Transcript

Keith Fiveson [00:00:03]:
Welcome, listeners, to the Mindfulness Experience podcast, where we delve into the world of mindfulness, well being and personal development. Today we have the pleasure of hosting Claudia van Buzlaga, one of the presenters at Wonderland 2023, a conference dedicated to exploring the frontiers of longevity, biohacking, and personal growth by blending the medical with the mystical. Claudia is a longevity and lifestyle coach. She's a podcaster and serial entrepreneur, and she has an incredible story to share with us today about how she reversed her biological age by 15 years. She also healed her trauma, grew spirituality, and enhanced her longevity. Claudia has researched, tested, and interviewed numerous experts on biohacking and has discovered some of the most effective hacks for achieving optimal health and wellness. We can't wait to learn more from her insights and her expertise. Welcome, Claudia.

Keith Fiveson [00:01:08]:
How are you today?

Claudia von Boeselager [00:01:10]:
Thank you, Keith. And thank you for having me on. I'm so excited to be here and for that lovely introduction. So thank you.

Keith Fiveson [00:01:17]:
Well, thank you. I am so excited. Know I'm not a spring chicken anymore. So I'm excited to hear about the biohacks for longevity and for overall wellness. And I'm wondering if you can. You're going to be one of the speakers at the conference. Well, first of all, just what's your session going to be about?

Claudia von Boeselager [00:01:43]:
Sure. So I am very excited that Wonderland is expanding. Obviously, psychedelics is such an exciting space, but also around mental health and longevity. And so I'm really excited to share my passion around longevity and some biohacks and things that people can do to get started on that journey, because maybe even just one point around longevity. Some people hear the word longevity and they're like, but I don't want to be 90 years old for another 50 years, 90 years old as we know it, and that's not the point. Right? And so what I really hope people will grasp is how I interpret it, is that why not optimize your health now and live in that beautiful higher state for so much longer, be it to people throw around numbers like 200 or whatever as well. But this is the beauty of the time that we're in, that with technology, with the advances in science, with personalized medicine, it is possible to get to this phenomenal state of health, to reverse disease, to prevent disease, many diseases that we know, like diabetes, Alzheimer's, et cetera, can be avoided. These are not preventable or unpreventable diseases.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:02:55]:
And so if we can live in this beautiful state of peak health, peak life, and not have to worry about going to the doctor, taking the medication, spending all the money on our health care. Health care, more sick care than I'd say, health care. And instead live our true passion and purpose. What a beautiful place the world is going to be. So, as you can see, I'm super excited. I'm going to be sharing some of the key strategies and tools and part of my story as well at the conference, and hope to inspire a lot of people to be like, oh, this is much easier than I thought. And it's just starting with understanding what is possible today.

Keith Fiveson [00:03:31]:
That's amazing. And I'm really interested to hear about. I think your session is the top ten biohacks for longevity and aging. Right. The top ten biohacking aging, reversing aging. So I want to dive into that, but I want to also understand, how did you first become interested in this? Because this is not something they teach you in stool. And we hope it would be. It should be basic ground level education, how to eat, how to think, how to go ahead and take care of your body, how to go ahead and sleep and rest.

Keith Fiveson [00:04:12]:
I mean, those should be basic tools. But how did you become interested in performance coaching and health optimization?

