Fear vs Capability: Kristin Weitzel

Overcoming fears and expanding capabilities helps us to change our internal stories. Physical challenges are not so much about the momentary discomfort, but about how to expand what we believe we are capable of in life. The founder of Wellpower helps people uncover their inner potential by stepping outside of their comfort zones.

We cover the power of new experiences, neuroplasticity, and the wonder of cold exposure. Next, we break down the science behind these practices, discussing how they can improve health, extend our lifespan, and increase our performance. We also look into a few differences between men and women when it comes to fasting, cold plunges, and overall mindset towards aging and health.

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Transcript

David: 0:18

Welcome to SuperAge. My name is David Stewart. I am the founder of Ageist and your host on the SuperAge show. We talk about how to live healthier, how to live longer and how to be happier and who doesn’t want that? 

Today’s show is brought to you by InsideTracker, the dashboard to your inner health. Go to insidetracker.com/ageist Save 20% on all their products. Today’s show is also brought to you by Ned’s Mello magnesium, designed to help busy people sleep better. Go to helloned.com/ageist and save 15%. Get yourself some better sleep. Today’s show is also brought to you by Timeline Nutrition with their breakthrough product, mitopure, the first clinically tested urolithin A supplement, which is showing tremendous results for mitochondrial health. Go to timelinenutrition.com/ageist. Use the code AGEIST at checkout and save 10% off your first order of Mitopure. 

Welcome to episode 144 of the SuperAge podcast. We’ll be dropping this on July, the 26th 2023. This week we are in Manhattan, new York, new York, new York so nice, they named it twice and we’ve been here for a couple of weeks. Be here for another little bit and then back to Park City. New York is an amazing city. It gets better and better with time and, you know, what I’ve been noticing is at least the part of New York that I am in mostly, which is the downtown part. It’s become much more like a European city and it’s sort of like the edges have just gotten smoothed off. I lived here till about 2008 or so and what I’ve noticed is the trees that were sort of smaller then are much bigger. So there’s very often there’s these green canopies in places where there just haven’t been. And then, of course, because of COVID, there’s all this outdoor dining, which I guess is one of the few good things that came out of COVID. But there’s all this sort of outdoor dining and a number of the streets are closed at night for restaurant activity and it seems that the thing to do if you’ve got a restaurant, you have one of these sort of outdoor sidewalk dining areas, you bring in a lot of plants out and so everywhere you look in New York there’s all this green. Either private entities like the restaurants have trees out there and plants and stuff, or the trees themselves the big ones in the sidewalk have grown bigger and I’ve noticed in general it’s just sort of a softer city. I love policemen and police women. I get along great with them. I don’t know why they think I’m one of them. I don’t know why, but like they’re like super friendly here in a way that in Utah it’s not like they’re unfriendly, but it’s just like. You know just the facts, ma’am. It’s very all business and LA there. I think it’s like really hard to be a cop in LA is what I gotta say about that. 

But it’s been wonderful here, and so this is going to disturb some people, but I’m really comfortable here. I find myself being quite relaxed and when I tell people like here I am in New York and it’s, I find it very relaxing, they look at me like I need treatment for something. But I really love bantering with people. I love bantering with people on the street. I love bantering with people in the stores and elevators. I love talking to the police men and women. It’s just really fun for me and they see me come up and they see me smile and when I’m talking to them and they don’t feel threatened, I don’t feel threatened and we have this nice little interaction. We have this moment of connection that somehow it’s, it’s I’m. I’m aligned here and it’s not like I’m not aligned in other places, but I’m an East Coast guy. I grew up in the East Coast. I did live in this city for 25 years, but it was a much harsher city when I left than it is now. I also still very much love being in the mountains. I think that’s really amazing and I will be back there next week. So I’m looking forward to that. 

This week on the show we’ve got Kristen Weitzel and I’m really excited to speak to her. We’re going to talk about the sort of two opposing poles of fear and capability and capacity and and what drives us into fear and how we can own more of our capacity and our capability, which which I think is really one of the great limitations that we as human beings face, and we’re going to talk a little bit about the gender differences there. We’re going to talk a little bit about well, probably a lot about cold exposure, which is one of her gigs, and breathing, another one of her things, and then this idea of biohacking, which is a word that she uses quite a bit that I have some difficulty with and I there’s something that she talks a lot about that I really love how this idea of your comfort zone is what’s killing you and it’s it’s not dissimilar from a conversation that I had with Brian Johnson a few months back. So we’re going to get with Kristen Weitzel in just a moment, after a quick word from our sponsors. 

Today’s show is brought to you by Inside Tracker, the dashboard to your inner health. On June 29th, inside Tracker officially added insulin as one of the biomarkers they test. Inside Tracker has made great strides this year in adding biomarkers like ApoB, which is critical for heart health, as well as re hormone markers that are especially important for addressing symptoms related to aging. Now Inside Tracker has added insulin, which is the key biomarker for sustained energy and an early warning for several chronic diseases. Go to inside tracker.com/ageist save 20% on all their products today. Today’s show is brought to you by Ned’s Mellow Magnesium. It’s a sleep supplement that I’ve been taking for about three weeks and it’s great. I know a lot of you guys. We have problems sleeping, we wake up in the night or we have trouble getting to sleep, and you should check this out. So it’s got three different kinds of magnesium. Magnesium is awesome to help us sleep. It’s also one of the minerals that 75% of Americans are not getting enough of. Mellow Magnesium also has L-theanine and GABBA, both of which are going to help us sleep, and full transparency. Ned shares all of its third-party lab reports right there on its site. So not just the research they do, but the research that everybody else does on their products, and that strikes me as a real vote of confidence from the brand on the products that they do. They have over 5,000 five star reviews on their products. So I’m not the only one who likes this. You can’t become the best version of yourself unless you’re getting great sleep Like nothing else works. You got to get sleep, so this is what you do. Go to hello Ned. That’s H-E-L-L-O-N-E-D.com/ageist and get 15% off on all their products. Or, if you forgot all that, just enter ageist code AGEIST at checkout and get your 15% off there. 

Stay tuned after my conversation with Kristin Weitzel for just try this, that little fortune cookie that we do at the end of the show, little tidbit to help you live happier, healthier and a little longer. So let’s give Kristin a call right now. Hey, Kristin, how are you today? 

Kristin: 7:44

I am wonderful and so happy to be here with you. 

David: 7:47

It’s great to have you as we were talking offline. I found you because you’re part of the brain tap biohacky package and your three meditations are like my favorites. I feel like I know you because I listen to you like a couple of times a week, which is weird, you don’t. I don’t know. 

