Jeff: Uh, you want to live longer? Jesse: Uh, always.
Jeff: Anybody out there want to live longer too, I'm going to help you as well, because
today I want to share with you ways or even just simple hacks to extend your lifespan.
Jesse: Oh. Jeff: Actually-actually-I
actually call it health span. Jesse: Health span?
Jeff: Yeah. Because it's not just about a longer life. If you lived the last
40 years of your life in shitty shape wouldn't that not really be ideal.
Jesse: That would be far less than ideal, actually.
Jeff: Right, so let's make sure that we're not just going for the quantity,
but the quality too. Jesse: Quality of life is
always important right off the bat. Jeff: How's your sleep been, pal?
Jesse: Oh, shit. I'm not living very long, am I?
Jeff: How's your sleep been? Sleep is a very challenging thing for most of us. But
I can tell you this, you cannot sleep on your sleep-in terms of extending your lifespan.
Jesse: Right. Jeff: It literally is
the place where our bodies do all the things, we need to do to restore our health. It's the
one opportunity a day when our body shuts down and it attempts to restore itself.
Jesse: Yeah. Jeff: Now make sure
you're sleeping in a cool room. Jesse: Okay, that makes sense.
Jeff: Your body needs to cool itself down by one to three degrees in order to optimize this
recovery process. So, you want to make sure that you're using extra blankets if need be,
but make sure that the room is cooler. Jesse: Okay.
Jeff: A lot of us don't like to sleep in really cold rooms, but I'm telling you,
for the benefit of your long-term health, it's actually a good thing.
Jesse: I'll tell you, I love sleeping in a cold room, and I end up throwing my blanket off the bed
in the middle of the night because I'm so hot. Jeff: Yeah, well, the other thing,
I heard you like to sleep naked. Jesse: That's -- Well, how do you know that?
Jeff: Next thing is, you want to make sure that you are also waking up and
going to bed at the same time. Jesse: Okay. That's something
I struggle with immensely. Jeff: Interestingly, even if you
are not sleeping as much as you should, which you should, and there's-there s you get a lot
of debate about what the ideal amount of sleep is, even if you're not sleeping, let s say the
ideal is seven hours a night. Jesse: Yeah.
Jeff: If you're at least going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time, you're going
to see better benefits in terms of recovery. Jesse: Okay.
Jeff: And our good friend Andrew Huberman talks about the benefits of making sure
you have exposure to natural sunlight early in the morning to reset that rhythm. Again,
that's -- these are practices that you want to make sure that you're starting if you're not
doing them right now. Jesse: Okay.
Jeff: Because sleep in the-in the regularity of sleep is very, very important. And one last
thing regarding sleep too, fighting the drowsiness at night. Not a good idea.
Jesse: Really? Jeff: No. Give in to it
and go to bed. And again, ideally, you'll start to teach your body to kind of shut down at a
certain time and that will help you to maintain that regular bedtime every single night.
Jesse: Okay. Number two. Jeff: Actually, this is interesting
for you and other young guys. Jesse: Okay.
Jeff: Do you ever get regular blood work done? Jesse: No.
Jeff: You should. Jesse: Really?
Jeff: Yeah. I mean, regular bloodwork is one of the most impactful ways that you can get ahead
of the game when it comes to seeing if there's something going wrong before it's too late.
Jesse: Okay. Jeff: And especially when it comes to the
younger population out there, having your regular blood work done early gives you a good baseline
for reference down the road. Jesse: Okay.
Jeff: I wish I was doing blood work years ago, but I didn't really see a need for it in my 30s
and I wish now I could look back and see what I was doing and what my blood work was like,
you know? And especially nowadays, guys are sort of being very focused on their testosterone levels
or their-their ability to-to perform in the gym or even in the bed. And they don't know-they don't
know what they were doing before. They don't know what their status was when they were younger.
Jesse: Almost like what their baseline was. Jeff: Yeah. Or even PSA levels for men,
prostate. Like if you have your baseline levels and you know what you should be,
even sometimes the higher levels that are -- that appear a little bit out of range might
be normal for you if historically you've been there. So, make sure you get your bloodwork done
regularly. And again, even if you have to sort of pay out of pocket, I think it's an expense that's
well worth it. If you can have some of that insight that you may not have right now.
Jesse: What if you're like me and you can't read that bloodwork?
Jeff: There are more than enough resources out there, even free resources now where
people understand what the bloo work is. I always point people to Peter Attia, Dr. Attia, because he
actually tells you certain blood work parameters that you should be looking at that a lot of times
your doctor doesn't even give you, right? Apo B things like that. The next thing on that note,
don't skip your physical. Jesse: Oh man, I haven't
gone to a physical in like ten years. Jeff: Right. My dad is a is a physician. I
don't want to go to my dad for a physical, it just feels a little awkward. But I think he's instilled
in me the-the benefit of making sure you go for a regular physical. Because it's not always just
the internal chemistry that you're on the lookout for, it could be external signs, swollen glands,
swollen lymph nodes. Right? Things that are that are outwardly visible that a trained physician
will be able to notice. And again, you can get ahead of the game. I think the hardest part about
recovering from health issues is waiting too long. We've all had the grandfather who said,
I'm just going to ignore it because I don't want to hear the bad news.
Jesse: Yeah. Jeff: That's just not good because
there's a lot of advances these days that allow us to get ahead of the game and do something about it
if we only know what's going on. Jesse: Okay.