Claudia von Boeselager [00:04:20]:
Yeah, so I learned the hard way, Keith. So, anyone listening? I'm very much hoping you don't have to go down this path. But I used to be this high energy teenager, 20 year old, thinking that, like, oh, I can sleep when I'm dead. Totally stupid. Pushing, pushing, pushing. Burning the candle at both ends. Back in the day, did the sort of typical business school, went into investment banking, where they expect these horrendous hours, and that was just this high adrenaline cortisol release, which obviously, over time, piled up into health issues. Chronic fatigue, chronic cytositis.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:04:58]:
I had two small children at the time, and it really cumulated one day when I got off the call with a doctor of mine, and, I mean, I pretty much thought, I can manage a little sleep until I'm 90, and that's not going to be an issue. And I spoke to my doctor that day. Yeah, I know, stupidly, right? I mean, I'm taking full ownership now of my naivety at the time. And I got off the call with my doctor, who was reporting my latest blood test results, and I'm this eternal optimist, and everything was going to be fine. And he really had to say, in no uncertain terms, he's like, claudia, I'm two weeks away from hospitalizing you. You have to take this seriously. Your blood markers are in the red. This is major.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:05:35]:
This is not something like, it'll be fine, and it was interesting, keith, because I stood up and I walked over to the stairs, and I was trying to go up the stairs, and I remember feeling like I was climbing Mount Everest. It was like one slow step over the other. And I'm like, what is going on? Where is my high energy? And I remember looking at my watch, and it wasn't even lunchtime, and I had, like, businesses to run. I was this can doer of everything. I had two small children. I had all these plans. I was like, if this is my life now, I'm in my next 10, 20, 30 years, going to look like, wow. And it was in that moment, I was like, this is enough.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:06:13]:
I need to take this seriously because it's going to just go downhill from here. And this is not the life I want. And that set me on the path of really taking and digging deep into the science behind longevity and biohacking and peak performance. And what does that mean? And really uncovering it. And I started really implementing strategies and tools on myself and feeling amazing and things like that, and so much so, I had my friends, and they're like, hey, what are you doing? This looks amazing. What are you doing about that? And then I started noticing my friend's parents were coming to me, and she's like, I'm 72. I'm a diabetic. Like, what should I be doing? I'm like, hang on a second.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:06:49]:
I'm not a doctor. Let's be very careful. But I can point you in the right direction. And part of my passion also lies in my mother having dementia and unfortunately, finding out too late that it is a preventable and reversible disease. But unfortunately, if it's caught on time and we caught it too late. And so through that, I started longevity and lifestyle, which is my current company. And I get to interview some of the world's pioneering scientists, doctors that are working on amazing things that help people. And I've obviously done a ton of training and coaching and NLP and mindfulness and breath work and all these really cool things that we can all be doing.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:07:31]:
So that's what got me started on the journey, and I'm just so passionate about advising and helping as many people as possible live in that peak state so you can have this beautiful life and impact on the world.

Keith Fiveson [00:07:44]:
Well, this is incredibly exciting for me. I know you read a little bit about my bio. I'm a two time cancer survivor, and I really do believe in the integration of mind, body, spirit, the breath work. That's the spirit, the food, the ability to rest, and then your relationships and your environment and your aspirations. So I'm wondering, we're going to have this great session at Wonderland, and it's going to talk about the top ten biohacks for reversing aging, you said, and I've read that you've reversed your aging by 15 years, and I'd like to unpack that a little bit and maybe you can provide a little bit of insight in terms of maybe some key biohacks that you've implemented in your life that have helped you to reverse your biological age and maybe help you to increase your longevity.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:08:42]:
Yeah, sure. So, one is, people are like, what? Reverse your age? How do I do that? Is there a pill? What can I do? So, first of all, we have to obviously differentiate between the age on our passport, our chronological age, which, sadly, we can not do so much about, and our biological age. So how old our body is. And there are different tests and markers. Some measure telomeres and the length of the telomeres, which is thought to not be very effective because it depends on the day that you measure them, et cetera. And there's other tests and one that I'm a huge fan of, which is called glycan age, and it measures your glycans, or the inflammation that's happening in your body. It's based on over 20 years of research by one of the co founders. He's a professor in this space, a very well respected.

Keith Fiveson [00:09:27]:
That's glycan age. So how do you spell that?

Claudia von Boeselager [00:09:30]:
Glycan. So glycan.

Keith Fiveson [00:09:33]:
Got it.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:09:33]:
And then age. Glycan age. And so if you ever think about it, what they're looking at is inflammation in the body. And it makes sense if you think about it, because inflammation is like fire in the body. And so when your body is in a beautiful state, it's in flow, it's doing what it's supposed to do, it's taking care of you, it's rejuvenating, it's growing. But if there's fires going on, it's obviously going to focus on putting out the fires. So where is your energy going into putting out the fires, into healing and trying to solve that? And it's in this fight or flight, like this stressed mode, versus the beautiful restorative and growth and creativity. Right? I mean, we can make different analogies between war and peace, or whatever you want to call it.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:10:14]:
And so, anyway, going back to the biological age testing, it's looking at inflammation in the body. So this is a test that anyone can take. You can order it online, it gets sent to your house, and it's like a fingerprick test. You drop some blood onto the sheet, and then it goes off to a lab, and in a few weeks you get the results back. And this is the beauty, Keith. And this is why I'm so excited about where science is now, because a lot of people are like, oh, it's my genes. I can't change anything. Well, if you think about what are our genes? They're like a light switch, and you don't have to have them on the whole time.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:10:47]:
So if you create an environment around those light switches, around those genes, that even if you have a predisposition to something, and this doesn't apply to everything, but two, there's a lot that are epigenetically influenced, just don't activate that switch. And if you keep that and you take care of yourself, and if you know that certain genes in your body, and this is why functional genomics is really exciting, if you know that there are certain lifestyle interventions that you can do that are really good for you, that really help you to optimize your health, your body wants to heal you. Your body wants to help you. It's like support it to do that. Give it the nutrition, give it the sleep, give it the environment that it needs. Detox, whatever poisons, if you have mercury fillings, if you have been living in a black mold house or whatever it might be, there are modalities to detox and to rejuvenate as well. So that's a sort of long answer to what is a biological age. Testing, first of all, but just to share some of them and some people listening might be like, bio what? Like, what are you doing?

