Cannabis & Intentional Recovery - Don Moxley

It makes a lot of sense to me that first of all, exercise helps anxiety. How does it help? It's not through it's not through burning calories. We can burn calories a lot of ways. Okay. Um, it helps exercise because you have an anandomide boost. We improve the synaptic communication. You have a drop in in anxiety. You can also we have a lot of data that shows that the consumption of cannabinoids will have a similar effect.

Hey fitness friends, welcome back to the future of fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 119. I get to talk to Don Moxley. What a gym. Thank you, Ben Reuter, for finding this guy and connecting me with him. And uh you can check out uh his podcast interview on Ben Reuter show as well. So on the Moving to Live podcast. I guess you could call this the cannabis episode for the future of fitness, right? So as Don so eloquently put during the interview, um referring to me, I'm not naive to cannabis in any way. Uh it's been part of my life for quite some time. And I can tell you right now, I'm still baffled by the stigma, you know, both socially, uh legislatively, legally, all of those things. You know, what what's the problem? What is the problem? Right? It's it's there's so many benefits to be derived from it. And he talks from an athletic perspective, um, how it's evolving there uh for recovery and a lot of the health uh benefits thereof. And I could say, you know, just from personal experience with those close to me, um, myself and studies I've read, that it's nothing to be feared. It's something to be aware of and studied and almost in awe of at times. And just we need to understand it, right? And the role of the cannabinoid system uh that's innately in us, right? That's what other people think. Um it's it's actually in us, you guys, right? It's completely natural in our bodies, cannabinoids. So, anyway, listen up, let me know what you think, and uh, I'd love to hear from you after the show. Um, you can reach me at Eric Malzone at fitnessprofessionalonline.com. So, speaking of fitness professionals or health professionals, this show is brought to you by certifiedcoursecreation.com. So, do you have a great idea? Do you have a wealth of knowledge in a particular area? And you need to get it out there, right? Tired of trading your time for money. Does this sound familiar at all? Well, creating an accredited online certification could be the best thing you ever do for yourself. Right? Not only are they highly lucrative or can be highly lucrative, it's a way to get your knowledge out there, it's a way to build a legacy, it's a way to firmly position yourself as an expert in the field. So I think it's a no-brainer. I think it's worth checking out. And if you go to certifiedcoursecreation.com and you check it out, you can book a time and kind of do a discovery call. See if you have it in you, see if it's something worthwhile. And uh it probably is. So do yourself a favor and go check out certifiedcoursecreation.com. Lastly, before we get on to the interview, uh, so more further ado, uh, I want to read a review from Chris Audson who says, highly recommend this podcast. Highly recommend for anyone interested in learning more about the world of fitness from the perspective of someone who has seen all sides of it, give it a listen. Thank you, Chris Audson. Uh, I've known Chris for a while and really appreciate him coming by and dropping a review. Uh, you should also check out his photography on Instagram, Chris Christopher Audsen. Yeah, so now, without further ado, let's get on to episode number 119 with Don Moxley. Enjoy the show. Let me know what you think. Talk to you soon. All right, we're live. Don, welcome. Thanks. Looking forward to being here. Yeah, there is uh there's so many things we can talk about. And I want to thank um, you know, before we get started, Ben Reuter for connecting us from Moving to Live podcast. And uh I listened to your show um on his uh on his show, and I was so intrigued, man. Uh, I think you have so much to offer, and I think it's so critical in the timing of everything that's going on with um, you know, different legislation that's coming through to advancement of technology in the HRV area and all of this. And you're you're smack in the middle of it all. So this is gonna be a really great educational piece for for fitness professionals out there. So, Don, um, I don't want to steal too much of your thunder. If you could just give us some background, you know, a little bit of a short bio on you.

