Biohacking for Cognitive Health

Introduction and Sean McCormack's Background 0:00

Welcome to this episode of the Reverse Alzheimer's Summit. I'm your host, doctor Heather Sanderson. And today, I'm delighted to introduce you to Sean McCormack. He's the host of the Optimal Performance Podcast and a certified life and performance coach with clients like NFL and MLS players, CEOs and television stars. Sean is an expert in performance biohacking, having tested, studied and applied hundreds of health and performance approaches for himself as well as his clients. Sean knows how to get the most from the least more productive thinking, faster recovery techniques, sleep hacking, lifestyle hacking for optimal cognition, a habit, and routine creation.

Sean helps people improve rapidly with the least amount of work. Sean. Welcome. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to, to chat with you today. So this is this is fun. I think you I don't know if you know, but I hosted the neuro hacking podcast for a long time, and so I love the the biohacking neuro hacking stuff, of course. And with dementia, you know, we don't always have the the luxury of getting started before there's already symptoms. So we're not really talking about optimization as much as we are kind of in this almost desperate state of like just getting people's brains back a little bit.

And yet there's tons of overlap in what we would do for a neuro hacker who's looking in or biohacker looking to optimize function and be like a professional athlete or a CEO like you work with. And then what we're doing with our patient, my patients with dementia. So this idea, you know, what we see is that the people who aren't able to implement are the ones who don't benefit. And as a coach, I'm really curious, like if you had a couple of suggestions for people who are like, struggling to get started, what would you say?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I, I think it you're totally right. I mean, the the ideas around optimizing cognition are theoretical until you implement them in your life and you know, depending on, the phase that you're in, lifestyle changes that you can make, early will will dramatically improve your results. And, and I think, I think first and foremost, sleep I mean, sleep is by far the, the number one thing that everybody does every single day. And if you're struggling with it,

Sleep as the Foundation for Brain Health 2:37

if you're waking up 2 or 3 times a night, there's ways to hack that. If you are, using a sleep tracker and you're and you don't like the numbers or the sleep score that you're getting, there's things. There's so many things that you can do from turning down the temperature in your bedroom or using a weighted blanket. You know, putting on blue blocking glasses, when the sun goes down, you know, doing these sorts of, practices to prepare your body to sleep is by far, I think, the most important thing that people can do.

I've got tons of other ideas, but but if you get sleep down, if you can find a way to get restful sleep, and you know when you wake up in the morning if it was a good night's sleep or not, you know, you kind of get that feeling. And, and when you wake up and you're clear and you're ready to go, your life changes. You know, your your whole life improves. So I would really suggest that sleep is like the number one thing. I could keep going, but I know, I know that you've got you got other questions?

Well, no, I, I love that, that sleep I, I couldn't agree more. It's like one of those places that I hope for people. It's a relatively easy place to start, but the returns are so big, right? In this kind of. As I was reading your bio today, I was like, oh, he's all about the 8020. Like, right, how do we do 20% of the way to get 80% of the benefit? And I couldn't agree more that sleep is just so crucial, particularly if there's like an issue like sleep apnea or something like that. And yeah, just from a personal experience recently I start I got on the ketogenic diet again after it had been a little while and I wake up more refreshed.

And so it was actually the dietary intervention that allowed me to get better sleep. So there's lots of kind of different inroads here and figuring out which one is feasible for you. As far as so tell me a little bit about lifestyle design and why this is important for staying cognitively fit. Yeah. Well, this kind of goes back to the original thing that you said, which is you can have great ideas around, cognitive longevity, cognitive speed, you know, staying away from brain fog, but they're just ideas until you start experimenting with them.

And, and I think for some folks, it's such a big issue. You know, something is serious. And as scary as dementia and cognitive decline, it it's tough to figure out where to start, what changes to make in your life, in your habits, in your routines. And so I kind of think about this, you know, a nod to to, to Doctor Bredesen around, you know, inflammation, toxicity, energetic and trophic factors. And so when we think about inflammation, we think about, well, where does inflammation come from? Well, certainly the food that we eat, you know, a big old bowl of pasta is going to be, a, a much different choice than a salad with some fish, for dinner and, the inflammation that you're going to experience from a, a gluten bomb at night with maybe 1 or 2 glasses of red wine, is going to infect inflammation.

