oh, what's the stuff? What's the fibrous, shoot, what's the thing? My friend has a whole company around it. Jicama. - Jicama. I love jicama. It's my favorite thing ever. - Yeah, jicama's good stuff. But anyway, so it's like good for the good bacteria and it's bad for the bad in quotations bacteria. So it's like cleansing and also is feeding healthy bacteria.

So that would be something that I think is interesting. Again, that wasn't a very scientific description of it. It's just something I think is nice. I like it. I don't like, I mean, it was actually the most, I understood that the most, the minute he else, he said this whole other podcast. It was the most succinct. I'll stay there. Thank you. Thank you. I'll stay there. And then, you know, I think, I think that, so I tend to, if you're asking specifically about me, I tend to batch things that I would put into like a category of like,

obligatory like work type scenarios such as recording podcasts. I'm not like obligatory, but it's like, it's like, oh, it's a scheduled thing. I tried to keep before like 11:30 open for me and then keep like after four open for me. So that block of like four to five hours is the time that I permit shit to be scheduled. And then before then it's just, it's like time to do what feels good. Typically for me, it's like, I'll go train,

I'll like do some writing or something, just whatever. And then the evening, try to keep that open as well. So again, I'll typically like train or something, some version of that and do dinner with somebody I care about.

you know, read, hang out, you know, but the big thing as far as, as far as like, I think that optimizing cellular health, I think is just go the freak outside as often as you can turn your phone off as regularly as you're willing to put your phone in airplane mode as regular as regularly as you're willing to allow your eyes to go through a full range of motion. Acknowledge that your, your eyes, your ocular tissue, your, your eyeballs, um,

and all the correlating muscles around them are neurological tissue. So it's continuous with your central nervous system, your central nervous system, your spine, your spinal cord, your brain, your eyes. When you're adjusting the perception of nearsightedness or taking the panoramic view or looking up or scanning the horizon, left, right, looking down, all of that,

think of it as like you're pulling like a joystick of your autonomic nervous system so when you're going into panoramic view it's sending a cue into your physiology that it's like okay jen's she's chilling out okay we're just chilling when you're focusing your your vision in on a cell phone for example or a computer or a predator you know or a prey you go into like high functioning you know executive function sympathetic get done mode

When you're done getting shit done and you either didn't get eaten by the predator or you ate the prey, you go, you let a lot out a long exhale. Once you establish that you feel safe and you can take in the whole world. You're not like a shark.

isolating myopic vision from place to place, you're just taking it all in. You're just chilling out, man. So same thing, acknowledging. And make sure you're getting enough sunlight to your eyeballs. Sunglasses are best suited for nighttime. Again, another backwards thing in modern culture.

like the idea of wearing sunglasses, if you're like avoiding a glare or something and, or you're driving over a mountain pass or something like you can't see, like, of course, like put your thing down, get sunglasses, do whatever you need to do to see. But the idea of blocking light while the sun is out and then, and then bringing the light in from alternating current flickering blue lights inside your house, once the sun goes down is another bummer.

Like that's really problematic. So you're saying to wear glasses at night, basically. I'm saying tone the lights down. So get like salt lamps, you know, just get like more reds and oranges and things that make you feel kind of sexy.

So like if you were to have a, a, a like intimate partner, if you were to have like an intimate partner over to your house, you know, and you're making like a nice dinner, like if you really want to do it right, you'd probably like candles, you know, you'd probably like play some soothing music. You wouldn't just have like a, like a, like a, a big nasty fluorescent light, like she would feel like she's under attack or he would feel like they're under attack. And it's, and that alternating current of the light as well. It's not a direct current like you're getting from the sun.

It's literally flickering. It's flickering real fast to the point that it looks like a stable light. It's not. It's very agitating. And so I would avoid that if you're trying to sleep. I would avoid agitation. So emphasizing long exhalations, relax the eyes, use long wave light, which is the reds and the oranges and things of the sort that you get from like a fire. Those are all very valuable.

I love this. Okay, so we're like, I'm going to have to wrap this up because it's long, but I want you to come back if you don't mind and we can do another one. You're a very fascinating human, I find. I want to do the acro now that I know you. Yeah, you can do it. I'm down. Let's do it when you're in LA, Nick. You're going to be here in a couple of weeks, you said, right? I'll be there in three weeks or so. All right. Yeah.

You're very, you're an interesting little cat there, Alexander. I mean, really, you really are. Has anyone ever told you that before? I can't be the first.

I think I strike different people differently, but yeah. I mean, but you have a nice way about you though. You know what I mean? You have a very, you're very pleasant, you know? That's good. Yeah, you are. You're very pleasant actually. No, it's true. You're, you're, um, and we knew a lot of mutual people. And so I'm glad that we finally, I finally got to meet you this way. But, um,

I know the book has been out a while. We've been trying, like I said, trying to do this, but it's called the Align Method. And it's actually really, I enjoyed it a lot. I didn't even get to a lot of the other questions about flexibility and about sleep and about walking. So we do have to do this again. More to come.

Absolutely. How do people find you? Just on IG or are you on anything else? Yeah, whatever. I mean, most people probably just end up on Instagram. So everything's under Align Podcast, including the podcast called Align Podcast. Yeah.

And then we have a free community if people want to have like kind of like a more intrinsic experience with the alignment stuff. And that's found at align podcast.com slash community. So there's about a couple thousand people and there I'm in there every day answering questions. We do like lives and stuff and we share a lot of instructional content. This conversation was very much geared towards, uh,

I don't know, metaphysical, you know, what the hell are we doing here type conversation. But that's very like didactic. Here's how you make your joints work better. Yeah. And so, yeah, just type Align podcast into the Internet and all the things will come up or Align method. That's the book. It's funny because I thought this would be much more about like, how do your joints work better? And this took a whole different really direction, which is interesting to me. So that's fun. I appreciate that.

That's my preference. Absolutely. It's great. And well, thank you for being on the podcast. Yeah, of course. Thank you. Habits and Hustle. Time to get it rolling. Stay up on the grind. Don't stop. Keep it going. Habits and Hustle from nothing into something. All out. Hosted by Jennifer Cohen. Visionaries. Tune in. You can get to know them. Be inspired. This is your moment. Excuses. We ain't having that. The Habits and Hustle podcast powered by Habit Nest.