Well, um, my background is I'm an exercise physiologist. I've been um I've been working in academics for almost 30 years now. I've started teaching, um, got out of grad school in the mid-80s, uh, and and right away started in high high-tech sports performance. That um one of my earliest clients was a guy by the name of uh Brad Sellers and Dennis Hobson. And at the time, they were Ohio State grads that played for the Chicago Bulls, and they played for the Jordan Bulls back then. And um I got to work with um Al Vermeel. Al was Al was the strength coach for the Chicago Bulls back then. And um, Al, when I started working with these guys, I went up and met him, and he had this thing that was called a Vermeal Time Machine, which was essentially this Atari computer that was set on top of this circuited box that had uh optical switches and switch pads, and it it fed into a printer that um a fact style printer. And so literally I started doing uh I figured I've I scrounged together 5,000 bucks to be able to buy one of these things back then, and I started doing some testing back then because I've always felt that it's it you need authentic evidence to make good decisions. And um, and that was like this was the first time I used a piece of technology. And and back then I got to do some work with the the Ohio State women's volleyball team back then, did some testing. The coach back then was a real really good progressive coach, Jim Stone. And um and you know, this was one of my first real team experiences, and we wound up sweeping the Big Ten, finished second in the country that year. But but most importantly, I consider this one of my most valuable coaching accomplishments is that every one of my starters was available for every practice. Wow, every one of my players was available for every game. Okay, so and and at the end of the day, you know, the coach has got to recruit racehorses, and it's our job to keep the racehorses in the race. Um and but at the same time, if you're doing something, you need to make sure that there's a a measurable output. I think this is what determines the difference between you know Joe Bag of Donuts trainer and a professional. That that someone, if if you're a real pro, someone should be able to see a measurable difference from the work that you're doing. Um, so that's really when I really started then. Um, you know, again, remember 1980s kind of when the personal computers were just coming out, IBM was just rolling. This is you know, this is borderline stone age. Um and um so that technology kept advancing. Um, I was running a lab in a community college uh in Columbus. It was called Columbus State Community College, and we put a technology in there that was called uh Body Age at the time. We bought it from a company out in Albuquerque and uh called Health First, and Polar, the heart rate monitor company, bought Health First. And so they came after me, and I had a chance to go work in the technology sector for Polar, which was just a great experience. And at the time, we were still measuring heart rate with two fingers on our carotid, which is, as I explain, it's like a NASCAR driver trying to tell his speed by counting telephone poles around the track. Um, and and all of a sudden I'm thrown into the middle of this phenomenal technology, you know, space. And I'm like, holy mackerel, how do you train? And what and once you use good technology, you wonder how you trained without it. Yeah. Um, because it just really gives you the ability to slide into that perfect spot. So spent a lot of years, I spent a few years working with um with Polar, uh, had a great experience there, picked up a bunch of information, and it was Polar that really first tried to commercialize using heart rate variability in their products. Um a lot of people didn't know it was there. They they wouldn't call it HRV, they would call it like own zone and own cow and own this and own that. And uh, but at the end of the day, they were looking at RMSSD. Um again, Polar's a Finnish company. They have a lot of Russian influence in their technology up there, and and HRV is ultimately you know discovered by the Russian space program. Um, so that's when I was first introduced to HRV. You know, my at the time my daughter had been born, and I didn't, I you know, my job at the time had me on an airplane every week. So I didn't want to be that dad. So I had I had um developed a technology at that point. Uh, and I think most of your listeners will be familiar with a product called Tendo. Um it's uh that you measure bar speed to measure power. And I had a Tendo unit that I was working with and figuring some things out. I have a uh I have uh I've been lucky enough to have a good relationship with Lou Simmons from Westside Barbell from from back in the early 80s when I was training. And um I was down with Lou and he showed me the Tendo and I wound up getting one and thought, wow, this is, you know, when all of a sudden you can measure the quality of each rep of a strength movement, and that's that was significant. And so at that time I I hired an engineer, I had this big fat bonus check from Polar, and I hired an engineer to make my own Tendo unit that we fed into a computer, so I didn't have to transfer the numbers by hand. Uh, had a concept, we tried to commercialize it with a high-tech fitness facility, um, which ultimately, you know, was not successful. Um, but it was it was a great learning experience. So, you know, migrated out of that uh in you know back into academics and taught for a long time. And then um was, you know, the the Ohio State Wrestling Program came back to me. They had a new coach, and and if you listen to any of my other podcasts, you'll hear the story of 2015 that you know Ohio State at the time had a had a wrestler by the name of Logan Stever that had run three national titles, was on his way back to win his fourth, and they had a freshman class that included the eventual first three wrestlers to be four-time All-Americans in a single class at a single school. One of those guys went on to win an Olympic gold medal uh in Rio. And so we worked with a wrestler on that team that was struggling a little bit, did some HRV work, um, was able to pick up uh some issues. We modified nine workouts on this guy, and he went from where we weren't sure he'd score any points to where he was an all-American and helped that team win a national title. Um, so then embedded with Ohio State for about three or four years, uh, wound up uh partnering when I was at Ohio State with the Air Force Research Lab out of Wright Patterson Air Force Base, uh, which got me a bunch of resources. And then in my last year at Ohio State, we measured uh about three and a half million data points on this wrestling team. Um and uh got to the point with HRV that we could predict all American status of our wrestlers prior to the first day of the tournament. Um, before they wrestled the first match, I could have told you who was going to be an all-American and who wouldn't. Um so, you know, we had a lot of success there. The the special operations group from the air from the military, not just Air Force, but the entire special operations group, you know, took a look at the program. And and then I had this uh great opportunity to come and change, you know, change industries again. That um a friend of mine that I'd worked with with a wearables company uh had moved into the cannabis space, and uh we had been having conversations, and and um we know that cannabis can have a positive effect on the recovery status of an athlete. We knew that. We I don't know that we knew why. I know I didn't know why, I couldn't explain it. So when I was invited to come into this space, I jumped in it. And um, you know, so I'm working for a company in Florida that's part of a a big uh, you know, we have the the company that owns us, we have assets in 11 states, and and so became part of a much bigger company. Wow. So I sell weed in Florida now. Yeah, so yeah, full circle.

No, yeah. Yeah.

A lot of science, and I sell weed now.

Yeah.

Oh, that's great. So I have to ask, you know, um, because if I'm I'm listening to this, um how how if you can explain it to us in in you know terms we can understand, but how did you know if people are gonna be all Americans? Like what was the what did the data tell you?

Yeah, uh it basically boiled down to their RMSSD status. So the root mean square of similar differences, that's one of the HRV mechanisms that you get. And and uh having measured wrestlers over several years, we saw in 2016 when um when Kyle won his gold medal that you know he was a national titleist that year too, and we had some early RMSSD data um and uh and we started to see some trends. And it looked like you know, I had wrestlers that made all American, and I had wrestlers that didn't make all American, and and there was a there was a distinct line. Um and it looks like, and and back then we hypothesized and it showed up in the next two years of data. It looks like if you don't have a wrestler that has uh an RMSSD going into the tournament of about 75 milliseconds, um it probably they probably won't make all American. Um, you know, your ability to make all American, listen, the the the you have the top 10% of the wrestlers in the country qualifying for that tournament. Right. Um actually it's no, it's it's it's more than that. The top 10% are there's about 800 wrestlers in D1. 80 of them make all American. So you've got 320 that qualify for the tournament. Um, so about 32 guys per weight class. Um so that so you have a lot of talent. You have a lot of guys that train hard. Training hard's not the issue anymore. That used to be a determining factor years ago. It's not anymore. Everybody trains hard. The question is, is can you recover between bouts in a manner that gives you the ability to compete clear through the tournament? Um, so you know, this was the work that we did that became very clear is that if you don't have a high enough, if you don't have a high enough recovery index, you can't, you just you can't, you won't make all American. Um so everything we did then was about getting that recovery index to a place that would support that. Um we had eight guys that did it and two that didn't. Um so you know that was uh that was very enlightening. You know, and so for instance, the things that we used to move RMSSD when we were there were you know sensory deprivation floating and and mindfulness techniques, and and and um so we would use tools like that. I floated, we floated that team 140 times in a season. Okay, floating works. Um and and um at the same time, you know, obviously we're not using cannabis with that team because it's illegal in the NCAA. Um, but um I have friends in the pros that were telling me stories and we're seeing data. And um, and now that I'm now that I'm in the middle of the industry, um, you know what? Cannabinoids move RMSSD. Cannabinoids change your your central nervous system status. It'll flip you from sympathetic to parasympathetic. Um so you know that's the that you know it was it was simply it was simply looking at the data. But you've got it, it took, it took a lot of determination. It took a lot of work to get the data. The data did not come easy. It took me standing over guys in practice every day and and some of them just hating me because they didn't want to put the hardware on, they didn't want to do it. You know, so part of that's my fault. I obviously didn't, with that athlete, I obviously didn't communicate the value of the data well enough. Yeah, you know. Well, it's honest. We have to. I I I I used to tell people when I opened my my fitness facility, what I told them is I said, our challenge is listen, if I could put you in a workout and at the end of the workout you finished, the machine said good job and printed a $50 bill, how many workouts would you miss? Nine. You'd be there, yeah. So our challenge is creating a $50 workout. The value, you know, someone has to perceive what they're doing at that level or some or some level in between. Um so so you know, we listen, three and a half million data points, I was obviously getting someone to measure something. Um but um but at the same time, it it just took a lot of work to get that. But when you have the data, then you can make decisions. Um and and being partnered with the Air Force Research Lab at Wright Pat, I can't tell you how valuable that was. You know, to have a group of high-level analysts uh helping us analyze the data. And and at the same time, I had a I had a guy at Ohio State from the uh Fisher College of Business um that was helping me do things that we were collecting most of this data into spreadsheets. Um we're managing a lot of data in spreadsheets. So most spreadsheets won't hold that much data, so you got to go in multiples and bring them together. So uh my I had an intern, Zach, that was just a rock star. Um, and you know, so if you're in this business and if you're a sport coach, I have a huge amount of respect. I you've got to get into your business schools and get these kids to come help you because you have to have the data to make decisions. Yeah.

