Your Lifestyle Is Your Medicine
“Your Life Style Is Your Medicine” is a podcast that focuses on how a person's lifestyle can be the key to health and happiness. Routed in the principles of lifestyle medicine, Ed Paget, osteopath, and exercise scientist, interviews area-specific experts on how lifestyle impacts well-being, focusing on purpose, physical activity, nutrition, sleep, and stress, which could lead to a longer, happier life. Edward now runs immersive lifestyle medicine retreats, with the purpose of helping others take back control of their lives to live longer and healthier.
Your Lifestyle Is Your Medicine
Podcast Episode 62 - James Swanwick
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Your brain doesn’t know what time it is. It only knows what light it’s seeing. If your nights are filled with bright LEDs and a glowing phone screen, you may be training your body to stay “on” long after sunset, suppressing melatonin and throwing off your circadian rhythm.
I sit down with James Swannick, former ESPN anchor and founder of Swannies blue light blocking glasses, to get clear on what blue light actually is, why it’s healthy from the sun during the day, and why artificial blue light at night can be such a sleep killer. We talk about the difference between filtering light in the daytime versus blocking it at night, why lens quality matters, and how many cheap “blue blocker” options don’t truly block the spectrum that impacts sleep. You’ll also hear practical lighting ideas you can use tonight, from lowering overhead lights to creating a warmer bedroom environment.
Then the conversation widens into another powerful lever for longevity and mental health: alcohol. James shares how a simple 30-day break from drinking turned into an alcohol-free lifestyle, along with the ripple effects he noticed in weight, mood, focus, relationships, and productivity. We also get into what makes change stick: supportive friends, daily movement like 15,000 steps, coaching, and building a lifestyle that feels like a choice instead of a punishment.
If you want better sleep, steadier energy, and a clearer mind, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who scrolls at night, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts so more people can find the show.
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SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Your Lifestyle Is Your Medicine podcast. Now, if you're watching this on YouTube, you might be wondering why I'm wearing a pair of blue light blocking glasses. Well, today I'm joined by James Swannick. He's a former ESPN anchor and he's an outer health entrepreneur who's arguably responsible for making these glasses, these orange glasses, part of the global health landscape. He's the mind behind this brand, they're called Swannies, and he's also a leading voice of the longevity benefits of living an alcohol-free life. We're going to get into both of those topics. We're going to talk about the advantages of blue light blockers and the many, many advantages of living an alcohol-free life. So strap in, this is going to be a good one. So, James, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Ed. Great to be here.
Ski Goggles Spark A Business
SPEAKER_00Hey, look, we're going to talk about these uh glasses that you're wearing, the glasses that I'm wearing. But before we do that, I want to get into a little bit of your history and about why you even got into this world of blue light blocking glasses. And you've mentioned a story before in other podcasts and interviews about ugly ski goggles. Can you tell us can you tell us that story?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was living in Los Angeles, California at the time. I went out to Palm Springs for a dinner one night with a friend of mine, and he was wearing these really ugly, unsightly uh blue blocking glasses that made him look like a meth chemist. And uh I said, What are you doing? And he said, I'm trying to protect my eyes from the blue light. And I said, Blue light? What are you talking about? And he went on to explain that artificial light from light bulbs and our phone and computer and the refrigerator light. Uh at nighttime, when we're subjected to that, it destroys our body's ability to release melatonin, which uh ultimately helps us helps us sleep better. The problem was that my friend looked ridiculous wearing these ridiculous uh orange lensed kind of like safety glasses. So I went back to my home in West Hollywood at the time and I dug out an old pair of ski goggles that I had with a kind of a yellowish tint to it, and I I put them on while watching reruns of the AMC television series Mad Men, uh, just to see whether blocking blue light with a yellow or an amber lens would actually affect my uh energy levels, my sleep, etc. And what I found is that while watching the main character of Dodden Draper in this AMC T series Mad Men through these ridiculous-looking ski goggles, I actually did start to feel sleepier. And then when I removed the goggles, I found myself falling asleep quicker. And when I woke up the next morning, I found myself feeling more refreshed. So I thought, wow, there's something to this. The only problem was that I had to wear a pair of ski goggles to, you know, uh start to wind down uh towards the end of the night. And that's when the idea hit me. It was can I create a stylish pair of blue blocking glasses where I would feel comfortable going out in Hollywood on a Friday, Saturday night wearing these glasses uh because they were stylish while also benefiting from the blue light blocking effects. And you made them. You made the Swannies. We made them. I phoned up my brother Tristan, who was living in Brisbane, Australia at the time, and I said, I got this idea to create a stylish pair of blue blockers. You want to help me do it? And he said yes. And so we kind of you know looked at Ray Bann's glasses and Oakley glasses, and we kind of settled on a very stylish frame. Um, and we stuck the orange lens in that stylish frame, and Swannee's blue-like blocking glasses were born.
