Laughing Through The Pain: Navigating Wellness

Tony Wrighton - on histamine intolerance, bio-hacking and where to live for optimal health and happiness.

• Richard Blake • Season 1 • Episode 11

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Embark on an enlightening voyage with Tony Wrighton, acclaimed author and podcast maestro, who opens the doors to his transformative health odyssey. After a health scare catapulted him into the world of biohacking, Tony embraced the fusion of technology and lifestyle adjustments to unlock peak mental and physical health.  Diving into the murky waters of histamine intolerance, Tony sheds light on this often elusive condition and how a tailored diet can be a game changer in managing its symptoms.

There's something profoundly personal about the way we navigate our health and the communities we foster along the way. In this conversation with Tony, we peel back the layers on living with intention. He shares his candid narrative about relocating to Portugal, fostering a sense of community, and incorporating practices like microdosing and ecstatic dance into his life. We riff on the wisdom from "The Psychology of Money" by Morgan Housel, discussing the fine line between the pursuit of success and savoring the sweetness of life's simpler joys.

As the episode winds down, we venture into the practical side of well-being, from the nuances of purchasing power to the indispensable supplements for maintaining our health. We explore the sunny side of life's influence on our mood and the balance within our supplement regimens. And no discussion on optimization would be complete without touching on the latest biohacking trends and the influencers steering this ship, including the likes of Eddie Abew and Divinia Taylor. Join us as we navigate these waters, offering not just insights but a lighthouse for those seeking their wellness lighthouse.


00:00 Welcome to the Show: Introducing Tony Wrighton

00:33 Exploring Vedic Meditation with Andrew

01:37 The Unlikely Beginning of a Biohacking Friendship

02:19 Defining Biohacking: A Personal Journey

03:09 Tony's Battle with a Mystery Virus and Discovery of Biohacking

04:55 Histamine Intolerance: Unraveling the Mystery

06:41 The Complex World of Histamine Intolerance and Diet


08.43 - Link to histamineintolerance food list - https://histamineintolerance.net/foodlist

11.10 - Link to heroine addict study - https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-19427-011

11:44 Histamine, Health, and Happiness: A Deeper Dive

12.40 - Link to Second World War study on sailors and seasickness & antihistamines 
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/662647

13.52 - Link to Dr. Janice Janeja https://www.healinghistamine.com/blog/dr-janice-joneja-histamine-intolerance-interview-transcript/

16.44 - Link to Histamine Tolerance Explained (new edition)
https://www.amazon.com/Histamine-Intolerance-Explained-Lifestyle-supplements-ebook/dp/B0CWFFNMM3

19:34 The Impact of Stress on Histamine Levels


21.37 - Link to Annie Hopper 
https://retrainingthebrain.com/annie-hopper/

23:38 Exploring Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Its Benefits


24.22 - Link to Tony’s book on NLPs 
https://www.tonywrighton.com/books

27:02 The Balance Between Success and Happiness

29.24 - Link to ‘Psychology of Money’
https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Money-Timeless-lessons-happiness/dp/0857197681

30:43 Tony's New Life in Portugal and the Importance of Community
32:28 The Power of Community in Wellness

33.05 - Link to Tony’s book on burnout
https://www.amazon.com/Beat-Burnout-Overcome-Exhaustion-Minimize/dp/1908677996

33:44 Unveiling the Truth About Blue Zones
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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to Laughing Through the Pain Navigating Wellness with me Richard L Blake, my co-host, andrew Esam, and today we've got Tony Reiton, best-selling author in 13 languages, focusing on health, biohacking and mindset. He is also the host of the Zestology podcast and an expert on histamine intolerance and a former Sky Sports News presenter. So welcome, tony.

Speaker 2:

Richard and Joe, thank you for having me on.

Speaker 3:

Andy how are you doing today? Very good, thanks, mate. Yeah, I just finished a four-day course in Vedic meditation oh nice, so I'm feeling particularly zen. Yeah, very good actually. Yeah, I'm like it was very simple to follow and, yeah, something you can easily wedge into your everyday life.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, feeling good. And what is Vedic meditation? Exactly.

Speaker 3:

I'm still not totally sure, but the basic principle is that you follow a specific mantra to essentially guide the mind into a deeper sense of consciousness, and the brilliant thing about it is it's not particularly. There's no right or wrong. It's not like you have to keep trying to follow certain things. Thoughts can come, but it's all good 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, enjoyed it. Are you feeling the benefits? How's your life changed?

Speaker 3:

Too early to say, but I think the energy not having so many energy spikes and just a more sustained level of concentration, I suppose Nice Now it sounds like you can tell me?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we'll see it's the ultimate We'll see. Yeah, tony. Tony and I have known each other for a few years, been around in the biohacking industry for a while. I met Tony because I was walking down the street and I shouted in love the podcast, tony and he turned around and went, oh cheers.

Speaker 1:

And then I emailed him a few days later saying hi, I was the guy who shouted you at the street, so do you want to try some breath work? And he was like sure. And then we did a podcast episode and he did some breath work and, yeah, it didn't mind me shouting at him in the streets.

Speaker 2:

It was a beautiful friendship which started right there after the Health Optimization Summit which was. I think, was pretty much the first one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah yeah, the Health Optimization Summit is a biohacking summit. It's a good one. I think it's one of the best. So it's about biohacking. So, tony, what is biohacking to you?

Speaker 2:

I guess biohacking is. The conventional definition of biohacking is optimizing mind and body, and it very much plays into my Taipei personality of being utterly obsessed with solving problems, which isn't actually always the best thing to do. For example, with health, 12 hours of Googling normally doesn't produce a particularly good outcome, but actually switching off and doing less often does, and that can play into biohacking as well. So it's using tech supplements, gadgets, techniques, anything to feel better in your mind and your body and where there aren't natural ways to do that, using technology to help you. Yeah, nice.

Speaker 3:

Abby, how did you get into it?

Speaker 2:

I got really ill. I went to the Philippines on holiday around 10 years ago and I got this mystery virus. I went to see the doctor out there and he said, yeah, you've got measles. I was thinking I'm pretty sure I have measles as a child I don't think it's measles and then came back and the doctors told me that there are some viruses that just haven't been mapped in various parts of the world and I'd had one of them. They could tell I'd had a virus from my red blood count and various things like that. But what followed was a post-viral reaction quite similar to long. Covid and I was just out of action for ages and it couldn't go to work. At that time I was working at Sky. I am now forever the person introduced on podcasts and he used to be a Sky Sports presenter.

Speaker 3:

You're welcome. Yeah, I spent years waiting for you to announce Harry Kane to man United, so oh yeah, yes, I know I'm sorry to have disappointed In the end.

