Ep. 4 | Why the 49ers Can't Stay Healthy | Peter Cowan on EMF, Substations, and Your Hormones

0:01 you Hey everybody, this is Hunter Williams. I hope you are doing amazing wherever you're at in the world today. We're going to be doing something a little bit different. His name is Peter Cowan and he is a quantum biology practitioner.

0:33 He's got a background from the tech world. And I was actually recently introduced to him through my friend, Brandon Amelani from Blue Shield. And we got linked up through him and he had these series of articles on Stub Stack talking about the connection between EMF exposure and our health, but particularly the 49ers and what has been going on with their practice and game facility being next to a power substation. So we're going to go into all that today. But what's going be really cool today is I know you guys are always wanting to know about peptides and hormones and stuff.

1:04 Peter's going to talk to us about the connection between EMF and then some things like testosterone and the neuroendocrine system and how all of these are interconnected for our health. So Peter, thank you for coming on today. And how are you doing? I'm good. Thanks for having me, Hunter. I am excited to do this. You know, I like to to different audiences and this is an audience that I haven't had an opportunity to Yeah, awesome. I actually, when I was just doing a little bit of research to prep, saw some of your stuff on Sports Talk Radio, different radio stations around the country.

1:37 So that was cool because I don't talk about it as much in my health content, but obviously I'm a huge sports fan and have the football background and everything. Why don' you just tell us, getting started, a bit about your background, and then how you got into this alternative side of health things. Yeah, my background. So you mentioned I was in tech. I wasn't tech, I grew up in the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, little town called Santa Cruz, Little Beach surfer town.

2:10 And I as a skater, and I also really healthy kid and then in my teens. I took some, we'll get to this later maybe, some fluoroquinine antibiotics and all of a sudden started getting sick and stopped being active and started to getting into computers. And I got a little bit better and then I thought, you know, I'm going to discard computers, and I am done with this stuff. Then I really got sick, couldn't really do anything else but sit at a computer. From age about 23 to really 40-ish.

2:45 I went through waves of different forms of chronic illness and the kind where you go to the doctor and like, well, we don't really know. And so I eventually just had to figure it out myself. A big piece of that was sitting in front of the computer, in Wi-Fi just rating on my lap all day. And so I decided that I would get out of tech and start my own wellness business based on what I had learned.

3:16 I've been doing what, I call it environmental health. Got the quantum biology certification because they're really interested in light and electromagnetic radiation and I think in mitochondria and metabolic health, like that's where it all kind of comes together. And so I thought that was a good foundation and honestly a Good excuse just to pretend I was doing something when I needed to be looking for a job And So I did that and I do environmental health I go to people's houses and they can do like a blood test and show them before and after when you make the

3:53 changes But a lot of my energy right now is actually focused on Writing software to kind of scale my practice so it can reach like 1 million people rather than two people a week or whatever. And investigative journalism that I'm really kind of focusing on in my sub stack because there's so many stories that are not being told and they're just sitting out there and so I feel like they deserve to be told. So thank you for the opportunity to tell some of those. Yeah, that's awesome. I know a large chunk of my audience, like a lot of people come, they want to know about peptides for fat loss and hormones and everything like that.

4:29 But there's a good chunk, I'd say probably 30%, that have a very similar background. And I kind of have that background myself. Actually, had I got antibiotics when I was a kid for acne when i was like 15 or 16. Same thing. Yeah, and dude, they wrecked my gut. I think mine was doxycycline, but I was on that for a while. Actually had a really severe episode when I playing football. Um, I got like severely dehydrated from being on the antibiotics and then, uh, ended up having like total body muscle cramps for like 12 hours.

4:59 It's like my entire body was like locked up and obviously it was the North Carolina heat in the summer when we were practicing. Oh, it's 15 pounds in one day. And I'm like, what is going on? My body is locked. Anyway, ending up being okay. But for years after my cut was wreck. And I was like trying to eat different foods. I didn't know what was wrong with me. And a lot of it is just from the destruction that the antibiotics have. The point being is that there's so many people in the world today, they do most of the stuff right. So I would say like, you were obviously like a pretty healthy kid. You know, really you're active, You're doing things. you are a skateboarder.

5:29 Same thing for me, I as an athlete, like playing football, was doing all the things that I thought were particularly healthy. and then you kind of have these like weird symptoms. few people realize that even though they think they're doing everything healthy, there still is some of this environmental quotient, if you'll call it, that is like affecting our lives, and a lot of that can be traced back to EMF. And obviously, you know, like when we were growing up, it was less EMS, but now, I mean, just the bombardment on a daily basis,

5:59 we're in front of screens right now. Thankfully, We have the technology, But at the same time, It's like we have to be proactive to be able to counter some of the stuff because it's everywhere. So is there anything like in a person's life you would say that, especially for someone that might have one of these like chronic undiagnosed or non-diagnosable issues when they go to the doctor, they don't know what to say. Is there, anything that you have as kind of like a checklist that would take someone through when their looking to kind look and see if EMF exposure might

6:29 be something that they're struggling with? Yeah, I mean, so it's tricky because you can do a checklist over the phone or something, but ultimately you do at a certain point have to start measuring. But I kind of ask them, what's your job? What are you doing eight hours a day? If they're on the computer, first thing you want to do is hardwire their computer. It's just kind of a no-brainer. it's usually pretty easy to, do even if you have to like pull a cord across and tape it to the ceiling, whatever. I think it is really worth doing because that's like eight plus hours of your day where you can avoid being exposed to Pretty strong signal.

7:08 And then secondary, you can put your phone on airplane mode when you're not using it or just keep it like two to three feet away from you. Which is actually good in general because then you can't reach for it and if you cant reach it then it's less of a distraction. If you gotta get up and go get it. It's a little bit annoying if your get text and you have to get back up again. I deal with that with my daughters all the time. But I think that's good. And then third I would say turn that wifi off at night.

7:40 The reason I can't just say 100% you want to do that is because some people these days have smart homes and you turn the WiFi off and then every device that depends on that WiFi is going to be working harder with their own signals to try to figure out where the data is coming from. And so you could actually wind up in a situation where maybe your bedroom is closer to the Nest thermometer and now you've increased your exposure. In general, if you don't have a smart home, turn the Wi-Fi off when you're not using it. And then I'd say the last thing, and this is a little bit trickier, but we have smart meters on our homes these days.