Blue Light And Melatonin Basics
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. And I I've had this bed I'm wearing now. I've had these since uh 2018. So I've actually been a fan of yours, well, for the or the glasses, for a for a long time. So I've I've personally experienced what you experience as well. You put them on, everything's orange, and you sort of think, oh, I don't know if I can watch TV like this or even read. But after a while, your brain adjusts, it colour cracks, and TV looks normal and and everything looks normal. And and yet you sleep better. And I track, I for those people who listen to the podcast, I know this, I track everything on my on my wheel, and sure enough, it makes a difference. It gets a better, better rest and recovery. So let's uh talk a little bit about what is blue light for those people who don't know, and how does it sort of come into our lives? Like, where is it? Screams, the sun, where is it?
SPEAKER_02So, to be clear, before I explain blue light, um the only time where it can be potentially disruptive to our life is at nighttime if we're subjected to artificial blue light at night. The reality is that the biggest emitter of blue light is actually the sun. And we love the sun, we want the sun, we crave the sun, we need the sun. It makes us happy, it feels, we feel good, we can see things, it helps things grow. So there's no problem with the sun, right? There's no problem with the blue light from the from the sun. The problem for we humans starts at nighttime when the sun has gone down. And that is the time where our bodies traditionally want to rest. Our bodies are ready to repair, our bodies are ready to sleep. Now, the challenge in the modern world is that we have created artificial blue light. And that artificial blue light is your computer and your phone. It's also the street lights, the speedometer light in your car, it's the refrigerator light, the microwave light, the alarm clock light, the clock light that you get in every damn hotel room across the world, which kind of shines at you. And while that is very effective at helping us live our lives at night, it's incredibly ineffective at uh having us feel good at nighttime. The problem is that blue light is a wavelength that disrupts our melatonin release. Uh I I should clarify what I said there. Artificial blue light, because fire and flame from a candle actually does not disrupt our melatonin release. That's actually a very healthy light. You know, when you look into a fire or you're at you're camping, you're out and about, you look into the fire, and you can start to relax, even though that's light, it's not artificial light. It's that artificial blue light that is stimulating our pineal gland, which is suppressing melatonin release. And melatonin is the hormone that helps us uh to feel sleepy, to help help us get ready for sleep, and then ultimately to sleep well. So blue light daytime from the sun is absolutely fine and healthy. Artificial blue light, particularly at night, is very unhealthy. And so that is why it's important to block as much of that artificial blue light at night as possible, and to do so with a quality pair of blue blocking glasses, which I submit you're wearing right now.
SPEAKER_00So what's let's talk about quality then. So I think that's a great case for blocking blue light. And I've you know, I've read stuff years ago on sleep talking about how essentially now with artificial light we are exposing ourselves to too much daylight, which then, because melatonin is a hormone, it can upset some of our hormones. And that may be the reason uh young women are getting their menstrual cycle earlier. It may be the reason that we've got you know things going on in our health that we shouldn't be having because we are exposed to too much uh blue light. Now, that's conjecture, I know, but it's kind of interesting thought processes about extending our days, which then makes your uh sort of your reptilian brain or those circadian rhythms feel like we've actually had more daylight than we really have had, and therefore we're older than we really are. Anyway, that's uh that's what that's what out there for the other the fringe scientists will see what they say.
SPEAKER_02Well, I can just share, you know, anecdotally, when when we are exposing ourselves to artificial light at night, we're tricking our brain and our body into believing that it's still daytime. And so the natural circadian rhythm of the human body doesn't get to be released. We're compromising that. And so what you just shared there about women's menstrual cycles and all of these other effects and our and hormone um disruption, that absolutely makes sense to me for sure. Because if we're staring into these devices, i.e. our cell phones late at night, which many people do in the modern world, and we're not protecting our eyes with the per quality blue blockers, then our body and brain still believes that it's daytime. So we're not preparing for sleep, we're not preparing for rest, we're just extending the daytime activities. Yes, it's nighttime outside, but we're staring into a mini sun. I mean, if I just hold my phone up to the camera now, there's a photo of my family, my wife, daughter there. Like if I'm just staring into this device at night time, it's a mini sun. It's a mini sun, and so our bodies are going, oh, okay, daytime, yet it's 10 p.m. at night.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right. 100%. So that makes sense. I mean, the the the consequences of that are profound, not in a good way.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_02Yes, you know, no one would ever sacrifice their phone, God forbid.