Jeff: And I implore my viewers out there to make sure that they're going for their physical,
they're getting a regular bloodwork. Jesse: So, so far, I'm 0 for 3 on this one.
Jeff: You re 0 for 3, you re not doing -- Jesse: I m not-I m not going
to live very long. Jeff: You're not doing you're not doing
so good. Next thing, mobilize-- this is something you're good at, mobilize your thoracic spine.
Jesse: I am good at that. I put that into practice big time when you, uh,
when you worked on my posture. Jeff: Hundred percent. For those
that are unaware what we're talking about, the thoracic spine is right about from here to here.
Okay. From here to here, I can't even show you, there we go. Right here. This area of your spine,
I believe, is the epicenter of postural breakdown and performance breakdown. Because once you start
to lose mobility through that area of your spine, everything else comes with it. People
like to focus on the pelvis saying it's the center of mass. The problem is as the spine,
because it's a connected unit, it starts to bend and fall forward and lose its mobility, the pelvis
will come along with it. So, posture starts to break down from the top down and from the bottom
up because of the loss of the thoracic spine. Jesse: Okay.
Jeff: Movement through the thoracic spine is limited to a total number of degrees. So,
you have a certain amount of degrees of-of flexion and extension and you have a certain
number of degrees of rotation. As you lose degrees of motion in this plane forward,
you are going to lose rotation too. Jesse: Okay.
Jeff: So, your ability to actually become functional is lost when you lose that
extension ability. So, as I start to bend you this way because of just sitting too much and
then I try to rotate, you can't rotate nearly as much as you can when you're actually upright and
moving. You can even experience that right now. Anybody that's watching right now,
try it. Try to rotate from a nice tall posture and then try to rotate from a bent posture. You're
going to see there's a big, big difference. Jesse: I also felt that once I started working
on my thoracic spine, I started feeling better. Like my upper back didn't feel so
tight all the time. It felt like I was able to just sit upright normally.
Jeff: Right. Jesse: And it wasn't such a labor to do it.
Jeff: It star--I'm telling you, it's the epicenter of all functional loss because as you let it go,
it brings everything else with it. So, what would you do? People have seen foam rollers,
you put the foam roller across that middle portion of your-of your upper back and you work on those
restricted areas. Jesse: Okay.
Jeff: Five minutes a day, that's all it takes, but it's the consistency that matters. You can
even do it sitting in a chair like we are right here where you find that tight spot right across
that area and you try to lean back over it. Again, trying to use the chair to push into the spine at
that level that seems restricted to give you that chance to actually extend over the back of it.
Jesse: Okay. Jeff: So, maintaining extension is critical.
Next thing talking about chairs, sit less. They actually call sitting the new smoking.
Jesse: Really? Jeff: It's-it s become linked to
so many bad things and even if you're an active person like us, we do tend to sit a lot--
Jesse: Yeah. Jeff: --and sitting is just not
good for your body. There's a lot of that stasis that happens, in other words, your body is sort of
in a static state with not a lot of circulation going on because of the sitting. It's just not
a healthy practice. And the easiest way to do -- to do something about it is just to set an alarm
or an alert on your phone to get up ideally once every 30 minutes, or at worst once every hour.
Jesse: Okay. Jeff: And five minutes,
see if you can just go for a little bit of a walk. If you -- if you're working in an office setting,
go to the water fountain. Go talk to one of your coworkers for a little bit but stay up on your
feet and move a little bit. Jesse: Okay.
Jeff: Right. But-but it's really important not to allow yourself to lose track of time. And
the next thing you do, you look up and you've been sitting for three hours.
Jesse: Oh. Jeff: Right? Or
you've been out on a call or a business meeting. Even in a business meeting, turn your video off,
stand up, loosen up a little bit, walk around your office, come back and sit down.
Jesse: Now I'm nervous. I've been sitting here for a few minutes, I think I need to walk around.
Jeff: Right? If you're watching the video, you're probably already up taking my advice. But as I
said, sitting is the new smoking, it's not a good practice for you to do that. The next thing you
need to release your stress. The number one reason why people suffer, according to some physicians,
suffer from poor health outcomes over a life span is by holding on to our stresses.
Jesse: So, a mismanagement of stress. Jeff: Yeah, because stress is normal,
stress happens. Jesse: Yeah.
Jeff: The people in our lives can cause stress.
Jesse: That s true. Jeff: A lot of times the people
we love can cause stress. Jesse: Stress.
Jeff: The reason is, is because we care about them, and we care about what they think of us
and we care about what they say. But what's happening is that we get stressed by what
they say to us or ask us to do or not do and we don't express how it makes us feel.
Jesse: Okay. Jeff: And becoming better communicators about our
stress is critically important. If you want to see long term health and high-quality health. I can't
underscore this enough. A lot of us clam up and we do not express when we're feeling this stress. You
have to get in a better practice of expressing it to the people so that you can get it out.
The next thing you can do is actually related to that. It's actually physically getting it out.
Jesse: Oh. Jeff: And that's through training.
Jesse: That's what I like to do. Jeff: Yes. And literally lifting weights
here can become one of the best stress reducers. It might -- you might think it's like, oh, I just
feel like I'm getting out this energy. But it's actually the ability to exert force to actually
be able to physically exert force that you can't do to the person who stressed you out-