Wow, what an interesting. And this is probably, I mean, this information is applicable to all sports, right? Probably any kind of high-level performance from entrepreneurship to um, you know, like I said, athletics or uh special ops, all of this.

Yeah, not just high level. Remember, everything we're talking about is in the human nervous system. Okay. So if you're alive, your nervous system is contributing to that. Um so so there's uh it's obvious, you know, you we see the application at the elite sport level. I mean, it's it's easy to see. But um, there are people that suffer every day with post-traumatic stress. There are people that suffer with anxiety that that may not understand why or what's going on. Um if you can put an indicator on it, um, if you can put some kind of a number on it that they say if I change my behavior, the number changes, then you start to get, then you start to get some behavior. You've got to, you know, ultimately, I go back to one of the I think it's one of the most important books I ever read, and it's flow, F L O W, The Psychology, the Optimum Experience. Yep. And and Cheek Sent me High talks about seven characteristics of the flow experience. Challenging activity that requires skill. That's you know, we we all have that, but it's it's rich in athletics. But clear goals and feedback, the number two element that goes in that, so the the puddles of sweat next to your bike are not clear goals and feedback. The scale is not clear goals and feedback. Um, you've got to have variables and and you've got to have variables that you can trust and are dependable and repeatable and reliable, you know, the three R's of any research. So this is the reason, you know, as the more you work on this, listen, if you're training and you're not wearing a heart rate monitor, you're you you've probably got room to improve. Um if if you want to optimize lifestyle, if stress is an issue in what you do, you should be looking at um HRV. You should be looking at what your central nervous status is. Are you waking up ready? Are you uh, you know, I I do a lecture where I draw uh I put a piece of paper up or I draw a line horizontally on it, and that that line represents homeostasis. And then I draw a box on top of the line, and the and the width of the box is the duration of the workout, the height of the box is the intensity of the workout, and what goes in the box is your mode, whether it's cardio or strength or scale or whatever. Um but so that that's the variable. And so, and then when I do that lecture, I go ahead and I draw a diagonal line from the bottom of the box down, okay? Because you don't get stronger with stress, you get weaker with stress. With recovery, you get stronger. So, but the question is is that what is that angle of that, what is the angle of recovery that if if if if you've been traumatized, this is the this is the this is the shitty data. One in four girls and one in six boys have to endure some type of sexual molestation act by the time they're 18. One in six girls are either raped or attempted raped. Okay. Those are traumatic events. Okay, and the body responds to that by becoming vigilant, okay, and eventually becomes hyper vigilant. This is the foundation of post traumatic stress. And we can explain it. There's this great mouse study I came across that looks at the role of anandomide, which is an endocannabinoid. It's a cannabinoid your body produces. And the amygdala, the fear-sensing portion of your brain. So we see mice that are fear conditioned, there's a drop of anandomite in their amygdala. So it looks like that hypervigilance is cut. That's how that's the evolutionary response. So if you're born into a rattlesnake pit, the only way you survive is being hyper-vigilant. So that's a good adaptive response. The problem is once you get out of the rattlesnake pit, everything looks like a rattlesnake. You know, instead of being a tiger, it's a paper tiger. And we live in a society full of paper tigers. You know, that quote comes from a good friend of mine, it's a pain doc, uh, Dr. Ron Garbo, who's done a great job in this space. Um, but that hypervigilance is a is a holds you in that sympathetic state. And you have to intentionally recover. Again, that's another Ron Dr. Ron Garbo quote. Intentional recovery to to break this. But the question is, what are you using as your as your indicators, your dashboard? Am I doing good? Am I doing bad? Is it working? You've got to be able to put an indicator on that. And that's where some of the great HRV stuff comes from.

Yeah. So what do you I have a ton of HRV equipment? You know, I started with Omega um back in like 2000, whatever that was 12. Um, so I've tested them all. I had recently had, you know, uh Joel Jameson on with Morpheus, and we talked about that. Yep, love Joel. Yeah, I love, I like his, I think his is from my experience so far the best I've had. But I'm not a training athlete anymore. You know, I don't need quite as much as robust as that is. So I'm curious, you know, if you had a recommendation, two recommendations actually. One for the average Joe and Jane who just wants to maintain their stress levels, knowing when to push, um, you may, you know, the family of three, demanding job, that type of person, and then the high-end athlete. Is there two different, or is there one tool that you would recommend or a couple of tools you would recommend?

No, no. So I just had this conversation with um the guy that replaced me at Ohio State. Um, listen, I love Omega Wave and I love what they do, but there's a pretty high hassle factor with it. And and frankly, and frankly, I've not, I personally have not been able to gain value from their DC current potential stuff. The the electrode on the head and the hands. Um, what I found is that the RMSSD, the HRV data is very predictable. It is very good, and it's a great tool for that. Awesome. But it's a relatively high hassle factor. Right now, when someone asks me about an HRV measurement tool from at a sport level, I'll usually point you towards FirstSpeed. Um, the first speed system, particularly when you can integrate, FirstSpeed does a nice job of they have a on-demand five minutes called a quick recovery test that you can do as an individual or as a team, which is a which is pretty good. I've used it a lot, I like it. But they also have what's called a bodyguard, which is something that I can recover record every heartbeat for about three days. So I can see sleep, I can see the rest of your workouts. So so at a high intensity level, right now, my recommendation, and and listen, I've used a lot of these, I don't get paid by anybody. Right now, first beats my recommendation at a sport level. Um, I've spent um a lot of time looking at, and I'll tell you, Elite HRV. Um, the guys down there at Elite HRV, and they have a finger sensor that I've been using that's pretty slick. Um it uses uh it uses the photoplasmography, but they've worked out algorithms on this. And so for for me who's not a competitive athlete anymore, you know what? I've gotten some really interesting data out of using um the Elite HRV app and their CoreSense sensor. It's it's a really dependable, really good place to be. Awesome. Awesome. And and pretty affordable.

Yeah.