Speaker 2:

I watched far too many reruns of Lincoln versus Jillingham and less reporting of Harry Kane moving to man. United or anyone else. But yeah, so at that point I was working at Sky, but I wasn't able to go into the office. So that's what led me down the route of biohacking, Discovered Dave Asprey and his podcast and some of the other luminaries in the field, and then I just thought I'm going to do my own podcast on it, Like you guys. Now we've all got a podcast.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, everyone's got one. Andy's going to get one as well. It's just so we can have one each.

Speaker 2:

That'd be a great idea, but you've got to be on his as well. Oh yeah, that would be great.

Speaker 1:

Of course I'll be the new. I'll ask all the stupid questions. Not that your questions are stupid, but the question is the basic question. Portrait of words. There. Your questions are great. Andy, andy, what's your next question?

Speaker 3:

I actually. I was doing a bit of homework and I came across a phrase histamine intolerance and other than antihistamines which I take for hay fever. I don't really understand what that means, so could you give us a bit of?

Speaker 2:

Sure. So my background has always been I've been an author for 20 years, a presenter, and I trained in the skills of neurolinguistic programming, which is a study of how we do things well really and how we do things well and how other people do things well, and it served me very well and it ties in excellently with biohacking, which I loved when I discovered biohacking. But I'd always had these unexplained health problems going on in the background and I could never quite figure it out. I sort of never quite figure out why I had these gut issues. I tried every diet, gave up gluten, dairy soy, went vegan. That didn't work.

Speaker 3:

Tried lots of different diets.

Speaker 2:

But there's this concept in NLP which says the more choices that you give yourself, the more options that you give yourself it's called the law of requisite variety the more that you're likely to stumble upon something that works very well. So right at the bottom of my list. I never gave up Histamine intolerance, and that's because it was the most confusing, and so I tried everything else. Gluten didn't work. Vegan definitely didn't work. Soy was disgusting. I thought right, I've only got histamine left. And within about three hours of going on the low histamine diet, I started to feel not just a little bit better, but loads better. So then I naturally had to write a book about it.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I think my proof read that book for you Was that one I read.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Yeah, I can't remember. I probably pedalled a few to you over the years.

Speaker 1:

Maybe. So yeah, can you tell us more about what exactly is histamine? What is histamine intolerance? What are high histamine foods, that kind of thing?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so histamine is. We've all got histamine in our bodies. In fact, in every cell of our bodies. We need histamine to survive. It helps with the immune response, but some of us just produce too much histamine. We've got too much histamine in our bodies. It's a bit like the analogy that I like. It's a little bit like nightclub bounces. You want a few bounces to look after you if things get out of hand, but too many is just going to get it. It's not going to be good.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, when you're making too much histamine, all sorts of different symptoms can come up, and the list is so long that it's almost every symptom that you've ever heard of. But they include the classic allergy symptoms like stuffy nose, runny eyes, definitely gut issues, definitely skin issues, but then all sorts of information. People really suffer a lot more with the menopause when there's histamine stuff going on as well. There is a huge list of different problems. Just for example, when I used to eat prawns, my heart rate used to go really high really quickly and I could never figure it out, but it was histamine. So that's just an example of some of the symptoms that people can suffer with and not that I was going with.

Speaker 2:

And then the reason that it's such a hard diet to figure out is that with gluten, once you've got a working understanding of what gluten is and what the gluten-free diet is, you could pretty much go into a shop and figure out what you should buy and what you shouldn't. If you can read a label, you'll be alright. But with histamine intolerance I've been at this years and years now and I still have to consult the lists and remember what's going on, and then sometimes I get it wrong anyway and then I have a little histamine reaction. The list of foods that are high histamine is seemingly random.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you've got a great list. Actually, when I've done the histamine diet, your website has that you use a color coding system of a red, yellow and green. Yeah, what was your website? For anyone who wants to check that out.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. That one's histamine intolerance net and okay, it's a combination of some of the world's best lists and then my own research as well. But but everyone is different. So sometimes people write to me and they say you said that rice is absolutely fine, but I feel dreadful and I make the point throughout they I'm not that the sole arbiter of what is low histamine. And then of course I might have said that low, that rice is low histamine. But the rice that they are referring to they might have cooked three days ago, left in the fridge and it might have gone moldy, and then I can't be responsible for your high histamine, moldy rice.

Speaker 1:

Fair enough. That's one of the trickiest things about the low histamine diet is you can't have leftovers, right.

Speaker 2:

Leftovers is problematic yeah, especially me, actually and they've just found that the more that you leave cooked food, the more it increases in histamine content. And there's two different ways that this might cause a problem firstly, the histamine content in food and then what's known as histamine liberators, so foods that are low in histamine, but you eat them and they liberate the histamine inside you. So I'm very good at freezing leftovers now, and if you do that, then it's absolutely fine. So my wife is always takes the mickey out of me for how I'm utterly obsessed whenever we cook something nice. I'll say to her why don't we make this again, but in a massive batch, and then freeze in small little packs?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that is a great strategy for food prep. Yeah, most health fitness people. So at least Sunday is their food prep day and they'll make their meals for the whole week. And yeah, if you can't have leftovers, that becomes really challenging, but of course it can yeah, do you do?

Speaker 2:

you do that Ridge.

Speaker 1:

Not so much I used to, but yeah, no, thankfully we have Natalia cooks most of our stuff fresh. So yeah, pretty lucky in that regard.

Speaker 2:

Wonderful yeah but daily portions are good. I think freezing is good anyway, just freezes in, the goodness does yeah.

Speaker 3:

So why did you go on? The lowest me diet, then rich Just as an experiment.

Speaker 1:

I've got gut issues. I've had to get issues. I have a lot of itchiness issues, really itchy scalp, itchy skin, especially after our shower, so I thought it could be histamine and in the end what I've what's helped me was low dose naltrexone. So I now work with a company called live health and low dose naltrexone is something they give to people with autoimmune conditions. So naltrexone is what they give to things that for people who have heroin Overdoses. But then they found it was some kind of funny story where they found it in mothers who were heroin addicts. When they gave Naltrexone to them their kids have like low dose naltrexone in their bodies and they had much lower incidences of Autoimmune conditions or maybe butchering that story. But it's something to do with mothers heroin addicts and then them discovering that this micro dose of naltrexone is great for almost All autoimmune conditions and it has really helped with my itchiness and my my stuff.

Speaker 2:

So was it histamine that was then released by that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, could be.

Speaker 3:

Hmm, so how long is the knowledge of histamine been around, because it sounds like it's all pretty new. This because what you said yourself they don't tend to declare histamine on packages in supermarkets. What, why is that?

Speaker 2:

It is new and I've definitely been suffering with histamine intolerance longer than the phrase has been in existence. But the the the history of histamine itself is actually quite interesting because we didn't really know about histamine In the world until the early 90s, until the early 20th century, and then around the 1930s various scientists started, invented the first anti histamines, which didn't work particularly well and actually made people worse and spike their symptoms and gave them a load of side effects as well, which wasn't really what you wanted. And then some a different form of anti. The first proper anti histamines were developed and I think it's during the Second World War.