8:19 They measure the electricity so that the person from the power company doesn't come out and check it, Most companies will let you opt out. Sometimes you have to pay a fee, sometimes you got to play more per month. But I find that it's really worth it because these meters, they talk to each other. It's like a relay thing. And I've seen so many where the signal is like laser. it is very pointed, goes straight through the bedroom. Mine was going straight to where my pillow was. When I turned it off, I started sleeping better.

8:49 Yeah. That's crazy. And I think in a lot of cases, I have a newer house, so it probably just had a smart meter installed on it anyway. But doesn't the power company a lotta times just go and put one in without even people knowing about it? Oh, for sure. Actually, and I'm glad you asked that because I was a year and a half into my EMF journey, like professional environmental health stuff, thinking I did not have the smartmeter because i never signed for it. But then one day I was doing measures around that when I learned how to mitigate.

9:19 Like, what's this blasting signal that's right behind? Oh, that is where the meter is. And I like it. It's a flex net. So even if you know what you're doing, you can go a year with still just getting exposed to something. Yeah, they're very sneaky. They'll just do it Yeah, I wanted to ask you, this is just out of curiosity for me. And I'll tell a little personal story. So my wife and I, we moved into a new house in July of last year. It's been almost a year and before that we lived in a neighborhood.

9:52 There was like 15 minutes down the road, but the neighborhood So there was two things. One, it was very close to like a main power line. So probably like two or 300 yards from our house, there's like, a little greenway with the river behind it, which is really nice for the nature. But then alongside the River is like this huge power thing with like hundred foot tall, big like transformers and stuff. Um, and. For some reason in that house, we lived there for about two years together.

10:23 We did everything that I thought we could do just from having devices, same thing, turning the Wi-Fi off, but still sometimes sleep would be an issue for both of us, beyond the bounds of doing all the things with supplements and stuff. And we moved to this house and it's 15 minutes down the road, but it is kind of in an area like we get very low or no cell signal here. And the house is newer. I wouldn't say it a smart house, But it has got Wi-Fi and there's a lot of stuff like the stove, microwave, all that stuff is connected.

10:54 So I don't even have it hooked up. But its like got all the capabilities to do Wi Fi everywhere. And what's interesting that here with no cell signal, even though we might have like more Wi-Fi stuff because the house we moved from was older to this one, it seems like we sleep so much better here. So do you think, obviously the Wi Fi is bad, like, we know the wi-fi is, bad but like 5G and the strength of 5g plus like being close to an electric or even any sort of like electrical grid stuff. Is there, like, would you say that one is worse than the other?

11:26 Obviously you would like try to mitigate both of them, but is there like a strength to which is worst for you, I guess? You know, it's one of those things where you can't say for certain, and it can vary per person. And then a third thing I want to say is that Strength is one factor, but frequency is another factor. Pulse rate is other factor and so I kind of think of EMF more as like information than power because they'll do these studies and they find that you lower

11:57 the power and the problem gets worse. You can't say for sure, but as a rule of thumb, I do tend to think that those powerful magnetic fields are probably the worst. And if you're living a couple hundred yards from like the hundred foot tall, like metal power line things, could you hear them buzzing? Dude, yes. Like, so what was crazy is the greenway was just a beautiful green way. That's the one thing I miss about that house is you like literally go in the backyard and there's a green wave that you could ride your bike and walk on.

12:28 It's right along the river. But then like right next to it was this like huge thing. And you would literally be walking underneath and you hear them buzzing, no matter the time of the day or whatever, buzzing all the. Yeah. So those things, those are serious. like, So you got your, your neighborhood ones that are like. Those things, by the time you're 50 feet away, the magnetic field is negligible. And then you got like the kind of feeder lines that go to the substations, and those ones can get pretty high. Like you go stand under one of those, it'll be like eight or nine milligauss, which for reference, like, The World Health Organization says three to four

13:08 millegauss is when you start seeing leukemia from chronic exposure. So ideally at your house, you'd be less than one milligaus. So, but then above that you get into like, I think it's 100 kilovolts and then even up to 250 or something kilobolting. That's what you were looking at with those massive ones. And so even if you're 300 yards away, you are probably still getting a pretty elevated field. I've seen really strong fields.

13:38 You can actually take those old fluorescent tube lamps. Yeah. And you can go walk with one of those power lines and it will light up because you'll get a voltage difference between the top and the bottom. It's amazing. I'm going to get video of it someday. So cool. But then you're like, because I used to play golf at this golf course that had those lines going right through it. and It was such a beautiful golf force right on the river. but you are standing on these lines, and they're buzzing. why has this got to be here? So yeah, I, my, and this is not just my gut instinct, it's also just based on how mature the literature is on the subject.

14:16 They really studied magnetic fields for a long time and I would, if I had to choose between being near like a cell tower or something and a magnetic field and power infrastructure with magnetic, fields I'd choose the cell Tower because you can shield it. You can't really shield a Yeah, that's crazy. And I think something very important to consider too, if you are struggling with health issues, obviously there can be things beyond this that would be causing the issues.

14:46 A lot of people just don't even realize it and they might live two or 300 yards. Again, this was a neighborhood with the houses right on top of each other. So there were thousands of along this line to which the power line ran through. And you got to think at some point that's going to affect people's health. And a lot of people can be walking around and not even know it. Again, they can take every supplement or peptide in the world. But if you're under one of those things, like I don't think anything is strong enough to stop it other than just getting away from it now. It's true. Yeah. The only thing to do is get distance.

15:16 That's unfortunate. Yep. Kind of funny. This takes me back. The first, okay, not, maybe not the first. So before I did this work, I was actually a real estate agent and one of the 1st houses I ever sold, it was in a new neighborhood and there was one these huge, again, big, i think it's actually the same line that was next to the house that I live in. Like it, was the, same, It was connected to same one, these like huge transformers cause it is probably like 10 or 15 minutes away. Um, and.