And what what's another cause for for inflammation is stress. And stress is such a tough thing because you it's hard to quantify. You know, it's tough to say, well, I'm a I'm an eight out of ten or a two out of ten, but but finding ways to to manage your stress effectively through meditation, through, you know, EFT and tapping, to walks in nature, a hug from a loved one. These these are all things that you can do to, to, to to stave off inflammation. You know, nutrition is huge. Fasting is huge.

You know, if if everybody experimented with skipping a meal every once in a while, just start small,

Lifestyle Design: Inflammation, Toxicity, and Energy 6:32

you know, maybe, maybe skipping breakfast is out of the question for you, but maybe try skipping lunch once a week. You know, you can go as far as to doing like a five day fasting mimicking diet from Neutra to to really kick it off, you know, shed 10 pounds and, lower your inflammatory markers. But but just like you said, you know, ketosis, just eating, eating less carbs, maybe you're maybe you're tracking with a, a ketone meter with your blood. Maybe you're not. Maybe you're just eating less grains.

But keto keep eating keto. Being in ketosis, you know, even taking exogenous ketones is going to lower your inflammation. You know, another thing that that a lot of people really don't think about is, is we're swimming in a soup of electromagnetic frequencies, all day long. You and I are surrounded by Wi-Fi routers. Most of us are. Everybody working from home is surrounded by, you know, radiation, even even these air pods that I have stuck in my ears that are talking to each other in my brain. I have, EMF blocking stickers on these, so this is a little bit better, but those those sort of inflammatory markers, they can be mitigated through little changes that you make to your lifestyle.

So, how you spend your day, are you getting enough time outside? So when it comes to toxicity, you know, I really do think mostly about about diet, you know, if you should avoid exposure to glyphosate like the plague, you know, sugar and glyphosate alone. If you could figure those two things out, your life is going to improve, and it's a doozy. Anybody who's listening right now that decided that they were going to stop eating sugar, hated life for a couple of days. And then on day 3 or 4 of that process, the clouds parted and you felt better and you slept better.

But it is. It's toxic, you know, exposure to estrogenic chemicals in your fragrances and detergents, you know, they're contributing to, you know, they found that there's microplastics in people's lungs. You know, that that's a level of toxicity. And so what can you do to detox, you know, is, sauna exposure to activate heat shock proteins, those those sorts of practices that you can weave into your lifestyle are really helpful, when it comes to you know, energetics. The fourth, the fourth way that I think about this, again, from from Doctor Brett is.

And, how's your blood flow? How's your breath? You know, how's your are you, conditioning your vagus nerve, or are you humming? Are you getting exercise that can stoke that fire and get all of your systems back toward homeostasis? You know that that stuff's duh, right? Exercise is good, but, it doesn't it doesn't need to be like marathons, you know, going out for ten minutes for a walk here or there, especially after a meal, to avoid, you know, those spikes in glucose to be metabolically flexible.

Now, we know, absolutely how important that is as far as, managing sort of energetic systems in your body. And then the last one, you know, the trophic factors, hormones and, your thyroid hormones are such a huge thing, you know, for, again, the biohacker guy. So I have exposure to all of these practices and, growth hormones and, sort of cutting edge stuff, but hormones. I in my experience, the people that I've worked on that is a huge factor in your quality of life. And we know that by the time some of us reach 35, our our endogenous hormone, creation plummets and it gets and it gets worse and worse.

And so what are you doing to nourish your hormones? What sort of adaptogens and herbs are you taking to get your hormones on track? And again, it doesn't have to be this big, huge, life changing thing. It can just be little steps towards nourishing those those factors in your life in a in a fun way and an easy way. And, it makes a difference. Huge difference. So yeah. Where do you see kind of biohacking play a role? And I'm kind of wondering that it gives it more the devices or is it more the interventions, like how do you see biohacking play a role in the prevention and reversal of dementia?