Keith Fiveson [00:11:58]:
Biohacking? What is that thing you're chopping up.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:12:01]:
Part of your body? No, it's not that. I know that originally it did get a pretty bad rap in terms of people expecting you had to implant chips into your body and all stuff.

Keith Fiveson [00:12:11]:
Well, hey, I'm okay with implanting chips if I need to, if that'll help.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:12:16]:
Exactly the question. The EMF radiation is maybe not, but.

Keith Fiveson [00:12:21]:
You don't have to do that. I love your example of the epigenetics and your inherited DNA. I always talk about, you're given a library and you can take out whatever books you want, some books you don't have to take out. You can put them back and you can take out others. The idea of inflammation. So is that from when we talk about the body, are you looking at the acidic content of the body? Because I look at it. Almost like a pool, right? Where you're alkaline versus acidic, your ph levels are high or your alkaline levels, because we do want an alkaline, more of an alkaline body from what I understand, and I'm just wondering your thoughts around that since we're down that track a little bit more. Yeah, sure.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:13:15]:
So to touch on that as well, I actually had an interesting podcast interview with an expert, and this was an interesting piece of point of conversation we had as well. And it obviously makes sense. So generalize in general inflammation we associate with an acid. Forget the word acidic. Yeah, acid did A-C-I wanted to say, but that's not my word. So high acidic. But you need to think about that a little bit separately because, for example, we want to make sure that our stomach and our gut is not alkaline.

Keith Fiveson [00:13:47]:
Right. Gut biomes are breaking it down.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:13:49]:
Yeah, it needs to break down. So certain parts of our system need to be acidic for a certain reason. And other parts, yeah. They might be inflamed as well. So I think it's differentiating a little bit more into detail around that as well. It's not just like only eating alkaline foods. And that's the only thing. It's more like, what is the nutrition that your body needs to be at its peak level without looking at the ph specifically.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:14:13]:
But for example, people are like, oh, don't eat meat. And I know this is a big debate, and there's going to be vegans and vegetarians.

Keith Fiveson [00:14:18]:
Well, that's where I was going next. Go ahead, please.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:14:21]:
Well, I'll give you a perfect example. Right. And so I respect people's differences and things as well. But you need to know that the body does need certain amount of nutrients. Right. So you need to make sure, and this, I think, is a challenge that some people are like, oh, I'm vegan, but they're not really looking into the macros and the micros of their diet. Right. So, yes, there are ways around, you know, let's look at meat, right? So there's all these great documentaries on Netflix and other places like what the health, I remember the first time I saw it, and it shows these mass farms of these cattles, and they're being injected with the antibiotics and all this toxic stuff and their feed that they're having is like parts of other, whatever it is.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:14:58]:
Right. This horrendous thing. And that's obviously, ideally not the meat that you want to be consuming. Right.

Keith Fiveson [00:15:04]:
Processed, industrialized meat that is not organic or not grass fed or whatever.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:15:10]:
Correct. Yeah. You don't want to be ingesting antibiotics that have been pumped into an animal. And that's why, and I understand that it is more expensive, but you are investing in your health. So it could be someone who says, oh, I'm very cautious with antibiotics, but I'm eating away at the normal eggs, the non organic eggs and stuff. And so you are ingesting that into your system. It is impacting your gut health. Our gut is our second brain.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:15:32]:
Right.

Keith Fiveson [00:15:33]:
Right.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:15:33]:
So looking at our diet, which is basically the medicine we feed our body every day, and this is where I think the system is a bit dislocated, for lack of a better word.