Kristin: 8:06

That’s not weird, it’s amazing. It’s amazing. People sometimes ask me if I listen to myself and I’m like I’m not quite there yet. But yeah, people will tag me and once in a while when they feel like, hey, I really want to shout you out because I had a rough day today and I got some breath, work and meditation in and, yeah, it makes me feel like my work is creating value for people, which is why I’m here. 

David: 8:28

So there’s a few things I want to hit on here. Help me if I’m wrong here, but I see a lot of your work. When you work with people, especially women, I think it’s mostly women in your gang. This idea of one’s capability versus the fear sort of holds one back. I think this is not entirely gender specific either. I think men just have sort of different silly fears. Men’s fears are sillier. I’m one of them. I can say that. So yeah, so talk to me a little bit about this, the two poles of capability that we have, and and fear that maybe we don’t want to go there. 

Kristin: 9:06

The fear piece. You know, it’s really interesting the place that I’m in my life we were just speaking about this. I’m about to sort of dismantle a lot of the things in my home and sell some belongings and downsize and put myself in a van for a year bringing my Shipper Breath and Colds program to North America, as it were, on the road, and I’ve been facing a lot of those fears, or what I might even call like micro fears. Just they’re really story right. One of my biohacking besties will always say you know, we’re going to, hey, let’s walk through the Valley of Death, let’s not build a condo there. And you know, there’s, there’s people get caught up in their story in some, in some spaces, in some ways, and I think a lot of times this is the thing we see with sort of procrastination or nervousness. We’re doing a lot of limbic looping in the brain about making the story worse than it actually is. And really there is a piece and component of life that feels like leap in the net will appear. How do I choose something? And even if it’s not the thing I want, but it comes to me and that doesn’t mean like, hey, I guess I’ll just suck it up and deal with this and brace the suck. It’s like how do I say, okay, this breakup in my life just happened and I don’t want it and I’m going to choose it, I’m going to joyfully put myself in front of it so that I can experience the what the exploration is here, so that I can grow because it’s happening for me. And all of that can sound a bit like cerebral and perhaps like, oh, easier said than done, which it is but I think when you have the right tools to embrace the fear, to unwind your story, and you start to unpack and maybe self actualize exactly where you are in space and time, if those things exist then we get an opportunity to sort of release some of that. Right. And I talk about capacity. On the other side of this, a lot 90% of people I meet are selling themselves short and I don’t like those statistics. I don’t know about you, but it’s. You know we talk. I do have a lot of women in my audience and women I work with and then with Sherpa Breath and Cold, I’m doing performance training and sports and athletes, and it’s across the board Every shape, size, color, gender, fluidity, like everyone. I’m so happy to work in these healing modalities with everyone, and I see it with so many people that as they start to layer in the right tools, as they start begin to surprise themselves by having a fierce commitment to consistency with those tools, then the fear starts to trickle away and the capacity begins to grow. It’s almost like this holy shit, I can do hard things. I had no idea how amazing or how much expansion I had or how much strength I had to be able to get through this thing, and so somehow we this is like when you’re like go to a restaurant and it’s really bad, you write a review you write a review and you say that was awful. But it’s not as often that we have a wonderful experience and we write a review. And I think fear is the same thing like it capitalizes on itself. Right, we have a scary thing or a bad microtrauma, trauma in our life. It repeats on itself, it’s in ourselves, and we’re like oh, I’m gonna write the review for that, my brain’s gonna remember that because I was out of safety, and so that, to me, is really like where we need to navigate. More is like how do we unpack the places and times in our lives we felt unsafe so that we can unpack fear so we can live into the fullest capacity of how amazing we are. 

David: 12:41

Yeah, it’s that negativity bias which served as well as cave people, but less well. Now A lot of your work is very physical, and talk to me a little bit about overcoming discomfort as a way of changing this story that you speak about, like our self story, and increasing what we believe our capacity is through physicality. 

Kristin: 13:05

Yeah, yeah, that’s an awesome question. It brings things to mind like sprinting. I don’t want to say nobody likes to sprint. Some people love to sprint, but sprinting is a perfect example of something where we’re creating a deliberate, very short-term stressor to be able to adapt and get better at a cellular level and maybe perhaps even at a physical level if we want to be a better marathoner, a better racer, a better recomposition our body, et cetera. But you’ll surely much more often see someone doing like a 5K jog. Then you will sprinting out in the streets, like during quarantine. I was like out in front of my neighbor’s houses. I’m sure they thought I was crazy, but I was like there’s nowhere else to sprint, I’m just gonna sprint in the streets. And movement is I mean, it’s one of the most and talk about the biohacking world, movement and mobility it’s being talked about a little more and strength training and all of those things. That’s one of the things that sort of spoken about the least, which is always so interesting to me, because it is like the lifeblood of everything that we do. Our body, it’s like an object in motion, stays in motion. We want to age gracefully. Let’s move. So I use things like I’m a big believer. Stacey Sims, who’s just a winning some female researcher and performance athlete, talks a lot about lift heavy shit. Hey, ladies, lift heavy shit because you’re not enough right and that holds true for men and women. Just, we have a little bit of a. I think we’re more risk averse, just genetically, and so we have. We’re like, hey, five pound dumbbell looks good. It’s like no, that’s not the thing. So things like sprinting, things like getting in a cold ice bath, things like lifting some heavy weights in a way that of course, we wanna have biomechanical form and we wanna like I’m not just gonna walk up to a squat rack and put 200 pounds on and get under it. Let’s like Darwin, let’s be smart, and yeah, those things are so critical because this is again, all of these are stress adaptations to stressors that we are providing to our bodies so we can increase our capacity and mobility to me feels like such. It’s the low hanging fruit. Breath is the same way low hanging fruit for adaptation to be a better human, to feel better and to live longer, happier, healthier. 

David: 15:13

I’m totally on board with that. I think fitness is in all of its forms, is just so essential and that resistance training. Everybody needs to resistance train. If you’re not resistance training, you’re losing muscle. That’s just how it is. So which side of the equation you wanna be on? So you have a phrase comfort zone is killing you and to me. I’ve seen that a lot of the things that probably you and I do are not considered sort of mainstream, socially acceptable, whereas starting the day with a donut or something or something is fine. Talk to me a little bit about this way that I think, especially as we get a little older, this idea that comfort needs to be sort of the primary driver, when actually maybe not so much. 