Yeah. So I think of biohacking in this, in this one way that I think resonates with a lot of people is what goes in you, what goes on you and what goes around you. And so when you think about what goes in you, what are you eating and drinking? Are you are you getting outside and getting vitamin D and getting that through your skin? Are you are you covering yourself with clothes that have been washed with tide pods that have just these estrogenic chemical, I'll say here, there's no such thing as a clean smell.

Clean is not a smell. There is no fragrance associated with clean. So, you know, finding nontoxic, detergents and soaps, you know, getting away from fragrance use, you know, aluminum and deodorant, those, those sorts of things are the all new portion of of how we biohacking then around you, which is, you know, light exposure late at night affects your sleep. Again, EMF mitigation techniques, you know, are you turning off your Wi-Fi router at night because you don't need it? You're not surfing the web.

That in and of itself, I think would improve people's sleep tremendously. So when you think about biohacking from that perspective, what goes in you, on you and around you, that pretty much encompasses your own, physical interaction with the outside world. And, there are so many different things that you can that you can manage when you think about it that way. But then there's the tech side, right? Neurofeedback, you know, doing the, the, tracking with a health tracker or a Fitbit or an Apple Watch to understand that.

Yeah, you should get 10,000 steps today. However you can do that. I think of that as biohacking because it's quantifiable. You know, hopefully it's cool oriented. You're getting that 10,000 steps every day. And then, you know, from the, from the nutrition side, supplements, are huge. And there is such an incredible array of nootropics, really brain drugs, you know, nourishment for your brain is such a huge thing. And even even the exposure or consumption of some adaptogens to switch your brain on, you know, you make your brain might really love ashwagandha.

Thinking about hacking in little ways. Experimentation really is is at the core of of human optimization and biohacking. Try a new CBD tincture like your endocannabinoid system is starved for, for CBD. And when you can start to experiment with that a little bit, supplementing slowly and carefully to see how your body responds. To me, to me, that's biohacking, you know, above and beyond that, you know, some some even more out of the box ideas are experimentation with psychedelics. You know, I'm, I'm a I'm a huge proponent of of of research going into both microdosing and microdosing.

You know, we now know that psilocybin, improves neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. And yeah, there's a there's a lot of stigma there. But there's great research going into that. So you're you're hacking your biohacking your brain in all of these different ways in if you don't, I think it's sort of a another bigger idea is that you can have some fun with it. You know, if it's not a job or something to get done on your to do list, if you can take some enthusiasm, around tinkering around with some of these things, you may notice that your body really does respond to ashwagandha, or you know that that tracker that you're using, for your for your exercises are great signals to keep you going forward.

So I think biohacking fits into the umbrella for nourishing your cognition and keeping your brain young and smart. I think there's also this idea, especially maybe the older generation of, like, guys and I think self-absorbed that I have to, like, think about these things all the time or like, and they shouldn't they be focused on something else. And it just my health really required this much effort. And I there's a couple things that I would think would be helpful there. One is sort of acknowledging that we live in a toxic world that is not set up for us to be healthy, right?

There's there's stressors from our current environment and just the amount of time people spend of every age on social media. There's the type of food that you find easily in the grocery store. If you're lucky, there's decent food in the grocery store, and many people are in food deserts. The I mean, the toxins that you talked about that are ubiquitous in the environment. So just kind of coming to grips with the fact that, like, no, we're we're not healthy. And when we're comparing ourselves to other people and saying, oh, well, I'm healthier than her or her her at church.

When you're comparing yourself to an unhealthy population, that doesn't necessarily mean that you are at optimal health, and so some additional effort can be helpful. The other thing that I see really helpful in the biohacking community is community, right? That people that yes, we're doing these kind of end of one trials on ourselves with this experimental version with different trackers or different products or different meal like recipes, whatever it is. And when we have that community to like bounce ideas off of or share thoughts with or to complain to, even to commiserate with when when it feels hard and you're craving a donut or something.