Home Lighting Tricks For Sleep
SPEAKER_00No, exactly. And there's there's also some interesting research on the position of lights in the house as well, where when the lights are up over your head, your receptors for blue lights are in the bottom part of your eye, and so they become more they're designed to, you know, get the blue light from the sun. Whereas when the lights are below sort of waist height where fire would be, they the the light comes up into your eyes and there's less blue light receptors in the top part of your eye. I don't know if you've heard that. That to me is a really interesting yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm learning something new about that. That's amazing. Yeah, that makes sense. That does make sense as well.
SPEAKER_00It's and doesn't and so then one of the ideas for getting better sleep is to not have the overhead lights on. One, they're usually sort of a a larger light spectrum, but two, if you have lamps down, you know, lower lamps, it can get you ready for bed as well.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah. You know, I have um my wife and I, we have those uh bedside table lamps and they're great. And and in addition, the way that the house was built, there's this big, ugly, uh bright light right above our bed, where if you turn that on in the main bedroom, it'll just lights up and it's so bright, it's horrendous. And so we've actually gone now and we've cut out a piece of um black cardboard and stuck it over the light. So we still turn the bedroom light on, but because the black blocks out most of it, it kind of creates like a cozy feel, you know. It's it's like, oh, okay, it's time time for bedtime. We also have red light in our lamps to just strip away all of the blue light, and in addition, we wear our Swanny's blue light blocking glasses as well. So that combined um at nighttime helps us to prepare for sleep. Recently, it hasn't really been helping my wife with her sleep because our baby's been waking up in the night, she's only a hundred days old or around that at the moment. So um, I'm sure any new parent will uh appreciate that sleep is still challenging when you have a crying baby in the middle of the night, even if you're wearing your blue blockers.
What Makes Glasses Actually Work
SPEAKER_00Oh, exactly. Yeah, I've been there. I've been there, that's for sure. I remember we had two kids under the age of uh two, and I just sometimes thought it was like uh a reality TV show. You're about to go to sleep, you're really tired, and then boom, you wake up. There's nothing you can do. Um, all right, so you've mentioned quality a couple of times. So let's talk about that. Because the the Swanies are a premium product, they're more expensive than some of the stuff you might find out on Amazon and things. And I wanted to talk to you about, you know, why that is, not why they're expensive, but what is it that makes quality?
SPEAKER_02Well, you'd you absolutely want to ensure that the orange lens blocks enough of the blue light spectrum to prevent that blue light from getting through. Now, the challenge is that uh there are many proven cases of blue blockers sold on Amazon, sold online, that claim to help with your sleep, that claim to block as much of the blue light that is necessary. But when you put them under a uh a light test and you see you it's very obvious that they're just in completely ineffective. They look all right, they look like they should do the job, but when you scrutinize them, uh you realize that most of the blue light is still getting through. So when I say the difference between, you know, oh sorry, when I've said the word quality, that's what I'm referring to. The quality of the lens, quality of the orange coating that ensures that the blue light doesn't get through. Um, we have had our uh glasses rigorously tested from day one. I mean, we started this company in 2015, and before we even took it to market, we tested the lens to make sure that it was blocking enough of the blue light uh that disrupts your sleep. And then um, you know, we took it to a labor laboratory, Colts Laboratories in 2000 and I think it was 2018 or maybe in 2019, the University of Washington conducted a scientific study on our glasses um just to test and prove our claims. And they passed the test with flying colors. So that the difference between quality and something else is do the glasses actually do what they claim to do? And um, you know, when my brother and I started this business in 2015, to the best of our knowledge, we were the only uh stylish pair of blue blockers on the market. Now there were blue blockers out there, but they were very ugly and very unsightly. Um and then as we became increasingly popular, especially in 2016 and 17, like the we did a million dollars in in sales of these glasses in 2016. It was it wasn't quite a million dollars, it was it was just a little bit short of that. It just exploded in popularity, and we were like, we have to double check, triple check, and quadruple check that these glasses block enough of the blue light that destroys your sleep. Otherwise, we're gonna leave ourselves over to criticism. And so we did. Um, so anyway, that's a long way of saying uh always test or always ensure that the glasses that you purchase have gone through rigorous testing. And any company that claims that a yellow lens is going to help you with your sleep is just factually incorrect. In the universe that we occupy presently, only an orange lens can block enough of the blue light that disrupts your sleep.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, that's interesting because you guys have just brought out a new product, which is a yellow lens. So how does that fit into the spectrum then?