15:47 I remember the people buying the house. I was working with the buyers and it was a new construction neighborhood. So it's being sold by a builder and I representing the buyer's and they were concerned about it. And I w this was literally like, I wasn't just out of college.

16:17 About how it was completely safe for the 49ers to be next to the facility it went back to that because it Was again it some like BS paper that was just like hey your house is safe Even if it's like directly if directly in your backyard you're next one of these transformers So we know that's that not true, but I guess that can lead us into the event with the 49ers. So for the people that are unaware and haven't heard of your SubSac, everyone should go check it out. I'll put the link for them to do so. But can you tell us about what's been going on with a 49er in a nutshell, you know, high level?

16:52 Yeah, so I love football, but I'm not like, like you said, linebacker. And I was like OK, which is the line backer? Like I am not that kind of football fan. I've never played fantasy football. Just I grew up in the Bay. The Raiders and the Niners killed it in 80s and Ninters into the 90s. So I always just kind love Football as this like aesthetic, just like beautiful sport. You know, to me it's like ballet or something. Uh, and so I just kind of followed it a little bit.

17:22 I wasn't aware that they had this kind just unexplainably high injury rate. And I knew when I watched the Superbowl with the chiefs, I know that Dre Greenlaw had snapped his Achilles tendon on the sidelines, like about to run in and I'm kind squeamish and that kind seared into my brain. And then I had gone to a game with my daughter, and when you go to Levi's Stadium, you just go up the back stairs and you're just right above the substation.

17:57 It's so weird, it's buzzing, just like, ugh, why is that there? So I was just kind of primed. And also, in some early in my life, when I WAS ill, I started feeling like I might be electrosensitive or something. I'd walk by a substation, I didn't feel anxious and need to get away. That was a psychological thing at that time because I was so unwell, but I've always thought substations are weird. It was in my brain. When I heard John Feliciano on the radio last year talking about Why they can't win and why they have such terrible injuries.

18:36 That was the first I'd really thought about that it was a systemic issue for them. And then he goes, he's asked by the radio host, well, why do you think you have all these injuries? And he says, Well, a lot of us players like to joke that is the substation behind our training facilities. And it just like light bulb went off in my head and and I remember the substation and then they all laughed about it. You know, it's funny. But then he did something that he's never done before or since and he says, but A lot of the high level players at the organization really take that seriously

19:12 and they're doing things to mitigate the effects. And then it was kind of just like got a little bit uncomfortable and then they changed the subject. So that was my clue is like, okay, players are concerned about this. My first number one rule in clinical work is you listen to the person who says there's a problem. If they think somebody is affecting them, take them seriously. I did. Yeah, it's crazy. And we were actually talking before recording. Um, this makes me not feel as old.

19:42 Uh, I think John Feliciano has since retired, but he played at Miami back when I played awake forest. So, uh, he doesn't probably remember me at all, We actually had them on the ropes. I think they were ranked number seven in the country when we played them. We had him on their ropes and they ended up coming back and beating us that day. But anyway, that was funny when I was reading your article, I didn't know there was him, but to your point, so many of these NFL guys, again, think about it. Your livelihood depends on your body and your performance. They will go to very extreme lengths.

20:13 And I know personally, like I'm friends with some of them, what they'll do, how much money they will spend. I would say in tune with this stuff and they know what's going on. But again, it's one of those things they can't necessarily Be very public with it because one they'll get ridiculed and then two you're kind of up against this machine of the NFL which is like almost like a political governing body at this point with its influence on popular culture and it's like Kind of

20:46 like you mentioned in the articles like how practical would it be to move an entire stadium an? Entire practice facility to a new area or either move the substation I'm sure like that's the cost has to be astronomical and ultimately it just probably not going to happen but To that point, let's get into what actually like mechanistically is going on with the body. And we can start with The 49ers. Can you explain, and my audience is like fairly scientifically advanced, maybe not so much on the EMF, but from the biology side of things,

21:19 do you explained like what is being affected in these athletes mechanically from The EMT? Yeah. So, like I mentioned earlier, I take a mitochondrial perspective to health. Your audience probably knows, but just in case some don't, we call the mitochondria the powerhouse of the cell. It's more complicated than that, for our purposes. That's how all of our physiological processes get the energy they need. The mainstream story is that electrons from food get Go into the electron transport chain as part of the mitochondria and they move from respiratory protein

22:00 to respiratory Protein and the very end the terminal electron acceptor combines with oxygen and then ATP is created and it spins a little motor and that's where your energy comes from and part that process is at the end is you create water and and you create reactive oxygen species. Reactive oxygen-species are a signaling molecule, so they're a necessary, let's call it byproduct of energy production.

22:32 But if your mitochondria gets damaged or there's any distortion, you're going to produce more of those ROS, the reactive-oxygen species, and less water. And more ROS leads to oxidative stress, which leads damage. And it can damage your DNA, it could damage various lipids, other tissues. It can also damage the mitochondria which then makes them less efficient at producing the ATP in the water and creating more ROS as kind of a feedback loop.

23:07 More ROS, more oxidated stress just until down the line some mitochondrion can get to the point where it's not even able to produce energy anymore. And you go to the backup system, which is glycolysis, a very ancient form of energy production that's a lot safer for our body to reduce energy. But it's something like you get two ATP molecules with glycolysis versus something more like 32 for the same amount of inputs.

23:37 So it's basically you're going to a low energy state in order to just maintain conditions because you are producing so much oxidative stress. So that's kind of the high level. That's my framework for thinking about this stuff. And in quantum biology, we take a different, even kind deeper, more biophysical look at it. But I think just for a mainstream audience, this is easier to talk about it this way. What I see happening is that the interesting thing about EMF literature is there's actually quite a lot, and they were studying magnetic fields in particular

24:17 up until the mid-80s, maybe even early 90s. If you divide those studies up into was it industry-funded or was independently or government- funded, you'll get different results. And so when you look at just the independent and government funded, there's something like 70 to 90 percent of those studies show that magnetic fields cause oxidative stress. That's the primary mechanism that I looked at in my essay series, and I look to the work of Dr.