When we have those people that can cheer us on and, and,

Biohacking Tools, Supplements, and Experimentation 17:20

and understand our perspective, that can really help with, with kind of pushing us in that direction and getting better success. So I'm curious, your thoughts just what else do you see make people supported? Yeah, I, I totally agree with that. I totally agree that. And there's a lot of, online communities that you can be, you know, anything you want. You like to knit. Cool. Join a knitting community online. You know, turn off, turn off the news and join a knitting community online. Get the support there.

But really, in person is something that we're starved for, especially after the last couple of years. When was the last time you talked to your neighbor or had them over for tea? You know, getting involved with, like you said, your church group getting involved with, you know, the local schools, you know, volunteering your time. I think you'd be shocked. I think a lot of people would be shocked about how their quality of life improves. You know, a lot of us are losing the skill of, like, small talk and just, you know, chit chat with people because we were so glued to the TV and we've, you know, a lot of us have been really kind of stuck inside.

And so I think I think you're totally right. I mean, we know that the, the, the, the people in the blue zones that live the longest have a deep sense of purpose and community. Right? They're eating certain things as well. But they have they get up, they go do qigong in the park. You know, they play chess with their friends every Wednesday. They they go for walks. And that level of community is really important in speaking to, you know, the octogenarians. Plus, you know, they're I'm, I'm keenly aware that the world that my grandmother, who turned 90 this month, the world that she grew up in, was before this explosion of glyphosate that depleted the nutrients in the soil.

Right? They they they canned foods that they grew in the backyard. So, you know, talk about knowing your knowing your farm, knowing where your food comes from, you know, having having a garden and eating the food from it is such a beautiful and and purposeful way to live and, you know, the the boomer generation, my folks, they were brought up on, you know, canned foods and prepackaged stuff and wonder bread and, you know, Little Debbie cakes and stuff like that. You know, macaroni and cheese is just like a bean.

And the existence of the world, they, they they lived my grandmother lived in a different world. And and what to your point, we have to be aware of that. That's not real food. You know, if you if you go into the middle of the grocery store, there's no food in there. That's, that's manufactured highly palatable, highly toxic food. Just stay on the outsides where the veggies and the produce back to the meat in the dairy and then come back. That's that's really the way to, to to be more in control and eat real food and have and nourish your brain at the same time.

Yeah. And then what about attitude and mindset? I know you talked a little bit about of course, community comes into that. Does meditation and other kind of stress management tools that we have. But how do you see that playing a role in cognitive function. Yeah this this one this one's tough right. This one's really tough because we're not taught this stuff in schools. We're not educated on how to set goals or to have a positive, perspective to have any really optimism at all. It's not we're not taught how to let go of self-limiting beliefs.

We're we're not educated on on how to create mantras that will propel us forward in our lives. And the work that I do with, with my clients that I've been trained on, that I use on myself. It it is it is such a fundamental shift when you go from doom and gloom to gratitude. Gratitude alone. I mean, we could do a whole we could spend this whole conversation on the benefits of gratitude. But when you wake up in the morning and you think you are thankful for the fact that you had a bed to sleep in, you know you're thankful for your family.

Starting your day with gratitude. With gratitude sets a tone for the rest of the day. And in what's what's challenging is if if your mindset is not there, then you're not going to have the energy. You're not going to create the energy or the, the momentum to get your body right, to get your brain right. If if you're in a depressive state and that's kind of where you stay all day, then it's really tough to to to tinker around or have fun with improving your performance and your cognition. You just don't have the gas in the tank to do it and so on.

On a really basic, really highly actionable, you know, way is, is to just start with gratitude, start with a dream journal, you know, start with any sort of journaling to get your thoughts down onto paper. And then you have, a greater self-awareness. You know, I'm working with a client right now who, he's on the other side of the country, a guy in his 60s, and he's he's now beginning to to to start to have some cognitive decline. He's, you know, he's forgetting some people's names. He's he's brought up, topics of conversation that that were covered before with his friends.