SPEAKER_02So you might see here, I'm wearing a pair of daytime glasses.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Can you see this? Right? Yeah. Okay. So daytime let me just backtrack a moment.
SPEAKER_02How far are you standing or sitting from your computer screen right now?
SPEAKER_00No, about three feet, something like that. Okay, got three feet, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And how often do you spend time during the day on your computer? How many hours? Can be like seven, eight hours some days. Yeah, seven or eight hours, right? So staring into that amount of blue light at only three feet away during the day without protecting your eyes, how how have you felt anecdotally without glasses, kind of staring into a screen all day? Do you recall it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I I don't feel great doing that. Like I feel tired and and just yeah, sitting on my computer all day is not something I enjoy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. So it's okay to filter much of the blue light out during the day because we're staring so close to these screens, right? Remember, daytime we actually want blue light. We welcome blue light from the sun. Um, but if you're staring into a screen all day, we don't necessarily want to block all of that blue light, although we can. What's what I've submitted is better is to uh filter the blue light. So I'm wearing a pair of amber lens glasses right now, okay? See that? And that's not blocking enough of the blue light that disrupts my melatonin release, but it is filtering a lot of that blue light because it's daytime right now. It's 1.25 in the afternoon where I am right now, right? So I'm wearing these glasses at nighttime. Then when the sun goes down, I then replace them with the pair of the glasses that you are now rocking here, Ed, with your full orange lensed glasses, right? Now you can't still wear those orange lensed glasses during the daytime. Absolutely fine, no problems at all. But the orange lensed glasses for nighttime use is going to be the most effective to block as much of that artificial light as possible that disrupts melatonin release.
SPEAKER_00Under yeah. So in a sort of a natural environment, we'd be outside, maybe, and the sun would reach its peak at 12 and then start going down. But in an unnatural environment, we're still on the computer from 12 till 6 or whatever, and we're getting the same amount of blue light, whereas outside we'd be getting less and less and less. So that's where the the amber lenses come in.
SPEAKER_03Is that right? That's yes, sir.
SPEAKER_00Got it. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so um is there actually a harmful level of uh like a block that you can have? Can you block too much of the stuff?
SPEAKER_02Can you block too much of the blue light? Blue light, yeah. Well, I would submit during the daytime, yes, if we're talking about blue light from the sun. Because we want sun, we need sun. I mean, if we lived our life in in in darkness, that I would submit would would destroy our serotonin levels and our therefore our feelings of happiness. Obviously, they've done studies that show that human beings when they're submitted when they're subjected to natural sunlight, they naturally feel better when they're deprived of sunlight, as many people are certainly in the northern hemisphere and those Nordic countries in that in the dead of a winter, there's not much sun coming there. Um so anything that suppresses let's say natural sunlight, I would submit is not going to be great for us or as good for us long term. So I I guess through that lens, I would answer your question, yes, you don't want to block uh natural light at that time. Yeah, but at night time, I can't see any logical reason why you wouldn't want to block all if or at least most of that artificial blue light at night, because every single study that's been done on this particular topic has proven repeatedly that blue light at night messes with our hormones, messes with our circadian rhythm. And so blocking as much or all of that at night can only be a good thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I gotcha. So if you're living in, you know, like uh so I'm in Canada right now, so the northmost one of the most northern cities is Nunavut, which only gets sunlight a certain amount of the the year. If you're living up there, you've got short days and you're wearing the blue, sorry, the the orange lenses outside during those short summer or those short winter days, then that's probably a bad thing because you're not going to get the natural sunlight that you need. But when you go back inside and you've got all your fluorescent lights on and so on, then you put them on.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
Better Sleep And Next-Day Gains
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I'm with you. Okay, good. So just then you mentioned about like disrupting all the all those um circadian rhythms, the melatonin, and so on. But a lot of people will be wearing these for sleep. So what have you noticed either anecdotal anecdotally or through research the how it helped a person's sleep?