Speaker 2:

A Massive experiment was conducted which was seriously unethical because it was on a load of sailors sailing from the US to Europe and they didn't tell the sailors that they were part of the experiment, which which should set alarm bells ringing. But the experiment was that they wanted to see if Anti-histamines would help with seasickness and it did Massively. So half the ship with a control, half of the experiment and we're rolling around being sick, and the conditions were dreadful in the middle of the winter in the Atlantic as these soldiers were going to Europe, and the other half Who'd taken this fairly experimental sort of 1.1 Generation anti histamine were absolutely fine. So, yeah, not a particularly ethical experiment, but they realized then that they had something on their hands and now, as you say, people take it for allergies all the time and they can help with histamine intolerance as well nice, and there's this idea of the histamine bucket, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

It's not just you can. Sometimes you can have, let's say, chocolate, which is a histamine liberator, and fine, and then sometimes it can create a load of symptoms. So, yeah, what's that bucket analogy?

Speaker 2:

The histamine bucket was first coined by another practitioner called Dr Janice Janasia, who is one of the foremost histamine authors around, and she noticed and then coined this brilliant phrase, the histamine bucket, which is essentially Sometimes you can put all the wrong things into your body and you'll be absolutely fine so pretty much the highest histamine thing in the world. Sorry to disappoint anyone who's a red wine drinker, but it is red wine and Sometimes if your histamine bucket is low, you know loads of red wine, some chocolate, some avocados, the other high histamine things, and you'll be okay. The other times. If your histamine bucket is full to the brim and you put one little bit of chocolate in or a sip of red wine and It'll start to spill over and you'll get this Cascade of symptoms as your histamine bucket is too high. And that's Just one of the reasons why it's just.

Speaker 2:

I think it's so hard for people living with histamine intolerance because they say I was eating White chocolate last Tuesday and I'm absolutely fine. Why am I not fine now? But I think it's also one of the reasons why my Books and this site that you mentioned have actually ended up doing really well, because it's a side project for me, it's not my main work and yet the amount of people who contact me every day about histamine intolerance it's incredible. I think there's a lack of good quality information and then it's so bloody confusing that they need sort of to hold their hand and help them.

Speaker 3:

Yes. So isn't something that, like just naturally passes through your system, or is it something you can detox, or is it? How does it work?

Speaker 2:

Quite quickly. And that is one of the really good things about trying a low histamine diet, because it's quite hard to Do a test for histamine intolerance because our levels Depend on all sorts of things. For instance, often People's histamine levels will generally be highest early in the morning, very early in the morning, three, four, five o'clock in the morning, and they'll be much lower in the mid afternoon. So it depends what time of day you test, it depends what food you ate enough before, depends whether you're stressed or not, it depends what time of the month it is if you're a woman. There are so many different factors but you can see quite quickly by going on a three day or one week or two week low histamine diet, which we've got all the details on the site. People want to try it. You can then start to see if you start to feel better and Because the histamine bucket can empty quite quickly, you can dramatically feel better, just like I did.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's for people who are interested, who People may be thinking, oh, this rings a lot of bells, this is a lot like my symptoms, or whenever I eat strawberries I feel itchy or I get IBS or things like that. That is the way to do it go to Tony's website, read some of the stuff, bookmark his list of foods and create a shopping list of all the green foods and then just do yeah, three days of no histamine or very low histamine foods and and track it.

Speaker 2:

See how you feel yeah, I just brought out a new edition of the book histamine intolerance explained and I put some pictures in it of me in the past me at 18. I haven't eating. Basically, I lived in Italy for a few months and I was very much on the pizza and Prosecco diet there and I'll go through the various foods pizza high histamine. Prosecco high histamine, polished off with a dollop of chocolate. Ice cream high histamine. And then there's a picture of me at 21 University on the beer and kebab diet and I just you wouldn't believe how inflamed and odd I look in this picture. It's it for so long I was drinking beer and just ignoring the fact that I would feel so much worse than all my mates at the same time. And now it makes sense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I was the same. You just get lash rash, just go red and my hands would swell up and things. And yeah, I just detox very slowly from alcohol, which is which makes me quite a fun drunk, and it also makes me quite fun when I'm hungover because I'm still a little bit drunk. It also means that I'm wrecked for several days after.

Speaker 2:

I think that's actually a really interesting point. So you think that you detox slowly from alcohol, which gives you a big hangover. Hmm, and presumably you then find that if you, it's not just that, but food as well. If you eat four doughnuts in a day, you might feel worse than somebody else. Who can. Just who system can bounce back a lot quicker.

Speaker 1:

Yeah exactly and that's what's quite frustrating is like some people are just below. I just get the beers down. Yeah, I'm fine. I can drink ten beers and then go to work the next day and eat a kebab diet and that's great for them. I've got the statistics with my ordering. Like I look like after a night of a couple of drinks. It looks like I'm like seriously ill, like I haven't a raging cold or things like that. So my heart rate goes up about 20 beats, my HRV goes down Ridiculously low, my sleep is terrible, my temperature is raised. I'm breathing more. So yeah, it is frustrating to be someone who just can't you handle their booze is what the lads would say. But yeah, that is basically what it is yeah, certainly back in the day.

Speaker 2:

Let's face it, at university and beyond there were sort of certain substances since the wheel Tried and some people would seem to Looks of utter incomprehension from the panel and some people would just seem to Brush it off and I would have like two week come down. It's shocking. It's the same thing, and I'm now Finally in a very comfortable place where I'm really happy being the most boring one. And actually we got invited out with a couple other couples here in Portugal for a sort of a boozy night in a few weeks and I really don't want to go and I've told my wife I'll tell them I don't want to go as well because I don't want to get drunk with them. I like them very much, but I'd rather just meet them in the morning for a coffee instead.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, nice. I want to touch on the sort of psychosomatic stuff of histamine because I think with chronic illnesses it can become really in your mind. You can become almost a hypochondriac, as a biohack I'm sure there are many biohacking hypochondriacs out there, yeah but at the same time there are real psychosomatic symptoms. For example, like I would be, I used to get my itchiness after I'd shower and go to bed. I would notice that if something stressful happened, if I got a phone call with some like bad news, I would get really itchy, just from bad. Wow, my diet would be the same and then something stressful would happen and my body liberates with list, all this cortisol and then I guess the cortisol spikes the histamine as well. But yeah, what are you? What's your take on that?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, and, to be honest, this is probably the point of the podcast where your listeners will be. Quite a few will be listening and saying, oh my goodness, maybe that's me as well, and it is definitely possible. It shocked me doing the research for this second edition of my book, which is taken about a year to do, and I worked with the editor of one of the UK's top health magazines, to, who fact-checked the whole thing, and then we went through all the references and all the studies together and I know you're big on studies, rich and I was amazed at how Much research there is around the links between stress and histamine. And it's very much a two-way street in that when we're suffering from histamine issues, we get more stressed and when we're suffering from stress, our histamine Levels increase. So one leads to the other, leads to the other and that can obviously be a vicious cycle.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, sorry, my camera went off for a second. I don't know if I'm like. But yeah, yeah, I styled it out, not much not like a Sky Sports Pro at all.