And he's starting to get really worried. You know, he's he's realizing that there's something going on. So he's he's going to go out and get get the tests, to, to try to to try to go. I also sent him to, the CQ test, from Doctor Bredesen to kind of get an idea of where he's at in his cognition. But but even before any of that stuff, if he doesn't believe that he can get better, then it's a nonstarter.

Community, Purpose, and Mindset for Cognitive Resilience 23:38

It's all it's all theory. And so what we've been working on really intently is some neuro linguistic programing techniques that he can use for himself first thing in the morning, so that he can have the the enthusiasm and the optimism to go take his health and his performance and his cognition, into his own control. So, I think attitude and mindset are super, super important and, and we just don't have the tools for it. You know, you could read I could send you a thousand books that you could read that might change your mind, but we really just need new tools.

And we need to be reminded that that our our mindset is everything. Yeah, it's funny, cause I'm reading a book called The Untethered Soul. Michael Singer I don't know if you've ever probably read it. But, I just heard about it. I don't know how I missed this one. On the self-help book section, but, I've actually really enjoyed it. And it a lot of the themes that you're talking about is like, what our mindset is, what the conversations that are ahead, who are we behind that and how we can kind of take control of the the story we're telling ourselves.

So that it's not limiting us and we can balance that parasympathetic sympathetic, nervous system, in a way that does really serve us. So there's such fun, fun stuff. And I feel like I'm constantly reading a book like that. There's constantly one on my bedside table that I'm halfway through, and, you know, getting that inspiration, though, and and just be reminded, right. These are things we can fall back into patterns. And having something there to to redirect you, whether it's a person that coach like you a books, yeah.

I think this is a lot of the reason people go to church is kind of get that grounding and that reconnection, that community. So whatever it is for you, for all of our listeners that keep them inspired and on track, and coming back to that attitude or mindset that really serves us versus the one that we can get stuck in a rut and, that we know doesn't, I think, do it, do whatever you need to do or make it happen. Do it. Read, read the books, go to go to church. And that the benefits of of opening up your mind to learn something new that's going to immediately help you and make you better.

It's going to make you more optimistic. It's going to give you a little bit more energy, something to direct your attention away from Facebook and what, you know, your high school friend ate for dinner away from, you know, media news stories that are meant to freak you out and keep you in fear. You know, fear, change our brain. It changes our mind. It makes it harder to think with our prefrontal cortex. If you're stuck in fear, then it's tough to get out. It's tough to be productive. And there are, you know, the work of, of Bruce Lipton, you know, self self-hypnosis.

This there's, you can do self-hypnosis at night time to get yourself out of that fear state. There are a ton of tools out there. They're just not sexy. They're just not there. There's not a lot of money to be made there. And so they don't rise to the top of of our sort of cultural awareness. But that's the stuff that in my, in my experience, really differentiates people who are happy and productive and going towards something. And the folks that are just sort of getting by. And so, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's hugely important.

Find find a book if you need book ideas, you know, ask you or me and we can point you in the right direction. Yeah. There's so many good ones out there. So what makes you feel that younger people should be concerned about dementia and Alzheimer's? Yeah, well, one thing, is, is to, is to really kind of shift that question a little bit. Concern, I think, is sort of a triggering word for people, because then it does immediately go, ooh, that's something that I should be freaked out about, you know, and what we just said is to try to stay away from fear.

But I think that I think that younger people should definitely be thinking about taking care of their brain, you know, for some of the reasons that we've that we've talked about already, you know, the, the nutrient depletion of the soil just means that the foods that you're buying from the store are less nutrient dense. An orange is ten times less nutrient dense now than it was 50 years ago. And if you think about that, it's like, oh, I'm, I'm eating an orange, I'm getting the vitamin C, this is good stuff.