And what's what's the price point on it, roughly? Well, I think, you know what, I I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, but I think that sensor is less than a hundred bucks. That's great. Um, and I think the app is free. That's great. Um, and you can upgrade into more data and stuff like that. And you and they have team capabilities. I've I've I've worked with their team capabilities. Very nice, do a very nice job. And um, and Jason Moore, who who ramrods that outfit, um, smart guy doing a nice job with with his algorithm development. And um, I he it's they've got it figured out. It's nice.

Yeah. Well, and imagine a company like that too. The smart thing is to get it into as many hands as possible. Um because then you start collecting data, right?

They like the data, and and you know, it looks like this freemium model is the thing to be thing to do, but yeah, but but but I guess if if I were to leave a message, if you train and you don't own a chest transmitter yet, well, you should stop whatever you're doing and you should go buy one. Um that that that they're there may not when I worked for Polar, I was always trying to get the marketing department to do a commercial or do an ad where we showed all these athletes in their gear, but then I wanted to show them all naked with just a heart rate transmitter on, saying that you know, this is where it this is where you get start getting dressed. Um and um and they would never do it. But um, but this is but this is the kind this is literally good workouts start with this date, with this information. Yeah. You know, I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get the photoplasmography devices, whether it's on the back of the wrist or something else. And and it I've I just don't have a great solution. There's some of them are good. And if again, if you're just if if you're just getting started and you want to buy one of those wrist-based sensors, I've not had any luck with the Apple one, by the way. Yeah. Um, but um, but some of the but some of the other ones are close. Um, but you know what, just put the freaking chest band on. Um and because that data is 99% of a wired EKG. That's really good information. And you know, Polar now, shoot, you can use a their free app and their transmitter. So for you know, an $80 investment, you're getting what we were charging $500 for back when I was working for them, because we didn't, it's before smartphones, again, back in the dinosaur era. Um, you know, we had bag I remember bag phones. So, you know, when smartphones started, that was a big deal. But yeah, I had a I had a sh one with a phone with a shoulder strap. Yeah, I had one of those too.

Yeah, yeah, it was back in the day. Okay, so I feel like we've, or you actually, have really done an amazing job of kind of defining what the stress means, like what that means for recovery, and why recovery is probably the biggest metric that we're not paying enough attention to when it comes to performance, right? So tie this into cannabis, man. How is how are you seeing this? What what made you what was that aha moment that made you jump from this type of technology into the cannabis? Was there something that sparked your interest?

And then give us Well, um what got me looking was as I I think I said I had a friend um that was that I worked with at another company out west, and we were it was a wearables wellness company. And um we both exited that company about the same time, and I came back to Ohio State, and that's when I started my work at Ohio State, um, this my last set of work, but um he went into the cannabis space. Um and he sent me a note one day and he said, So tell me about cannabis and HRV. And I thought, hmm, this is interesting. So I started to do some research, and you know what? There's some papers out there. Um, but then you start asking around and you find out there's some of these guys that work in the pros that have been looking at this. And when you look at HRV and elite athletes, what happens a lot of times the athletes, and this is warriors and athletes, this is all the elite human groups, um, they'll get stuck, either sympathetic or parasympathetic. They want the the the system just they don't, they're not, they're not in that nice sine wave, you know. Um so the question is how do you get them unstuck? Well, there's some there's some pros that we're talking about, the fact that I've got some guys that'll go out on a bender and come back fixed. Um, and I'm like, okay, interesting. Um and then again, you start to dig into the papers a little bit and you look at HRV and and um and and cannabis, and there there's some there's some decent studies in this. Um now that I'm in the space, when you understand the role of endocannabinoids and exogenous cannabinoids, when you look at, you know, there there's there's two or three ways this can hit that I can explain right now. That the first of all, inflammation's an issue. Okay, when you're training hard and you're going after it, you're you're gonna have an inflammatory response. Well, cannabis is a really good anti-inflammatory that particularly targets the COX-2 enzyme, not the COX1, goes after the COX-2. And and this doesn't have to be THC-based cannabis, this can be predominantly CBD-based cannabidiol cannabis products. Um so so great anti-inflammatory, number one. Number two, this was new to me. Okay, so I get out of grad school in 1986, 1992, 1993, uh Raphael McCullum discovers the endocannabinoid system. So they we didn't even know about it, let alone teach it back then. So we now know about this thing called a CB1 or a CB2 receptor. Um, we know about uh the enzymatic, uh whether it's an NAPE NAP or whether it's FAAH, the enzyme that breaks down the endocannabinoid, and then you have the the actual ligand itself, um whether it's an andamide or 2AG or any of these. Um But what we see is that in the presence of exogenous cannabinoids, you see a decrease in the FAAH degradation of the endocannabinoids in your system. Okay, so consuming an exogenous cannabinoid gives you the ability to hold on to your endocannabinoids longer. Does that make sense? Yes. Now, why is that important? Well, when you have synaptic communication, when you have two nerves talking to each other, okay, so one nerve achieves a threshold and essentially fires, and it dumps a neurotransmitter into the synaptic space. That neurotransmitter goes across, the second nerve picks it up, and it'll eventually activate that nerve. But what the other thing that happens is that there's communication that goes from nerve two to nerve one. Okay, that communication says, hey, I got your transmitter, stop sending. Okay? That communication takes place with endocannabinoids, with an enandemide. Um so if you have, and there's a researcher by