Kristin: 16:05

Yeah, I mean even neurochemically. Right, we talk about you. Listen to our Lord Huberman is what I refer to. Andrew Huberman, now it’s our Lord Huberman, because I’m in a space Reverend’s like, I don’t know if you heard, but Huberman, told, said this. So it has to be true and it’s the only thing I’m gonna say oh. God and look like I love, like great, I love his work. I’m so thankful for it. And also, yeah, there’s bio-individuality and it’s just beautiful in some ways how he’s revered and I just also think it’s fun. But you know, he’ll talk about neuroplasticity and we know in the biohacking sphere and the health and wellness sphere, we know it’s like what’s the best thing. I think Ben Greenfield even just talked about this on some social posts I saw. It’s like what’s one of the best things you can do as an aging adult pick up an instrument, a new instrument, try it which do something that’s going to stretch you in a way and maybe purposefully right, and in a sense it’s like probably I’m not gonna learn Chinese if I’m gonna go travel around Mexico for a month, right, I’m gonna like learn a new language for a purpose, for context, because you need to have the driver, right. The real reason to do it is not like I wanna have more neuroplasticity and better aging brain, but trying these things out and trying them on for size, I think we discover that there’s so many more things we can like in the world or love or enjoy that we didn’t know about. There’s so much benefit to our brain and our neurochemistry and really stretching ourselves past this comfort zone thing. It’s like I don’t know. There’s different generations and different ideas and thoughts and I’ve seen lots of people in different stages of their lives. But we gotta get past. The donut is the best breakfast moment If that’s really still. Of course, it’s still around and not saying nobody, anybody shouldn’t like run off and have a donut every so often. I’m really not a restricted. I hate overly restricting people from things that bring them joy because I do believe like I’m a gluten free eater, right, but if I go and someone’s Nana is like and I’m not, it’s not a celiac, it’s not an allergy. So if someone’s Nana is like sweating into a sauce and making a big pasta dish and whatever and serving it to me, I wanna have the joy of sharing that with her, all the love that went into it, all the neurochemical you know bliss chemicals that come up from sharing a meal in community. So it’s like, how do we find the things that are gonna stretch us? You know, the comfort zone, your comfort zone, is killing you, is legitimately what’s happening to us. Over time we are just getting so much more comfortable and so much more sedentary that it is killing us. And where can we find areas in our life that we’re willing to kind of stretch and choose it as an adventure? You know there’s this. Dan Garner is a mentor of mine and he talks about some research. He’s like look, this is an unpopular opinion, but here’s the reality. People come to me all the time. I had a 33 year old woman come to me last week and say I guess it’s all downhill from here, and I was like you are not allowed to say that. Like, why do you think that? But the reality is, you know we have the ability to age gracefully and mobile, be mobile and do all these things, and it just feels like Stretching ourselves past our comfort zone is the way for us to expand and for us to live longer. 

David: 19:08

I want to sort of touch on this idea of you. Get back to the comfort zone idea and a lot of what it’s gonna say socially acceptable as being comfortable is actually pretty self-destructive and and how that it’s. It’s not self-affirming at at all, but that it’s it’s considered like okay. And I, you know, I remember my you know, my mom in the 60s used to Smoke with the windows rolled up in the car with us kids wouldn’t wear a seatbelt because it wrinkled her dress and it was totally normal for people to have like a couple of martinis at lunch, like that was okay. So thankfully that stuff’s all no go now. But there’s a lot of other stuff that’s, I feel like the bar sort of been lowered in a lot of ways, that things are acceptable when maybe they they shouldn’t be. Maybe there’s a short term you might feel better, but in in the long term, like you’re hurting yourself. 

Kristin: 20:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just saw someone so funny. You said that I just rolled past a red light in LA. I just got back from LA yesterday and there was someone in their car windows rolled up smoking a sig and I was like. I drove by and literally said out loud Are we really still doing that? So those things are out there, you know, I think. Look, I worked in the alcohol and spirits industry consumer package goods early on In a career, corporate career that I left and I loved it. It was interesting, it was fun, it was wonderful to see what companies were actually making alcohol even though it’s not the healthiest thing in a sustainable or in at least a Integra’s way and what companies were just throwing stuff in bottles for people to drink. It’s interesting how that the world of the marketing arm and I launched Red Bull in the United States so the great team of people and how that was like first functional beverage that was considered sort of healthy at that point. Right and now we might have different opinions, but but just learning and understanding the consumer landscape and psyche and how people adopted brands and adopted what they put in their life Made just gave me a different vantage point than the typical biohacker and I don’t want to poo poo alcohol and even, as I like sit there with a bottle of like sustainable, biodynamic Gammé on my shelf. I don’t drink a lot anymore and perhaps because I had plenty of alcohol in the days I worked in that industry, but perhaps it just doesn’t feel good in my body. I will have the occasional glass of wine. I’m always making sure it’s like from dry farms or it’s biodynamic, etc. And and that’s beautiful. And you know, once in a while around the holidays I’ll like a really well crafted cocktail. That’s just like a decadent moment. But I think there’s still the drinking thing exists. I think there’s other ways to Manage some of our. I’m talking to people who maybe are doing that to be able to quell some stressors or get sleep at night and not realizing that the long-term effects of that aren’t great. And there are things out there that are like you know. They’re the quick fix and America is well known for that the quick fix of, you know, various products or super sizing things and and there is something about the patience of I don’t know if you’re a dune fan, but there’s a word in dune David that’s called spawn of spulgan. They do like use it in the early dune film or book or something, and it’s really about the joy of the waiting, the joy of like it’s really like the joy of the journey, but the, the beauty in sort of waiting to get something actually makes it that much sweeter, and so that’s a lot of the stuff that I think we put down when we were like hitting on our dopamine iPhones and all that. So, yeah, I’d love to be able to see that change and some of what I’m hoping I’m doing with the breath work and cold exposure space specifically, and some of the female biohacking of course, my one-on-one clients and group programs and all of that is hopefully unpacking that a bit so we can find ways to be in community and share that. Hey, this is a long-term goal. Let’s bolster with some short-term goals together and let’s celebrate. Don’t celebrate ourselves enough when we have small wins. 

David: 22:59

Let’s talk about some of the male female differences out there. So I’ve read that fasting for women is different for men in that there’s a cortisol response. So I know that you do a lot of voluntary cold exposure. Yeah, putting people into ice baths Are there gender differences in the physiology with that? 