24:51 Paul Harow, who's an environmental He's an engineer and a physicist and biologist, he's amazing. He works at McGill University in Montreal. And he actually looked at the physics of the mitochondria. What happens when the electrons are getting transported over that very thin membrane is they create their own endogenous electromagnetic field. One of the axiomatic laws of electromagnetism is that when you overlay one field over another, that they will distort each other,

25:26 and so the stronger field will actually distort the weaker field. So when get an alternating magnetic field current from an external source, it actually stretches the membrane because it's basically pulling the electrons off. So the analogy that I use is like, let's say you drop a pebble into a very still pond, and then from like 100 feet away, a boat comes by. And so you got the tiny little ripples from the pebbled, then you've got these bigger waves coming through.

25:56 Those tiny, little, ripples, they don't go away. They get compressed at the bottom of the wave and stretched at So, when you're stretching the electron transfer chain, you are losing electrons. And when we lose electrons, we get more reactive oxygen species, less water, and then that sets off that cycle that I described earlier. So to me, that's the primary, fundamental, theoretical mechanism that has so much research behind it that almost undeniable.

26:26 Paul Harow called it biologically defensible as far as linking to the collagen degradation. That's the next step. But did you want to kind of ask any questions about that before I move on? Yeah, that's very good. And the analogy is really helpful. So for the, for 49ers guys, I almost kind of think about like this is like with an NFL team, and I think this will be relevant to people's health to, to like understand this as a variable that they might not even be considering in their, their wellness.

26:58 You have the 49 years, let's say the 40 Niners are the practicing, you have a player going through the exact same practice routine, a game routine and everything. next to this substation. And then you take, let's say, who's the closest team, like maybe the Rams. They're probably pretty exposed to EMF too, but maybe, the rams are not right next, to the substations like the 49ers are. they go through the same practice, kind of like you were mentioning, same outside zone routines that they're running, Same type of cuts and offensive style and everything.

27:30 But those same stressors that maybe the Rams are going through, they don't have this added like insult to injury component because of the EMF. So you look at like a Rams mitochondria, maybe Matthew Stafford versus like Brock Purdy, like the stress that Brock purdy is going from the added EMT, his mitochondrion are actually operating unfairly. like an unfair disadvantage because of the added exposure, just because the proximity to that.

28:00 So from like a, when you look at the buildup of ROS and the oxidative stress, even though like lifestyle wise, you have like, a very similar controlled environment, which is kind of cool because think about like these NFL guys, it's a If they want to do a scientific study, that'd be a good controlled environment to have people that go through. You have like 53 guys going through the same routine in the environment, traveling and doing everything. But then you add this insult to injury with the stress that player's mitochondria now is all of a sudden going to be much more compromised relative to

28:32 someone that's not. And then eventually, if you compound that long enough, That's going to likely, I would in obviously in this case, statistically lead to more injuries that they end up seeing. So that's very interesting. I think for people that are, you know, like how can we use that as a mirror to our own lives is like, what is my EMF exposure relative to the issues that I'm struggling with with my health? And is that a variable that is adding this insult to injury beyond and above what I might already be doing from the, just,

29:02 being a person. Yep, I just saw that one over. And what was I saying? Oh, yeah, there's so many different mechanisms and like we could probably spend like honestly a whole day just talking about all of them. But I think, you know, we talk about the the oxidative stress side. The other side is that At nighttime, when it's supposed to be dark and rest and everything, EMF can trigger a nervous system cascade that raises cortisol, and cortisol and melatonin are kind of, they have a reciprocal relationship, so if cortisol's up, Mountain is down.

29:38 You really want melatonin up at night and it does a lot of things for us. Obviously it helps us sleep, but it's critical a component of our immune system and its critical for the cellular repair processes. So if you're if your out there and you When you're training, you are actually damaging your tendon, your tissues, right? That's part of the process of getting stronger is the damage and repair. And so, these athletes are not like comparing to an electrician who works at a substation and then goes home and sits on the couch and isn't already stressing

30:17 their tendons in another way. So now you have three layers. And the nighttime layer is you're not initiating those repair cycles that are helping your tendens get stronger. I don't know, let's say like there's a problem, you have a construction problem in one of your rooms and they need to kind of, there is some mold on the drywall and then you come in and take the drive wall down.

30:47 But then the guy never comes in to put the driver back and the demolition crew just kind stays in there. There's kind like chipping away at all the time. It's like, it's, a complex cycle with, damage and repair. And you need all of it. Repair is, I think anybody who's an athlete probably that listens to your show knows that the sleeping is where all your growth comes from, right? If you're lifting weights, trying to build muscle, you got to sleep. Yeah.

31:17 That's very interesting. And this kind of leads us into something I want to talk about too, is just this whole neuroendocrine feedback loop and melatonin and cortisol are as important to that as anything. A lot of people, they think about testosterone first, probably, especially a lot guys. They think like, okay, like how do I improve my testosterone levels? Can you talk Specifically, this is disrupting that entire feedback loop and how you take a normal person and maybe they're out protected in the woods from

31:47 a lot of EMF, and then you have another person that's sleeping next to their smart meter at night. How that alone could impair this neuroendocrine cycle that is going on in Yeah, I'm going to have to dig back a little bit into my history on this one. I've measured the cortisol many times in my life because I had adrenal fatigue several times. And so I learned a lot about it through that way. Every time my cortisol was elevated, all my other hormones were low.

32:21 So I think it's called pregnenolone-steel syndrome, and that's one of the precursors to hormones that you produce. And if your cortisone is elevated, it is getting used to create cortisol instead of other hormones, because that is more like, uh-oh, there's something wrong here. We need to elevate cortisol emergency situation. But your cortisol is chronically elevated. you have almost like a two-part problem is that not only are you not making those other hormones, but cortisol itself is catabolic.

32:57 So you're not back to like, you are not growing, and you aren't building because your tissues are constantly under attack. I think about it that way. Just in general, everybody knows stress is bad, right? Cortisol is just an indicator of stress. think of EMF as just one more stressor. It's just like one, more layer on all these stressors that we do have to deal with in our lives and don't want to like make it sound too scary because there's things we can do about it, you know?