SPEAKER_02Well, I referenced the University of Washington science study uh 2018 or 19, and um they gave the glasses, the Swanny's blue-out-looking glasses, to a number of study participants, and the results of that were uh an 11 to 12 percent reported better sleep, and then interestingly, 12% reported increase in productivity the next day, which suggests that a better night's sleep led to more clarity and focus, which led to greater output. So that's sign typically proven. Um, anecdotally, we've been doing this now for gosh since 2015, so 11 years. Uh, I have people. Who've shared that they s fall asleep quicker, they s they sleep deeper, and when they wake up the next morning, they feel more refreshed. And because of that, they then have greater clarity and focus and energy, an overall improved feeling of well-being, which leads to healthier choices, um, such as eating well, exercising, um, feeling good, having a positive mindset, which again leads to more positive choices. But most importantly, doesn't lead to poor choices. And some of those poor choices, when we're poorly slept, might include irritability, overeating, uh drinking alcohol or drinking more alcohol than we might ordinarily choose to drink, uh marriage breakdowns, not being present with children, um, not performing in the workplace. And all of these things, when, you know, cumulatively can build up to, oh, you know what, let me seek some comfort by having a couple of glasses of wine. Let me seek some comfort by eating more food or sugary foods that I might not ordinarily. And then we get stuck in this perpetual cycle. So going back to your original question, which was, you know, what what benefits have you seen from this? Despite I'm sorry, besides the obvious, which is better sleep, what are the results of better sleep? Well, the results of better sleep are better metabolism, which burns down unwanted body fat, smarter nutritional choices, more exercise, more feelings of well-being, which lead to smarter choices, which lead to more productivity and greater clarity and focus, which lead to maybe a promotion at work or a more effective business, which leads to a more harmonious marriage, being more present with your children, which leads to better life choices, et cetera, et cetera. So it's all intertwined, and you can trace it all the way back to just wearing a pair of quality blue light loving glasses and sleeping better.
Why He Quit Alcohol Completely
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yeah. Sleep is that foundation. I always tell people I say you can't sleep your way out of, sorry, you can't eat your way out of poor sleep, and you can't exercise your way out of poor sleep. You know, if you don't have to sleep, almost nothing else really matters. So yeah, I'm on, I'm on, I'm with you there. You're preaching to the to the choir. But you also bring up a good point. You mentioned alcohol a few times then, and that's a nice little segue into uh into your other area of your life. So you used to be an ESPN anchor, and I'm guessing that world is pretty sort of socially lubricated with alcohol and uh and you know, sort of high octane uh adrenaline-fueled world, but you gave up drinking a while back. Like what did what what was the reason behind that and and what's that led you to do now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was a socially acceptable drinker growing up in Australia, uh, in that I would have a couple of glasses of wine a night, other nights I'd have a few beers, I'd go out with friends, and and I l led that lifestyle until I was about 35. I wasn't what society would call an alcoholic, I didn't get arrested, I didn't wake up in a ditch. I was just a socially acceptable drinker. But at age 35 in the year 2010, I was 35 pounds overweight, I was tired, irritable, envious of other people, I had bags under my eyes, I was smoking the occasional cigarette, I was eating fries with my burgers, and you know, I was just I was just blah. I wasn't rock bottom, I was just blah, blah, blah. And so I committed to stopping drinking just for 30 days as an experiment, just to see what would happen. And in 30 days, I lost 13 pounds, my skin got better. Um, I auditioned to become a sports center anchorer on GSPN because I have this clarity and this focus. And to my bewilderment, they gave me the job. And I thought, wow, this is good. I've stopped drinking alcohol and I look better, feel better. I've got this amazing job. Uh, I was a single man at the time. I attracted a beautiful, uh positive, energetic um woman into my life who respected and admired the fact that I, you know, had not drunk for some time at that point. And I was thinking, well, this is pretty good. I'm getting lots of evidence to suggest that an alcohol-free lifestyle is actually optimizing my life in many ways. Most importantly, my mental health. You know, I just felt that. And so I thought, you know what, I'll just keep going and going and going and going. And I haven't touched a drop of alcohol since 2010. And then um, around this the similar time that I started the Swannie's blue light blocking glasses business with my brother Tristan, which was 2015, I also created a small little online program called the 30-day no alcohol challenge. And it just showed people how to quit drinking for 30 days, like I had. And then fast forward to today, 11 years later, that organization is now called Alcohol Free Lifestyle. And we've helped thousands of high achievers all over the world, mostly business owners, executives, doctors, surgeons, investors, realtors, investors, to stop drinking for at least 90 days with the hope that they end up choosing to live an alcohol-free lifestyle. And um, yeah, that's now a thriving organization. And uh, you know, it's an executive coaching organization, I guess you could say, and we show people how to love living alcohol-free, not being sober, not doing a 12-step program, not doing rehab, but rather loving, choosing to be alcohol free.