Speaker 2:

Oh, no, I'm trying to keep talking, and I'm terrible at that.

Speaker 1:

That's why you are in the big bucks, tony. Yeah, did you know Annie Hopper? Have you heard of her stuff related to this? No, so she does. Works with people who do Sorry, who have chronic illnesses, whether it's histamine or mast cell or all sorts of things, and she is all about reprogramming your reactions to stress because you know some people will, they'll develop Sensitivities to absolutely everything, like perfume. Some people can't go into Perfume stores because they get symptom reactions and what she does is yet tries to get people over that psychosomatic stuff. But for people who maybe think, yeah, my stuff is partly psychosomatic, I'd recommend Annie Hopper's course.

Speaker 2:

Mmm, and that's why it's been quite nice doing my main job has been as an author or mindset for the last 20 years that, along alongside the TV work, and that's where they come together, because Working on I've had nearly every client that I work with has a sort of oversensitized, hyper aware, stressed natural state and they just need to, and often they're worrying about their symptoms, whether it's histamine or something else, multiple times per minute in some instances. And that is where some of these LLP techniques come in really nicely just like a simple pattern, interrupt of Probably quite similar to what Annie Hopper does, but maybe a little bit differently, physically, possibly even out loud, telling yourself stop when you think about those symptoms yet again for the sort of 15th time in the last hour, and then giving yourself a suggestion for what to think about and said something like I like to use, something like I choose to trust In my health and flow from moment to moment just to remind myself to get into the moment. When I started doing that I was using that multiple times a minute and some of my clients will use that as well because they are so stressed and they're obsessed with their symptoms and it can be very liberating for them a couple of days of doing that and what we call it a pattern interrupt in NLP. It's so boring having to tell yourself stop multiple times a minute, but in the end they did their bread. Their unconscious mind just gives up and goes and worries about something else instead.

Speaker 2:

What is a? Do you say NLP? So NLP is neuro linguistic programming used a lot in health therapy, sports psychology, used by millions people all over the world. It's sort of been around 50, 60 years or so and, yeah, that's why I trained in. It's got a got quite a mixed reputation. I guess it's partly mixed because Neil Strauss wrote about it in his book the game no one, and that is because definitely not.

Speaker 2:

It can be used very much in in persuasion. You can make your language a lot more persuasive. So I, being an author, wants to write a book on it, and I wrote a book about how to use your NLP powers for positive change. And Listen. It's a really great set of tools and still there's a lot of interest in it and NLP and it's been really good to see how many people are interested in using these tools.

Speaker 3:

And I presumably that would be prescribed for people who are not just stress, but you get a lot of overthinkers and A lot of people who ruminate myself. Yes, to be honest.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, overthinking is not a skill, agreed. I've actually got a chapter in my book on overthinking and there's lots of different ways you can use that. But really I think the pattern interrupt is such a good one. When people, when I talk about a pattern interrupt, sometimes it's hard to explain, so I'll just say, when you're doing something very absorbing which requires all your focus and you're absolutely in the moment, and then you get a text message and it's from someone you know and you think, oh, I better check it, and the flow has gone, that is a pattern interrupt. Pattern interrupts can Seriously annoy us, but they could also be used to our advantage, which is why, when we're ruminating or really stressed about something or obsessed about something, we use a pattern interrupt to get out of it and start to feel better and think about something else instead.

Speaker 1:

Hmm, yeah, I think, maladaptive emotion regulation strategies I talk a lot about those, for as a cause of anxiety and ruminating is one of the leading causes of anxiety and, yeah, for people who Some, I know, some people like I overthinking is great. Oh, yeah, it is a skill. Tony, you're wrong. What would you have to say to those people who, but no, I'm not giving up my overthinking because it helps me.

Speaker 2:

I Guess I'll say good for them. They're good for you, mate.

Speaker 2:

You carry on over thinking if it works for you. Look, I've learned that, certainly in the histamine world, everybody is different and it's quite an interesting dynamic, because I've noticed a lot of people who are most quote successful in the world are Successful partly because they are so utterly obsessed with that one thing succeeding in their chosen field. I've got some really good friends who have risen. In the broadcasting world, for example, some of the most successful people are also some of the most unhappy because they worked so hard and by being constantly hypervigilant and Checking those tweets at four o'clock in the morning, that's what's made them get to the top, and there's no damn way they get there letting anyone else Climb onto the pedestal ahead of them. But it's not necessarily a recipe for long-term happiness. So it's just about a balance and that that can be quite difficult for people sometimes when they attribute their success to being that Taipei hypervigilant, always on personality.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, chris Williamson talks a lot about this. He's examples of a Tony sorry, tony Wright and he uses Tony Wright and as an example of success.

Speaker 1:

I know he uses a Elon Musk and Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan and look at their lives. Yes, they're incredibly successful and rich and famous. Michael Jordan certainly doesn't look happy from when he actually Interview him, and Elon Musk when he was on, that thing was a broken episode. He was like you wouldn't want to be, you wouldn't want to be me. You may think you want to be me, you don't, you wouldn't want my brain. There's no off switch on it. I'm just consciously, continuously anxious, continuously over thinking. And, yeah, I don't think people realize that, yeah, the great people in the world or the richest people in the world, they're not necessarily happy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'm interested to know with you guys actually, because it's a dilemma for us all the time how many hours a day do you work? Because if you want to have a life and Do 10,000 steps and go to the gym and not work too hard and not get super stressed, to me it seems that there's not that many hours left to actually work.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don't work that hard. Yeah, to be fair, for Andy's got a full-time job and does a podcast. So, andy, what about you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, actually my boss listens to this, but I actually don't think I work relatively hard in terms of the corporate world in central London Because I make room for some of this stuff. So I think it's like a lot of people just have it the job is there, the non-negotiable, and then you wedge the other stuff in, whereas I've made a conscious effort to wedge this stuff in and therefore the job will have to work around it. But that's probably not normal for someone who's 36 and trying to get on in their career.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's no. It's so hard because I'm fairly conscious and also with the demands of being a parent. There's just so many less hours in the day and you think I know that I'm doing. Alright, I could be doing better, but there will be people some of my Competitors, some of my peers will definitely be working double as many hours today as I've worked, and I'm pretty comfortable with that. Here I am in Portugal. I'm just going to enjoy life and accept the fact that I'm doing a certain amount of work per day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I just finished reading Morgan, who sells. Psychology of money is really good, but yeah, I'm fine, I read it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thanks. One of the things he says if you want to be a successful investor, just expand your time horizons. Don't think I want to make Bitcoin. You know, double my money in a month. Think I'm investing ETFs over 20 years and then I'll probably double my money. But that's also how I think about in my career. I'm expanding my time horizons because I work less, because I go to the gym and I spend time with my family and my dog and travel. I'm not going to be as successful as quickly as someone who is, as you say, tony, working twice as hard. So I'm yeah, I'm accepting this by being like, okay, maybe I'll be where I want to be in 10 years rather than five years.