Keith Fiveson [00:15:46]:
Yeah. Food is medicine.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:15:48]:
It's not taught in medical school. So if you ask your doctor, ask them how much nutrition training have you had? If they've had 1 hour and seven years of medical school, they're doing well. And that's 1 hour. And that's the issue, is that doctors are put under so much pressure, they've got six, seven minutes per patient. So they need to figure out, and they're taught in medical school, diagnosis, prescription. Diagnosis, prescription. Well, hey, where are most of the medical schools funded from? Harvard? Stanford is pharmaceutical industry. So we have ulterior motives in there as well.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:16:20]:
So it's just knowing and hopefully empowering people listening that we can do so much and take care of ourselves so much is by avoiding all those processed foods. And I know it's super confusing and they'll be on the front of the box like it's healthy and it's fortified with this or whatever as well. Then it will have 50 grams of sugar in there. And unfortunately, sugar is so detrimental and it's highly inflammatory.

Keith Fiveson [00:16:44]:
And of course, in the US, 50 grams, people don't understand that 50 grams is actually twelve teaspoons of sugar, 4 grams per teaspoon. So, I mean, it's that ability to really. And sugar is highly addictive. And from a gut biome viewpoint, I'm really interested in this whole idea of how we manage our sphere, our internal biome, because we're biological creatures in our own biosphere, and then we're interacting with the world, which is then interacting with us and really causing us. What are some of the misconceptions about this idea of biohacking? I know we talked about the whole idea of putting chips in, but is it really that it's sort of like beyond the individual's capability to mean, what are some of the other ones that you come up against when you're dealing with people.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:17:46]:
Yeah, that's a great question, Keith. I mean, obviously one is with the chips or that they saw some biohackers with these blue Smurf tongues, like, oh, my gosh, they're so scary. Right? So, I mean, there are some fun, slightly crazy things as well, but everything with a pinch of salt. And I think what is biohacking? Well, it's optimizing the environment within and without to just make it super simple as well. I think another myth as well is this one size fits all and we are all different. And it's just to go and follow one trend blindly because you read it online or your colleague is doing this and he lost 20 pounds or whatever it might be, is not necessarily the right thing. And let me give you a concrete example, Keith. So this whole big fasting, intermittent fasting trend, right? Sure.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:18:33]:
You've probably heard about it.

Keith Fiveson [00:18:34]:
Yeah, I've thought about it too.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:18:36]:
Okay.

Keith Fiveson [00:18:37]:
Haven't done it. I love my food too much.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:18:40]:
Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, there are hugely beneficial aspects to it, but again, this is to the point of it's not for everyone and not for everyone off the bat, putting aside breastfeeding or pregnant women over a certain age, et cetera. But what people don't realize is that they might already be in a highly stressed, highly inflamed state, getting 3 hours of sleep a night, and then they're like, hey, let me not eat for 20 hours a day. What is that doing to the body? You're putting it in even more chronic stress mode. Yeah. So the benefits are not going to be there. And I think what I help also clients that I work together with or people that I speak to is just to make sure that the foundation of your house is in a really good place. Have a blood test look for.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:19:29]:
Are you low on vitamin D and magnesium? What are some of the basics that need to be solid before you start looking at doing longer intermittent fasts, for example. And also I interviewed recently Dr. Sachin Panda, who's the circadian rhythm, and every individual can do the twelve to 13 hours fast overnight. So if you just want to do a baseline, start with that and you're doing really well for your longevity and for your health, and it is pretty simple as well. And another point is for women as well. So women and a lot of female clients as well, and myself included, was like, oh, intermittent fasting, can I hit the 16 hours? And I'm using the app to track it and I'm in this state or whatever as well. But women are obviously more complex creatures than men. We have a different hormonal cycle.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:20:20]:
And so it can be very detrimental for women to be doing these longer periods of fasting in terms of the intermittent fast windows. And so it's knowing those aspects of it, too, and really taking care of your body. Because what happens is it's a fine line of getting into an optimization state versus causing more havoc and destruction, which is not the point. Right? So that's why, in terms of not one size fits all. And I guess another misconception as well, Keith, is that biohacking costs lots of money. 40 years of Zen neurohacking is $15,000 for five days. And that's the only thing you can do well. This is the beauty of it.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:21:01]:
Some things are completely free fasting, right? You actually save money because you don't have to necessarily eat as much as you were before your breath. What you were talking about before meditation, like these are so powerful. Walking in nature and grounding. There's so many things we can do that are so good for us, for the soul, for the spirit, like, for all of us that are free. So just that misconception of it has to be really expensive, or I don't have the budget to do it. It's just, please reframe that. Please shift that.