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's such an interesting journey. And I actually got another podcast, uh, another episode where I interviewed one of my old university friends. Um, so he's he's not in the industry or anything like that, but he decided to to quit drinking. And I wanted to ask him what was his motivation and so on. And that got me actually sober curious, I think is the right word. And uh and then from there, I listened to the uh owner of a company called One Year No Beer. I'm not sure if you've heard of those guys, and he said something really interesting. It was on the Rich Roll podcast. Rich Rolls, uh, you know, uh an alcoholic, so he's teetotal. And this guy said um something like, Rich Roll said to him, Well, being teetotal, you don't do this anymore. And and the the the owner of One Year One Year No Beer said, 'Oh, I never said I was teetotal. I'm not that guy.' And I was like, Oh, this is gonna get interesting. And so he says, No, no, he says, in in the right situation, with the right alcohol, with the right people, at Christmas, if someone puts a glass of sherry in front of me, I'm gonna toast with everybody else. And I thought about that, and I thought, oh, this could be my segue into it. So what I now I do like this being an Aussie because I know the Aussie sense of humor is good. Is people say, Oh, would you like a drink? And I say, you know what, I don't actually drink, but with the right people and the right uh alcohol in the right situation, I do have a drink, and um, you're not the right people. I say that's my friends all the time, and they always go, What? And I'm like, I'm only joking, I just don't, I'm just not drinking tonight. And then I'll move on. But it's uh it's it's been my sort of cheeky way out of getting that drink sort of shoved in my hand every every time for the last two years now.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Look at that, huh? That's good. Yeah.
Social Life Without Drinking
SPEAKER_02Well, whatever works for you to to uh engage in a social situation where there's alcohol. You know, I'm having a um a party tonight. My wife and I were hosting maybe 40, could be as many as 50 people in our home this very evening.
SPEAKER_03And uh I was saying to her last night, should we get some alcohol? And she said, why?
SPEAKER_02And I said, Well, just in case people who show up uh want to have a drink. Because I mean, we've hosted parties before. We don't we don't make any alcohol available just because I haven't drunk alcohol since 2010. And she was saying, I think we've still got four or five bottles left from the party we had a year ago where people actually brought it as a gift, not knowing that we didn't drink. And I went and looked in the cupboard, and sure enough, there were four or five wine bottles there unopened that people had brought as uh as gifts from 12 months earlier. And I said, perfect, we'll just leave that out for anyone who wants to wants to drink. So yeah, we you know, we host people quite often, but I don't even think to buy alcohol for our guests because most people know that we are alcohol free. And also, this is the most interesting part, I think. Uh most of my friends, and most of our friends that we've generated over the years are also either entirely alcohol-free themselves or they drink very modestly. And um, I can't really think of any really close, amazing friend who needs alcohol to socialize. I I can't think of anyone as I'm as I'm thinking about that. And most of my social circle now include people that just don't drink.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing. Like you've maybe you've shifted that or your friends have gone through this transition with you.
SPEAKER_02I think um I think we tend to attract to the type of person that we are, and I think you know, I've been alcohol free since 2010. I just tend to attract people who also are health conscious, they're into personal development. Um, you know, I tend to attract people into my life that uh don't even think of alcohol as as a social lubricant or as a necessity. It's an interesting phenomena, isn't it? It's it's like we attract who we are or we attract who we're trying to become. And we don't even go out trying to find them. We don't, it's not even intentional.
SPEAKER_03I want to go out and attract this kind of it's just people are attracted to us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, when I when I gave up, um I was like, okay, yeah, it must have been three years ago, but I um I said, okay, for my birthday, what am I gonna do? Because birthdays are always a bit tricky, it's like a party, people come over, there's gonna be oh, you know, have a shot or whatever. And I I said, no, I'm I'm off on my birthday. I'm gonna go and climb the highest uh mountain. I was living in Central America, so I said, I'm gonna climb the highest mountain in Costa Rica. Who's who's coming? And a couple of guys said, Yeah, we're in. We had a great time, fantastic birthday. And then the following year, I was like, all right, so what's my challenge this year? So each year now, my birthday, I'll do something that's really challenging. Uh last year I got up and I was like, okay, I'm 47, I'm gonna run 47 kilometers. And I haven't ran that so far that year, and it was October. Well, I actually I ended up running 30, and then my uh girlfriend brought my bike, it was just like just finish it on your bike because I was hobbling along. But yeah, it makes it a lot more and and the guys who came to climb the mountain with me supported me on that race as well. So that's like that's the key, isn't it? Just finding people who who understand that alcohol is not the be or and all, and there's so much fun to be had without it.