Speaker 2:

But then there's also perhaps for us here we are lovely and comfy, we're not 22 with five quid in the bank and we can afford a pint of milk, and sometimes there's more of a necessity behind that drive. And yeah, maybe as we get older we do lose our edge a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely. No, obviously it takes a lot of privilege and we always own our privilege on this podcast. But yeah, certainly I'm very privileged, etc.

Speaker 2:

I'm only not by a hackers privilege, definitely.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, my last one is Tony about Portugal. Now, rich, yes, shoot. Okay, what? Yeah, what brings you to Portugal, tony? I'm assuming it's a full time location it is.

Speaker 2:

It is we. I've always loved travel, and me and my wife when we had our boy I thought that was it. And I spent a lot of time looking at caravans because all my mates told me how horrendous it is trying to go for holidays in the middle of summer when everyone else is taking holidays, and how you have to pay eight grand for a week in a three-heart star hotel in Mallorca. And then last year we thought why don't we just go for a winter to Thailand and see if we like it? And my boy was three at the time. I went to school out there and enjoyed it and we didn't feel that was quite the place for us to live long term. But then we thought we'd try Portugal for a year. So we came out here and we do have some friends out here, our mates who run the exhale coffee company, which you might have heard of. They live out here and it's great. There's loads going on.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to a talk on micro dosing very soon. There's lots of. We've made lots of friends here. There's ecstatic dance parties there's. It's a pretty wild fun. Like most of those I don't actually go to. But I'm going to the one on micro dosing and then we feel we've met some nice people and that was the most important thing for me, as much as it's lovely to be outside more, live a healthy life, to feel like you're part of a community and to make some new interesting friends and feel like you've got mates without that would be home. But we're loving it and I'm hoping both of you that the invitation is open to both of you now and the you two as well.

Speaker 3:

I'm kept telling you where she goes, honey. Yeah, I'd love to have my golf clubs. I'll be out the next week.

Speaker 2:

We live on a golf course, andy, so I think you'd be very happy here.

Speaker 3:

Yes, one of the questions I was probably going to ask you both as well is, with the bio hacking stuff, how important is the community? Because presumably when you started pivoting into the space, tony, you probably felt they were sticking your neck out a bit and that they had presenter friends who probably weren't into any of this. So how important was it to find the right people?

Speaker 2:

I'm obsessed with community and, yeah, I definitely was the self help guy in the TV world for a lot of years, but then towards the end, and definitely now, they all seek me out and say, mate, can I ask you a couple of questions about this? But I think, yeah, I wrote this book on burnout and I spent a long time thinking about why we get burnout and burnt out and what it is that helps us recover. And all the research suggests community is pretty much the most important thing. Yes, it's still this sort of luxury, quite niche thing. We all heard about how the blue zones are blue zones because of mainly because of weather, diet, a lot of exercise and community. The 86 year old man walks down the hill at lunchtime, has a glass of Uso, plays a game of chess with his mates and then walks home again and he's seen his mates, he's got his community and he's had his glass of Uso. Perfect. That's the sort of life I want to live. I'm obsessed with community. I think it's absolutely key.

Speaker 1:

And pension fraud, that's. That's another thing about blue zones. You had that one, tony.

Speaker 2:

Is that right?

Speaker 1:

These blue zones? The blue zones are actually not only where people supposedly live longest, but it's also the areas with the highest amounts of pension fraud in the world. So what is effective? That is hilarious. Supposedly people are, they're living in multi generation families and grandparents, great grandparents are living there and they're collecting their pension, obviously, but then they die and then the family just keep collecting the pension, so they're not reporting that these people have died, so affecting the statistic, making people think there's loads of centenarians when actually it's just people stealing from the government. That is hilarious.

Speaker 2:

So I thought you were going to say that that means they're all richer, therefore they're happier, but what it actually means is there aren't even centenarians there in the first place.

Speaker 3:

The most dishonest place.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, exactly that is so funny I interviewed someone on my podcast recently who's in Portugal and who is trying to create a Portugal blue zone community, which is quite a nice idea, but I love to let him know that what he really needs to do is that community.

Speaker 1:

Yes, exactly Indeed, yeah, yeah. So yeah, certainly, community is super important and I think bio hackers are getting more on board with that. More and more people are talking about community. But what else about city life Did you find affected your health negatively?

Speaker 2:

I guess, the usual stuff around. It's quite a sensitizing environment when you're surrounded by a lot of traffic and a lot of people, although, to be honest, I love the energy in London and at times I've missed it being here, but more it's obvious. But the weather is just lovely here and today it's a beautiful 20 degrees, and I just went and had a half hour walk in the sun and then lay in the sun for a while before doing this podcast, and it makes it quite hard to work when the weather is that nice. But but I've been going in this, swimming in the sea, for example, almost every other day, and that sort of thing is just so hard to replicate when the weather is not so nice. So that is obviously a massive deal as well.

Speaker 2:

Food is a good one here, for the Portuguese cuisine is simple and delicious, lots of fresh ingredients and not too fancy, but also good quality ingredients are a lot cheaper here. Now, I'm not the cheaper for me. I really can't tell you if they're cheaper for the Portuguese people, based on the fact that the average income or the minimum wage here is very low. But but plentiful good ingredients is certainly something that we've appreciated here.

Speaker 1:

Hmm, yeah, purchasing power. That's something I've become interested in as I look to find the best place in the world to live. Purchasing power is is the key metric, is not the cost of living, because in San Francisco cost of living is extremely high I think it's like the sixth highest in the world but then salaries are mega high. Here. School teachers earn about $100,000 a year and, yeah, I saw an advert for a police officer for 120 grand a year. So they need to be able to be able to afford to live there. But somewhere like Madrid, where my wife's family from, purchasing power is much less there. So they actually feel like things are more expensive in Madrid than someone in our school teacher in San Francisco feels in San Francisco. So if you're coming from London, you go to Madrid, you're like, oh my God, everything's so cheap here, but the Madrileños, they don't feel like it's cheap. So purchasing power is that key metric, like which you basically alluded to. There is the cost of living compared to people's salaries.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, I was also going to come on to the sunlight thing. So one of the things I found is, yes, you get a real mood boost from the sun when you haven't seen the sun in a while. So I thought when I moved to California, because it's sunny every day, I'll feel happy every day. But that's not the case. It's only when you go from a cloudy, wet winter environment like London to Portugal, san Francisco, spain, you get that serotonin spike. So unfortunately, you get sensitized to the good weather. So if people are thinking, oh, I have to move to the south of Spain, like most English people do you have to move to Southern California? Don't necessarily think it's going to cure all your problems.