Keith Fiveson [00:21:32]:
You reminded me when I was listening to you, first of all, I probably need to fast a little bit more. I do stop at a certain time of the night, and I begin again so that 12 hours, I try to look at that. But then the other thing you reminded me about is the saying, as below, so above, as above, so below, from the microcosm to the macrocosm, that whole idea of getting in balance with life. And I'm wondering, in terms of your regime, how do you balance your personal life and your business life? Because many people who are listening are going, oh, my goodness, that's all well and fine, but I can't manage that. I need a sandwich, and I get it on the run and I do what I can. And it sort of reminds me of what you were talking about happened with you in your. I'm wondering, how do you balance the business and the personal to maintain the optimal health and the well being? Are there some certain ground rules or certain things that people can look at, like the abcs or so on?

Claudia von Boeselager [00:22:37]:
Great question. So one of the things that I've created is what I call my say no to say yes system. And that basically walks people through, first of all, because we forget to do this getting super clear on what is it that you want, what is it that you love and what is your why? And that helps you as having what I call a true north blueprint so that you can start saying no to things in your life. Because why do we feel stressed? Why do we feel like we don't have time? Because we've said yes to everything and we've said yes to all the invitations, and then we're grabbing coffee with people we're not even sure why we're grabbing coffee with. And then we're doing this and we're frazzled and we're stressed and we just don't find peace for ourselves. We're crashing into bed at 01:00 at night, we're getting up at six in the morning and we just feel like I don't have time. But when we really.

Keith Fiveson [00:23:26]:
What is your why? What is your why? What I hear you saying in that is eliminate the things that are no's but getting away. The.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:23:37]:
Exactly. So, so my why Keith goes down to, and there's an exercise that I love to do, but I don't want other people to have to suffer. Like, you know, as I mentioned before, my mother with dementia, my father has cancer. I personally was in a very bad state where I really was visualizing myself sitting in a hospital with two small children, not being able to take care of them and just letting people know that there is another life possible and we should all be here fulfilling our true purpose and doing amazing things in the world instead of in this stressed state of closed thinking and how am I going to survive and how am I going to do this, et cetera. So I really am so passionate about empowering and helping people to take that power back and to really start living their optimal life. So that's on that point as well. And then you were asking about getting aligned or what was the second point? Sorry, I've forgotten.

Keith Fiveson [00:24:30]:
Yeah. It was about what do you do to balance the personal life as well as your business life and maintain optimal well being. And if there was an ABC, so you said finding your why. Okay, so I got that. That's great. And that's like my purpose. And what lights me up, ignites me, gives me energy charges. Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:24:50]:
Yes, exactly. And so by knowing your why, it's easy to then match things. So someone says, hey, keith, in three months we're holding this big event. Are you going to come? It's going to be a week of your time, whatever as well. And so it helps you to be able to be like, is this aligned with my purpose, with my why, with what I want to do. If it's a heck yes, then go for it. And there's some analogies I love. Like if you don't have a seven out of ten, right? And if it's not an eight, nine or ten out of ten, then it's a no, because you need to start valuing your time.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:25:21]:
Or if something is in the future, for example, it's hard to know, like, how busy you will be then. But you do know how busy you are now. And you do pretty much know how busy you're going to be next week Tuesday. So this is another point that I love is like, okay, I know how busy I'm going to be next week Tuesday. Imagine I had the evening free, but this was the invitation for next week Tuesday. If it's not a yes for next week Tuesday, I'm not going to say yes for six months time because I'm going to value my time in order to do the things that I need, in order to have the time for the mindfulness and the meditation and the breathing and being present, which is huge as well. And so that is one sort of indicator and getting clear on your purpose and what you want and your why being able to say no gracefully to things that are just not aligned with you and valuing your time more. And then the next step is what I call, like, my win the day system.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:26:13]:
And it's setting up optimal routines in the morning, in the evening, daily check ins, so that you think once and roll it out from there, because decision fatigue is real. And if you have to think every day like, oh, what should I be doing? You're not going to know. And it's literally sitting down once, thinking through those optimal morning routines that make you win the day every day, the optimal evening routines, so you get that quality sleep. You wind down, you're not waking up in the middle of the night stressed. And once you have those in place, then you don't need to worry about, what am I going to have for lunch? Because you've actually thought about, you know, decision fatigue is a big thing. Why do you think Steve Jobs wore the same thing? Or Mark Zuckerberg? Even Obama admitted to wear one of two different suits. Right? So it's one less thing to have to think about.

Keith Fiveson [00:26:57]:
Right? That's great. I love that. And when you talk about these foundational routines, what are we talking about there? I mean, I look at mindfulness and breathing and prayer or meditation or projection in terms of bringing people into my life. I look at ways of, I do that internal weather analysis and follow my breath during the course of the day just to go ahead and say, what's going on, where are you at? And so on and so forth. What are some of the routines that you're talking about in terms of mindfulness practice and how do they, or breathing or any of the other things, and how do you think they impact your life and your overall well being?