Kristin: 23:18

Yeah, I mean, here’s the thing. Yes, the answer is yes. The short answer is yes. The women are different than men neurochemically. My friend Kayla is a Neurobiologist, does similar sort of research to what Andrew Heberman does, but does it really in the in the landscape of women, women in the research, women’s health, and we’re still don’t have enough research on the female physiology, believe it or not. It’s not expanding enough or quickly enough. It is better, but it’s not much better to be told. So we still. We still have a lot to learn. But there are differences in our neurochemistry, genetically, and obviously you know our sex as well. The sex we’re born in is makes us different. For fasting, mindy Pells is a great resource. I love her work. She she has a book called fast like a girl. I’ve interviewed her on my podcast and really I’ve interviewed Dave Astray on my podcast talking about this. I tend to be a bit more conservative on fasting for women now. It’s potentially slightly easier and more supportive in menopausal years, but during reproductive years, especially given the way women are trying to conceive now, how much more challenging fertility Can be in people’s lives I just I’m like we got enough hormone imbalance as it is. How do we find a way to if we’re gonna fast, conservatively fast, as females Maybe it’s not every day, maybe it’s not like go hard, jocko willing, david Goggins, like love, gonna do that Maybe we find a way to balance our power with our sensitivity as women and we actually say, okay, cool, every other day I’m gonna do a fast. Or I’m not gonna do like a 12 hours or 15 hours, I’m gonna do shorter fasts and I actually prefer even like I think you want to do a longer fast. It’s like 24, 36 hours, something like that for longevity Great, do that once a quarter and then build fasting in in a way that supports you. But many, many women are doing the thing when they don’t eat till one o’clock and it’s just like leptin, ghrelin, cortisol all of these hormones are like what. I’m not sure what’s going on and Absolute is thinking isn’t gonna get us anywhere. I’m not on the podcast to say, hey, women don’t fast. It’s never like that. We’re all bio, individual and that’s what makes this conversation so beautiful and also so challenging. Is Somebody listening to. This could be an optimal candidate to try a little fasting for a while. But my, my, my, short, ish answer to females is be, I’m more conservative. I think you should be more conservative, especially if you are in your reproductive years and you have any kind of hormonal imbalance. It’s kind of where I sit and then Mindy talks a lot about the best time for women to fast actually is when they get their period, because it’s sort of the low hormone phase. And the low hormone phase is we’re a bit more normalized, we’re not going to fluctuate so much and so we can really. We actually have less hunger sign signaling going on in the body, whereas, like the days leading up to our period, we’re like I’m always like snacking and salt and chocolate. You know I have other cravings that are coming up. So really finding the right times in the cycle to be able to fast also can make all the difference. And similarly there’s other, there’s other things in the landscape of women’s health that we can adjust. Talking about the cold. 

David: 26:22

Cold and male, female differences. Yeah, so we find. 

Kristin: 26:28

And here’s the cool thing pun intended about research with cold. Can you imagine this just for a moment, that some of the research is like my left arm in a cold tub of ice? That is X number of degrees. A lot of the research is above 50 degrees. Some of it is men, some as women, some as whole body, some is a minimal amount of cryo, some of it is immersion. Some of it is pre-training, post-training. It’s all over the map when it comes to time and temperature and body parts are full immersion. And what we do see just anecdotally and in some of the research, is that it tends to be that male, the male hormone cycle, it’s a bit more of a 24-hour clock. And men tend to do better and are pretty okay with like, I’m just going to plunge every day. It’s cold exposure every day, all the things beautiful. Again, that’s a generalization. Surely there are men out there who have some predisposition or some dis ease, state that that’s not a great idea. And for women, I’m a little bit more conservative. I have the females I work with not plunging every day. Now I did a 30 day ice bath challenge, ice plunge challenge, in the beginning of this year and people were like, oh, oh, my god, kristen, you’re doing 30 days of cold and I’m like, hey, listen, some days I’m doing cold showers Definitely not as high of a stressor as a cold tub, a murder, full immersion. So, and I’m doing cold every day and you know what? It’s 30 days in a row and it’s with the community and it’s beautiful and I’m stoked about it. Am I going to do it 365 days a year? No, so when I have access and availability, sure, I might be up at an ice hole in Canada in the most beautiful landscape with stars at night, and I could get in that ice hole twice a day, every day, for three days. Cool, I’m going to do it because I love it, because it changes me as a person, and also I’m not going to like beat it up. So, so, definitely that. And also women will come all the time and say, oh, I have my period, I can’t get in the cold today. And my question is always well, I respect consent and their boundaries and if they’re a hard no, that’s fine. I always ask the question, you know, is it, is it the like chicken and the brat on your shoulder, or is it really the period thing or like, what’s that about right, if it’s a cultural thing, okay, but there really isn’t any research to say there’s a bad thing of the cycle. I will say that the few days leading up to our period we are like have a lower pain threshold. We’re way more sensitive emotional, physical to stress in general. Sometimes our sleep suffers more doing that part of the cycle. So maybe I’m not going to like power through five days of ice baths as a female leading up to my period. Again, sometimes we feel heightened emotional states. Maybe some women have PMS and there is something to be said for too many reasons, and there is something to be said for two minutes in cold water immersion during that time to like reset your nervous system, have a good cry after any of those things, and so there’s no perfect answer, but there are definitely watch outs and I really, for all the women, or any women and females that are listening to this right now, I really encourage you to Really dive into, like what the thing is. That is, you know your intuition, because that helps drive us right, and I don’t mean I had an intuitive hit that I had to go eat the whole pizza, because that’s probably Like a food craving or like you know food, you know you’re soothing yourself, self soothing tactic but because women will say that to me, I just felt like I had the intuitive hit. I just needed to do like ice cream and pizza last night. I’m like, okay, cool, like what are you gonna do? Let’s start again today? Um, but yeah, so ice baths. I think intuition is important and also, do the hard thing. Do the hard thing. I put so many bodies in the colds, david, so many bodies of so many different kinds. I see the thing that I want to say about cold exposure and ice baths and cold plunging and whatever we want to call it, I call it intentional cold exposure, not just because it is ice as abbreviation, but because we have an intention we can set, or a context, which, to me, is the missing link in cold that no one talks about. What is your context? What are your goals? It’s always going to be a different protocol, but the thing for me is how do we decide we’re going to take the leap and do something challenging and build it into our repertoire and know that we have that capacity, because what I get to see with someone in three minutes in an ice bath, I get to see the microcosm of how they respond to stress and how they behave in the world for their entire lives. That could sound like super woo to you, but that’s really what you see, so it’s amazing to be able to do that work. 

David: 30:50

Our travel writer lives on the North Fork of Long Island at the end and she swims in the North Atlantic 365. That water she describes it as it becomes gelatinous at about 30 degrees. In order to do that, she’s out for like 20 minutes it’s not three, yeah, but she’s used to it. 

Kristin: 31:14

She’s cold water swimming. It’s like you have to adapt to be able to do that. Your body gets dizzy fluctuations. Let’s be clear. You can drown. Yeah, it’s not that anyone should be just doing that like Willie Nilly. Hey, let me start tomorrow, put down the donut and go to the 20-minute swimming. But it’s also awesome. It’s like it’s something, a skill that she’s learned and adapted to. 