Speaker 2:

So I'm not sure I agree with that, Rich, but I have been living out of London less time than you, but I am still every day that it's a nice day. I'm like, oh brilliant, Look at that, it's lovely. And maybe I'm still in the new phase because we've been here about seven months, but I genuinely do appreciate that good weather. And here I guess it's a fairly similar climate to what you have the sunny, sort of chilly at times, winter, but it never gets that cold.

Speaker 2:

And we went back to the UK for a week and we did some. We got back, ah, it's great. We went swimming on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and that sort of thing is nice because you're really able to get out in nature more and so feeling quite lucky about life. And then we also the purchasing power thing is interesting, because we've been selling our house in London and looking around Portugal and saying, look at that, isn't it cheap? And everyone's saying, no, that's actually very expensive, Don't get over excited, but it's just compared to London, which is insane. It's a bit cheaper. Yeah, Absolutely.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, speaking as someone in London, I can tell you I'm very much looking forward to seeing the sun after the wettest February on record, which has been followed up by, I'm pretty sure, the wettest March to this point. So yeah, I take either of those locations.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Light is so interesting, isn't it? I find myself increasingly quite obsessed with light and in summer there's no better place in the world than London and the UK and the festivals and everything else. But yeah, it's hard, especially hard when in the middle of winter is getting dark.

Speaker 3:

for four o'clock, I think. One of the things that I was thinking about when you both speaking is Vitamin D, and obviously that seems to be one of the supplements that's gone mainstream, I would say, and it's in every supermarket now. Are there others we're missing out on? I wanted to ask you both about that supplement, because I think that falls in the category of things you just hear so much about.

Speaker 2:

I'm supplement junkie. So, Richard, I don't know about you. Are you a supplement junkie?

Speaker 1:

I am, but I actually think that taking too many supplements affects my digestion. And actually when I dial things back and just take basics like what I'm wearing, I'm just taking boron and magnesium and the low-dose now Trek. So my digestion is fine. But if I take like 20 supplements I'll be going to the bathroom several times a day. So I'm not sure if it's like the gelatin capsules or my gut just doesn't like all these intense nutrients.

Speaker 3:

So what are the non-negotiable supplements for you, Tony?

Speaker 2:

I have my new one, which I love and I told you about this, rich, last summer, and I hope you took my advice and tried it Specialised, specialised Pro-Resolving Mediators Did you try them?

Speaker 1:

It's on my list of things to try. Can you make that specialised?

Speaker 2:

Specialised Pro-Resolving Mediators. But if you just Google SPMs, you'll find it, and I'm telling you why I'm so excited by them. The SPMs are a form of Omega-3. And it is the form of Omega-3 that your body turns Omega-3s into, and a sort of high-powered scientist six years ago found that he could create SPM out of Omega-3. Before that you couldn't buy SPMs, and they are still expensive.

Speaker 2:

A bottle talk about privilege. A bottle talk about our biohacking privilege. A bottle of this will set you back 70, 80 quid on Amazon, so it's at least double the price of Omega-3. The first interesting thing is when you open the bottle and the brand that I use is SPM Supreme, but I have a wildlife extensions as well, and that's the same thing you open the bottle and it smells completely different from normal Omega-3s, which smell, let's be honest, like fish oil. This smells like ice cream. It's extraordinary, the smell. There's not a hint of fish in there. I cannot understand how they make it smell so good and I've tried more than one brand. So it's just a thing about these capsules. And then I took it because of the promise of it helping with inflammation, and I assumed by inflammation that would be like inflammation in the joints and I haven't noticed any different in the joints, but I noticed the difference in my gut and the inflammation in my gut and my gut's been a lot better since I've been taking it, so I like it.

Speaker 1:

Nice. Yeah, one of our questions was going to be what's your tip for the next for trends? The last recommendation I took from you was Spermidine and I've incorporated that in there, and I do have SPMs on my list of things to buy. Yeah, anything else you think is going to be big in the biohacking industry?

Speaker 2:

I think Spermidine is great for a lot of people. I personally don't take it at the moment, partly because a lot of Spermidines are not gluten free and because I think the best form of or the best source of Spermidine has gluten in it.

Speaker 1:

Because they get some Spermidine.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, yeah, and some Spermidine capsules made out of Chlorella and Spirulina, which can set off a bit of a detox reaction and can be quite high in histamine, so I do avoid those ones. I'm certainly open to taking them. Yes, methylated vitamins. For anyone who hasn't looked into methylation, it's just such an interesting area. Andes are andes.

Speaker 3:

I'm not even aware of that, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And simply because, if you're not a good, methylation is what happens when you take. When you eat good food and you take vitamins. Methylation is basically what happens in the body when you process the vitamins Rich. I've probably completely butchered that, but you're the person to tell me whether I've got that roughly right or not.

Speaker 1:

Methylation. Yes, it's a reaction that takes place in the cell, a detox reaction in the cell, isn't it? I haven't heard it related to vitamins like that, but I think it's a very complex system that probably involves many things, including what you've said.

Speaker 2:

It's exactly what I said, rich. Yeah, I heard the same. Yeah, so, essentially, when your body's taking in nutrients, methylation is how you process the nutrients. Let me try that. Let me try that, I guess, if that works a bit better. And some of us, it turns out, genetically don't methylate very well, which is why one person will get a bad gut or an inflamed knee because they're not processing nutrients properly and another won't, especially with certain vitamins and supplements, like certain B vitamins. If you take bulk, standard B vitamins that you find in the supermarket and are the cheapest ones in the market, they probably won't be very good for you if you're not a good methylator, which is why you need to spend a bit more on methylated vitamins, and I'm really excited about methylated vitamins. They've made a huge difference to my health, but still a lot of people don't know about them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I used to get IVs quite regularly for B vitamins because I used to be low on them. And yeah, I used to ask I'd have to go do you have methylcobalamin? You need that methylated version of it. But then I started to have too much. Do you know you can have too much B vitamins? So I used to get things like restless leg syndrome, like I'd be twitching at night, and then someone said, yeah, someone took a look at my blood reading and said, oh, you've got way too much B vitamins, have you? Do you get twitching and things like that? So, yeah, b vitamins are great, but also too many B vitamins are also not so good for you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I did know that and actually when I started on the methylation of vitamins because I'd lived 40 years of my life not methylation properly I started taking methylated vitamins and I promise you I had the best two weeks of my life. I just felt amazing. I felt like I could break the world record in long jump. I felt that healthy and then my body just tipped over into this massive detox herxheimer reaction and I felt dreadful for two months. So start slowly with these methylated vitamins, especially if you've had some unexplained symptoms, if you've been laughing through the pain for a while start very slowly with the methylated vitamins.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I was going to ask how would you know these all very specific things? How would you, how do you measure this sort of stuff as bio hackers?