Claudia von Boeselager [00:27:48]:
So to answer the second part exponentially, I can tell the days when I don't, for whatever reason, manage to do my morning priming, as I call it. And again, when people are starting off, they might feel like, oh, this is too much. And I've been doing this quite a while. So it's like a staircase, right? You try a few things. What resonates, you stick with and then try a few more and then drop a few that aren't serving you. And it's sort of combining body, mind, and spirit in terms of bringing different things together. And what I like to do is start by having daylight exposure. So you're switching the hormonal system by having that daylight exposure.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:28:27]:
You're activating your circadian rhythms to know that it's daytime. And I like to do a deep gratitude, and I'm not talking about two minutes. It's like, what thing, big or small, can I be really grateful for? And it's not the listing off, oh, I'm grateful for my life. I'm grateful for this. It's like really feeling like that heart opening gratitude and just spending two minutes in that energy. It's just such a beautiful way to start the day. Then what I like to do is a morning priming practice. So it's a mixture of some qigong breath work, some tapping, also some meditation, visualization, and then making choices for the day.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:29:07]:
But in general, for my life, like things that I choose to do. And there's a powerful hack I'm stealing it from something that Hugh Jackman does with his life coach every day is that you write down what you're going to do that day. So today I. But you write it in the past tense as if it's done. The mind can't differentiate between that. But if it's a foregone conclusion, if you're already setting yourself up to win when you then go to that meeting or make that presentation or meet the new client or whatever it might be, and your mind's like, oh, this is a positive experience because this morning we already decided it that way. It just completely changes that energy and dynamic of your day as well. So I find that really powerful.

Keith Fiveson [00:29:48]:
So it's like the flight simulator, getting into the flight and already taking the flight and looking at your day from the viewpoint of it's already done, isn't that?

Claudia von Boeselager [00:30:00]:
It's done and positive.

Keith Fiveson [00:30:01]:
I made it, and it's great.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:30:02]:
Yeah, exactly. Why not, right. If we have a choice, why not go for the good? Right?

Keith Fiveson [00:30:07]:
Right.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:30:07]:
So that's part of it. And then getting some exercise first thing in the morning, just getting that heart rate up, be it jumping on a small trampoline. I got one recently, and myself and my kids, the best. I feel like a big kid again, and that's what life's about. Have more play to running around the block, to walking around the block, depending on your level. And I'm talking minimum five minutes, but ideally 15 minutes. And what's happening is that the blood flow is stimulating what's called BDNF, which is brain derived nootropic factor, which is like this beautiful growth factor that is supporting your brain. Right.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:30:40]:
So we want to be sharp. We want to have great cognition and all the rest of it as well. And by the way, just to mention, having a good morning routine and getting going well in the morning will help with your evening routine and getting to sleep at night. So people sometimes forget that. Right. So that's just really important. So I love that exercise and getting that through. And then the cold shower.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:31:02]:
Keith, I know people, and especially a lot of women, and I used to be the one. If it wasn't, like, hot, very hot.

Keith Fiveson [00:31:09]:
Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:31:10]:
And there's different stages. I've obviously progressed over time.

Keith Fiveson [00:31:13]:
At the beginning, the wim hof method, you want to jump in.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:31:16]:
I mean, I don't do an ice bath first thing in the morning. I don't have the time. Exactly. Not every day. Right. But at least putting the shower cold for a minute at the end. And at the beginning, I was like, the chicken dance. Like one arm in one.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:31:30]:
And you build up over time. Right. And it's just so beneficial. And I'm undiagnosed, but I'm pretty sure I have some form of ADHD. And one of the things with ADHD is dopamine levels. And it's shown, research shows that you can increase your dopamine levels by wafer it up to 500% by having that cold exposure in the morning over a prolonged period of time. Again, a free biohack. Okay.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:31:59]:
You have to pay for the water, maybe, depending on where you are, but you are increasing your dopamine levels, your mood increases. It will also wake you up like a foghorn. So if you're having trouble waking up, you will definitely be awake after this. And then I love to couple with an alkaline smoothie, for example, with spirulina, organic greens, things like that, too. Find that really helpful. Sometimes I'll do a coffee with some MCT oil and collagen in it as well. But that in the morning. And I've got it down to a science where I can get it between 30 and 40 minutes in the morning.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:32:35]:
And yes, I get up earlier because of it. And at the beginning, yes, it was painful, but it's in a routine, and now I can't live without it. And what a way to start your day. And I'm a different mother for my kids. And when I go to wake them up than this sort of half sleepy, like, hey, guys, it's time to get up.