David: 31:34

I live in Park City. Most of the time In the winter one of the pools of the gym I go to freezes. What we learned was if you start going in about October, by end of November it’s ice on top and you break the ice and you go in. I’ve only I think I’ve managed that, for I don’t know how cold that water is. It’s somewhere around freezing. I can do about a minute, but that just becomes too painful on my hands and my feet. It’s like I gotta get out of here. My favorite is the circulating cold tub at about 40. So that again, hands and feet out because they just like hurt too much. But then the initial 20 or 30 seconds is just so unpleasant. I just have to tell myself like you’re not going to die, it’s okay, you’re not going to die, it’s all right, just calm down, try and reduce your tendency to hyperventilate here, it’s going to be okay. Personally, I do it for two reasons. One, to tell myself that you did it. It’s like, okay, you’re going to do this really initially unpleasant thing. And then, when I get out, oh my God, do I feel smart? I just feel like so on, and I can’t tell you how many people have outdoor cold plunges, like it’s like a thing. 

Kristin: 32:59

It is a thing. Well, I’m so excited that it’s happening Every day. Somebody calls me. Every day someone calls me or DMs me and says what ice bath should I buy Every day, or how long, or what kind of time, or what are the best markets, and I’m like this is a call, this is an. I can’t just DM you three answers. This is a call and it’s a blog and it’s a whole thing, but it’s. I’m super thankful that it’s coming back into fashion. I guess that’s what we say. I don’t know. It’s coming back because nobody live on the planet Right, it’s the first person to be doing like breath work or cold exposure. People have been doing this for thousands of years and I’m so excited about it and that first, those first moments of the, the plunger, the dip or the, the cold bath you’re doing, are so important for us to like what a beautiful body that we live in, that it goes, stop, get out, save you. Like how, how, how beautiful that we have that, and I never this may sound like it. This is why I do this work. I don’t have some preconceived notion that I’ve set up. I don’t necessarily or maybe, but I don’t have any genetic issues and many contraindications. I have anything to have this be any different, but I’ve, quite honestly, never had a thing where I’m like I get in and I’m like this is awful or this is painful or I hate this. I’ve just never had that and it’s it’s. It’s probably why I do the work. And I talked a lot about this, this training I just came off of. It’s like there was a younger woman who went in maybe 21 on our volunteer day, because all the coaches get a volunteer, so they get to coach someone they don’t know at the end of the weekend and she was like I’m so excited for this. I stayed up last night a little late and I watched all these TikTok videos of all these people ice plunging to see how they were doing it and their response and what she what she essentially was doing, was like visualization right. And she came in the next day and I was like it’s your first ice bath, hi, how are you feeling? She’s like I’m so excited, I’m all in and watch these videos, I’m ready. And she know what she got in and she like had a beautiful time and experience. Was it hard for her? Yes, was it challenging? And you know, to her physiology? Of course did she get in and have a big smile on her face and just rock it like it was almost easy. Yeah, and this is like the you and you. You can watch someone who’s like doing you know, powerlifting or going to do some CrossFit games or something, and you can see how the lift is going to go. Then they’re 10 feet away approaching the bar. It’s like the approach is everything and it’s like how I, when I first was training I was in XPT certified I trained with Lared and Gabby at their house and then took the certification for coaches and that’s Lared Hamilton and Gabby Reese. I always forget to think I think everyone knows who they are, but they’re amazing athletes and I was like I couldn’t keep up with. That was a whole two day experience where I was doing my very best but I was sort of evident that I was the weakest link. Lots of professional athlete vibes or like retired athletes at their house and I’m like, oh, weights in the pool. 11 feet down there’s, thankfully, like a master scuba diver sitting on the floor of the pool for like safety, it’s real deal. And you know, lared is insane, like in the most beautiful way. He’s like jumping off the sauna, jumping into the pool, weights and I’m like I’m having I’m having moments coming up from weighted workout at the bottom of 11 feet and attempting things where I’m coming up being like thankfully we’re in a pool, because I got some tears in my eyes. You know, no one can see that I’m like. You know the nervous I’m trying to overcome beer and so I was the weakest link. It was relatively evident. And then I knew that after lunch we were going to be doing sauna and cold and I had done years of cold dips at Korean spas and Russian and Turkish bathhouse in New York City as I was growing up like teenage years, like late teenagers, early 20s and for a number of of of years prior. But I was going in like 30 seconds, being like this is amazing and getting out and kind of not knowing what it was doing or why I was feeling, how I was feeling, and then you have all that hot there and so I just said I’m going to go do this ice punch and they said like three minutes and I’m just going to head dunk on the in and head dunk on the out and I have all of these mostly males, like these big, strong men, and I was like decided I’m going to go first, I’m going to be better than I’m going to be. Look, it’s like the alpha energy in me. I’m going to be better than anyone else. Like, look, we all have a little competitive spirit. But I needed to prove myself for myself as well, to be like I want to be a functioning, good part of this team. And I was like I’m going to do this like a Zen master, like I’m going to go in there, like it’s like yoga, I’m going to use every skill, every breath, every, everything I have. And I and I didn’t even have to like raise my hand and say I’m going first Mark, the instructor there, when I was a gathered around the tub, I was like looking at him so intently. He’s like I think Kristen’s going first, and I was like yep. And then I went and got in in a way that was so approaching the bar. I already knew how it was going to be. I visualized it, I did it. It was smooth and easy. Of course, it was cold. I got out and lots of those men were like whoa, because now the bar has been set. Then also, I’m pulling my weight in a different way. I have some weaknesses and I have some strengths like everyone else. For me that was a really pivotal moment. It was when I knew I was going to do it more. When I wanted to coach it, I chased those coaches around until they let me in their coaching program, and then on and on and on and that’s six years later. It’s such a practice of power and it’s such a place that we can. It’s not to slight you, to be like oh, this hurts and this is painful. It is. Many people use those words. I try to not use those words because I’m not trying to scare off people from trying getting in the cold. The reality is anyone mostly anyone has a few kinder indications, but mostly anyone can do anything for three minutes. That’s challenging. If we learn how to use our breath, we can crush it, we can do it, and then we can feel what you feel, which is a parasympathetic rebound, which is I am smart, I’m heightened focus, I’m awake, I’m like my body is so thrilled that it survived. It turns all the switches on of all the best things we want, and so it feels so good to get out. 