33:27 Yeah. Well, I think that to that point too, that's where a lot of people, they kind of find themselves in a situation where they don't feel as good as they know they could, or they should. They know something's wrong. And I kind laugh when you said the adrenal fatigue, because I can't tell you how many people I've talked to, but that that what their doctor tells them is. Adrenal fatigue. It's kind like saying, if you see a crashed car on the side of the road, it's like, yeah, the car has a flat tire. It's a flat tire, but there was something wrong that caused that and that would be a misdiagnosis or a under diagnosis of what is really going on is being

34:01 that car just got like hit and it was an accident, you know, and I think it's funny because you have you had that. And then a lot of people try to reverse engineer like, OK, it is the adrenal fatigue. What do I do? Do is there a supplement for my adrenals or whatever? It is like we got to go way back upstream to figure out what the issue is. I. Think to that point, to look at our sex hormones and reproductive hormones, and stress hormones. If we have something that is affecting all the way upstream, like you said, pregnenolone, which is upstream from testosterone, cortisol, all these other hormones — and that's getting disrupted at a cellular level — then downstream, what do you think your testosterone is going to be?

34:37 It's obviously not going be good. And so a lot of times, it's not what we can add in. It is like, What can we go back to and see what the root cause is? And so for you, is there anything now with like everything that you've been through as a practitioner that do personally to help mitigate a lot of these things? Cause I think all of us kind of come to this. I know I, I personally did, II came to world to solve my own problems. My testosterone was a zero because I had so many concussions in my life. If I'm like, Oh, my brain has been in, you know, like 20 or excuse me, always say I forget how many conclusions I have, I played football for 17 years,

35:16 you know, from the age of six until I was 23. And when the brain gets hit enough, eventually the pituitary gland is going to stop producing LH and FSH. So for me, I've actually had an MRI of my brain done. My pitutary is shriveled into like nothing. It was because I had so many hits. That's kind of how I, for people that don't know how, got into this. I think to that point, we all kind of get in this to solve our own problems. And that's how that what attracted me. This is like, I got to figure out what's wrong. So can you tell us about what you do on a daily basis to help mitigate some of this stuff?

35:47 Yeah, and I also want to say I think that's a really important point. We all get into this, like I'll solve our own problems. we all have different weak points based on our genetics and what our bodies have been through. And so like my weak point was my sleep and my gut, you know, And then tendons. So I do have like, I've taken my testosterone over the years, just, sometimes doctors check it and Primarily, the difference between all these measurements

36:18 was my environment. So if we go back eight years, I had recently got divorced and had a very stressful about year and a half. And I was working at a job as an engineer for firmware for Wi-Fi routers. I Was in an office with dozens, if not hundreds of Wi Fi devices. including very high powered devices that they use for stadiums, ironically.

36:49 And at the very low point of my health, I got my testosterone measured as like 437 or something like that. I quit the job and It was summertime, so I just screwed this, I'm done with computers for a while, sat in the sun, went to the beach. I had been lifting weights, but I got more serious about it and just eating better, just a little bit more protein. But mostly what I did was minimize my exposure.

37:23 I started getting morning sun every day. And the main thing happened is that it was COVID, I got to work at home so I could go outside and get that morning Sun. I starting getting serious about dimming the lights at night. So the next time I did my testosterone was at 800. And then I got, I was feeling like a lot better. And so I started looking more deeply into these light and EMF stuff and how can I really dial it in?

37:55 And, so the things that I changed at that point that, think about it as like, a three prong approach for the light is that it's two and a half. You get your morning sun, you want at least a 1.5 hour before 10 a.m. Sun does not have to touch your skin, it's better if it can, but we're talking about the effect it has through your eyes. And that's what sets your circadian clock and your hormones, they're on a 24 hour cycle. So you want that clock to be ticking exactly in sync with that cycle and the thing you do have do though is that before that,

38:34 you need to make sure you're protecting yourself with blue blockers or really warm amber lighting early in the morning so you're not artificially setting off the clock and if it works with your schedule get up and watch the sunrise because that's a shortcut to get the signal it only takes a couple minutes if you get outside within 15 minutes or even a half hour of the sun rise you can just like three to five minutes of outside or just opening a window if that is the best you could do that will just lock in your circadian rhythm for the day And then the third piece is when that sun is down after dusk,

39:13 dim the lights, make sure any lighting you have is very warm. Like I would say at minimum under 2700 K, but I go down to 2200 and I keep the light low and keep them like lamp lights. Honestly, when my kids are around, I don't even turn the lighting on because I'm so dark adapted that I do not need lights There is the other side of that is when you're driving at night and people's blinding LEDs come into your eyes, you can't handle it anymore. So it's a double-edged sword.

39:43 But those three things, and then just the basic Wi-Fi EMF mitigation that I mentioned earlier. Last time I did my testosterone, it was like 930 or something like that. I'm 50 years old. And I don't take any supplements. That I do eat healthy. You know, I like seafood. but I'll eat junk food like my kids like junk like we'll go to Trader Joe's and get all those chips and stuff and I eat ice cream and so I look at the

40:15 environmental stuff as what can you subtract and then how can just change your schedule just a little bit because you get these non-linear effects that really compound like so much and so to the point where like my life used to be just I'm managing my health all the time and now I kind of see how far I can push it because ultimately you want to live your life and have freedom not to worry about everything because that worrying is a form of stress. And so it's like you get sick and you got constrained.

40:48 You don't want to be constrained, take this low hanging fruit that's going to have really outsize effects for the amount of effort that you put into it. I think most people are just going see a huge payoff from those kind of changes. Yeah, you said something that's really interesting to me too. I don't think enough people realize I think I'm I couldn't agree with you more on the the sleep aspect. Um, I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that they come to be in there like I Can't sleep what peptides what supplements what hormones do I

41:18 need to sleep? And one of the first questions I always will ask them is how Many hours of sunlight do you get per day? and the answer and like almost always is like I'm lucky if I get 15 minutes of sunlight literally because they get up they in the car they go to work they're under fluorescent lights all day they come home, you know, it's dark outside when they home and Unfortunately, like I don't care what you take if you can't like i've seen so many people that I challenge them i'm like hey You can take these supplements. They might help. If you get two hours of sunlight and figure out a way, and I know for a lot of people that might not even be possible with their work schedule and family

41:53 and everything. But if you can get those two of hours sunlight, I mean, for me personally, when I do that sleep, sleep is always good for most of the time. Sleep is never an issue. And on those days that I get that, it's even that much more. Like last weekend I was spreading mulch and doing yard work and things. I Seven or eight hours and usually I'm outside for you know, like one or two and man the sleep was even so much better On that but one thing I wanted to ask you Because I know a lot of people in my audience.