Well, that it's it's not nearly what it was a long time ago. And and it's not going to improve. It's not going to change. So as younger people and I'm and I'm talking about, you know, folks in college, even when you start to think about taking care of your brain the same way that you think about taking care of your body, you can create new habits that will be nourishing, you know, the metaverse, as cool as that sounds. What that means is you are going to be sitting on a couch somewhere with some sort of goggle headset on, complacent, not moving and walking through some virtual place like technology is, is, is going to continue to in advance.

But it's not going to stimulate physical or cognitive vitality. It's just it's just not, you know, if we are, if we are shifting more and more and more toward a virtual world of virtual reality where, you know, you unlock your phone, I think the average is like 250 times a day. You're looking at your phone and opening it, you're getting that dopamine hit, and then you're going back to your business and getting that dopamine hit again. That. That's not helpful. That's not helpful for your brain. You know, if you're spending two hours on TikTok a day, watching people do dances and whatever like that, that that's not going to uplift your mind and body and spirit.

And, you know, we now know the numbers about depression in young people, anxiety in young people. You know, the, the, the chemical interventions and prescriptions for, for those, you know, sort of depressive disorders. Something's got to give. Something has to change. And if you can't find ways to shift your lifestyle when you're 19 or 25, it's going to be harder to do when you're 50. If you're the type of person that really enjoys walking around in nature and in your 20s, that's just going to become part of your habits and your lifestyle into your 40s and 50s.

And so another point to is, is I think that the in-person community is so huge and however you can whatever sort of group or, or get together meet up that you can join to cultivate a sense of community. Yes, it's going to be awkward. Yes, you're going to you're going to have to do the small talk thing. But the benefits of that are are immense. So I think that it has to start really young because the factors, are not in our favor and they're going to we're going to get 5G and we're going to get six G.

There's going to be more of an EMF soup around us. The quality of our food is going to keep getting worse and worse, you know. So making sure that you are good in your body and you have a lifestyle in your 20s that translates over time into your into your later years. Yeah. The other thing that comes up for me and as we talk about this is the demographic shifts, right, is that these baby boomers are a huge part of the population, and they are coming up to the age where they develop dementia. And so we are going to have more and more and more and more people and a bigger chunk of our population with dementia.

And regardless of your age, you are probably going to be interacting with someone who has dementia, have a family member who does have a loved one at some level, who does is suffering with dementia. You may be a caregiver to someone with dementia if you aren't already. And so with you know that in mind. We want to have an understanding of what's driving this disease, how can we potentially support and also certainly what drives me to work in this space is that we need that wisdom and experience of our elders.

We need the people who have who are at the height of their wisdom and experience. Right. We need them engaged and involved in helping to raise the youngest among us and helping to solve these this litany of issues that we've both described, whether it's soil depletion or the microplastic mix, or if have, you know, whatever it is, the society is set up to, to really promote health. And so first being aware of that and then making making the changes in our lifestyle so that we can mitigate those risks, is paramount.

And then hopefully taking that and transforming it into being helpful to others who are already suffering or maybe are at more risk of suffering. It is what I hope that instead of the message of this entire summit, when you think about all of this, in a way it makes it harder these days to avoid all of these contributing factors, like outside of what we've already discussed. Yeah, it's it it's special interests, it's culture, it's media. It's it's the distraction from the betterment of the self.

Why Younger People Should Care About Dementia 33:38

And and I, you know, I'm, I'm coming to an age with two small kids at my house where I find myself kind of Pooh poohing, you know, I, you know, I made a dig at TikTok earlier and it's like, oh, I just saw, you know, you're 39, Sean, and you're be sound. You sound like an older guy, you know, complaining about this or that and what what I think what I think is important to understand is, is that when, when money is on the table, when there is an advantage to some organization or special interest, whether it be the corn industry or, you know, in some cases pharma or, you know, the the deck is stacked against you.