SPEAKER_02I think so. And I think you said some interesting things there around um, you know, your friends supporting you, which is it's it's like built-in accountability too, isn't it? And like when you have a group of supportive people in your life, whatever your goals are, they will, you know, even if they're just supporting you verbally, somehow the universe conspires to create the opportunities for you to achieve your goals, you know, when you're feeling that that support. I remember, I mean, I turned um I turned 50 uh six months ago, and about four months before I turned 50, I uh I had this goal of being ripped by 50, and by ripped I meant I wanted to get a photo shoot on my actual birthday of me shirtless showing off what I hoped would be a six-pack ad. Yeah, yeah. And um, you know, if I if I dissect that to just to cut to the end of this the story, I got it done. That's the photo of me there. Nice. Yeah, that's I'm just for those maybe listening, I'm just showing up a photo, but I I did achieve my goal. And but then I look back and I go, well, it wasn't just motivation that helped me achieve my goal. How did I get how did I get there? Well, I actually have I actually had or have friends who are ripped or who've been ripped, and I engage with them socially, and so and sometimes I would go to the gym with them, and other times I'd just catch up for dinner and we'd talk about health and fitness, and then we talked about getting ripped and talk about fat loss and talk about energy and great sleep. All those conversations helped me to get that photo, you know. Yes, there was intention for four months where I tracked my food and nutrition, and I made sure I walked at least 15,000 steps a day. And you know, there's a science to the body losing that weight, but like it wasn't just the science and adhering to the science, it was also having all of those supportive people around me to motivate me and and to encourage me and to give me little tidbits of information here and there that I use. So yeah, again, you know, the name of my organization is alcohol-free lifestyle. It's and if we look at that final word lifestyle, and we break it into two or three words, a style of life, it's all intertwined. You know, that lifestyle is not just not drinking, it's knowing to wear a quality pair of blue blockers, it's knowing the effect of light on our melatonin release, it's knowing when to sleep and circadian rhythm and how to practice a life of appreciation instead of expectation. It's it's knowing that that morning sunlight can help you sleep at night. It's listening to podcasts like like this. You know, it's a lifestyle, it's a style of life. It's not white knuckling it and being sober. It's not I've got to do this, I need to do this.
Steps And Coaching As Non-Negotiables
SPEAKER_00It's a style of life. We get to do this. Exactly. So you but beyond the glasses and the and the no alcohol, what else do you have in your lifestyle that's like a non-negotiable for your health and wellness?
SPEAKER_02I absolutely uh every day try to get at least 15,000 steps in, which is quite a lot. That is a lot. I was looking, I mean, it it's a lot compared to the average, average human, let's say. But it's not a lot compared to what we think our ancestors did. So if I look at my aura ring, I'm wearing an aura ring here, which is a wearable and kind of tracks my activity. If I have a look today at 143, I've already got 15,662 steps. And if I go over into the week, I'm averaging this last week 17,890, and then for the year, I'm averaging 16,238. So that's quite a lot of daily steps, right? But and and to do that, it's probably a good two hour, two and a quarter hours of walking each day. So when you ask me what's a non-negotiable, I would say that's one of those, that's one of it, because I try to get 15,000 steps as it just makes me happy, or at least it doesn't make me stressed. Um, it keeps my hunger in check. How do you do that?
SPEAKER_00With a treadmill or outside, or well, both.
SPEAKER_02I'll I'll I would I deliberately walk 25 minutes from my home to the gym each morning. And then after I've done my hour workout, I will then deliberately walk the 25 minutes to my office, where I'll uh then go uh into a treadm onto a treadmill and have a meeting or two related to my work, and I'll try to walk on the treadmill for at least an hour, but usually like 75 minutes while I'm doing business meetings. And then I'll shower and then I'll come down into the office and I'll be stationary like I am now, and then I will intentionally walk home uh from the office, which is about 25-30 minutes. Every every little trip I take tends to be about 25-30 minutes, and that's all by design. It's not just, oh, I just happen to live there. Like when my wife and I were thinking about where we were going to live, it was with that in mind. Like, I don't, we don't own a car. We don't want a car. We get uh Ubers if we need to go anywhere, or I just walk everywhere. And and that's by design, you know. I'm doing that with intention because I know that as soon as we get a car, I'll just like I'll just take the car and my my steps will drop down to 5,000 or 7,000 a day. Um, so that's the first thing. And then um the other I think your question was around non-negotiables, right? Um the other non-negotiable is uh a personal development. So learning my wife and I have a the relationship counselor that we meet with every two weeks, uh, not because anything's necessarily broken, but because we just want to keep the lines of communication open. We always want to be improving. Um, I have a trainer in the gym who is with me at least a few days a week just to ensure that I'm pushing as hard as I can push and to make sure that I'm there and showing up. So that's built-in accountability. So that's a non-negotiable. I guess all of that is to say coaching, being coached is a non-negotiable, I guess. Um, I have a uh uh performance coach, kind of a mindset coach that I meet with every two weeks, and that's just talk about life and business. I have an advisor for my alcohol-free lifestyle business who's a former COO of a billion-dollar revenue business, who I check in with every two weeks to support me in helping grow our business. Um, so yeah, I would say the non-negotiable would be the steps, physical, and then coaching. Just always be uh my mantra is always be learning, and so the non-negotiable for me is coaches. I I I invest in getting coaches so to keep me accountable and to help me to keep learning to help me to improve.