Speaker 2:

With the methylated vitamins. I was working with a practitioner who did some tests and they just showed that my methylation range was low and that I genetically was not a particularly good methylator.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, have you heard of the DNA paste tests, tony, the sort of the aging Okay? So I've just done this. I want to do it in one of our Q&As, andy, I want to talk more about this. But there's the DNA paste test where you give blood and you send it off and they find out how fast you're aging. So they'll give you your biological clock and a big part of it is how well you're methylating, and they're using the Hall-Var measure, which apparently is the best measure of how much you're aging, and it'll show you for every one calendar year how many years you're aging. So the highest amount they've ever recorded is 1.6. For every one, let's say someone's 10 years old, they'll be 16 years old with their methylation, or the lowest anyone's been is 0.6. So if someone's 10 years old, in the calendars they'll have a body of a six year old.

Speaker 1:

But there's like an Olympics, there's a methylation Olympics, and then Greenfield's on it, brian Johnson's on it and Dave Asprey is on it and, yeah, people are trying to age the least. So they've got two tables. One is who's aging the slowest and also who has the biggest difference between their actual age and their methylation age and the person who's at the top of it is this 64 year old guy and he's got like the body of a 40 year old and his lifestyle is very simple he doesn't drink alcohol, eats like a standard paleo diet Got a little bit of a call there but yeah, it does yoga, does saunas and nothing too complex. But yeah, we'll do a bigger episode on that. But in this test they show you how well you genetically you methylate. Wow.

Speaker 2:

Because I've done glycinate.

Speaker 1:

I've done that too, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And met the guys at glycinate, and it's a really nice idea. It's a totally different principle, isn't it, yeah? So yeah, I was quite disappointed that they I think I was 47 and they told me I was 46 and a half.

Speaker 3:

I was going to ask you, Rich, how did that go for you? Where are you at the table?

Speaker 1:

So I haven't got my results yet, so I'm waiting for my results. That's why we'll do it in our Q&A.

Speaker 2:

It's a big reveal on the podcast.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we could. That'd be great yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but my yeah, glycinate. I've got my hands in the blood, so it's a different measure of aging. There's many differences like measures of aging. One is methylation, one is glycan, one is telomere length, one is like grip strength, one is how quickly you, after you, press, like grip your skin, how quickly it goes from white to pink. That's a measure of aging. Gate speed is also a measure of aging. A grip strength I mentioned. But yeah, my glycan age was. I think I took it when I was 35 and my glycan age was 34. So, yeah, not particularly oppressive, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So, tony, you've interviewed every single top bio hacker out there. Haven't you? Having access to all these people who are the biggest influences on you? Who do you trust the most? Who are you most interested to hear from in the bio hacking space?

Speaker 3:

Other than Richard L Blake.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Other than the two of you I'll have to say oh, actually, yeah, yeah, sure you can, I'm not.

Speaker 2:

I guess my influences have changed over time. The person I'm currently completely obsessed with and the reason is I think it's very hard in this day and age to have an original message. I started by podcasting almost 10 years ago and I struggle sometimes with the fact that I've been doing it so long. I don't want it to get stale. I want to keep innovating and trying to capture people's attentions in different ways, and that's harder than ever. And Eddie Abiu Abiu I don't know if you've seen him on Instagram oh absolutely.

Speaker 2:

He spells his surname ABBIEUW. He's got over 3 million followers, the form of bodybuilder who moved to the UK from Africa as a child or a young adult, and it's such a simple thing that he does. He basically preaches the normal thing that a biohacker would preach, which is good food, no sugar, so on, and he's got this cat phrase called wake the fuck up, and now he can do a video where he literally is just in a supermarket, picks up a box of Kit Kat cereal and he's like guys, wake the fuck up. And it's such a. He's so good, he's so funny, Everyone loves him and he somehow manages to do something really simple in a very original way and capture people's imagination, and his content is good. I do find it very inspiring. It does make me think I'm going to get more chicken and less crap in the supermarket after I've watched his stuff. So, finding different you can't reinvent the wheel, Kenny but different ways to capture people's imagination I love. I have been very inspired by the likes of Ben Greenfield, Dave Asprey.

Speaker 2:

I love what Tim's doing with the Health Optimization Summit and he's becoming a really big name in the space as well Tim Gray, and I also think that in the UK, divinia Taylor is fantastic. I just thought she's a former Holly Oaks Sunday Times bestseller on biohacking and hormones and just again like such a real message She'll film you a real mid run, that sort of thing. It's hard to be that natural and provide good content, but I think she does it great. What about you guys?

Speaker 1:

And who's your biggest influence?

Speaker 3:

You go first. I'm just researching what Rich tells me to research. To be honest, I was going to say that the piece I'm missing, I suppose, is people in the UK doing this, Because my assertion is that it's more of a West Coast US, maybe a bit of Austin, that kind of area. But who are the big people doing this in the UK? Because it's still just. If I mentioned biohacking to 10 people, eight of them are going to look blank. Yeah, frankly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, tony is one of the big. The way I found Tony was I think it was on the London Biohackers Meetup Facebook group. I said I've had enough American biohackers. Are there any good podcasts from English people? Everyone recommended Tony's podcast. Tony is the guy that was many years ago. But yeah, also Tim Gray, I'd say he's probably the most followed. And yeah, he set up the London Biohackers Meetup years ago that I used to attend and it's now this huge event called the Health Optimization Summit. Anyone else? Tony?

Speaker 2:

With Tim. It's great because if you put the UK's leading biohacker in your Instagram description, eventually you will be the UK's leading biohacker. Yeah, exactly yeah, those are the two that I mentioned. Divinia Taylor absolutely brilliant, much more female focused and capturing the imagination of a lot of people. Because some people just don't like the word biohacker, and that's absolutely fine.

Speaker 2:

I've struggled with it for a while and then I just thought, oh, everyone's using it. Who cares If it's? Because biohacking to some people is putting a chip in your arm and making PayPal payments with it and that sort of thing, which is quite different. But really, when you dig into it, the message of biohacking good food, lots of light, bit of grounding probably quite boring, and we all know that here, but I think sometimes that's why I've struggled with the word biohacking for people who don't get it. But yeah, divinia Taylor and look up Eddie Abu. He is absolutely brilliant. He's in his 60s, he's such a huge star. He said the other day. He said I've been invited to go and talk with all the academics, with all these academics. They want to debate diet with me. He said they can fuck off, they can see what I'm into. If they disagree with that, they're wrong.