the name of Dr. Ethan Russo who has suggested that perhaps we have a chronic enandamide deficiency, a chronic endocannabinoid deficiency that we may need to support with exogenous sources. So I'm I'm gonna go down a different rabbit hole real quick. So I want to back up a minute. So where does where do endocannabinoids come from? Well, they they come from the from the metabolism of omega-6 cepats, uh, arachidonic acid, and that's what eventually becomes anandomide. That so we know that takes place in persistence hunting animals. So humans, dogs, things like that. We know that when humans exercise, there's an increase of anandomide. There's an increase of that endocannabinoid. Okay, and this is so it's when you take a look at what causes the runner high, it's probably more a responsibility of the endocannabinoid than it is the dopamine or the serotonin. Okay, it's the anandomide boost. So now I do a I do another lecture where I put a picture, I put two pictures of orca. I put a picture of an orca in captivity and an orca in the wild. And the orcas in captivity, if you look at them, their dorsal fins bend over. Okay, so not all of them, a lot of them. Okay, and when you look at orcas in the wild, their dorsal fin is largely straight. Not all of them, most of them. Okay, so what we know is that when we put an orca in an aquarium, there's not enough environmental force from living in the aquarium for that orca to express its DNA with a straight dorsal fin. Does that make sense? Yeah. Now, we take this another step. If you look at the old zoos, okay, old zoos used to be concrete block walls with a metal cage, and the animals were stuck in this cage, and they would get, they would get manic, they would get digestive problems, they wouldn't reproduce, and they had a lifespan of about three and a half years. When you take these zoo animals and you put them in an enriched environment, then all of a sudden they start reproducing, they eat, they get along, you know, they don't have the digestive issues. So the environment changes the animal's response. It loses the anxiety. Okay? So the question that I have that I pose is what is the effect of us going from our house aquarium to our car aquarium to our work aquarium? And every time, and the reason I do this, when you go to your house, look out the window and tell me who's the fish. Okay? When you get in your car, look out the window and tell me who's the fish. Same thing at work. Okay. So um, so we've we've created an environment that limits movement, that limits the thing that drives the increase of anandamide, which improves synaptic. And it makes sense. If you have a low synaptic retrograde communication system, well, does the body cause anxiety? Well, probably, because in in a normal hunter-gatherer environment, anxiety makes you get up and move. Okay? Now we live in aquariums. We can't get up and move unless you're doing it, unless you're doing it mindfully. Um, so as I look at this whole, when I look at this whole endocannabinoid response, and and again, um, when you look at the change of the environment that we live in, um it makes a lot of sense to me that first of all, exercise helps anxiety. How does it help? It's not through, it's not through burning calories. We can burn calories a lot of ways, okay? Um, it helps exercise because you have an anandomide boost. We improve the synaptic communication, you have a drop in in anxiety. You can also so we have a lot of data that shows that the consumption of cannabinoids will have a similar effect. You know, there was a point in our time where we took a bunch of humans and we stuffed them on a boat and we put them on the ocean with enough food to get from Europe to the North America, okay? And when those humans showed up in North America or in the Caribbean islands, they showed up with sores in their mouth, okay? Because there wasn't enough citric acid in the food that you could store to cross the ocean with for to not to prevent scurvy. Okay? So the question is, how do you fix scurvy? Well, you get the right part of your diet. You get citric acid in your diet and it fixes it. Well, that's that that's where we started discovering uh micronutrients and vitamins and how minerals work and things like that. Well, it looks to me like like cannabis could be, you know, and when we look at it, and and cannabis isn't the only product with cannabinoids. Um there's cannabinoids in a lot of other plants, they're just very dense in cannabis. Um, but when we start to look at nutritional supplementation and we look at the lifestyle that we have going from aquarium to aquarium, when we look at the limited movement that we have, when we look at the fact that we're surrounding ourselves with paper tigers, okay, so we're, you know, again, hunter-gatherers only had to deal with the tiger for a few seconds. Okay, there's a reason why your ATP system only lasts for about 15 seconds, because that that's probably all you need to do to get away from the tiger. Okay. Um, you know, if if it was only 10 seconds, you know, your lunch, you didn't get to reproduce. But um, but if you made it out, you know, that and so you know, that's the evolutionary process. Um, but once you finished your tiger experience, you went and climbed up in a tree and you took a nap. Okay, you went into recovery. Okay. When you're hunter-gathering, when you're out walking, when you're doing persistence hunting, okay, you're you're getting rewarded with the anandomide, you're getting rewarded with the endocannabinoid that that keeps you hunting. That's the reason you're able to win, and and and that's the reason you're able to get the food. The guy that didn't get the rewards, like, screw this, this isn't good. The guy that got the rewards, like, no, no, I'm gonna get the food and I'll keep going. Uh, one of them reproduced, the other one didn't. Um, so so I think a lot of these things come together. And when you look at it in this stress, sympathetic, parasympathetic paradigm, and you start to look at performance athletics as well as just performance human behavior, you know, whether you're an executive or a teacher or anything else, being able to drive your recovery is a really, really intentional recovery. And again, I go back to my friend Ron Garbo. He was a teammate of mine, and he's a great pain management doc. Um that intentional recovery is the process. You know, right now we haven't, we haven't, you know, the Amish don't exercise. The Amish go out and work every day, okay? So they don't need planned exercise. Uh we have to do intentional exercise, okay, because of our aquarium. Um the uh uh we also need it, looks like based on the stress that goes on and all these different things, we need intentional recovery too, because we've limited our environment so much. Wow.