Keith Fiveson [00:32:50]:
Well, that's absolutely wonderful. And I notice the difference. I walk 2 miles in the morning. I have my smoothie. I have a big cacao, raw cacao. I mix that in there. I have a big bulk thing of spirulina that I just got, which I take normally somewhere closer to lunchtime, just so I can go ahead and get more protein. And I'm pretty much a vegan.

Keith Fiveson [00:33:17]:
I've just slipped a little, and I brought back fish because my body said you need a little fish. But I think that whole idea of really just kind of treating yourself and having that inner awareness is so important. And you can feel the levels. You can really feel the levels. And you look great, by the way. It's just one of those things that when you feel good inside, you look good outside as well, right? Isn't that great? So let me ask you, I love the fact that we've expanded the Wonderland conference agenda to look at not only psychedelics, but health and wellness and longevity and all of that. And I'm just wondering as we start to look at the biohacking and how that may evolve in terms of longevity and where the psychedelics might even play in. I am wondering what your view is in terms of what you see in terms of the future.

Keith Fiveson [00:34:23]:
And what do you think are some of the more promising developments, if you will, as we start moving forward and people become more aware and more conscious of their own capability to really manage their own health care?

Claudia von Boeselager [00:34:40]:
Yeah, I think it's really beautiful. And I think that the psychedelic piece really, really excited about. I've also on the podcast, interviewed some phenomenal people. Dr. Pamela Crisco. I think she's also going to be at the conference. Julia Mirror as well. Dr.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:34:54]:
Julia Mir I've also had several experience myself in Costa Rica earlier this year, this beautiful ayahuasca experience. And I think that people can focus on biohacking in terms of optimization. But if you have trauma, unresolved trauma, if there are certain experiences within, you're just going to be on the surface with a lot of things. And that's why, as you said, as well, and I'm a firm believer of that body, mind and spirit piece. And yes, it might be painful, and yes, there might be childhood traumas that we don't want to touch, but if we don't heal, those emotional trauma will affect your health. It's shown again and again. And so I think that there's such a big piece around incorporating we are these beautiful holistic beings and we have to look at these different aspects as well. And so part of longevity is resolving, and that's part of our journey as well, like resolving those trauma pieces so that you can step into that higher vibration so you can be the best version of yourself and everyone has a story.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:35:58]:
And so seeing that life happens for you, not to you, and seeing how that can become your message, there are so many beautiful examples of people, myself included, but other people with bigger stories or whatever it is, it's not a comparison, who turn that into their why and go about and help other people with it as well. So finding that holistic view, and that's why I'm so excited that psychedelics piece and the mental health piece is incorporated in the same terms with longevity as well. Because if we have all this trauma and we're trying to biohack and optimize everything, but internally we're deteriorating because of that emotional baggage, if you will, or the trauma you're only going to get so far. And actually, interestingly, Keith, the longest running study out of Harvard started in 1938, the year my father was born. So 85 years ago, some of the people are in their ninety s, and they showed that the key to longevity and happiness, which was so important in longevity in older age, are around relationships, connection, having that proximity. And these are in real life relationships and not the WhatsApp message or the, you know, going back to the days, know, thinking back to my grandfather, they used to write a letter to somebody and be like, I'd love to come visit you. And you'd spend days and you'd have these beautiful, deep conversations. It's like, let's reawaken that let's connect at the soul level to know and really help them.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:37:25]:
And so, bringing it all together for longevity, the piece is also around the mental health and around the psychedelics, if that's a tool for healing trauma, for whatever might be coming up for you as well, or for the spiritual awakening, wherever you might be at in your journey, and then coupling it with the biohacking and optimization pieces as well. And you were asking, where do I see the future in that? Well, I think the exciting piece is around that empowerment and personalized medicine. I wear an aura ring, for example. Sleep used to be a huge issue for me. I'm getting on top of it. I'm understanding my sleep cycles. How do I optimize that which allows me to show up as a better person the next? You know, I have my apple watch and the different things that I use as well. So that personalized medicine piece, for some people, it's putting on a continuous glucose monitor, which was typically used for diabetics, but I was testing it to see what was.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:38:22]:
I have Siri talking to me here. I put it on, and I was so surprised that what I thought was healthy sweet potatoes for me was causing a huge insulin spike. And so it's personal to me, and it mightn't be the next hundred people that try it. And that's why personalized medicine allows you to be individual for you and to really understand what's happening. And then it's not saying, don't go to your doctor anymore. I'm not saying that under no case, but then you can go and say, hey, I'm seeing that. Actually, these foods are. Maybe I have an allergy, and I'm feeling really lethargic after I consume this or that and the other.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:38:58]:
Could there be something below it? So you're having a very educated conversation with your doctor again, they only see you for a few minutes, so you're helping them. And I'll give you a personal example with personalized medicine. I was noticing from my aura ring, despite doing my evening routine and everything as well, that actually what was happening was that I was waking during the night, but I didn't realize I was waking up. So it was showing me that these spikes of waking up, and at the same time, the continuous. Sorry, Siri, going again. At the same time, my continuous glucose monitor was showing that I was becoming hypoglycemic at night. My blood sugar was dropping really low. And so this back to my point with the intermittent fasting.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:39:36]:
I was having dinner really early with my kids, and I was trying to do these prolonged fasts overnight. It just didn't suit me. It was causing me to drop my blood sugar so low that the body was sending out a cortisol response, waking me up to try to get the liver activated so that I don't essentially die overnight because the blood sugar is so low. And so a little biohack with that was taking almond butter near bedtime, obviously with no sugar, no palm oil, and stabilizing my blood sugar levels overnight. And had I not had the readings of my aura ring and the continuous glucose monitor, if there was one doctor on planet Earth that could have told me that, I would have been very surprised. And that's the beauty of personalized medicine, because you can combine them too. So that's what I'm really excited about, personalized medicine and being able to better understand yourself and for people to feel empowered, like, take your power back, you can do so much yourself. Just tread with caution, know that one size doesn't fit all.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:40:34]:
Listen to your body, tune in with that, and then things like the early detection. Right. So do go and make sure that you are getting your blood test, your biomarkers tested, and as maybe a side note to that, those parameters that you see on your blood test result, they're based on a white man in the 1960s, which the majority of the world, I would say, is probably not like him.

