#398: The Dopamine Biohack | Brain Chemistry, Motivation & Testosterone Secrets Revealed With Lucas Aoun

Welcome to Longevity. I'm your host, Natalie Knidham. I'm a nutritionist, a human potential and epigenetic coach, and I created this podcast to bring you the latest ways to take control of your health and longevity. We cover it all, from new technology and ancestral health practices to personalized interventions and a very special interest of mine, peptides and bioregulators. Enjoy the show. Welcome back, guys. I'm Natalie Knidham, your host. My guest today is Lucas Ohn, a naturopath and self-described human guinea pig who spent years testing ingredients long before they were trending. He breaks down dopamine in a way that actually makes sense, how it impacts motivation, mood, and why tech hijacks it so easily. We also talk about his early formulas, the difference between tiacrine and peroxanthine, and why some people crash on caffeine while others take over the world. Now, as a thank you to you guys, I've actually put together a free handout. Each month, I'm sharing three new habits to boost your longevity. You can access it at naturopath.com forward slash free. Now, if you're enjoying the episode, or in the show in general, and if you haven't already, I would love for you to subscribe to the podcast and rate it when you're done listening today. I would hugely appreciate it. What if your coffee had a smarter sidekick, wired and tired, task switching, and a crash that shows up right when you need your brain most? Who needs that? So to avoid it, I pair my morning brew with this Brain Support stack. My focus stays sharp, my mood stays steady, and I don't bargain with my to-do list at 3 p.m. It's built for synergy. NewPept and J147 support BDNF and healthy energy signaling. AlphaGPC fuels acetylcholine. Hooperzine A helps maintain it. L-tyrazine and urodine show up for motivation and synaptic repair. Synapses is where your neurons connect. Theocrine gives long-lasting lift without the tolerance curve, and alveionine helps to keep things calm and clear. Phosphatidylserine supports memory and stress resilience, so you can think, not overthink. This is quite the stack. Boost your brain and productivity with Neutropept at leveluphealth.com, that's leveluplvluphealth.com, and make sure to use code NAT at checkout to get 20% off your purchase. We talk a lot about skincare over 40, but honestly, upping your protein is one of the biggest glow-ups you can give your body. Like many women, I was trying to hit my protein goals for muscle, metabolism, bone strength, but I feel like I had to blindly trust the proteins I was choosing because they weren't disclosing ingredient sourcing. Then I read that two-thirds of protein powders tested had more lead in a serving than California safety limits. Not exactly the morning ritual I had in mind. And that's why I switched to Piori PW1. I use the Bourbon vanilla, made with real vanilla seeds from Madagascar. It is so smooth and naturally sweet that adding it to my yogurt bowl or shake actually feels like a treat. Plus, for every scoop, I know I'm getting clean, high-quality whey that supports my strength goals. Piori doesn't just say they're clean. They prove it. PW1 is a third-party tested for more than 200 contaminants, and Piori was the only brand that earned the Clean Label Project Transparency Certificate. That level of disclosure is rare and refreshing and honestly, necessary. If you want protein that supports your goals without the guesswork, go to piori.com forward slash NAT and use code NAT for 32% off your first subscription or 20% off anything on that site. And Piori is P-U-O-R-I dot com forward slash NAT. Lucas, welcome to the show. I can't believe it's taken us this long to get together. Yeah, no, it's stuck to be here, Nat. I'm excited to have a chat and deliver some incredible value for your audience. Yeah, well, I'm excited for you to do that. I mean, I'm looking forward to the value. So I think, you know, I think we've kind of, I feel like years ago, you were in, you might have been in my Facebook group way back, which actually recently got shut down. Oh, no. And well, it's okay. I mean, it got shut down and then it mysteriously popped back up again, but now it has no name. So what was the reason for that? Like, why do they do that? I, you know, we all know why. I mean, natural remedies, natural stuff. Well, we're talking, we're talking about peptides a lot in that group. And, and it's very hard to manage the conversation. And the poor people in this group are trying to figure out whether, like, they're code spelling all the words, trying to keep it legit. Anyway, you were in, you were in my group years and years ago, and then somehow you were gone. And I lost sight of you. And then you just started popping up in my feed. And I'm like, Oh, look who's who. Oh, yeah, I know that name. And then you reach out to me on Instagram and here we are. So this is really exciting. Yeah, yeah. No, I was always really early on, I was really just excited to learn more, you know, learn about different supplements, different ingredients, just get amongst the biohacking space and on Facebook. I mean, that's all, that's pretty much all I knew back then, right? Like, it's just, let's just try and find a cool, cool group where a like-minded people who are excited to talk about weird topics related to health. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. How did you start off? Because you're, you're Australia's leading biohacker, you're the dude in Australia, you're a supplement formulator, but you have this background in medical science, like, what made you, what moved you over into biohacking? And when did you kind of make that transition? Yeah, well, from a young age, I was always interested in understanding the body. And my father was a pharmacist. So he owned a little local pharmacy here. And I got a lot of experience, like working in the pharmacy. He was teaching me about medications, teaching me about supplements. And he basically threw me at the front of the shop and gave me that vitamin specialist, you know, you did? Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. So he just threw me in the deep end, told me like, when customers come in, just smile, say hello, introduce yourself, you know, it's all about customer experience. It's all about, like, because that's what people value these days more than, you know, more than just getting a cheap product, right? So that was his point of differentiation. I learned about like what it takes to actually build rapport with a customer, you know, understand their pain points, you know, asking about the, you know, the right questions, being really careful about prescribing or recommending supplements, like being very cautious about it. And then from there, pretty much, I just realized that at the time I was actually studying exercise science, which I was, I was absolutely loving, like, don't get me wrong, I was loving it. But in my spare time, I was just constantly researching supplements, you know, just anything related to naturopathy. And then I realized, hang on a sec, what am I doing in exercise science, I think I should be just studying naturopathy, like why don't I just become a naturopath, because that's like the holistic approach. And, you know, my dad wasn't resistant to it. It's not like he was like, no, you can't become a naturopath, you have to go down the route of, you know, pharmacist. He was never really like that. He was very supportive and encouraging of the idea. And then he's like, you know, one day you're gonna have to do consult, you have to have a clinic yourself, you're gonna have to do consults in a little clinic, in a local clinic. And I'm like, I don't think so. Like I think I can create content. And I think my level of like, deliver the most amount of value is through mass education, which is what I'm doing now on Instagram, on YouTube, you know, doing a podcast like yourself. And just, I've really got, I think I've got a gift for identifying like new and novel health information that people are really excited to learn about. And just not just sharing the same old stuff, like, you know, eat, sleep, you know, that the basics, it's like, Lucas shares the offshoots, the little, the subtopics, the nuances within each topic itself. So yeah. Nice. So did you become an atropath or you didn't? Yeah, so I completed that naturopathy degree, I ended up ducing my year level, getting the, of course, I was like the, the nerd at the school. So finishing assignments very fast. And at the same time, I was actually working for a startup in Australia. It was actually Australia's very first new tropic startup. So I was literally working there for two years unpaid and just get like gaining experience, learning about the ins and outs of running a business, learning about what not to do. Yeah. You know, it's like, Just as important as what to do, sometimes more so. Yeah. And he, the actual founder of the company at the time gave me the honor of actually formulating their products, because he could just tell that I was so obsessed and loved it and just could understand ingredients quite well. So then, yeah, I finished that degree and then, but by the time I'd finished my degree, I'd already had such a great following on Instagram and all that. So it was a really smooth transition into like actually getting clients and consulting. So it's just been, yes, such a fun and fast journey, really. That's very cool. So when you were formulating, what do you think was the most innovative thing you formulated? Or were you sticking to the base? It's a great