So okay, the rubber meets the road here in in what way? So, you know, if I I actually have a stressful occupation. I'm an entrepreneur, you know, running multiple businesses at once and um, you know, do a lot of travel. And actually, you know, what's funny about it is I I came off a long week of vacation, which was kind of vacation. It was um five days of skiing um with a good amount of you know having fun with my friends and um came back to a ton of work, right? And yesterday I went to the gym and I picked up the barbell and I started doing some cleans, and I was like, you know what? This just doesn't feel light. Right. Very heavy. And I knew I, you know, through my uh luckily through my acquired knowledge or pike with stress man's. I'm like, okay, today's a day, good, good day to back off. You know, maybe I'll just do a quick, you know, emom set, some push-ups and some pull-ups and light cleans, right? Um now you combine that with all my other stress loading, right? I call it the stress bucket. Like you the stress is stress, right? Whatever it comes from, you like you can only handle so much. Right. So A, I think people being aware, right? Of what they're mindful, mindful, yes, huge, right? Um, you know, through the technology, just through simply even being aware of what they're doing, the mindfulness you're talking about. Now, how does how do we use the research now and the understanding of cannabis cannabis and and all the derivatives? What do we start doing? How do we start utilizing this?

Well, listen, I think everything starts with a with a measure. Okay. Otherwise, you're throwing shit at the wall. Um so so you know, having the right measure is critical. To to contribute to your previous statement, we um one of the first years that we had a comprehensive program with the team. Um so we're measuring them. We go, so we start wrestling in October and November. We get through December. We usually kick them loose uh right around Christmas. They come back just after New Year's, and we would roll right into our Big Ten season right after New Year's. So it was it was big time. And and inevitably the team comes back with this kind of listen, they've been resting for five days. Let's, you know, we're ready to go hard. Well, all of a sudden the first year we did this, we get the numbers back, and the first day numbers, I'm like, they're the worst numbers I measured all year. So the guy, so and and literally each day they improved. And I thought, well, holy mackerel. Is that so we have our stress that we designed, but what we figured out is that family stress is the worst. It's the most aggressive stress, okay? Um and and so literally the second year of that, we started changing the process. So instead of just burying them day one back, we had to look at recovery kind of stuff day one back so that we could get in and start to get that routine. Because listen, if they're coming back from, if they're coming back from holiday and their angle of recovery is here instead of here and it's steep, you know what? I can't bury you five days in a row there, okay? Or else I'll break you. Um, so that that family stress was that was a really interesting discovery. Um and the more I looked into it with my team, the more it became even more dominant. Um, but um, but to go back and answer your question, listen, do you measure your citric acid or your or your niacin levels on a daily basis? Now we've got that figured out to where you take a supplement, you figure out works for you. But you know, I take my I take my vitamin supplement at night when I take magnesium to go to bed. Um that's when mine goes in. I and I and I don't measure. But I am paying attention to my stress levels. Um and mainly because I'm a dork and you know, I'm studying it all. And and you know, I I told a group, you know, I'm just a geek. I mean, I like I want I want to make data driven decisions. Yeah. Um so so it starts, listen, you can prophylact. Start to use CBD or start to use products like that. But ultimately, it comes down to your ability to figure out what your rhythm is. Where are you? And this is not single factorial that, you know, did you have a good night's sleep? Did you have a fight with your girlfriend or your mate? Did you have a fight? You know, is there something going on at work? You know, there's a lot of things that come into play on this. You know, we started the call, and I told you, I was, you know, I had a very distressing phone call with my insurance company. I'm not a state farm insurance fan right now. I'm trying to figure out a way to not give them my money. Um so with that, with that, I have to understand that that came into that's part of my that's that's part of the bucket. Um and when you wake up in the morning, you got to make a decision. Um, you know, that's this is from from training our guys, this was one of the big parts, is that I we we a lot of times, if I had my way, I would have gotten two HRV measurements a day. I would have gotten one right when they woke up in the morning, and I would have gotten one right before they started practice. Because the one in the morning tells me how did they recover from the previous day? Where are we? You know, what's that? And if I get them right before practice, I can answer the question are they ready for the bucket of stress I've got prepared for them right now? Um, and so you can make that call, you can pull, you know, you can push, you can pull. Ironically, and it's probably not irony, but it's it's it's certainly exciting. I never had to tell my coach to back off. Okay? When you get an intentional recovery program in place, we always had bandwidth for training. Okay, so this was this was pretty exciting. So I never went to the coach and said, nah, you got to go easy. And I think this is what coaches' biggest fear that that some some dork with a clipboard and a computer is gonna come tell them that that he has to change the way he trains. I never had to do that. Um, I was able to go to the coach and say, This guy's ready, here's the bandwidth, and I could say, you can go harder if you want. And in fact, there was a lot of days, and the coach is like, no, we don't need to go harder. I got what I needed, we're good. And so we're actually we're walking away with gas in the tank. Um, so that was that was pretty cool.

Yeah, that is really cool. So we kind of established some metrics for people to check out too, right? I mean, check out first beat, and then you can start seeing the recovery going. So if I let's say, you know, I'm I'm I'm starting to see a rhythm in my life, right? I'm starting to see what my stressors are, I'm starting to get an idea of you know when I'm at my best, maybe when I could, should or could be supplementing with uh a cannabis or a CBD product. How do I start venturing into that area? I mean, I'll be completely honest too, like we talked about before, you know, I'm no uh, you know, I'm not new to cannabis in marijuana. It's been part of my life. You're not naive. Yeah, I'm not naive, right? Um, so I I I know I know a lot from personal experience and and experimentation, you know, for a long time. A lot of people don't. There's still, you know, the stigma behind it. Um, you know, I just bought my parents in the eight in their early 80s, their first batches of CBD. And, you know, my dad has tremors in his hands, and it reduced by 50%, you know. So there's there's a lot to it, but I think it's still misunderstood. It's it's still seen as snake oil a little bit, right? Well, it can it can be. Yeah, oh for sure, right? Yeah. So what do we what do we need to know? How do we start incorporating that into recovery and in our everyday lives?

I'm going to answer that question, but I'm going to ask you to make a note to ask me about the aura ring before we're done. Yeah, cool. Okay. Um, so uh getting into cannabis. So let's let's do cannabis 101 from this standpoint. That that cannabis cannabis plants come in a whole continuum. You know, it's not like apple trees. You know, there are apple trees, you know, you have you have Fuji's, you have galas, and you work your way down to Granny Smith's. So the cannabis is the same way. There's lots of varieties. Now, the variety we put typically put on a continuum where one end is very high THC, and it's usually low CBD in that variety, and the other variety on the other end is very high C B D and very low THC. Okay, so that's your continuum. Now, the federal government has said cannabis with THC below 0.3%, we can call that hemp. Okay, so you'll hear people talk about hemp-based CBD. All that is is cannabis CBD that's low in THC, and we can call it hemp. And according to the farm bill, with the farm bill that just passed, that is legal to grow, to process, to go across state lines, you're good to go with that. Um, there are some enforcement mechanisms that are not looking at it the same way, but you need to be smart. But for the most part, I don't mind getting on an airplane with hemp-based CBD in my bag. I'm not worried about it. Um now, 0.3% THC and higher. We typically refer to this as cannabis. Um, so this is the stuff that's controlled by state law. Okay? Now you're in California, and California is a wreck state. So anyone, I think it's 18 and over, can go in and can buy the entire uh spectrum of these products. Um I'm in Florida where it's medically approved. Um, if you want to consume to the left of the point three, the cannabis, you have to go to a physician and get a license, and the physician has to make a recommendation. Then you can come to a dispensary like I work for now and you can make a purchase. But you it's got to be done with a medical diagnosis and a license. Right. But even but even in Florida, if you want to buy hemp-based CBD, you can. That's legal here because we call it hemp and it's there. So, you know, that's kind of a cannabis 101 primer to start with. So here's your next problem with CBD. I can go out and change the oil in my car. I can take what comes out of my car, put it in bottles, call it CBD, and sell it, and there's no one tracking what I do. Okay? So you need to pay attention to what your source is. Okay. And it's not just is it CBD or not, but where it comes from. Because cannabis is a really powerful phytoremediating plant that if you plant cannabis in a brown field, it'll suck up all the heavy metals, it'll suck up all the junk, and that's what's going to get extracted. Okay. So you need to be able to get your product from someplace where there's a certificate of authentic authenticity where it comes from, so that you know that it's been tracked. Okay. And there's good companies all over the country that do this. Um so so know where you're getting it from. Buying CBD from the guy on the corner, you could, and in fact, there's been more than one study. There's been many studies where they've gone in and bought CBD samples from all these different sources. Literally, if they buy 100, 99 of them are junk. There's either no CBD or there's THC or there's just no control. So paying attention where you get this product from is important. Um and and so you're and you're looking for what's called that COA, that certificate of authenticity, that someone's tracked the process and it's been tested. Um, so that's the first thing that you do.

And Don, is that found like on their website? Is it found within each unique unit of oil?