It's not there in many cases to make you a healthier, happier, more independent, more sovereign individual. It's there to get you to buy stuff. And and we get so wrapped into culture, into the newest, coolest thing to distract ourselves with. It takes us away from the from empowerment, the, the fact that we are sovereign individuals and that we get to make choices for ourselves. And so when when you become more aware of the influences on your behavior and on your buying power, on the time that you spent and on the internet, where your eyes go on a web page when you know, sort of wake up a little bit and, and become aware of the factors that are working against you that want to tell you what to do and tell you what to eat, tell you what to buy and tell you how to think.

Then. It's it for me. And I think for a lot of people kind of my age there, it's it becomes a challenge to rise to, you know, I'm going to be the fittest, strongest, smartest, most person, most, purposeful, most loving individual that I can be. And that has nothing to do with Netflix. It has nothing to do with the Kardashians, has nothing to do with, you know, Taco Bell bringing back its pizza thing. I mean, when NPR is doing a four minute segment on Taco Bell bringing back its Mexican pizza, it's like, what is going on here?

What are we doing? This is insane. And when you wake up to some of this stuff, you realize that you don't have to play that game. You know, you can vote with your dollars, you can grow vegetables in your garden. You can you can make smart lifestyle choices that are not, on the influence under the influence of, of of big tech or big media, big pharma, you know, big whatever. So I think this is sort of an existential thing. It's a spiritual thing is, is the coming, coming awake and alive to your own divinity, your own life, your own purpose.

And and it takes a fair bit of energy to get there, you know, it's a double edged sword. You got to have the energy to be able to look critically at media, but you're looking at media. So it's hard to have the energy because you're depleted by the latest, you know, news story. So time in nature meditation, you know, turning the TV off a couple of hours before you go to bed. These sorts of lifestyle factors, high quality food, you know, turning the TV off while you're sitting down for dinner with your family, these sort of, you know, a generation ago where like, really core values, they were there for a reason because they helped us live the kind of lives that we want.

So I would I would say, you know, you don't have to be paranoid, but being skeptical of what you're being force fed, as I think, I think a really good idea and I think it's good for your brain to see. You're probably familiar with James. Clear. I think you wrote Atomic Habits, right? So. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's this idea of making habits that are healthy for you easy and that things that are bad for you harder. Right? So at my house, we have a TV, but it stays in the closet. And if you want to watch TV, you have to clear off, like the coffee table or clear off something and then figure out how you're going to get the extension cord from the garage, because the cord doesn't reach that far, right?

Because they're designed to go above a fireplace or whatever, you know, and be stuck to the wall. And so it takes effort to get the TV out. And so it doesn't happen as often. And that is the type of thing where if you notice yourself making these decisions over and over again that you don't want to or that you want to break a bad habit, making it harder, like locking things away, putting them on a shelf you can't reach. So you have to go get a stool or you don't have to completely get them out of your life.

But if there's a couple extra steps, like a Facebook, you don't stay logged in. You have to put in your password every time. Even that amount of a little bit extra effort might prevent you from scrolling several times a day, which is going to give you back a little bit more time and give you probably a little bit more energy as well. So this, you know, I think there's a lot of hope here. You mentioned psychedelics and there's a lot of psychedelic research. Right. And this is all about awakening and consciousness and a little I think you can even take that to another level of like, how are we going to redesign society?

Right? It's constantly happening that like you said, your grandmother lived in a different world than we live in today. And what is I? I have a three year old. So you've got young kids, I've got a young child. And when I imagine her adulthood, her her senior years,

Creating a Healthier Future for the Next Generation 39:38

what is the world that our generation is going to create for them? And there is a lot of hope. And part of that is becoming aware, taking the steps, making those decisions, modeling what we think is beneficial and healthy for those children. And I'm curious because you're a biohacker and you've got young kids like what? What are the top priorities for you, for your children? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I, I and I have to say I love that is so that is that's four steps further keeping the TV in the closet and having to get the extension cord that that is a lot of work to watch TV.