question. I was actually the very first person in Australia to use an ingredient called tear cream. You may have heard of the cream. Yeah. Yeah. So I noticed the benefits of that very early on, the fact that it's got minimal tolerance built up, doesn't affect blood pressure, doesn't affect heart rate. And we'll just sort of explain it to your audience. Tear cream is a stimulant similar to caffeine, but it doesn't tend to build the same level of tolerance as it does to caffeine, and it does not affect blood pressure or heart rate. So I knew early on, I'm like, okay, this is going to be a hot ingredient, because everyone loves caffeine, everyone loves stimulants, well, most people do. And it ended up being one of the most commonly used ingredients in pre workouts the following year. So I sort of caught onto it and noticed like, okay, this has got some, some, you know, substance behind it, no pun intended. And so from there, yeah, basically formulated a tea cream, Bacopa Monieri, Ginko Baloba. It was like a classic, your classic, new tropic blend. So it's Bacopa, Ginko, Tea, Crane, Hooper's in A, and then Alpha GBC. And so that was the formula before those ingredients were like really, really popular. Yeah, how long ago was this? Oh, no, it was a long time ago. It would have been when I was 19, and I'm 29, 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Not that long. Feels like ages ago. Yeah, sure it does. Is it still around? The company disintegrated three, three years later, like as in the TGA, I mean, the regulatory bodies in Australia didn't, did not like what we were doing. Did not like the claims that we're making about improving cognition. You know, neuro protective, like using those words that that just, that didn't fly dead in like that. And so would you ever bring that back? That sounds like a beautiful formula. It was a fantastic, it was called, the company was called Happy, HAPI. Would I ever consider bringing it back? I definitely think there'll be, when my time comes to like formulate Lucas Owens, like actual with my new supplement brand in before, when I release my own new tropic formula, I'm sure it'll have some of the similar ingredients. But now I've just 10 years later, I've discovered so many more incredible ingredients that it's going to be actually really hard to know. Well, you know, it's interesting. So I'm interested about the accrete though, because not to spend too much time on it, but still, everybody's all about parazanthine right now, right? So parazanthine, which is the downstream metabolite caffeine, so similar to what you're talking about, it doesn't, it doesn't give people the jitters, it doesn't dry, it doesn't have many of the side effects that are undesirable of caffeine, but still gives that kind of stimulant benefit kind of new tropic. So it sounds a bit similar to theocrine. How are they different? It is actually very, very similar. The only difference is that with theocrine, the half life is very, very long. It's like eight, it's like eight to 10 hours. Whereas with parazanthine, it's a lot shorter, which means you can, like you can use it in the later parts of the day without it disrupting your sleep. But with tea, cream, what I noticed, particularly when I first started playing around with it, because gotta remember that when I was 19 years of age, like I was just like, I'm a human, like guinea pig, and I'm just going to accumulate tons and tons of human experimental research trialing different substances. And that could have been, that was like peptides. I was like Russian drugs, you know, research chemicals, all sorts of stuff back in the day. And don't get me wrong, I've had my fair share of like negative experiences, that's for sure. But that question's coming. Yes. Yeah, I had a feeling that was with tea, cream, it, what I noticed was what was unique about it was that it actually peaked like that the stimulating effects peaked like three to four hours later. Whereas with, you know, typical caffeine, it's like maybe one hour later, one to two hours later. So I noticed I had a delayed onset and also a delayed comp, like there was no real come down. Whereas with caffeine, there is, for me personally, I do experience a slight crash from caffeine, but you know, learning more now, I realized that you can just stack it with like D ribose, which that basically blocks the crash from caffeine, which is pretty cool. But yeah, tea, cream, I think between that and parazanthine, wow, like we've got so many great alkaloids we can select from nowadays. Well, you can almost imagine stacking them because this if you're taking it first thing in the morning, you could imagine stacking them. Oh yeah, because you get the just a lot for that longer tail end. Yeah, I would I would definitely consider doing 200 milligrams of the tea cream with like 100 milligrams of the parazanthine. If somebody were to combine that with coffee, I think it would be a lot quite stimulating. Yeah, because they've done co administration studies doing tea, cream plus caffeine and apparently tea, cream like amplifies the effects of caffeine as well, which is pretty interesting, but not surprising. Yeah. Yeah. Put someone like me wouldn't touch it with the 10 foot pole. Yeah, I don't know with caffeine at the best of times. So yeah, find me chattering hanging off the ceiling. I actually recently figured out and this was by accident. This is what I also love as well. And that is like accidental discoveries through self experimentation, which I'm sure you've you've had occur many, many times is like, you think that this let's say you're trialing a new longevity ingredient or something. Let's say it's like, I don't know, alpha keter gluterate AKG or something like that. And you think that it's going to have a certain effect and like a certain distinct effect and push you in one direction. But then when you actually subjectively experience or try it, you might notice that you just you discover that it does something else really remarkable or something else that you never predicted. And then you go down a research rabbit hole, you're like, okay, alpha keter gluterate, get gluten affecting GABA or affecting serotonin or how's it affecting cortisol? How's it affecting thyroid hormones? And it's like, I just love seeing the links between how things affect the body. Yeah, well, and then take which which gives it that bio individual flavor, right? Because it explains very often why a supplement or an element will affect one person one way and the next person a different way. And, you know, understand it's by understanding what you're saying, how it affects many different pathways. And very often in marketing, you know, the good reason, but unfortunately, the supplement manufacturer is going to really focus on the one thing that they really want to push people towards. And they leave out that other stuff where, you know, the person who's got a thyroid issue or who's got something else going on is going to have a very different impact, sometimes better and sometimes worse. Yeah. And then if they're not Lucas, and they're not going to go digging through the literature, they're kind of sitting there going, I don't know, everybody else likes it me up. For sure. 100%. I think also as as part of that, Nat, is nowadays, the access to information is obviously it's so much easier for consumers to like, go on chat, GPT and and try and obviously maybe not use it as like the first and only point of reference, but at least to explore different ideas, like, let's say we go back to the subject of tea cream. Yeah. If somebody wants to actually learn about tea cream, like, and let's say they've had a unique experience with it, they can at least instead of going to Reddit, or like, no, absolutely, you know, you can learn, you can actually see, okay, let's get the brainstorming happening, let's outsource the brainstorming and get it done by an external, I think, yeah, it's interesting. I think it's a really, you know, it's an interesting tool, right? And I think, I mean, we could talk about this too, like AI is changing our space dramatically. And, and to your point, it's not the chat GPT is going to have all the answers, or if you looked like in a different search engine, that's a little more geared to science, like perplexity or something like that. But what it is going to do is it's going to bring together, it's going to gather a lot of information to give the individual a lot of different starting points for different points of inquiry, right? And then by giving you the references to the, to where it found its information, you can start to tease out the, oh, this person wrote a great blog. So somehow they ranked. But really, what I'm looking for is the PubMed article, talks about an experiment that actually, you know, because it could be the menu, it could be someone who's marketing a product with that ingredient, whatever the case may be. Yeah, it's not where you want to get your information, you want to try and find it in the studies. It's such a great catalyst. That's like, it pushes you in a certain direction, enables you to like, yeah, it basically is just outsourcing your initial difficulty of brainstorming, you know, because people, a lot of people will have noticed, we're becoming so lazy, like so, so lazy. So we want to try and outsource as much as we can. And I think something like, yeah, using these tools, I think the contribution of AI is going to have the biggest positive impact in the health space. That's my thoughts. In terms of cancer discovery, you know, things like that, being able to identify cutting edge drugs and ingredients and peptides, I mean, let's not shy away from peptides. That's exciting. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And I think AI will continue to play a role. But it is going to be about how well people learn how to use it. Yeah. And, you know, I don't know that we're getting lazy. I think what AI, I think the opportunity of AI is it makes us, if we're using it properly, it makes us more efficient. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It allows you to go deeper faster, to ask better questions to, I don't know, like I feel like there's, there's a positive side to it. I mean, we could call it lazy. But I could also say, is it really necessary to spend 10 hours grinding through journals, if you can find something that can help you to kind of bring the information together? Yeah. The trick is not to just stop there, but to keep digging a little bit because AI can be lazy. I don't think it's being lazy, but it can miss stuff along the way. So you still have to check the work. Yeah. It's a good point. I think it's like, yeah, you could look at it from like an angle of being super resourceful. So you as a human now are becoming like the ultimate mediator. You're like just stitching together different things and being, if you're not being resourceful, I think, yeah, you'll fall behind because your people around you will, you know. Well, you become a curator, right? And I heard somebody say something to me recently about AI because they went to some mastermind. And what the person who was talking said is, you know, there's going to be three people, three types of people with AI. There's the, think of AI as a tsunami. There's going to be the people standing in the beach looking at the tsunami coming, going, oh, wow, and they're going to die. And then there's the people who are going to pretend the tsunami is not there. They're also going to die. And then there's the people who are going to figure out how to ride the tsunami. And they're going to be the ones that are really going to, they're going to win. Right? So at this point, it's not a question of if it's, it's here. And how are we going to figure out how to leverage it for our benefit? And I think to your point, for the average consumer, it gives them a foothold so that they're not running blind in a lot of these, in a lot of these areas, right? Are you still, are you still clinically, are you still working with clients or are you, or patients? I mean, as an atropath, you have patients, but do you still work with patients or are you now? I do. This side? Yeah, I mean, I'm still, if we, if we had to sort of like divvy up my time, my, how I, how I divide my time right now, I mean, a lot of my time is still spent on the content creation, like education and research. You know, thinking about the next great YouTube video, thinking about the next Instagram reel, like falling down, falling down that creator's rabbit hole. Um, but I'm still doing, yeah, one-on-one consults and I've been doing group coaching for, I think, over two years now. Nice. And that's just so much fun. Like the guys that joined that are just, they're all just wanting to thrive, to become better humans, to, to look at trialing the next different biohack, like they're open-minded. And I learned so much from those groups as well. I love the learning that I gained from that as well. Yeah. Well, I think that's the, that's the beauty of working with people, right? Is, well, number one, it's being able to help people directly and, and help them to achieve the outcomes that they're after. But also it's, it's very hard to learn in a static environment. So it's, you know, it's, it's learning, learning from interacting one-on-one or in groups. I don't do much one-on-one work anymore, but I do a little bit of group work and you do learn a lot. And it keeps you humble. Definitely. Definitely. And also it gives you the opportunity to have, like your finger on the pulse in terms of what are people, what are people struggling with? Because it's like, once they've unlocked a certain level in terms of health, they're always looking to take it to that. They're always looking for that next thing. So it's like, you get a, you get a chance of seeing like, all right, a lot of these guys this week are complaining about this particular hormone they want to optimize. All right. Great. I'm going to create content about that. Let's, let's educate. Let's, you know, dive deep on that subject because clearly there's a demand for it, you know? Yeah. Well, speaking of diving deep, let's talk about dopamine. I think that's something. Definitely. Nice transition. You know, I mean, this, this is all moving into this space of neutral pics. Right. And interestingly enough, you're that formula that you talked about earlier, even though it might be a pre-workout, a lot of people would look at it and say, hmm, it's got some pretty cool. Anything that's going to be a good pre-workout, I think that's well formulated is actually going to affect the brain as well. Definitely. Definitely. I mean, we all know that last rep really comes from here. Well, that's a great point. And I think when it comes to exercise performance, because I have an exercise science background, and now I've merged it with like naturopathy, when I initially started my naturopathy degree, I was like, I am going to be a naturopath for athletes to improve their performance. That was always like my initial goal. And now it's obviously it's catapulted into doing many different things, but I always had the idea in my mind that I was going to formulate stacks, like supplement stacks and protocols that can improve endurance, improve strength, help with recovery. And I already had, I literally was sharing these stacks on a public website called RapeMyStack.com. This was many, many years ago. Yeah. It's such a nerdy thing to do, but I was like, I constantly kept winning the award for the best stack each week because I kept on outlining. It's RapeMyStack.com. That's hilarious. And then back then I was like, okay, hang on a sec. Well, yeah, then I realized neutropics can massively affect not only mental performance, but also physical performance as well. Because like you said before, I don't think people really understand this, but when it comes to what actually causes fatigue during exercise, I've researched this quite extensively. And it turns out that serotonin, the buildup of serotonin is actually what drives fatigue during exercise. And so those that have very high levels of serotonin actually have decreased motivation to keep pushing through. Whereas those that have high dopamine have more like willpower to squeeze out that last rep per se, like just push through even further. That's interesting. Well, and a lot of people would say that when you give up, it's your brain trying to save you. It's essentially your brain saying, we're going to get crushed. So as you're trying to push that last overhead press, your brain's like, dude, I'm, it's me, you're, you're going to crush me. And, and it's the body really trying to preserve, because it's not natural. If you think about it, to be pushing a ton of weight or to drive yourself to run that extra 100 meters extra fast, unless there's a lion chasing you. So it's a sense of self preservation and overcoming that natural survival instinct to kind of pull back before you pull something is part of the equation. Definitely. And the way that I also understood that and learned about that was when I was researching BCAAs, this was like a common, you've probably heard this as well, how they can, if BCAAs are taken by themselves, the lucene, isoleucine, valine, which at one point in time, they're really popular gym supplements and black pre workout or post post workout that taking BCAAs is actually now basically redundant because they can block the uptake of tryptophan and tyrosine into the brain. And therefore you're depleting both serotonin and dopamine. And a lot of people have complained about like we had mood, like mood side mood related issues when they use BCAAs. Interesting. Well, you know, it's interesting because I am I did a course with Joel Green a couple years ago, and he brought up BCAA. So essential amino acid stacks, it's those nine essential amino acids that a lot of people will supplement with around workouts. And I'm at it coming at it from a different place than you are, right? I'm a few decades ahead. And so plus I'm a woman. So building muscle is not necessarily as easy for me right out of the gate. Yeah. And he was talking, and this is in older adults, so not just women, but men as well, that in the case of older adults, what BCAAs do do, and this is taken post workout, is it re it helps with satellite cells, which are the cells that active that promote muscle fiber growth that they kind of tend to become inactive as we age. And it was the he had found in the research, like some really interesting data that showed that BCAAs in older adults, so less so in your young, fit male bodybuilding crowd, but more so that there was an application in the older adult post workout, which is, you know, which brings us into the real nuance around all of these things like we hear creatine is good, creatine is bad, BCAAs are so last year. And usually there's a reason why something came up. Well, and also women are excluded terribly so in clinical studies. So it's actually, I think it's really unfair as a female to understand how things are going to affect them, because I know it's a lot harder to study because they obviously have four different women every month. Yeah, that's fair. I've actually never heard that saying, but I actually really like that. Yeah, there's nothing more, there's nothing a researcher hates more than, than changing variability, variability that they can't control. Yeah. Right. And so I mean, it doesn't excuse them, but it explains why. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But yeah, look, like you said, time, it's context dependent. So like when it comes to supplements, it's, there's no one size fits all, there's there are definitely certain rules that I think, yeah, should be adhered to. But when it comes to like, all right, if somebody were to come up to Nat and be like, Nat, what should I take for this, this and this, you'd be like, hang on a sec. I need to understand the context. Right. I don't know anything about you. Yeah. Which I'm sure you get DMs every single day. Nat, what's the peptide for? Like, no. Yeah. It depends is the answer they usually get. So let's go back to dopamine though. Why don't you do a little dive for us into dopamine? I think that, you know, what's really interesting is it, I mean, obviously it's there for focus, but, but how does, how should people be thinking about managing and what are the danger signs we want them to look for? And, and yeah, like just to really leverage their dopamine status to optimize their performance. Yeah. So first of all, dopamine is an incredibly important neurotransmitter that we're all producing on a daily basis. And the reason why I became so interested in understanding how to really just optimize dopamine was because I realized that if I wanted to, number one, start my own business, number two, like be motivated and wake up every day feeling driven, motivated, excited and want to get after my goals, then dopamine is going to be an important part of that recipe. Right. So it has to be there, but in my opinion, I didn't want it to be balanced with like serotonin. I actually wanted it to be imbalanced and more dominant. So I wanted to become dopamine dominant because I realized, hang on a sec, why is it that all these entrepreneurs, you know, productivity freaks, like how are they getting so much work done? Like how come they're so motivated? Like some people will say, oh, it might be due to childhood trauma, things like that. But I basically disregarded all that. And I thought just biologically speaking, what is the, is the neurochemistry behind productivity and focus and that sort of stuff. And I actually, I don't know if I coined the term, but I was really excited by this concept of cosmetic neurology, which is being able to like tweak and like manipulate your neurotransmitters to your exact needs. So for example, That's a very cool concept. Yeah. So the idea was based around, for example, depending upon the task in which I'm approaching, what should my neurotransmitter profile look like? And that was the, that was the idea around this cosmetic neurology. It was one of the first courses that I released. I kind of like probably five years ago. And then I realized, all right, so dopamine clearly it's an important one, even on Reddit, if you go on Reddit, like the new Tropic, I never go on Reddit. Yeah, it's toxic. I avoid Reddit at all costs. But anyway, you tell us about Reddit. The reason why, the reason why I do float on Reddit is because I like to see what people are actually interested in and talking about, like just gaining interest and like, oh, what are people talking about? And everyone keeps on posting, everyone kept posting, what's the best supplement to boost dopamine? How do I up regulate my dopamine receptors? What can I do to supercharge? And I'm like, okay, let's just become an expert. Let's understand this really well. And then I discovered some really incredible ingredients that I subjected my body to. Number one was ureidine, ureidine monophosphate. That changed the game for me. It literally shifted my personality in a direction that I was wanting it to go in, which was, it made me want to get shit done. Like it turned me into a productivity freak. And at the time, of course, that was important to me because I was building a business. Now I don't use it at all, because I'm not in that phase of my life. I'm not, I'm trying to expand my social connections and become more community driven, that sort of stuff. I'm in a different phase. But early on, when I was building and I was just starting, I needed that kick to like actually push me in that right direction. So. And is there a downside to ureidine monophosphate? For some people, yes, it makes them motivated and driven. But for some people, it makes them feel a little bit more emotionally disconnected a little bit more, like a bit more numb, like in terms of like disinterest, a bit more robotic in that sense. But you can see how that could be good in certain situations. Like laser focus. Yeah. So that one was really great, particularly when combined with high dose EPA and DHA. So the actual stack wasn't developed by myself was actually something called the Mr. Happy Stack. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. So it's actually a really famous stack that was developed by this guy on again, on Reddit, where it was the combination of like DHA, EPA, so omega threes with ureidine monophosphate and then B complex, like that B complex formulation. And you look at the research behind it. Funnily enough, there's a really famous anti Alzheimer's formula that's like now you sold in millions of like thousands of pharmacies across Australia. It's called Suvenade. And it's actually based around, it's actually based, it's a base around that combination. Wow. Which is really cool. That's really interesting. Okay. So that optimizes dopamine. Yeah. So ureidine, the way in which it works is it increases, I'll get a little bit sciency. So it increases potassium evoked dopamine release. And it also helps with up regulating dopamine D2 receptors. So perfect. That's, you know, what we want in today's society. The next one that I had a great experience with was either Altyrosine or Alphenylalanine. Which, you know, one's actually non essential. Alphenylalanine is essential. So I actually chose the essential one because it's the one that makes sense. Does that make? Exactly. And that I still use today. I actually still use today if I'm, let's just say I've had a really depleting week, a really exhausting week of just lots of work and stuff. But then I have to go out and go to a birthday party or a dinner or something where I'm, if I'm feeling drained, but I don't want to stimulate myself with caffeine, then I'll have phenylalanine and I'll take alphenylalanine under my tongue about 250 to 500 milligrams. And that is enough to not mess up my sleep, but give me enough like excitement and enthusiasm to, you know, get up and go and socialize and, you know, being a bit more an upbeat social bubbly state. Yeah. Interesting. Well, you know, what's interesting about that is, you know, we're in a, in the world right now, there's this movement away from alcohol. And it's interesting. There is, right? I mean, I believe me, I still have friends who you will have to pry their wine bottle out of their dying hands, which sadly will come sooner than later for them. But, but there is definitely a movement and even in younger people, like I think it's, it's across the board. Tim Gray just posted about that today, I think. Yeah, about Generation Gen Z, like massive decline in alcohol consumption. Oh yeah. No, I mean, it's, it's, it's been happening for like anybody who's paying attention is seeing it happen, right? And there's more and more, I mean, definitely there's a lot of focus on finding alternatives to alcohol for people. And, and it, and it comes down to can we identify what those things are that alcohol is doing for people that we can trigger with some, whether it's a cava that, you know, kind of the right cava extract can actually act as kind of this social lubricant, if you will, help people to feel a little looser, more friendly, or fennel alanine and could a cava and fennel alanine partner together to, and catwaba. That's, that's actually where, so the catwaba combination, one of the biggest effects that I noticed early on when I was researching catwaba was that it made people way more social and like just more excited and outgoing. It actually shifted because when I, we might as well get into the discovery behind it. So catwaba is a Brazilian herb. It's very, very famous in South America as their number one, like aphrodisiac. It's sort of like when people think of macapowder, it's similar to like a macapowder, similar to like a ginseng, but not overly stimulating like a ginseng. And catwaba, it actually literally translates to what gives strength to the man, like as in to increase strength. And like, they also call it the tree of togetherness, which means that it's to bring together people and to like, they even shamans back in the day would use it to ignite romantic intimacy, things like that. And they would use it with a concoction of other herbs as well. Another one called neuropoirma, which is also a great herb. But the reason why I was so excited about catwaba was because some of the early rat studies, obviously it's not human studies, but it was just animal studies, which is all I could go for go by, right? What else can you do? Like when there's no human studies, what can you do? What's the next best thing you can do? You can have a look at some animal studies. And so in the animal studies, it demonstrated that catwaba was a mild dopamine reuptake inhibitor. So the opposite of an SSRI. So I was like, hang on a sec. Catwaba makes rats very happy. Like, what's it going to do for humans? And then I look at the human