42:23 They're high performers. A lot them get up early I did this for years. I woke up at 4 a.m. Was at the gym by 4 45 got my workout in and go I think a lot of people realize like the nighttime can be an issue and they know not to watch TV without their blue lockers, blue blockers on, they'd know like try to mitigate light before bed. But can you talk about the morning aspect of that? Because I know for me, like my cortisol, when I would do that every day, get up at four, go to the gym, basically like get this like three hour chunk of the day out of way that I thought was self-care, but it really ended up being an they don't take that consideration.

43:00 Cause you talk about like that morning aspect of even like if you're operating a lot before the sun even rises, how that could be dangerous. Yeah. I'm glad you asked that question because it is, it's unfortunate cause so many people that like you said, like they're getting up early, they starting their day, and they are getting their workout in. And it was like, you have a lotta energy in the morning. You're sleeping good and stuff. It's a tricky one to talk to people about that because it's so convenient for so many people to do that at that time. And I don't want to tell them not to work out, but my opinion is that the artificial light before the sunrise is actually more harmful than artificial

43:39 life after sundown. There's really good literature on that. You can look at cancer rates by where you live in a time zone. The farther west you live, the higher the cancer rate. The reason that is is because the sun comes up later and so people are more likely to turn on their lights before the Sun is up. And that is very non-controversial in the literature. It's weird that we don't hear about it, but again, what do we focus on?

44:09 So I'm pretty dogmatic about not getting any artificial light into my eyes before the sun is up. And so if you got to do that stuff and it makes your life You know, it makes you feel better about your life and stuff. I don't want to take that away from you. So I would say you put those blue blockers on and you'd be absolutely serious about it. And you can still go to the gym. A lot of people like to go the to gym fasted. To me, the combination of naturally your cortisol is high.

44:43 You're at the gym, you're raising your cortisol because it's part of what happens when you work out and you are fasted and so you have this kind of like you kind prone to even more cortisol. I think that's too much. So I would say at least snack that got some protein and some fat and carbs and I know a lot of people like to do the no carb thing, but you can get away. That's more of an individual thing. So let's just say protein and fat, at the very least. Then do your thing get the really good blue blockers though.

45:13 And then when you get out of the gym, make sure you got that sun signal. Even if it's for just five minutes. I mean, I've been there. Like I knew what I had to and I was like I'm too busy. A single parent. Got this tech job and it is stressful and can't go on a walk. I could have, you know, if I actually sat down, part of the problem is you're so stressed as you can't sit, take a step back and look at where you have room. And so you get caught in this feedback loop of like, I can do anything.

45:43 So I just keep on doing the things that aren't good for me. and it makes it harder to do the good thing. Like I get it. It's really hard. If you are in that state, You might need a coach or something to actually help you. But I'm guessing most people on your show are not in the state and could find 15 minutes to get that sun in the morning. And then let's say you can only get 10 minutes. OK, can you get five minutes every 90 minutes throughout the day? Can you go outside? Pretend you're a smoker. Can't you just pretend you got to take your smoke break?

46:13 Like, everywhere they ever work, those smokers, they're getting their sun break every day of the year. Like no matter how shitty the weather is, how bad the whether is. I used to hang out with the smoker because, hey, if they are going outside, I'm going to outside. So there's always a way. It's kind of funny. My grandmother passed away a few years ago. I want to say she was 83, 84, and she smoked at least a pack a day since the age of 12. And she passed way from dementia, which is ironic considering her husband, my grandfather, passed from lung cancer, he was in Vietnam and he did some like covert stuff with a lot of Agent Orange.

46:51 So that was like kind expected there. But it's, it kind ironic, I think to your point with smoking is that like, If you were to say, I'm not a proponent of smoking, obviously, but no sunlight or go outside every 90 minutes for a five minute smoke break and have the cigarette is probably doing less harm than actually being inside the whole day. I see, especially if you're like rolling your own or got like an American spirit or something and you know, because half the problem with those cigarettes was the additives they put in it. Like there's like, there there is like gunpowder and stuff.

47:23 So like Yeah, if you're not dragging everything and it's just kind of like a calming routine, I think you are probably better off with those cigarettes and the sun. Yeah. And at least, and if you could get a walk while you're doing it to you actually get some movement, especially if your sitting down, I, you know, as much as I have to do from a information work standpoint of like doing podcasts and emails and writing and stuff like that. Um, a lot of it is like every hour or every. Hour and a half. I'm like walking around, get outside, try to get barefoot outside of my backyard, getting the sun and do that, but, uh, it's kind of funny.

48:00 To speak of the smoking thing. Yeah, that's right. I grew up in a tobacco field. So like the house that I grow up and was literally used to be a Tobacco field and surrounding it were tobacco fields. It's kind of funny because now it's like, there's still those fields there, but like right across the street, There's townhouses there now. But point being is that every, and tobacco is so harsh on the soil, they can only do it like every three years. They have like soybeans and then I think they'd do like a wheatgrass or ryegrass.

48:31 Okay. You know hay and stuff, but when they would spray the tobacco with the pesticides that they put on it It was so like you would literally walk outside almost choke like toxicity of the Pesticides they've sprouted so to your point. It's like how much of that again? I'm not a smoker and proponent but how of is like actually the Tobacco and the nicotine which I don't think like I think you could actually show a lot of health benefits of nicotin versus like the stuff they spray on the Tabacco plus like he said all the other like who knows what they're putting gunpowder,

49:01 probably some Clorox and some other stuff in there. Who knows like what's actually being thrown into that. But it's funny because I grew up in a tobacco field and the guy across the street from us, he had been a Tobacco farmer his whole life and he like farmed a lot of those fields. And this has been years ago now, but he actually died of stomach cancer. So I wonder how much, because it was all on well water, how stuff would go down into the water table that ended up after years of using that for drinking

49:32 and showering and cooking and stuff. How much of that played into it? And actually too, now that I think about it, his neighbor across the street from us, also died of cancer. I don't think it was stomach cancer, I dont remember what it, but I do think about that of like the contaminants again to, to go back to the environmental stuff, like how prevalent that is. But yeah, we went on a little bit of tangent, But I think to that point I was that guy. Yeah. That guy for many years of my life because of work schedule, was up at four under the fluorescent lights at the gym.