Yeah, typically, every typically when this is done correctly, um, every batch is tested. So when we when we grow a plant, we grow it, we extract it, we create our batch oil, that then a sample out of that goes and gets tested, and that's what defines the rest that what we sell. When you look at our website, it's going to say there's a certain amount of CBD, there's a certain amount of THC, and it's coming from that batch testing. From our standpoint, we have to document from seed to sale, okay? From the so we plant seeds and and and pop moms, okay? So all of our production plants are cloned. Okay, so we pop a mom, uh, we start to cut clones off of her, those go into seed buds, and as soon as those root and become uh uh functional plants, we put a label on them. So they get tracked clear through the system, okay? All the way to the point to where they grow, they flower, we pull them out, they dry. Once they dry, they get ground up. So all those numbers go into a batch, the batch gets extracted, that's tracked, the oils are tracked. So that entire process is completely visible and completely auditable. Does that make sense? Yep. And and a good hemp producer will do the exact same thing. Again, it's it's the same plant. It's just, you know, one's a Granny Smith, the other one's a Fuji. Um so um, so yeah, and so typically you go to a website, there's usually a link there. Um there's you so if you click on that link, you'll see the testing, uh, the testing information. Um, and so that's kind of where you start. Awesome. And someone, and someone who's consuming, if you know someone who's consuming, what's crazy about this industry, okay, over 50% of the population now have consumed cannabis personally at some point in time. Yeah, you know, Bill Clinton smoked but didn't inhale. Well, he counts, okay? Um count Bill. You know, so um so you know, there's a lot of knowledge that when when when you finally ask, they say, well, I get mine here, and this is where I see the documentation and things like that. And again, you know, you just want to stay away from the motor oil. Um, you know, you want to stay away from that situation where this is not something, and you know what, there was just a big bust down in Miami not long ago where they busted a bunch of uh cannabis that was laced with carfentanol. You know, so when you're buying on the street, you have you have that you have that risk. Um, you know, listen, I'm not I'm not saying I smoked a lot when I was you know younger, but we all had our sources, you know, and um and that's just the kind of way it works. The question is, is how much faith do you have in what the source of the product that you're getting? Um that's one of the nice things about the industrialization of this industry, because the the data is absolutely positively beyond the shadow of a doubt clear. There are health conditions that are improved with the consumption of cannabis and cannabinoids. The National Science Foundation has a report. Look it up, it's the National Science Foundation report on cannabis and cannabinoids, a 700-page document that looks at a comprehensive look and there's clear evidence to support the use of this. Yeah. Okay. Good scientific peer-reviewed. Now, everyone talks about there's no research in cannabis, baloney, okay? There's thousands and thousands of articles. That peer review work may not be getting done in this country, um, but it's getting done, it's getting published, there's tons of great information out there. You just have to be willing to look for it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so when you talk about, and we have to get to Aura Ring too. Um we talk about CBD versus THC, and I believe it's called the Entourage Effect.

Is that right? Right. Yeah. So so there's there's there's pretty good data. There, there's good data on this. The Israelis have done a really nice job here. So if you take CBD by itself, it will have a benefit. Um and this is what you know, GW Pharmaceuticals just got disapproved. It's called epidiolex. Um, it's for certain, it's been approved for certain forms of epilepsy in this country. Um, so so CBD. But when there's a when there's C BD with a little bit of THC and probably the whole plant extract, the terpene extract with that, it creates what's called entourage effect. Well, one plus one equals three. Um so so try the CBD. If you feel like you need some more, and if you're in a medical state, that's a reason to go get a license. Because 95% of the people that use cannabis as medicine use it for pain. All of these states have pain qualifications. In the state of Florida, a third of the recommendations are for pain, a third of them are for post-traumatic stress, and a third of them are what's called uh kind and like conditions, which is probably anxiety or sleep or something like that. Because when you have pain, you have anxiety, you have sleep, which you know, that's that evil circle that goes on. Um so you know, that's a reason to say, well, maybe I need to get a license to try this. Um, you know, I I don't think you smoke medicine. Okay, that's that's a big statement. Um but I have all the respect in the world. I you know, I live in this condo, and we go down by our pool, and we've got a pretty cool group here that lives here. And there's this one guy that sits here and smokes cigars all night. Okay, he loves cigars. He loves that experience. Who am I to say no? You know, he gets it, okay? And I think, or and and wine. Wine is lost on me. Okay. It, you know, my wife loves the loves figuring out the good, you know, what she likes, what she doesn't like. Me, I like sangria. Put my wine with some juice and some fruit and some ice, and that's kind of wine for me. Um so I get that appreciation, that that connoisseur approach that comes with the flour and the high THC stuff. I get that. Um, and and note and more power to you. Um But if you're using this from a supplemental standpoint or from a little bit more of a traditional medical standpoint, you know, there's great extracts, there's great ways to consume this, whether it, you know, the the extracted oils and the and and how that works, it's it's it's far more approachable now than what it was before we had um all these things. Now I know we're running late. I want to tell you another really good story. Well, go for it, man. Um, so I first get down here, so we're in June, we're over in Palm Beach at the Breakers, which is this fancy fish schmancy you know resort over in Palm Beach. And we're at the Florida Interventional Pain Specialist Conference. And so we've got our booth there, we're talking, and this little medical assistant comes up and she's Jamaican, and she she starts talking to us and she says, you know, we used to grow this in my backyard. And um, and and I said, Well, tell me about that. And she says, Yeah, my parents would take it and soak it in our finest rum. Now, she didn't say we smoked it, we we we soaked it in rum. They soaked it in their finest rum. She made a point to point that out, so it was important. And she said they would take it and they would take the plant out and it would look green or yellow and they would save it. And she said, When I would have minstrel pains, they would give me a shot of this in my orange juice, and it solved it. And she says, My father was a farmer, and he would come home and he would rub this on his knees, and it would help his pain. Now, this is this this was a huge breakthrough for me when I heard her tell the story because two things. Number one, the plant does not produce THC. The plant produces THCA, it produces uh a carboxyliated version of the acid. Okay, it's it's THC acid. When you heat it up, it decarboxyliates, and that's when it becomes psychologically active, okay, and becomes intoxicating. So when you take a look at this plant historically, it wasn't about THC. It was about THCA. And you take a look about it, and and the CBD comes out in a CBDA format too. So I think I think as this matures as a product for health and wellness, I think you're going to see people leaning more towards the non-psychoactive portion of the plant. You know, right now these markets open up, and this is what people are going after. And and listen, I go into these medical clinics and I see very, very ill people who are just looking for some relief. Yes. And you know what? If they light up and get some relief, then God bless them. Um because the stuff they're dealing with is, you know, they shouldn't have to become zombies on opioids or or on any other things, okay? The barbiturates. Um, so you know, the f I'm like, great, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to argue that at all. And when I see a Vietnam veteran, you know, again, thinking about trauma, you're thrown into a snake pit. When you're in Vietnam, there's a snake pit, you have a threat around you all the time. You become incredibly hyper-vigilant, okay? The anandomide drops in the amygdala, you become hyper-vigilant. And what we learn from some of our research stuff is that that doesn't normalize. Okay. That's your regular state from that point. So no wonder these Vietnam vets smoke so much pie. Okay? That was the only tool they had to normalize from the hypervigilance. Um, and and you know, I've been in clinics where I see these guys come in and they're talking about, you know, the stuff I'm using isn't uh isn't working. And the doctor's like, well, you need to get your C BD levels up because a lot of these C BD levels have been bred out of the high THC strains. And it's the Charlotte's Webb story and things like that that's bringing the C BD really back into the mainstream. Um so so that that story of that Jamaican medical assistant was was just was was really important to me. Um and again, when you look at topicals, um, when you look at at topical application of these, it's really, really impressive how well they work. Yeah.