Speaker 3:

Sounds like he's got the rich Blake attitude yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3:

Disagreed. Rich, You're wrong.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's me as well, so I like Rich's attitude.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think about 50% of our audience is US based. So for the US listeners out there, there are many good biohackers out there. I think Ben Greenfield is still number one in my opinion. I did go to the Aeternal Fest in Austin a few weeks ago where both Dave Asprey and Ben Greenfield were on the same stage, I think for the first time ever. And yeah, Ben and Dave, they are. They're so interesting, they're such great speakers. They've always got their fingers on their pulse and I think they're ready to admit when they're wrong as well. So, yeah, I really do love those guys still.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you tempted to move from California to Austin.

Speaker 1:

I am very tempted. Yeah, I have been spending some time, more time in Austin. I'm going to spend some more time in Austin too. Yeah, make a bit of a network. Yeah, because for me, the way I see it, you want to be in tech, you move to San Francisco. You want to be in entertainment, you move to LA. If you want to be in wellness, you move to Austin right now. But, yeah, I think it's quite an exciting place.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely, definitely. And if you want to be into wellness with a touch of hippie and some retiree golfers, move to Portugal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, starting up at commune. Yeah, I was going to say that.

Speaker 3:

surely the challenge for you, Rich, is to build a new community of biohackers. You don't want to go to Austin and follow the others?

Speaker 1:

I think I just integrate myself in there, but that is one of the reasons.

Speaker 2:

I want to go there. He does want to follow the others. Yeah, he does want to follow the others With.

Speaker 1:

In San Francisco, people aren't there to push the boundaries of wellness as much. There is a big wellness industry there, but in Austin I feel like there's so many people I could learn from and look up to in that regard, whereas in San Francisco I haven't met anyone that is in the same space as me. Hmm, as in it not works in the biohacking space.

Speaker 3:

I was going to ask you, Tony, what's next for you.

Speaker 2:

From a personal perspective, my main business is books and I love it, and I've been bringing out a couple of books a year for the last two or three years and that's been great. I'm going to do more of that and courses based on what we've mentioned, which is the intersection between health and mindset, which I absolutely love. And then I feel that, apart from that which excites me and I love, I think there's going to be some sort of project in there. I don't quite know what it is, but that just makes use of the contacts that I've got in the health and wellness industry, some big idea that I have. I don't know whether it's going to be, I don't know. It could be an alternative to the URA ring. Who knows what it will be? But there will be something over the next couple of years that, by the way, I've actually been road testing an alternative to the URA ring, oh, yeah ultra human ring.

Speaker 1:

Ultra human? I've never actually heard of that. Yeah, I think they have seen it. Is it available at the moment? Is it or are you like beta tester?

Speaker 2:

No, it is available. It is available and I found that in some ways it's a bit better than the URA ring. But I didn't like the fact you can't put it into airplane mode. At the moment they are apparently releasing an update, a patch, for that, but it's also got a very short battery life compared to the URA ring. So those two things mark it down a bit, but it was giving me more sleep per night. Oh, I like this. This is great yeah.

Speaker 1:

I've found that with the URA ring as well. I've heard of the dream sleep. It's like a headband, it's an EEG. I use that for a little bit to compare my sleep with the URA ring and the dream sleep and the dream, which is much more accurate because it's reading your brain waves. It gave me about 10% better sleep efficiency than the URA ring. Did it? Yeah, wow, wow, yeah, and that is one of the properties of these metrics is like sleep anxiety. Oh my God, I got 78.

Speaker 1:

Last night I got 78% sleep efficiency, which is clinical levels of insomnia, but I don't think I did because I felt like I slept okay. But what is sleep efficiency? It's how many times you wake up in the night and how long you're awake. Yeah, if you have 100% sleep efficiency, it means from 10 am to 6 pm. You were asleep the whole time. But most people have micro-awakenings at the end of every sleep cycle, so you wake up very slightly just to check your environment and then you go back to sleep, whereas I wake up and then I'm awake for maybe five, 10 minutes between every sleep cycle, which is not healthy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've got a couple of theories on that, Ashley, which is the first one is that if I wear my URA ring on my thumb and I just think it's a bit loose and therefore URA thinks I'm waking up more and I am probably under the clinical insomnia list as well. But I also interviewed Matt Walker, the author of why we Sleep, and he was wearing an URA ring and he said I think they're great, but compared to the stuff we've got in my lab, it's not that accurate. So take it with a pinch of salt. It's nice to have stats like this, but they're not perfect.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I noticed. If I've had a bad night's sleep, I won't check my URA ring until the evening, because if I check it and it's oh God, I got five hours sleep, it'll perpetuate in my mind and I'll make myself think that I'm more tired than I am.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly what I did today. Actually, I should have followed URA advice tomorrow if I sleep badly, but when you've got a sick child and you're a bit bunged up, it can mean not very much sleep. Yeah, I need to do that tomorrow.

Speaker 3:

I think we mentioned it earlier on the show where we find you, Tony, but can you repeat the website again for us and where else can we find you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my website is TonyWrightoncom and you can find all the details on my books and courses there. The healthy AF method, which incorporates some of those techniques we were talking about the pattern, interrupts and everything else, and then there's the histamine site, which is histamineintolerancecom.

Speaker 1:

And you're on Instagram. You do a bit there as, and you've got the podcast as well, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, at TonyWrighton and Zestology. And if you go back far enough into the back episodes, you'll find me and Rich squeezed into a 1.5 person sauna recording a podcast in there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think I've done it on three podcasts. We did one on Breftwork, one on IowaScan, then we did the Book Club as well, the Zestology Book Club, that's right.

Speaker 2:

That was. I only ever did two episodes of that, but mainly. I'm sorry that's so bad. You were excellent, rich, but the logistics of getting guys, the logistics of getting the three of us to do this, is hard. And thanks, by the way, for moving the slot today. I really appreciate it. But when you're trying to get four guests and you onto a Book Club, oh, it just wasn't worth it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, fair enough. Thank you so much, tony. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Have a great holiday, mate.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, where do we find us, rich?

Speaker 1:

We are on all good podcast platforms and some rubbish ones, laughing through the pain, navigating wellness. I'm on Instagram at thebrethgeek. Richardlblakecom is my website and Andy is at AndyEsam on Instagram. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

All right, thank you for following us. You're following us Indeed.

Speaker 3:

Thank you very much.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, tony, thank you Andy, thank you listener, we will see you next time. Bye-bye, bye.