Keith Fiveson [00:40:58]:
Exactly.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:40:59]:
So know that that range is not necessarily your optimal range. And that's what if you can, and if it is available to you and with telemedicine, maybe it's more and more. Do look for a functional medicine practitioner who is able to look at it from an optimal range for you, because that's where you want to live, in the optimal range, not in the bottom of the white guy from the 1960 range. Right.

Keith Fiveson [00:41:26]:
Yeah, I love that. It just sort of brings to mind the whole phrase, being the CEO, chief executive officer of your own health and really bringing your team together and really bringing the tools together, the technology together, all of the data together, and that's what you do. It's great to have this opportunity to talk with you. Just as finally as we sort of looked at coming to a close, can you share some of your upcoming projects, maybe some of your plans? I know you've got your podcast and you've got some other ventures that are out know, and I'm sure that people would like to get a hold of you in some way, so maybe you can share some of.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:42:12]:
Sure. Thanks, Keith. So obviously I'll be speaking at the Wonderland conference. So I'd love if people are there, come and say hello. Any questions? I'm here to help. As I said, I'm so passionate about that. I have the podcast, which is the longevity and lifestyle podcast. Knowing now what I know, I should have just come up with a really short name.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:42:33]:
But anyway, so the longevity and lifestyle podcast, some plans as well are retreats. I feel like we need more in person, transformational retreats. So that's in the pipeline for next year and some really. And also, I think another passion of mine that I'm working on is helping women tap back into that sort of divine, feminine being in that feminine energy. This is a former investment banker and tech entrepreneur here, so it's learning the power of actually being our true selves as well. So those are just some of the pipeline of projects that I'm passionate about. Yeah.

Keith Fiveson [00:43:11]:
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for bringing your wisdom and bringing your knowledge and your experience to the show and also bringing it to the Wonderland conference, and I look forward to seeing you there. Thank you so much.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:43:24]:
Thank you so much, Keith. It's been such a pleasure speaking today.

Keith Fiveson [00:43:29]:
Thank you, Claudia, for sharing your inspiring journey with us and for providing us with valuable insights into the world of biohacking and longevity. We hope our listeners will find your tips and strategies helpful in their pursuit of optimal health and well being to our listeners. Thank you for tuning in to the Mindfulness Experience podcast. And don't forget to register for the Wonderland Miami 2023 conference set wonderlandconference.com and use the special discount code mindfulness 20 for a 20% discount. We look forward to bringing you more exciting guests and topics in the future. And remember to stay mindful, stay healthy, and stay tuned.