David: 38:55

Yes, it does. No denying that that’s great. I, I, Gabby and Laird, are just the professional athletes. They’re not. They’re not only professional athletes. She’s an Olympian. So, Park City, there’s like a lot of that. Somebody invites you for a hike or something. You have to level set by saying I don’t have a medal. 

Kristin: 39:18

I know, a good chance they do in something. 

David: 39:23

And you just have to say, like I’m a normal human, I’m sort of a reasonably fit normal human. But like you know, I see these sort of people and it’s like I don’t have that physiology, big time, big stuff going on there. 

Kristin: 39:36

Yeah, three months ago I was. I was river swimming in Park City. It was so incredible and I’m coming back to SLC area in Park City where my friend is co-hosting Shripper Breath and Cold Training in November. Oh right, with the details, so you can send me all your people and come and check it out. 

David: 39:51

Absolutely yeah. Swim in the Provo River in November, That’ll do it. 

Kristin: 39:56

That’ll get you. 

David: 39:57

Yeah. If you go up to Park City, go to Silver Mountain, the gym that I go to and one of the pools is in heated. So by November that’ll be, you know, probably It’ll be chilly. Yeah, Not as cold. For anybody who hasn’t done this, there is an enormous difference between still cold water and circulating cold water. 

Kristin: 40:19

Sure. 

David: 40:20

So it’s still cold water, like in the pool, even though it’s 32 degrees. If you want to make it easier on yourself, don’t move, because you build up this like layer of relative warmth around you. If you’re in a circulating cold tub, or you’re in a cold even the ocean or river, it’s like another thing is all I got to say. 

Kristin: 40:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s something beautiful about being in nature too, right? Yeah, it also maybe balances out the breaking of the thermal bubble and the intensity that comes with moving water. There’s something. It’s like after one of the trainings, one of my the people in my course was driving me back to the place I was staying and he’s like, hey, can you just, I just want to take a quick dip in the river. And I was like didn’t have a bathing suit on it with me. And I like, well, I’m like, yeah, let me, I’ll take some content of you. And he went down to the rocks and the river and it’s all flowing in cold, and I was like I can’t not do this. And so I was just like, cameron, I’m just going to strip down to my undies and get in. I hope that’s okay with everyone in this, because there’s other people around, you know. But it’s like a bathing suit, so I just couldn’t like take myself away from it, because it’s like grounding and earthing and then like getting in the water. And I was like, okay, this is sort of like a you know a moment, but it’s really beautiful to do this work in nature as well. Yeah, I mean, you can tell? Can you tell? I’m like addicted to it. I really love it, I really believe in that. They’re no too moda Like? I’ve been biohacking for 12 plus years. I’ve been always on this doing wackadoodle nutrition things and exploring a lot and ever, ever curious and there are no two modalities that I have ever used that I’ve ever used and I’ve had lots of fails and peptides and all the things. There are no two modalities that I’ve ever used that are as effective as are as efficient and effective in transforming people as breath and cold exposure together. There’s just no two. It’s like one. Where else can you go? I’m not saying it’s a silver bullet, but it’s like on one dip you can be like whoa, okay, maybe I need to leave my job. I didn’t know that I could do things like this. I feel this neurochemistry like talk about. You know all the challenges people are having with stress and depression and mental wellbeing right now. Oh, my goodness, I can feel better again. I’m like my old self, like all of those things come up and out, and especially if it’s with a group or community or coach or someone who just makes you feel like safe, right, that’s the important piece that you can shed some of the really heavy stuff we carry around and actually shift into like a better version of yourself and just in one right, and then hopefully you go back for more. So I really just love it. It’s pretty wild. 

David: 42:55

Discovering unknown capacity, yeah, yeah. So this word, biohacking, which we discussed I have a bit of an allergy to this word. I’d like you to define biohacking for me. 

Kristin: 43:07

Yeah, I just did this on social. People ask still all the time and there is an aversion to the word, especially there’s plenty of women that don’t like it. I think it’s taking ancient practices, lots of things that we are already doing. I say a lot of times to women you’re meditating, you’re probably already a biohacker, but taking meditation and breath work and some of the simple ancient practices that we may have worked into our lives and combining them with innovation and technology right, getting on some of the machines or looking at the science and things that have been discovered and utilized for us to be able to hack or create effective shortcuts not just, like you know, snake oil, but effective shortcuts that we can utilize everything in between that and combine it with our intuition to say what is going to work for me, and combine it with our lab work so that we can adjust the environment both inside and outside of ourselves. And when we do that, we can set ourselves up to live longer, better, to be happier, and those things are the things that are really, as an end game, the most important thing. We all should be seeking joy. You know I’m shitting, but we seeking joy and love and kindness, like when it comes right down to it. Those are the things that are going to make the world go around and make our life succeed, and we can’t take it with us. As far as we know, we can’t take it with us. We get one time at least in this meat suit. We get one time around. I don’t know what I am next, but biohacking is the thing that is going to help you optimize your health so you can feel better throughout the entirety of your journey to joy. 

David: 44:35

Okay, I’m going to give you a couple. Adderall is Adderall. Biohacking. 

Kristin: 44:39

You know pharma. I’m not a big fan of pharma and also I am a fan of people of their own volition choosing medicine. I want to say Adderall’s, not biohacking. I’m not as much of a fan, but I also know people take metformin. People take prescription medication. I think contextually it could be right. I think it depends is like any other good answer. But my preference is to stay off of pharmaceuticals just because of the side effects that exist. I do think there are some. You know. Obviously some people need it. Some people need metformin for other reasons. Right, they need to be able to stabilize their body. So not my first to go to biohack. I think there’s other ways to play it. 

David: 45:25

Ozempic. 