That's awesome man. I'm going to I'm going to really think about doing that because I like that I spend all day on the computer. So it's not like I don't have screen time, but. Right, right. Yeah, totally. Well, but that goes to the point, right? Like, so you and I spend a lot of time sitting down looking at the computer and the way that we develop our habits to offset all this computer time, you know, from blue blocking glasses to, you know, EMF mitigation tools. You know, I've got, you know, I'm actually hard lined in to the, to the Ethernet so that I don't have the Wi-Fi exposure.

And I think that the future, you know, as our I've got a nine and a six year old and the I think that in, in, in the greatest vision that I can possibly perceive of into the future is is a true balance of of lifestyle work is going to change. It already has and it will never go back. Right. This this idea of, of most of us, you know, getting in the car and commuting in and, you know, going into a big city and going into a high rise and spending all day in an office that's already shifted. I mean, that most friends of mine that work in the corporate world, they go in like once a week now.

So now they're at home. So work is going to change. The jobs that are available are going to change. Technological advancements are going to, you know, automate a ton of stuff. And so, the the future that I see does involve a balance of natural living, more, smaller farms, community farms, you know, hopefully going back to trading and bartering for goods and services, you know, if if there was one thing that I could say would be the most important thing is to just eat locally, eat seasonally, eat locally, you know, my family and I moved out to an island, in a in rural part of, you know, the Pacific Northwest because we wanted to get out of the city.

We wanted chickens, we wanted a giant garden. We wanted more time in, in nature. We we wanted to be, more independent. So we have a well and and I think that the we can we can use the best of what technology offers interconnectedness, you know, speed of information, quantification for health, all of these amazing breakthroughs balanced with eating locally, encouraging more and more time outside. I think that there is a balance and, and, and I believe that that psychedelics are a part of that. I think that that in probably 10 or 20 years, the use of especially psilocybin is going to increase.

And psilocybin is a powerful, powerful compound. And it does shift your default mode network. It does shift the way that you see yourself and what you want to be doing with your time. And the the opening of the natural world, the accessibility of of touching back in, slowing down, being more in sync with with the seasons and, and and the natural world around you, it can be complemented by, by technological advances. So I think that that work is going to be a lot different. You know, I'm empowering my children to think for themselves and to be entrepreneurs, you know, work growing, sprouts, and selling them on the roadside stand at our house, you know, to to practice what that feels like, to grow some food that somebody buys that puts money in your pocket.

That's such a tiny little thing. But growing microgreens and sprouts and selling them to your neighbors is this like I is? I think it's cool because they're learning all these things. They're learning how to cultivate. We're learning how to make money on their ideas and their efforts. So I think that the vision forward, is, is is as is a balance of the two things. That's awesome. Well, that's exciting. And, and yes, very hopeful to kind of think about what are some of the solutions, even in the context of like one family, how we can look for it in a hopeful, exciting way, showing that this is such a wonderful contribution.

I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. I want to make sure that our listeners know how to find out more about you. Yeah, they can go to Sean mccormick.com. My podcast, the Optimal Performance Podcast, is there, my coaching services there. I'll be launching a wellness platform, a custom health platform, that's basically a virtual health assistant in the coming months, which is going to totally, totally shift the way that we find health resources on the internet. Yeah. And I and I really I really do encourage people to reach out, really easy to find.

And I'm happy to engage and share ideas with people. So. Yeah. That's Sean mccormick.com is probably the best way to do that. Awesome. I see a telescope behind you and there was a red moon last night. Did you guys get out there and check it out? Well, I mentioned that we're in the Pacific Northwest where I'm. I haven't seen the moon, actually, I think I saw it once in the last two months. It's we're having a fairly gray, a fairly gray day. But it's funny, right, like now that the days are longer up here in the northern latitudes and in, the great northwest.

But my kids still go to bed at, you know, 730 or 8:00 so the stars don't come out till later. But that's when it's clear. So it's it's like double edged sword. But yeah, we, we get out as much as possible. But no, I, I went out and looked up and nope. Not going to see not going to see the eclipse tonight. Yes, that's a thing. Well you look prepared for when when the skies are clear. It's fine. I'm ready. My kids love that. Yeah. And it's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thanks, Heather.