traditional use, like historical usage, and it does help with mood. It actually is considered to be an antidepressant. And I'm like, I think this is going to be a really cool herb to serve a really important purpose for people that don't want to drink. Like, because that was me. I've actually never, I mean, I've had like three glasses of alcohol in my whole life. So yeah. I mean, I've never been a big drinker, but I've definitely had more than three glasses. I've been around a lot longer than you. So that's probably part of it too. Well, the mindset for me was I was always a semi-professional soccer player early on. So I was always thinking about training and training and training. So I was brainwashed early on by my coach, never to drink. It's good brainwashing in the grand school world. I feel athletes go one way or the other, right? True. True. But yeah, I think, like you said before, the decreased interest in alcohol, why is that the case? Well, I think our generation are becoming more educated about the actual toxicity associated with alcohol beyond just the liver. Like they're starting to learn now finally, okay, it's affecting the brain. Like this is not beneficial. This will contribute and accelerate likelihood of developing dementia, you know, Parkinson's, things like that. So I think it's pretty well established. And even Hoobman, thank you to Dr. Andrew Hoobman for actually, you know, creating content around this for saying that was it no amount of alcohol is safe for human consumption? I think you said there's no minimum. There's no, there's no good amount of alcohol. Yeah. None. And even in the Rosveratrol story, honestly, you could get your Rosveratrol from other places without alcohol and be the value of Rosveratrol in the first place is highly questionable at this point. I know, I know. We're not, we don't need to go there. But let's just say that all you guys that are hanging your hat on the Rosveratrol content of your red wine, not so much. Exactly. I think the, like the idea around alcohol acting as a social lubricant, like you said before, we can mimic the effects if we understand the mechanism. That's why I've always been so obsessed with understanding what and how and why is things working and doing what they do. Because with ethanol, we know that it's hitting the GABA A receptor, which is a particular receptor that famous, commonly prescribed anti-anxiety drugs also hit, like the, the valiums and the benzodiazepines, things like that. But then I'm like, okay, but surely there's some supplements, natural ingredients out there that can also hit that receptor in a safer way, like in a more effective, safer way. And there are many, like you said, Carva, Lemon Balm, Magnolia Bark, um, L-thenin, Torine. Like a lot of them. Yeah. There's a lot. There's a lot. Appigenin, magnesium. Um, there's just so many that, that do that. And a lot of these things don't have toxicity. They have the opposite. They're actually protective. So it's like, why would you use alcohol if you could take something that's going to give you the effect and give you no calm down as well? Ever feel like your body's running on one bar of battery before lunch? Yeah, that used to be me. Here's the thing. You eat right, you exercise, you even flirt with meditation apps and still you're dragging. Turns out the problem isn't your willpower. It lives inside your cells in your mitochondria. That's why I started taking timelines, mitopure, and I like the gummies. They're the first ever longevity gummies powered by your aliphany, the nutrient that literally recharges your cells by recharging your mitochondria. And they taste like a treat, not homework. Now here's the kicker. These aren't just trendy supplements. Mitopure is clinically proven. We're talking 12% more muscle strength in 16 weeks, faster recovery, and energy that lasts. Plus they're sugar free, vegan, and way easier than swallowing yet another pill. So get your wrench back at timelongue.com forward slash nat 20 and use code Nat 20 for 20% off your purchase. I feel like dopamine is a good news, bad news, neurotransmitter. And I feel that if we look at any of the research around things like Instagram, like social media, and how that puts people that puts their dopamine into overdrive, like understanding that nuance between activating dopamine, leaning into it, leveraging it as a superpower, and yet seeing how easily it could be manipulated, send you down a dark, deep rabbit hole that you're never seen from, you emerge from a three o'clock in the morning kind of leery eyed. Well, there's a, I really like what I think Huberman's also mentioned, which is, like if you're releasing dopamine without, without effort, physical or mental effort, that's the problem where like that seems to be the main problem. Because when you're expending effort and energy outward, that's when you should get that dopamine response because it reinforces that behavior. So like physical, physical exercise activity. Yes, it's difficult. And you're putting in the effort to actually move your body. But then when you do that, the body pays it off, gives you a payoff. There's a reward. The dopamine. So the problem is now that things, obviously, we can just get what we want when we want, the convenience factor. So that makes it a little bit more challenging now, because now we actually have to spend, what do you call it, like, find time during the day to actually put in the effort, which is like, go to the gym in the morning or go to the gym at night time, you know, like after actually find time now. Yeah, absolutely. Do you have, do you, when you work with your clients, and I'm guessing you work mostly with men, is that am I right? Yeah, sounds like you're working with men. Do you advise them on best time to work out? Because I know there's different, there's different theories about that, right? I mean, personally, if I don't go first thing in the morning, it's, it's just not going to happen in my world. But you know, if you listen to Ben Greenfield, four or five o'clock is, you know, when your strength peaks, there's an argument that says that might be the best time. I think we can all agree that seven, eight o'clock at night is too late. You're never going to get to sleep. Not good. Not good. I like that topic. It's actually, it's come out like three times this week. It's like, you know, in terms of exercise timing, I'm the same as you personally, I think if I don't get it done first thing in the morning, it's going to be hard to fit it in, particularly if you run your own business. Like it's, you're busy. You're like doing other things, things pop up, like gets in the way. But I must admit though, that training at in the afternoon evening, I have personally felt like I do feel a little bit stronger. Like I have, because I've eaten like three, probably two or three main meals before that. So I'm really well fed and I'm full. My blood sugar is likely a lot higher than what it was in the morning. You have ammunition. Yeah. You've been, yeah, you're filled up. So having said that, I think there was a period of time where I was training faster in the morning consistently, but I wasn't eating enough the night before. And I feel like that was the problem. Like the final meal before bed needed to be more dense and just a lot like carb heavy, just more carbs. Because if it like the sort of training that I'm trying to, that I'm doing is they're carbohydrate dominant exercises. So therefore, you need to personally, I thought need a refill on the carbohydrates more so, you know, than I before. Yeah. Well, it's interesting, you know, I feel like the conversation again, all of these conversations, I love that they're becoming more nuanced. I love that it's well, because for the longest time it was black and white, right? Never work out first thing in the morning, fasted. There's times when it's actually going to work for the right person at the right time, if they're not in a, in a state of adrenal exhaustion, just kicking themselves all over town kind of thing. Like it's, and it depends on the workout and it depends on what, as you're saying, what you ate the night before, how you're going to refuel on the other side of it. But I do, I agree with you that, you know, there is that sweet spot around late afternoon, early evening, that's probably physiologically the best time to exercise. But ultimately, the best exercise is the exercise that you actually do. Yeah, I get it. It's the right, you're sending the right message to the, to people that need to hear it is like, majority of people just need to hear what you just said in that last sentence. The best exercise that you do is the exercise that you at least just do. But you do, right? Because if you, if you sit there and say, well, I didn't make my five o'clock for the last six months, do it at seven in the morning. Yeah, just get her done. Get it out there. I do find as well, particularly with, I mean, it's, I would say it's probably more common in women is the under eating aspects with the heavy training, because that forget about, you know, reproductive functioning and that's going to be a recipe for, is it female athlete triad? Is that the term that they use? I think the equivalent in men is low testosterone, which is like, which we're seeing a lot of right now in younger men. Yeah. And that's why, like, when I was also researching dopamine, I actually quickly learned that the dopamine aspect, yes, it's important, but then it's like, without the testosterone, like the, like testosterone enables action and it also promotes, it actually encourages physical activity and effort. And there's like Kubman also has mentioned something like testosterone makes effort feel good. And it makes so much sense because it's like the guys that have high testosterone, they want to get after their day, they want to crush their to do list, they want to, it sort of enables that action. So yeah, nowadays, the problem with most men is that their testosterone levels are nowhere near where they need to be. And a lot of guys are jumping onto, you know, TRT testosterone replacement therapy. In my opinion, too, like prematurely, they're not you know, putting in the effort to try and optimize naturally. And that's like a, that's a problem, I think. So why don't we talk about that a little bit? Because, you know, and it's, you know, what's it, it's interesting, and we don't need to talk about it now, but testosterone has become a very hot topic for women as well. But let's start with, let's talk about men, because that's your, your area right now. And, and I do think it's concerning that younger and younger men are looking for testosterone replacement therapy. And so let's talk a bit about what's, what could be driving that and what they really need to be looking at. And also, is there a thyroid connection there as well? Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that, because when guys are focused so heavily on thyroid on testosterone, a lot of the time when I'm looking at their blood work, I know deep down that there's actually something upstream that's even more important that actually regulates your ability to convert cholesterol into the sex steroid hormones, including testosterone, and that is thyroid T3. So the guys that have low T3 are usually the guys that have low testosterone because they're not converting the cholesterol sufficiently. They're not making its way through the mitochondria, through the, this particular enzyme, star enzyme. And therefore they're not producing enough testosterone. That, that's a problem. And that's why when it comes to thyroid, yes, it's, I would say it's probably more heavily spoken about in women's health because it's more 100% an issue. But for men, I mean, I rarely see a guy's blood work where he's T3 levels are where I want it to be. And I, and I'm talking TSH and also T4. So yeah, for my sweet spot, you've probably got your own sweet spot. For me, it's 0.5 to 1.5 for TSH, like on the lower side, even though the reference range is ridiculously isn't it up to four or something? It makes no sense. I think most people want to see it under two for sure. Yeah. I've actually, by the way, got mine down to 0.49. So I've got to be careful. I'm not pushing it too fast. Too low. Yeah. Yeah. But T4, usually around, anyway, between like 15 and 20, that's usually good for our reference ranges in Australia. And then T3, I like to see it above 5.8 to around 6.2, 6.3. I know it's very specific, but it's on the upper end of the reference range. Is that the same T cell? It sounds to me like the units are the same. Australia and Canada, I think we operate in the same world. I mean, I don't typically work with men's hormones. So I'm going to take your word for it on that. But I think for thyroid metrics, those all sound pretty good. Like you're a lot tighter on the T3, but at some level, you're aiming for a very specific outcome. Yeah. And you know, what's interesting about an underperforming thyroid is that cholesterol levels are going to go up. Like my dad, yeah, like my dad's been on cholesterol medication for as long as I can remember. And it wasn't until much later in his life that anybody ever told him that his thyroid was underperforming. That's so, yeah. Right. So meanwhile, he has decades of statin use when maybe all he needed was thyroid support way back in the day. Back, well, really long time ago, I think in the 1960s or 1970s, they actually prescribed thyroid to lower cholesterol. It was actually a, it was a type of thyroid, I think it was, I think it was T3. It makes so much sense. Why did it go away? I know, I know. And even when I'm, when I'm scrolling down guys blood test results and I can see their TSH is like three. And like even before I get to the cholesterol and I'm scrolling and I'm scrolling and then I get to the cholesterol, I'm like, oh yeah, I knew that was going to be high. Like I literally was going to even preemptively say that that's a problem. And it is a problem. Why is it a problem? The question is why is thyroid an issue? Well, it's because nutrient deficiencies. Yes. Of course, iodine, selenium, zinc, magnesium, tyrosine. Yes, they're important. But then looking beyond that, why again? Well, we have to acknowledge the fact that pollutants, fluoride, things that actually block thyroid hormones, it's ubiquitous. Like it's, it's everywhere. So therefore, you can't, you can't really get away from it unless you're living a really healthy lifestyle. It's very hard to avoid that. And then also beyond that is, I've seen guys that decide to go on a full carnivore diet as well, like without any carbs, like basically like a keto, very, very, very low carb diet, which in some cases for obesity, like, you know, trying to drop a lot of body weight. Yeah, it can do a great job. But they're the ones that, the ones that don't have enough carbs are the ones that have low T3 because you need carbohydrates to adequately convert T4 into T3 as well. So that's also another thing that guys get confused about. Yeah, well, I mean, the carnivore camp is a very compelling camp, right? Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, when you, when you listen to the big names in the carnivore camp, it's, they're very, very compelling people and it definitely works for them in some way shape or form. I don't know, I think I'm a little bit with you. I'm a little more cautious with carnivore. What are you, what are you, I'm actually curious, what do you think is like lacking the most about the carnivore diet? What's the thing that it's missing? Do you think? I think for me, it's nutrient diversity. Yeah. You know, I think it's, it's, I feel like the human animal was never meant to be monothaic when it comes to diet. I think we're obligate omnivores, right? And, and we get, and, and maybe there are certain people from certain ethnic lineages that might be better suited to carnivore. I'm really open to that possibility. But like, I'm personally, I'm, I'm Mediterranean descent. I tried to do carnivore and it was nothing short of a disaster. So it's, I think you have to be, I think whenever people go into these, these very extreme diets, the most important thing is number one, as you said earlier, as an intervention, it can be really powerful, right? But you have to be the way to make it work for someone is to be open to the possibility that it's not going to be exactly right for you. And we see it actually a little bit, even though he's still somewhat very, very set in his ways. Paul Saladino, you know, he started off hardcore carnivore. He ended up moving into a space where he added back fruit and raw milk and raw honey. And he's been crucified by the hardcore carnivores. But you can see in him that there's been a shift where he had to adapt to what his body really needed, not to mention the fact that he lives in Costa Rica. So he's not, he's living in a different environment where your body's, you know, respond differently to different foods. And I think that's a piece of the puzzle. Yep. I fully, fully resonate with that. I think, well, when I look at it as well, like with the, we were talking sort of before the podcast about the polyphenols, like you can't get polyphenols in meat. You can't get these flavonoids from meat. You can get them from fruit, which I think fruit, like blueberries, blackberries, we can't deny the fact that these have beneficial effects long term as long as they're clean, you know, they're actually not sprayed with all that crap. But like some of the best supplements and the best neutropic ingredients have come from plants, but haven't come from meat. Like that they've come from carnitine maybe, but that's it. Yeah. Good point actually. I know even kind of seen as well. But and taurine, I can't deny that. And then there's taurine, yeah. And there's iron in the right now. It's more like, yes, yes, yes, but it's still, it's more like the neurogenic sort of, you know, the BDNF boosting compounds like, you know, terastilbene from blueberries and apigenin from chamomile. And she can also get from parsley. Every time I come up with an argument, I'm just can't even. But, but, no, but to your point, like there's many different, like mother nature offers us many different ways to skin this cat, right? And, and meat's going to get you so far meat, healthy fat, I mean, we all want the healthy fats, what's going to be healthy fat is going to in some ways depend on your current state. We know what unhealthy fat is, but I'm actually curious on your position on seed oils. Because that's another one these days that is jeez lighting up the world. And so you've got part of the world that is like seed oils are essentially a creation from Satan to destroy humanity. And yet there's research that shows that certain seed oils are actually not that harmful. Okay, I think it's a spectrum. So with the seed oils, there's definitely types of seed oils that are very, very problematic and bad in my opinion that I would never use. But I do occasionally have sunflower oil every now and then, like, or I'll have things like that they're actually considered poofers. I've had them here and there like, I can't think of any other one right now that I've that I have more often. Obviously, my dominant oil or fatty