Kristin: 45:27

Oh fuck, that’s a really good one. Sorry, f-bombed. Here’s what I want to say about Ozempic. I want, look, you got to be the right candidate for it if you’re going to do it and also like if some, I’m going to digress really quickly. One time a therapist said to me having a conversation at a social event not my therapist, it was like I like when people show up to me and they have all this dysfunction, I say to them I want to work with you, but here’s my rule If you’re not meditating meditating at least once a day, 20 minutes I’m not working with you. Because if you don’t get the baseline right, you don’t get to get the cheats, and that’s the problem. If we’re going to say there’s a problem with biohacking or that term or it alludes to the fact that perhaps you don’t have to do the basics, and I get that the basics can be simple, not easy, and I get that the basics can sometimes actually be boring. So let’s find ways to shortcut that from being boring. Let’s find ways to make them exciting. So is Ozempic is a thing that I think if number one. I want to say this out loud and I hope this lands for people If you have ever had any eating eating dysfunction in your life anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphia, and that’s a lot of, I will say females, for my experience with a lot of people. I’m a hard no on Ozempic . Tozepetite is also out there as well. I think tozepetite is a better solution than ozempic, but we’re splitting hairs, and if anyone shows up with a needing dysfunction or disorder, the answer is no, it’s a twisted cutting style. Not, it will make them out of the problem worse. So that’s a. That’s something that I have a really strong belief on. If someone is is looking for the lesser of two evils in some way before they go and cut themselves open and have some kind of other surgery stomach wise, etc. Then perhaps it’s something that they could try. I think you got to get the basics right first. Are you getting mobility every single day? Movement Are you? Are you eating at McDonald’s and then shooting with ozempic? No, the answer is no, you know. And so there’s like, a lot there’s, there’s, there’s. This is the vertical bio hacking that I don’t like. Which is the like. I’m not going to do the other stuff, I’m just going to take the pill. That, I think, will get the answer. Now, maybe you’re going to get a short term solution. I’m also libertarian, so you want to. Whatever you want to do with your body is totally fine, and we need to be smarter when it comes to health and well being, and we need to be smarter on medications that are like prescribed pharmaceutical and just making money for the man. So libertarian to me to say that. 

David: 47:54

But yeah, okay, just curious. 

Kristin: 47:59

It’s a. It’s a. It’s a hot button for me because I have a lot of eating disordered people around me in my life or have had, and I just feel like I have friends I see on social. They’re like I’ve never felt so good, I’ve never been so great. I’ve finally shifted the body. I wait, I couldn’t lose all of the things and I’m not here to say, you know, it’s a bandaid. But in some cases it’s a bandaid. Some other labs and things might be more helpful to figure out the the head of the snake. That’s what we want to find right. What’s the head of the snake? 

David: 48:29

We had. We did a podcast about. I don’t know eight months ago or so on Ozempic with a couple of people on who were very pro Ozempic. I take the other side of it. There’s a lot of data on the other side of it but I just to bring you back to like this is what is biohacking and what’s not? And we spoke about this before we came on the air. I really want another word for this. I really want to rebrand the whole thing. Call me a biohacker and I sort of get a little like what do you mean by that is? To me, it’s just I’m trying to become the best version of myself as I am today. So I’m not 20 today, yeah. So what are the things I can do? I owe a debt to the people who helped me along all these years, I would. I owe a debt to my body. I owe a debt to my teachers to really try and be like the best version of David. I can, and so I. That’s why I do some of these things. You like, my goal in life is full self actualization. That’s that’s. That’s sort of what powers me. That’s just my thing. There’s certain things in the biohack world that I won’t do. There’s certain things I do do that are sort of like I chuck on my doctor and it’s like, hey, I’m thinking about doing this, what do you, what do you think? Am I okay? And you know? For I think both of us are in a position where we have a lot of medical science people that we can just call up and say like oh yeah hey, what? what happens if I do this? What do I got to look at. That’s sort of how I go about it. 

Kristin: 50:01

Yeah, and you got to have a good life team, medical team etc. Right, friends and actually paid professionals. I think that can advise you. And I went. I was on power athletes podcast talking about red light therapy and that’s john wellburn, who’s like an ex pro NFL player and he I was like biohacking. Like you know what’s the thing. You don’t like the word. He’s like listen, I don’t know where you’ve been, but the last 30 years we’ve been biohacking. We’ve been calling it health and sports performance. We’ve been doing the work. We’ve been doing all this. Like you know, at that we don’t even call it biohacking some fancy Fandango, like. And he also thinks you know he’s like look at the landscape of most of the people biohacking. They’re like not even taking care of themselves. What. Who in that group can back squat, you know he’s just I love that, john. He’s like strongly opinionated and also super sweet and lovely and also just he has a strong opinion about fitness, like get under the bar, try some hard stuff, like you know, before you go, do all the other things you know. And yeah, like I lean in that direction. I was also just like okay, he’s like you know, naming names and kind of laying, laying, laying the playing field out, and I was like, okay, these are some of these are my people you’re hating on right now. But, um, yeah, it’s a tough word and for women it’s hard, it’s challenging as a word for females, I think, because we are slightly more genetically predisposed to be risk averse, because we make babies and have to protect them and all that. And you know, in the beginning I remember the early days. It was like Dave with all of his products, all of his products and things, and butter and coffee. And and Ben Greenfield with like cryotherapy when they were talking about everyone freezing to death and a cryo chamber and injecting himself with stuff and then red light therapy on his balls. He was like red light therapy on your testicles, like it was. It was a lot for the ladies. I’m always, like you know, I’m always fascinated by that start right and it had in the beginning. You go to a conference, it was like 5% or less female. It was heavily male dominated, and so I think there’s some of that felt that felt off putting and felt a little like out there and, yeah, either risky or kind of crazy or male energy, and I think that turned women on off from the beginning. I mean, I with my, my podcast as well power, and quite often I’m like, oh, it’s a roadmap to all the bio hacks you could ever want, and I don’t mind the words so much because it’s in the, the common vernacular and I don’t think it’s going away, so I just try to make it approachable, like I want people to know there’s like approachability there and I think for the only elite we hear this a lot too right, so two percenters or people who are welfare, it’s like there’s plenty of free bio hacks if you just look for them. Right, it’s like I put my made an ebook. Be like you’re, all the free bio hacks are less than $5, you know, and so, and you know we’re stuck with it and maybe we’ll come up with a better word. Health optimization gets used a lot, you know. 

David: 52:56

I will say in you have much more experience with this than I do, but from what I’ve seen, women are I’m just about to the cold like the guys will be much more hesitant about the cold and the women are just like, okay, I’m going to do this thing, pleasantly surprised by that. 

Kristin: 53:13

A lot of men will just get in because it’s like the alpha male energy thing or the like good that look I I. For many, many, many years my wake up alarm was jocco willing being like. I’m going to give you the kind of 10, get to the gym, like all this like, and I love those guys and I love that philosophy, like their philosophies. I’ve sort of grown up in that a lot of male mentors and a lot of that energy and just you know, I got a tune to it and that’s me. And I also think it didn’t serve me in some ways because in the last five years of my life I’ve really tried to lean a bit more into my divine, feminine and my softness and sensitivity and things that I was leaving, you know, leaving on the table in order to like power through everything and put myself to a level of burnout and it’s not healthy. So when I look at, you know, when I look at that landscape, I think how do we navigate the sensitivity that we have and how do we look at the space as women and sort of cover for ourselves and care for ourselves and not not do the go hard philosophy all the time, and so when men are getting in the ice bath, that go hard philosophy will sometimes lead them there, right. Or it’s like wanting one up in their friend or God forbid, their girlfriend goes in three minutes. 