His Mission And Where To Find Him
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I love that. The coaching aspect is so important. People people think that they've made it, you know, maybe they've just got a regular job or they're some sort of entrepreneur and they're making a good income, but then they stop sort of growing and then they wonder what's happened. And you know, I've shifted from in-person treatments to online treatments, and I couldn't have done that without a coach, I didn't know how to do that. And then going back to in-person treatments, I'm like, oh, I'm a bit rusty, what's new, what's changed? So it's coaching, coaching, coaching every time. So it's good, that's interesting you said that. Um, so what's what's gonna be the jam the James Swannick legacy? Let's say in 20 years from now, what would you what are you working on? What would you like to head towards?
SPEAKER_03I would like uh the world to look at alcohol with the same level of disdain it presently does cigarettes.
SPEAKER_02But my mission and purpose is to support as many people to increasingly choose an alcohol-free lifestyle over the next 20 years, and also to sleep better from wearing our products, Swanny's blue-like blocking glasses. And also just to really experience what living a lifestyle uh without alcohol is. That's that's my main mission. Now, to achieve that, I'm working on a documentary right now. It's being produced in Hollywood as we speak. I filmed and went on a nine-city, three-country tour late last year, filming footage for the documentary. Uh, hopefully that will come out and be a success of 2027. Um I'm continuing to grow my alcohol-free lifestyle organization. I have this vision of people celebrating my birthday, my 60th birthday, which is in 10 years from now. Uh, but I can't see a reason why I wouldn't be thinking that I'd still have this mission 20 years from now. And um yeah, I just I just want to educate people as much as possible and helping them make smarter nutritional choices, smarter physical choices and uh, you know, choices that reduce stress and anxiety, which leads to many of the problems that we experience in the world. So that's really my mission. And the way I'm I'm gonna do that is just continuing to live a great lifestyle myself and then share how I live that lifestyle with others, and hopefully some people will get it on the train along the way, and some people might get off, and but more people get on than not, then I think we're a lot of people are gonna be positively affected by that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it's all it's all in the same direction, isn't it? The the sleep, the lifestyle choices, you know, you sleep badly, you drink, you're hungover, you make bad food choices, bad exercise choices, and so on. So it's all heading in the same direction. So how can people get on get on the train then, James? Where do they find you?
SPEAKER_02Well, SwanwickSleep.com certainly is the name of our blue blocking sleep uh uh organization, and so we've got great quality blue blockers there, daytime, nighttime. Other products as well. So definitely I'd encourage your viewer and/or listener to go there and check that out. Um, alcoholfree lifestyle.com is the name of my uh stop drinking organization, so there's lots of details there. I'm quite robust on social media on Instagram, and so if you want to see videos and get tips on how to reduce alcohol at least, uh, and sleep tips and blue blocking, things like that, you can just follow me, which is my name at James Swanwick. Have a podcast in Spotify and um Apple Podcast called Alcohol Free Lifestyle, which isn't just about spinning alcohol, it's also about things that we've been talking about at sleep, steps, movement, light. Um, so you can check that out as well.
SPEAKER_00Cool. Well, James, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate your time.
Links Reviews And Contact
SPEAKER_02Well, I appreciate you having me, yeah. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for joining me in my conversation with James Swannick. Now, if you want to pick yourself up a pair of these light blocking glasses, then I have a link for you in the description below on YouTube or in the show notes if you're on Apple or Spotify. Now, if you've enjoyed this podcast and you are on Apple, I would love it. It would mean the world to me if you left a review. Because the more reviews, the more comments, the more styles we get, the more people hear about this and they need this information in their lives. Now, if you actually want my help, or you can always send me an email, ed atpaget.com or check out my website, edpaget.com, and I'm going to teach you or show you a little bit more on how to make your lifestyle your medicine.
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