acid composition that I thrive on is extra virgin olive oil and butter and coconut oil, like they're the three that I prefer. Yeah, but every now and then if I'm going to have a little bit of sunflower oil, I don't think it's going to absolutely kill me because I've had a look into the research behind I know it's more rancid, it's likely to get oxy oxidized, but there's actually dedicated unique benefits to sunflower oil, for example. But if we look at something like canola oil, yeah, I mean, that's the research is so it'd be so difficult for a consumer to understand why is canola oil actually bad? Because if you go on pub, have you seen the studies where there's like, it lowers cholesterol does all the good things? I mean, again, I mean, clearly, you know, there's good canola oil and bad canola oil, would I use it as my main oil? No, not even close, right? I mean, even things like I remember, I used to get this pumpkin seed oil from sterian pumpkin seed oil, like from where is that like not in Germany, but somewhere in that part of the world, like really, and it was, and Lucas, it was like the deepest darkest green you could ever imagine and had the most unbelievable flavor. It was wildly expensive. But they had data that showed that it helped immense health, nobody's business, because it's very high in zinc. It was really, really incredible as a food. Yeah, that's a good example of one that I mean, that technically would be classified as a seed oil or like a, do they call that a poofa? Would that be called a pollinant? Probably, I mean, it's pumpkin seeds, like it's a seed oil. But you know, it was the way that they were, first of all, it was the seeds they were harvesting, it was the way they were producing it. They was like, it was low heat, you know, it was a cold expeler pressed. It was in a dark green bottle. The bottles were small so that you would get to consume it before it went bad. Like, yeah, you know, I mean, I've had rancid coconut oil. You can anything, some things are less likely to go bad than others, but you anything can really go bad. And I think it's the anyway, I think it's an interesting, it's an interesting rabbit hole, but we've abandoned our men, let's them hanging on the testosterone. So, it does lead into this topic of testosterone and thyroid because I always say for guys, if they're looking to boost testosterone as high as possible naturally, and if they really want to optimize their hormones, then we actually need to focus on avocados, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, butter, saturated fat from red meat. Like these are the types of fats where I've seen blood work and I've looked at thousands of different guys blood work over the years. These are the types of fats that are really important for actually helping with testosterone production because I've seen guys that go vegan and they go plant based and I've seen their blood work and it's not pretty. It's not a good site at all. Well, I think part of the vegan thing also is very few people do it properly. Yep. And you kind of can't do it without supplementation of some fat. So, it's also not a particularly natural diet. I don't know for the long term and people will hate on us for saying this, but it's not. I mean, and yet there's people who've pulled it off and become bodybuilders and I don't know if you've ever met Wade Lightheart from Bioptimizers. I mean, he's pretty much all plant based and I think he won a bodybuilding competition not that long ago as a 50 year old guy who's fully plant based, but the guy's optimizing in many other ways. Like he's using digestive enzymes. I'm sure he's taking all the right supplement stacks and his body seems to do very well with it, but it's not, you know, most people who go vegan just have this really sad diet of Tofurkey. Somebody should capture what you said and use it as an ad for like a carnival ad. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I mean no disrespect. I mean, look, you know, there's a lot of reasons why people avoid animal products and, you know, I gotta respect them. But at the same time, I think that when you're looking to optimize your health, there's going to be a price to pay and you have to do the research so that you can plug the holes that are naturally present in a vegan diet. Yeah, no, definitely. Definitely. There's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So back to our testosterone conversations. So with your guys, particularly the younger guys. So the first thing you're going to look at really is the thyroid and see if that's optimized. You're going to look for fat intake and their carbon take to make sure that they're nourishing the body in a way that it feels safe and has the materials and can do the conversions. Correct. Then I'm also going to look at their exercise, like how they're actually training if they're doing the right types of exercise. So for example, the guys that are doing the really long endurance ultra like marathon training, like the testosterone is in the floor like terrible. That's why I usually recommend weight training three to four times a week. And we're talking like, yes, compound movement, squatting, deadlifting, bench press, they're going to really move the needle in terms of boosting testosterone. Beyond just training, I'm then also looking at like sleep quality because obviously, I mean, like the whole point around testosterone optimization is actually just to become as healthy as possible. Like because then testosterone levels will thrive. So getting in at least seven and a half to nine, seven and a half to eight and a half hours of good quality sleep per night is going to be important. And I always emphasize to guys to stop also wearing polyester underwear, because funnily enough, like polyester, the electrostatic shocks, the charge that it builds up can actually, the little static shocks can actually lead to infertility in men. No, no, no. If they're wearing polyester underwear, it's actually... Who wears polyester underwear? I guess a lot of people do, but... Well, it's, first of all, there's a lot of, there's heaps of different brands that use it in their underwear, but the best ones we want to be using is like bamboo or cotton. Or the viscose, like the plant viscose would be... Yeah, no problems with those, but like if we look at the reasoning why it's a problem is because like from a male anatomy perspective, the testes are hanging outside the body for a reason, because they have to be kept cooler than the core body temperature. So therefore, as a man, he should be keeping his balls cool as much as possible, which is why I've been popularizing the icing the testes. That's like taken off like crazy. I've had so many couples come back to me saying that they're just fallen pregnant, they've conceived just from the guy doing the icing. No kidding. And red light? Red light therapy, sometimes sunning as well, like intermittent sunning. Yeah, that's a whole different topic. We don't have time for that, because I want to get back to the cathopure for quickly. But okay, so are we going on the testosterone? Yeah, sure. Sleep, diet, exercise, thyroid, diet, sleep, exercise, thyroid, like optimizing your lifestyle ultimately. And you know, it's creating a world where the body feels safe and in a place where it's time to reproduce. Like that's the bottom line, right? And also a state of abundance in terms of safety, security, like even, I don't really like saying this sometimes, but financially as well, like as a man to feel like he's got his security, financial security as well. I have seen blood work from guys that do their testosterone levels before and after they've made a lot of money from something. It's insane what it does to their testosterone. The guys that have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in a couple of months or whatever, their testosterone levels just spike like crazy. Yeah, I mean, you could argue that getting there also is they're so stressed, working so hard, burning the candle at both ends, not exercising, not taking care of themselves. You know, like they're both are true. And I'm sure that, you know, when you're feeling flush, the whole world just looks and feels better. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about whatever made you jump into this whole supplement business. Because it's an interesting business. It's a tough business. I mean, again, just like the conversation we had before we started recording, when somebody tried to talk me into starting a podcast and me saying, no, no, no, the world does not need another podcast. And here we are. There's no shortage of supplements out there. But I find it really interesting that the one supplement that you've pushed out so far that you've developed is a little bit unique. Like I've never heard of it before. And it's got its own, it's got its own little niche now. Yeah. Well, first of all, I mean, I've always had the idea that I'd release my own supplements in the future. And I've always thought that my formulation, every formulator thinks that his formulas are unique, which, you know, they always say the same story. But I think, I just think that the way in which I'm sort of combining ingredients or educating about them makes people really curious and excited and want to try them. And, you know, I had the choice of releasing anything as my very first supplement. It could have been a magnesium product. It could have been a vitamin D. It could have been. Yeah. There's a million of those out there. Why go there? So I decided I'm like, you know what, I've known about catwabba for years. And I've used it and I've prescribed it and I've seen how people respond to it. I know it's a really popular herb in South America in Brazil. I know that it's got some pretty cool animal studies behind it. But I also know that there's not many of these, like there's, there are catwaba products on the market, but I don't think that they're doing a great job in terms of actually like quality sourcing and that sort of stuff. So I picked, I decided, you know what, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to get high quality catwaba, which don't get me wrong. That was not an easy, and not an easy task at all. We had to, we got our third party tested using a company called alchemist.com. They're like, the America's Best Third Party Assessment for Quality. And to be honest in that, we actually sent two samples and they both failed. They didn't come back. They actually did not pass quality. They actually weren't catwaba, even though the supplier said it was and I was really upset. I was really disappointed. I'm like, I want to release a product that doesn't even exist. Like, it doesn't actually, like, where can I find legitimate catwaba? Yeah. Anyway, long story short, we ended up finding a supplier who actually passed the assessment with, which is the one that we're using now called Catwapua. We trademarked the name Catwapua and the brand, the brand name for my supplement brand is that took so long to think of a name because, oh, there we go. That's got it in the hands. The brand name took us ages to think of because all the good names were not like we couldn't trademark, right? So it was like, and there's so many different supplement brands out there. But we finally arrived on in before because that encapsulates what I stand for, which is releasing cutting edge ingredients in before everyone else. Nice. So that's why I love it. So, so there's mostly animal studies, but there's traditional uses for Catwapua in Brazil, right? And so does it has, is it mostly a men's supplement or is it good for men and women? Do you know yet or? It's, it can be used by both men and women. The mood, the mood benefits definitely apply to both. Definitely applied to women as well for like mood. Got to realize that this, this product is a dopamine boosting herb. So it actually increases dopamine and you can see how that's going to translate to subjective experience, improve mood, motivation, better libido, just general vitality. So women can definitely use it as well. I love it. Yeah. The way I like to put it is like if, if a woman responds well to like, let's say Maca powder or Brodyola or like a ginseng. This is where Catwaba can really shine. It can sort of, and also Mekuna, Mekuna Perians. This is where I think Catwaba slots right in as like an alternative to those. Okay. Well, it's interesting. I'm actually testing out a line of Maca products right now. So is it the Maca team or different? Nope. It's a company called Symphony Health. Okay. And they've developed a line of Maca formulas that support women's hormones, but there's three different formulas for women who are still cycling women in perimenopause and women who are postmenopause. Awesome. And so it's, you know, it's a very, you know, the, the, the, and they have some very impressive people on their board. So the, the coming out position is that it can, it might be able to either reduce the amount of hormone therapy that women need. And in some cases, eliminate it, which I find a little bit fascinating. It's stretching my, my, you know, I'm like, let me get this straight. Shop's closed and you're telling me. Interesting. So we'll see. You know, I think that it's, it's a very interesting premise. And, and if it, and if it does work that way, it, it offers a different avenue and maybe it won't work for every woman, but maybe for some women and certainly women who are not willing to use hormone replacement. Maybe it's, it's another strategy that they can lean into. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. That might actually stack well. Like when, if you look at some of the formulas on the market, there have been formulations where they're using Maca with the catwaba. Yeah. Maca catwaba Damiana is another herb that's really popular. Passion flower that also stacks really well with it. But yeah, I think realistically, Nat, I mean, it's the first product that I've released, but my long-term goal is I want to have literally like, you know, 40, 50 different products. I'm in this for the long game. Like I'm just at the beginning of my career and I want to like, I've got great formulation ideas that don't mean anything if they're just sitting on an Excel spreadsheet. Like I have to, they have to get out there, you know, or that what's that website? What's my stack? Oh, it was like, yeah, right. My staff. I don't even know if it exists anymore. It was, now I'm looking forward to seeing the new edition of that, of that pre-workout that you described at the beginning of the podcast. Oh yeah. I think that'll be very cool. So in before Katwapure is available in the US, it's Amazon US, yeah, Amazon US for sale. And they can also get it at, yeah, inbeforesups.com where I'm trying my best to educate. Thank you so much for even allowing me the voice here to talk about it because it's like, I want people to start realizing that they don't have to just use the general herbs that are out there. There's other things you can explore. If you've had a great experience, I love herbs. I'm a naturopath, right? So if you've had a great experience with like, let's say, I don't know, rhodiola or ashwagandha or ginseng or like explore what else is out there. Because Katwapure might be another thing that you might respond well to and you might realize, hang on, I might use Katwapure for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays just for the weekend. And you might think, you know, that's, that's my weekend sort of fun outgoing herb sort of thing. Nice. So would you take it at the end of the day? It won't affect. You're going out or it's not going to affect sleep, you said. No, it doesn't affect sleep. You know what's crazy is that we've had so many people report that it actually increases their HRV score, which I was not intending, I didn't make it for that reason, but people are saying it does increase their HRV, which is surprising. Okay. So we can use it end of the day when we're feeling like we need a little lift. Yeah. Yeah. If you have it with a glass of sparkling water and a little umbrella in there to simulate the cocktail. And then is there a reason why someone wouldn't use it seven days a week? Or are you recommending that maybe three, four days a week is good and take a break? Well, some people prefer to do like a loading period of like five days on two days off as well. So they might want to do it just to really saturate their body and see what Katwaba can do for them. Because for some people it takes like a week or two to notice the effects. For others, they notice the mood benefits pretty soon after taking it. Like when I remember when I very first tried the, not the herb in the powdered form, but in the tea form, because you can get Katwaba in tea as well. For sure. It's actually a bark. It's a bark. And so when I had the bark for the first time ever, because I was in what I call like a virgin to it, like I've never used the Katwaba before. Um, its effects were so pronounced that I, I was just like, everything was making me laugh and everything was just pleasant. Like just, I was in a great, great headspace. Nice. Well, I'm going to a conference. So I'm taking my Katwaba with me. Well, because you know conferences, right? You, you're up all day long. And then by the end of the day, the dinners are starting to roll in and you're like, Oh my God, I just want to go back to my room. I'm done. So we'll see if it can carry me through the conference. See how it goes. I'll let you know. Definitely. Well, Lucas, this has been an absolute pleasure. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for taking the time and for getting up super early. Like we've seen, you've seen the sunrise. I can see it now. She started in the dark and now you've got the sun shining. Thank you for being here. Please let, people know where they can find you, the podcast, your website, all the tests. Definitely. No, thanks for the great chat. I knew it was going to be an absolute fun one. And I appreciate the space, the opportunity to share what I have to share. And it's great to see you evolve and also your platform grow as well. So appreciate that. So people don't want to find me. Probably the best place is YouTube. Boost your biology on YouTube. Please go over there and just subscribe. I have an Instagram as well. But the, yeah, the YouTube is, I'm over a thousand videos now. So there's so much great content there. That's amazing. That's a, that's prolific friend. Yeah. Appreciate it. That's great. So it's boost your biology, YouTube and Instagram. I'm not the name of the podcast as well. Instagram is Ergo Genic Health. So, Ergo Genic GENIC, underscore health. Yep. They can also search my name, Lucas, A O U N. It should come up. And then my website is boostyourbiology.com. Right. And then my supplement brand is in before sups.com, I N B 4 sups.com. Perfect. Got it. Cool. Thanks. Thank you so much. Have a nice day. Take care. Thank you. Hey folks, just a quick reminder that all of the information presented in this podcast is for information purposes only. No medical advice, no diagnosing, no treatments suggested here. Before you try anything that you hear about or learn about here, make sure that you check with your medical provider.