Yeah. So before we wrap up, bring us, let's bring it back to Aura Ring.

Okay, so we were talking about um first beat, and we were talking about um uh uh um Elite HRV. Yep. One of the best tools I've been able to work with, I really like Aura Ring. Um Aura Ring uh not only gave me a very dependable resting uh RMSSD, um, you know, there's um I I didn't I didn't have that luck with Whoop. You've you know you've seen Woop and you know they had you know they they had a nice marketing program. And and I'll tell you, Whoop's algorithms were solid, okay? Their prediction models were good. Their HRV data just was junk. Yeah. Okay, so some you know, and I think it was more of a marketing thing for them. They can say, yeah, we do this and we have HRV. Well, there I I I never had the success with HRV with their product. Uh Aura Ring had a lot of success. That's and it was and the friction is incredibly low. This ring you slide on, it goes two or three days before a charge. Great app. Um, so if you're looking at at trying to dashboard yourself, uh a strong recommendation for me uh for Aura Ring, or if you want to do as soon as you've got a chest transfer, use a lead HRV. Um, you know, though both of those work really well. Yeah.

I like the I I haven't aura ring's next for me. So I tried what tried a lot of different ones. So I think Aura is going to be the winner because um it's that friction point, right? You know, the megawat, I I had to sit in bed for five minutes every morning, right? Uh trying to stay calm, but I knew I had a thousand things to do. Um that's that's my own psychosis. Um dude, done. This is great. This is really my pleasure. Yeah. I think um I like to formulate because this this everything's changing so fast with the legislation passing. And you know, I'm actually in Montana right now. I move around. And you know, I just applied for my medical uh situation here. So I was shocked. I'm like, oh wow, even Montana. Um but this also has some of the I think Oklahoma has medical. Yeah, yeah. It's happening quickly, right? I mean, it's it's almost like uh, you know, well Montana has one of the largest percentages of of vets too. Oh, okay. That makes sense. So it's I think it's a big thing here as well. Um I would like to maybe in a few months' time this year, when things keep changing, maybe we could get you back on again and update on what's going on.

Sure. Yeah, like I'm not the legislative guy. I'm the I'm the I'm the human performance guy. Now, you know, maybe you know, so happy to talk and and I sure hope by that time I've learned more and can explain more. You know, right now I I've got a I've got a fairly good, I've I'm pretty comfortable with the role of the of the of the molecules in the central nervous system at a synaptic level. Um I want to start to do a deeper dive into the enteric nervous system, what's going on with leaky gut, what's going on with the biome, where does CBD have a role there? You know, we know that if you consume THC orally and it goes to your stomach into the liver, it turns to 11 hydroxy and gets five times stronger. Okay, so it's the reason edibles are such are such a challenge for people. We also know that in CBD does that same pathway, it gets cut to 20% bioavailability. Okay, so if you're using CBD, you should be taking it translingual, transdermal, uh vaping, something like that. But edible, you've got to boost your levels by five times to keep the same to keep the same bioavailability. Yeah, good to know. So I want to understand, you know, I want to understand the role of of CBD in the gut, the role, and and also understand there's something to understand the role of THC as it relates to cancer. Um there's a lot of different cancers, there's a lot of different things. This plant, again, we we said it earlier, it can be considered snake oil, but um, but it but one of the reasons it it works on so many. Things is because it's so effective in the CNS. Okay. So and a lot of our illnesses are CNS driven. When you look at pain, you know, of all the things it's been researched for, I think there was like 48 different conditions it's been researched for. Um, over half of them were pain related. So, you know, that makes sense. Um, I want to start to dig in and get deeper on my understanding of of of this as a tool in the treatment of cancer, in the treatment of cell uh cell death and and and how that works. But you know, there's a lot of work to be done here.

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, it's your wealth of information, man. And uh yeah, I learned a lot today. And like I said, I'm I'm not naive. So I'm hoping a lot of a lot of people uh have learned a lot today as well. And I think you know, the science behind it is really the big part that people need to start understanding um because there's so much to learn. I would love to hear about you know what you find out about gut um biomes and and how that relation is, because that's something that I think is a huge opportunity for for our society to move forward as far as health because we don't we're scratching the surface, right? Of gut biome.

Yeah, that's it's it's it's literally Mars. Yeah. Okay. It's I mean that's how that's how far and how much we have to learn. It's Mars. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be a big project. Where do people find you, man? So if you Google me, my my social media is strong enough. I think I come up at the top, but the easiest place to find me is LinkedIn, LinkedIn Don Moxley. Um I'm on about me, so about.me slash Don Moxley. Those are two great landing places. Um I'm not a I'm not a social media machine. Um I I have social media. I'm looking at Facebook less and less. Um, I'm mainly looking at tattoos and sport training stuff on Instagram. Um tattoos. I love tattoos. I love body art. Yeah, um, I'm getting my first one in May. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I love I freaking love body art. Yeah. Um, but um so so I'm not you can find me there, and I've got Don Moxley on most of them. Yeah, um Twitter, I'm Don Moxley on Twitter, but if you want to get me LinkedIn, this this podcast will wind up on my profile at LinkedIn and my my other stuff's already up there. So awesome. Awesome. It just reminds me, I need to get Ben's up there too. I I haven't put that up there yet.

Yeah, I'll remind you. Okay. Yeah, right on. And ladies and gentlemen, Don Moxley. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, have a good day. Hey fitness fans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I ask you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us, it's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh, I can't tell you how much it means and helps us out. So it only takes two minutes of your day, and uh it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel, our fitness marketing alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge, that's a big deal for us. And when we put a lot of work into these episodes, uh trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for this show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric, E R I C at Fitness Marketing Alliance.com