This just happened and somebody’s like I have to do three minutes, she did three minutes. It’s like, okay, that’s your own story. And also the biggest thing I see with males is like there’s a component and especially with gym heads in some way of muscling through cold. And for me although that can be the only thing that exists in the first plunge, but for me the beauty of the ice bath is how do I actually sit in the fully present moment of now and surrender to what’s happening so that I can understand myself better. I think that less that comes up, less with just see it more with men, like muscling through the whole thing and I’m like awesome, you did three minutes and you missed some of the point, like some of the most important point that the ice bath can give you in my opinion. And also, it doesn’t mean you can’t go out. It doesn’t have to be overly ritualistic. It doesn’t mean you can’t go out with friends and be like, yeah, you do five, I’ll do for, like I have some head dunking, and be like, oh, that’s fine as long as you’re safe. And also there’s other, there’s other things to glean from it. There’s other parts of ourselves that we can discover if we just kind of sit in the stillness of it. You know I want to liken it to this thing that I don’t know how many people are listening to this right now or how you are with needles, but I’ve never been quite good with needles. I mean, I pass out like for a biohacker. It’s not great. It’s like I’m trying all these different things all the time. It’s like taking blood and I do lab works, every lab work every three months and it’s just I pass out. And recently I was doing like an ozonated, an IV ozone therapy. Have you ever done that? No super lovely. I feel like a superhero for two days after. So they take your blood out, they mix it with ozone and then they put it back in your body, and that not all of your blood, but a portion of it, of course. And somebody said to me in the midst of it, when I was like trying to not hem and ha and be in this story about, I’m nervous with needles right in the same way that you might be nervous in an ice bath, which I just don’t have that and overly like focused and muscling through and gripping, you know, like white knuckling it. Somebody said, hey, what happens if you just let it be like it’s a needle going into your arm? There’s like, let it be a needle going into your arm, just let let that be the thing that you’re feeling right now. That’s what’s happening, that’s real. It doesn’t have to be overblown, it doesn’t have to be something. I’m spending the whole time right trying to mask it. And then I was like, oh, okay, let me just like, let it be the thing of some. Maybe I’m not going to watch it go in my arm, but let that be the thing. It’s going to have a small pin brick into my skin. It’s going to be a little bit more. Maybe it’s going to have a few feelings, and when I let it be the thing that it is, I was like, oh, this is crazy. What do I say to people when they get in? On those first 30 seconds I get down, I’m at eye level with them and I’m like, hey, yes, let it be what it is right now. Let it be what it is. So it’s so interesting that I’m like coaching that in one arena. Obviously, this is the other point of the ice. We don’t get an ice bath to get good at taking an ice bath. We get an ice bath to get good at life, and that’s the thing, right. So it’s like I just liken it to that. Right, it’s like how can we be really present with exactly what’s really going on and not so much story and not the muscling through or the avoidant? How can we be like present and be like, okay, I’m choosing this and this experience is happening for me, and what can I gain from being right here right now? 

David: 57:39

That’s really well said, thank you. 

Kristin: 57:41

Wow, thank you. 

David: 57:43

I just want to close with what I’ve seen, especially like people my age. The women just shine and the men pull back. I’ve noticed with the cold and some other things, the women are just stronger, the men. We have this delusion because we can pick up heavier stuff that we’re the stronger gender. Gentlemen, you are deluded, the women going to kick your butt when it counts. 

Kristin: 58:12

There’s an internal strength, but that is what you’re saying is true and makes it’s a beautiful thing to witness. It’s like why the male energy and whatever form or shape it comes in, and the female energy and whatever shape or form I mean. I talk a lot about male energy being the doing and female energy being the being. It’s why we need both. We need both of those things to be in balance. It’s to support each other in this world’s community that we, hopefully, are going to continue to create to thrive. 

David: 58:42

Chris, it’s been great having you on. I love listening to your voice. A couple of times a week I do your breath work. It helps me with my day and I appreciate that. 

Kristin: 58:53

Thank you so much, David. It’s been such a pleasure to sit and speak with you and continue to learn more about all the beautiful work you put in the world. I will be following you back, right back as well. 

David: 59:04

Thanks so much. Have a wonderful rest of the day. Thanks you too. Big thanks to Kristin for making some time for us today. That was really wonderful and I know I’ve been slacking off on my cold-ish showers. I’m in New York so the water’s not that cold, it’s like high 50s, maybe 60s. But tomorrow morning I’m gonna be in there thinking of Kristin and I wasn’t clear about how I know about Kristin. I came upon her because she has I don’t know three or four meditations on the BrainTap app in the biohacking bundle, so you gotta sort of like navigate yourself through there and she’s down towards the bottom and I really love her spirit. I like the way that she coaches people and I can only imagine that having her coach someone in a cold plunge is a very different experience than just doing it on your own or with a couple of buddies or girlfriends or something. She’s really got something going on there and I’m looking forward to seeing her when she comes to Utah and do a little cold exposure with her. We’re gonna get to just try this in just a moment. After a quick word from our sponsor, 

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This week on. Just Try this. Keeping in mind the conversation we just had with Kristen, my suggestion is try something that you think is uncomfortable, something safe, not something crazy, but just something you feel is uncomfortable, that maybe is scary, that maybe you can’t do, and try it a little bit. A tip on the cold stuff. So if cold is totally terrifying to you and I know it is to a number of people you can start by just washing your face with full cold water and then sort of getting used to splashing cold water on yourself, and what a lot of people do is they get in the shower, they take a normal shower and they just gradually, gradually turn the temperature down and this time of year probably not gonna be all that Cold and just do it. Try it for 10 seconds, try it for 20 seconds what I like to do. When I first started doing this, that’s sort of what I did, and then I would listen to something. I’d be listening to an audio book or I’d be listening to something going on outside of the shower which would sort of distract me from the whole. Like, oh wow, this cold water is kind of uncomfortable, but try something like that. Maybe cold’s not your thing. Maybe there’s something else out there that you might feel is uncomfortable learning a musical instrument or taking up a dance class or something that is kind of like scary but not dangerous. And see if the way Kristen puts it if we can expand our capacity, because we have a lot of capacity. So just try this. Let me know how that goes. Thank you so much for your time and attention this week. We really appreciate it. If you like the show, you can leave us a review. We love that you can also leave us a comment those are even better or top of the menu. You can share this with somebody that you know that you think could use it. If you’d like to contact me directly, david at superagecom. If you’d like to contact Kristen Weitzel, we’ll leave her contact info down in the show notes. Everyone, have a wonderful week and we’ll see you next week. Take care now.