50:03 Also fasted to which I agree wholeheartedly with you. strength training workout under the fluorescent lights before the sun comes up, that does so much damage. And ironically, they end up having health problems and they think that that's like the best part of their routine when in a lot of cases they're doing the right thing or intention, like they have the intention. But a of times it causes issues. I'm fortunate enough now in my life where I can work out during the Sun out, when hours were sun up and I feel a better,

50:36 my stress is a little better even just not having that period there. So I think it's important for people, you know, again, to sometimes the stuff that we think is like the healthy thing might not always be the health thing. And again same thing with the carbs is, like, people don't realize like in a lot of cases, that could also affect your cortisol if you're like limiting carbs, then affects your blood sugar that then actually makes you more insulin resistant in the long run, because now your body doesn't know what to do with carbs. It's kind of like a double-edged sword of, yeah, of course, 2 000 grams of carbs a day, but the body should be able to handle a lot of that stuff and a

51:10 Lot of how well the, body handles it goes back to some of the circadian stuff. Yeah, it's like You know how many people like i'll ask you how, many, people don't think they can eat carbs Meanwhile like a, lot, of, that is because their hormones are messed up because of their light problems i'm at the point where i think it'S almost everybody and and Obviously there's some people with you know they they were born with some unfavorable genetics and maybe Their parents, you know, I don't want to say a hundred percent, but I think Metabolically, we're actually very flexible and there's a reason for that, You know like we grew up in involved environments where food wasn't

51:51 Available year-round and you so we adapted so can handle a lot of different foods The light environment was not So it didn't vary that much. It varied by season, but we weren't, you know, flying to locations across the world. If we wanted to go somewhere, it was days of travel. So I honestly, I think that if you lock in the circadian rhythm and you really minimize the external like mitochondrial stressors.

52:25 You can get to a point where you can pretty much eat almost anything. And I would still obviously recommend stay away from the non-organics and especially stuff with glyphosate. Do your best. But also, man, I love some In-N-Out burger. I think You gotta live your life and it's just such a good bang for the buck when you focus on the light and the EMF and stuff. It just pays off so well. And then you'll find out that you're able to have whatever carby thing that thought you couldn't have.

52:56 Yeah, it's interesting. Back like years ago, there's a guy named Clint Ober, and he wrote this book called Earthing. And I remember reading that book, because I was like getting my kick on like grounding. I'm like, OK, I want to do everything grounded now. This has been years. Ironically, the best thing you can do for grounding is just go outside barefoot. You can get into the device and stuff, which can be good. There's debate about which device is better. But I remembered him talking in that. about he had all of these same thing.

53:26 Like he was a communications executive. I think he actually like worked on power lines or something of that nature and ended up getting really sick. He said he used to have all these food sensitivities, like he couldn't eat gluten, couldn' eat dairy. And the moment that he started like being barefoot basically the whole day, you know, walking around bare foot, he's like all the food sensitivity's went away. It's like all of these immune system issues, whether it's mass cell activation syndrome, all this stuff, a lot of times if you just handle the basics, I'm not saying it is going to heal everything because someone has 40 or 50 years of damage, it isn't going heal overnight if they just go barefoot for

54:04 five minutes. But you start doing that on a daily basis and giving them a routine, and it does make a difference. Like you said, what's the point of living if can't go to In-N-Out Burger? I just wish they had them. I wish they had them here on the East Coast. We actually have to drive like a half hour to get to our closest one, but I just love taking my daughters there and it's fun. And to your point, like Clint Ober, he's an amazing dude. grounding to me like I grew up in a hippie town it was like grounding was just like what that's what the hippies do but like here's this engineer and he's

54:36 showing like he'll go under like the power lines and they'll measure their body voltage and He's grounded so much over the last 30 years that he is barely affected by it and these other people you can just see the body Voltage raise a lot more and it's just It's cool when you get these engineers applying their problem-solving methods to these kind of more hippie-ish techniques and stuff. And I want to note one thing about Grand Endow. We, nobody really knows why it works.

55:07 Like we have these theories, like you're getting electrons from the earth. And I do tend to think that that's an important factor of it. But also just like the central aspect of walking on grass or sand and water and stuff. I think it's almost like massaging your feet or something. There's just kind of like a tactile benefit from it as well. So people say, well, you can't ground on whatever would, but does it feel good on your feet? Don't not do it just because you're not getting the electrons.

55:37 There's multiple benefits from it. That's really interesting. As you were saying that, I was thinking like, so there's this idea of like genetic memory. I can't remember. Maybe it's like Rupert Sheldrake has talked about this of, like we have genetic memories of our ancestors, basically like cause store trauma or whatever. But I think there is just, we had genetic, memory, We have the DNA of people 500 years ago that were passed down to us. And for way longer than we've been living inside and doing wifi and all those things, people walked barefoot. And I wonder if it's kind of almost like a return to what the biology of the body knows to be a safe space, for lack of a better way to say it.

56:16 I love how you said that. And, I think you're right. Sheldrake in the morphic field is kind different classes of basically your DNA was almost like an antenna and their information field. I can't quite explain it, but I think it's a really cool idea. Can we prove it? No, does it feel just intuitively right? There's the studies they do with the monkeys where on some island on the South Pacific, one monkey figured out that if they dipped their yam in the water,

56:52 that they'd get the sand off of it. And then within a year, all the monkeys of that same species around the world were doing the same thing with no communication to each other. And so, and then you got things like dogs, like traveling a thousand miles after they get lost and coming back home, there's cool stuff we just can't explain, but you're right, mystery. Yeah. Well, to that point too, it's some of the beauties of, the mystery of just being a human.

57:22 And I think if we look at EMF, we would probably say, I mean, look, at birds, like what EMS fields do to birds and their like ability to communicate. I know. For all the people that are not well or want to be better and know that they can be. It's like, let's think about some these fundamental things that for most of humanity we were all doing is just a part of life that were in built into us and like how far we've gotten away from those. And you know, sometimes the answer is not always the next best peptide or supplement or whatever it is. This is just kind of like going back.

57:52 So I did want to ask you, this is a random question and you call me like crazy or quack or whenever. Um, so recently, uh, in my house, I had my office like basically turned into a podcast studio. There's like professional lighting and cameras and everything. basically it went from like Wi-Fi router, one remover to me to basically like four lights that all have Wi Fi, three cameras that I'll have wifi. Cause like behind where I'm filming right now, we also have ones where we can do like in-person guest interviews.

58:22 And, um, I was actually talking to Brandon from blue shield about this. Basically I felt to like where normally this is where i'm doing my writing and my filming before all this stuff was here. Totally fine. Like I iIm someone like from a young age, like I always able to focus very, like very pointedly for a long period of time. Like I can read for along time, write for long time like I'm really good at focusing. And I noticed when I got all this equipment in here, I was like, man, this is like overwhelming. I would like after an hour, would you like brain fog? And it wasn't like a brainfog like something was wrong with me.

58:54 It was that static buzz of like all the electricity. like it felt like under that big transformer in my own house. I was talking to Brandon and I got a blue shield and everything there, but I had one of my friends gift me organite little pyramids. And I swear it could be placebo effect. I'm always like, well, if the placebo effects works, give me more placebo. I got two of these on my desk now, and I swear that it does make a difference. I wouldn't say that like eradicates.

59:24 It's like, I still notice that there's more EMF, obviously, because there are a bunch of devices in my office now. Is that real or is it placebo effect for me? And you could say either way, my feelings are not going to be hurt. They look cool, so even I'm going keep them on as a decorative thing. But is there something to that where we're affecting the field in a way that improves it? I happen to think there's something to it. And, you know, as far as getting called like woo woo, or like a quack or whatever, like, I'm, more, someone who's been called that by the press many times.

1:00:01 So maybe I am the wrong person to ask, but I think crystals, there is so little that we actually understand about them. you get into quantum biology and how things behave in this kind of... So without going too deep into it like the quantum is when you got to the very very small scale and things don't behave towards the rules of classical physics and it's more of like a statistical like there's the observer effect where looking at something changes how it behaves like we're just really getting

1:00:35 into like how that works with biology. And I think I almost think that quantum biology is going to just prove all the hippies right about crystals, honestly. I think there's really something to it and they're just... Crystals are really cool. And so I there might be a placebo effect, but I it's possible that it is actually doing something real. Have you heard of biogeometry? Yes. I'm not as familiar with like the actual practice of it, but basically would that be the idea that certain shapes can kind of create a field that would

1:01:10 then like tune you to a certain frequency? Essentially. Yeah. And so it's like basically subtle energies that we can't measure the way we measure electromagnetism and physics knows that these southern engines, there's all these different theories and I am not a physicist, so I can not go into them. And they've developed these tools that you can measure them with pendulums. So a lot of people are familiar with the water witching, where you go around with those people. And some of these people have an insane track record of just 99% of the time finding a well.

1:01:43 That's the same kind of process as biogeometry, but they use a little pendulum. I know people that have practiced bio geometry. There's actually a different crystal that I would recommend as well. I'll remember it and we can post it in the show notes because they're not that expensive. And you do the reading with a pendulum before the person has the crystal with them and it's kind of chaotic. You give them the Crystal and It goes into a coherent pattern.

1:02:14 I happen to think there's something there. I've seen people measure it with these kind of esoteric tools, which is the only way we can measure, it beyond just like people who are sensitive and can tangibly feel those things. Most of us is just, like you said, this kind under the surface, just noise thing that's irritating you. And also, why not? They're beautiful and they're not that expensive. Yeah. It also serves as a nice paperweight on my desk. So at the very least I'm getting that.

1:02:45 And then I think at very best it is probably affecting the field in some way. But it's kind of funny you mentioned that with the water witching. For anyone that thinks that's crazy, just personal anecdote, for me, my grandfather was a green beret in the army. And he sent the one that I talked about that died from lung cancer. While my mom was a child, they were actually stationed in Panama. And I think my Mom told me when she was like six or seven, the military took all the kids on the base and they would do dowsing.

1:03:15 So they'd give them dousing rods and find out which one worked. So for whatever that's worth, whether my mom was in the special project, I don't know, not to my knowledge, but, um, it is a real thing in military, at least at that time, which would have been in late seventies, early eighties. Uh, thought enough of it to try to test children to find out which ones were good at finding water when they were building bases in Panama, probably to run guns, uh, through Nicaragua and stuff back in eight years. Cause that was my, allegedly my grandfather was down there for it. But anyway, well, leave it at bad and people can kind of do their thing.

1:03:47 Yeah, so anyway, well Peter, thank you so much just in closing because we're right at our time Um, what is the best way I always tell people I have the audience the world So what? Is the way that they can go support you obviously I'll post your links to everything but if you want to talk about the software project you're working on too and something is there what's the Best way for people to get in touch with you and help support I would say, number one, go to my Substack and just subscribe. All my main important work is going to go through there. So if it happens, and I think it's important enough to know it'll go though Substacks, it is peteranthonycowen.substack.com.

1:04:21 And then other than that, I do have my app. It's more of a sunlight platform. Sunlightis.life and it has just a ton of different tools I keep on adding to it. Kind of just like a personal passion project. Currently, it's free for everybody. I'm going to add some charges for the premium features. But if you're curious about circadian stuff, I can think of a better, more comprehensive resource that includes tools that lets you actually understand things without having to dive too deep into the research.

1:04:54 And then find me on x, living underscore energy. Awesome. Yeah, I'll make sure we post. I have our editor team. Put all those links down there so they can find you and go support the amazing people like Peter that are doing God's work, as I would say out there, trying to make a difference in the world. So with that, we will go ahead and shut this one down. Hopefully we'll do another one soon because this was great. And we're talk to you guys later. Awesome, thanks, Hunter. It was fun being on with you. Likewise.