Ep. 143 Biohacking 101: The Benefits of Biohacking Devices, Supplements, and Hormetic Stressors with Melanie Avalon

I am excited to welcome Melanie Avalon as my guest for today! Melanie is a SAG-AFTRA actress, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine, host of the top iTunes podcasts The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, and The Intermittent Fasting Podcast with Gin Stephens, who has appeared on this podcast twice before. Melanie is certified as a wine specialist by the WSET and as a holistic nutritionist by the AFPA. She is a member of MENSA. Melanie developed the top iTunes app, “Food Sense Guide", to help those with food sensitivities, and she currently runs three rapidly growing Facebook groups. Melanie and I became friends when I appeared on her podcast last year, and we have stayed in touch since then.

We are doing a biohacking block in April. Throughout April, we will be featuring on the podcast many of the people who I consider to be cutting edge in the biohacking space.

Melanie is a powerhouse woman in the intermittent fasting space. She is one of the people helping to change the face of the health and wellness industry. She has no medical training. Yet, she is able to grasp some pretty heavy-duty concepts, and she fully understands the technology behind the various biohacking devices. Melanie is joining us today to talk about some of the biohacking devices and modalities and the benefits you can expect to experience from each of them. So be sure to listen in to find out what she has to say about the benefits of biohacking, supplements, and hormetic stressors.

Show highlights:

• Melanie talks about what biohacking means to her, and she explains where you can start with that.

• Melanie walks us through the spectrum of biohacking devices, from those she considers milder or more benign to the more intricate ones, and explains what they do.

• Blue light-blocking glasses were the first biohacking thing that Melanie did. She has never stopped using them.

• Melanie explains the physical benefits of Near-Infrared Light Therapy and Near-Infrared Light saunas.

• Cold can do some amazing things for our bodies. We talk about challenging ourselves with hormetic stress and cold therapies.

• Melanie talks about the benefits of using the Apollo Neuro device for sound wave therapy.

• Melanie is a reformed insomniac. She discusses what has been the most helpful for her in terms of the quality of her sleep.

• Melanie talks about supplements that can be helpful for biohacking.

• The role that NAD+ plays in supporting our energy levels.

• Melanie talks about Vitamin D and explains why getting enough of it is vital for your health.

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"When we have on normal lights after sunset, normally, our bodies will be producing melatonin telling our bodies to get ready for sleep and then we would go to sleep, but when we see light indoors at night, it stops the melatonin, it can push back our natural sleep cycle, add to that insomnia, add to feeling drained in the morning."

-   Melanie Avalon

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Connect with Melanie Avalon

Follow Melanie on her personal Facebook page, Instagram, and Twitter, join her Facebook Group.      

Transcript:

Presenter: This is Everyday Wellness, a podcast dedicated to helping you achieve your health, and wellness goals, and provide practical strategies that you can use in your real life. And now, here's your host, Nurse Practitioner Cynthia Thurlow.

Cynthia: I have to be honest I am so excited today to have Melanie Avalon. She's a SAG-AFTRA actress, author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine, host of the top iTunes podcast, The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast and The Intermittent Fasting Podcast with the amazing Gin Stephens, who's been on our podcast twice. She is also certified as a wine specialist by the WSCT, as a holistic nutritionist by the AFPA, and a member of Mensa. I got to hear all about this. She's also developed a top iTunes app, Food Sense Guide to help those with food sensitivity and currently runs three rapidly growing Facebook groups. Welcome, Melanie. This is really exciting for me because we became friends last year when I was on your podcast and have stayed in touch since then.

Melanie: I know. I'm so excited to be here. I talk to you, I realized almost every day I feel.

[laughter] 

Melanie: This is really exciting to me to see you, first of all, and then to talk about all the things. I'm really excited. Thank you for having me.

Cynthia: Absolutely. It's really nice for the listeners to understand like Melanie is someone that I look to for podcasting advice and has really serve much as Gin has as well as being one of these powerhouse women in the intermittent fasting space. I always believe in bringing on the people that are really changing the face of the health and wellness industry. For full disclosure as Melanie already alluded to, we talk with some great frequencies. It's really nice to bring on someone I count as a friend, but also to talk about some of the things that you really excel at. I would imagine that most of the listeners are familiar with the term 'biohacking,' but I would love for you to talk about what biohacking means to you, the concept of hormetic stress. 

We are doing a biohacking block in the month of April. So, we'll have you and the co-creator of Lumen, we're going to have Siim Land on. We have a lot of people that I consider to be really cutting edge in that space. When you're thinking about biohacking, when you're talking about it, what does that represent for you, and how can the listeners start to get their toes wet? They may already be doing some of these things, but what does that terminology mean to you?

Melanie: Sure. It's a really great question and it's funny. The word 'biohacking,' because I think semantics and language is very important in communicating, and people will get into debates about what biohacking is, and people will get into debates about, "Should you even be doing biohacking?" But basically, what biohacking the way I see it is the different modalities that you can do. I think it's more things that we would not be able to do in our everyday life. Supplements, gadgets, things that you wouldn't be able to do if you just were living your life as a normal person to upgrade your health, your performance, your experience of the world. 

The reason I clarified about that is, some people will say things like "Intermittent fasting is biohacking" and I don't really think that is biohacking. I think it's more lot of like gadgets, different things we can wear for stress like the Apollo Neuro wearables that monitor your bodies, your temperature, and your sleep like Oura Ring, like a continuous glucose monitor, even where you're monitoring your blood sugar something I'm doing right now, which I realized while you're talking in the intro, I'm used to audio only, so, I was drinking water. I'm drinking deuterium depleted water, which is a whole biohacking tangents very specific type of water, red light therapy, wearing glasses to affect the different wavelengths of light that you see. Yeah, so, that's what I think biohacking is. The things you would not normally be able to do that you could do to enhance your health, performance, happiness.

Cynthia: Well, I think in 2020, we certainly had a time in most of our lives, where we didn't have control over everything or we had control over very little. I feel in many, many ways that there's been a resurgence or an interest in people being able to control what they can. Let's walk through what you consider to be the more mild or more benign biohacking devices all the way to the really intricate ones. Melanie's had the opportunity to interview a lot of these people with these devices. So, I encourage you to check out her podcast, because she has really dove into the science. 

One of the things I want to mention and I'm someone that trained in a big research institution around a lot of very cerebral people. Melanie does not have medical training and yet is able to grasp some pretty heavy-duty concepts. If there are times, I'll listen to a podcast, whereas I'm like, "Wow, I need to go dive into that. That's so exciting." I want to just say, I really admire your intellectual pursuit of ensuring that you really fully understand the technology or the people that you're interacting with, because I think much anything, there are podcasts that are out there, where it's all very surfaced, that it all has a time and a place, but I really respect the fact that you make an enormous effort to really understand concepts, and the science behind a lot of the terminology, and tech that you bring on the podcast. From your perspective, what are the more benign things? I think about blue light blocking glasses, but maybe talking a little bit, what do these things actually do? People hear me talk about them a lot, but I think they always enjoy hearing another person's opinion as well.

Melanie: Sure. First of all, thank you so much for the kind words. Just like you, I'm just so grateful and honored to have, because like you just said my own show, it's so wonderful to read all of these books, and learn all the science, and then get to ask the questions you have of the author. It's just the most amazing things. I'm really, really enjoying it and I'm sure you do as well with all of the amazing people you interview. The spectrum of biohacking, yeah, I think I would start actually with what you said and it's probably if I look back, blue light blocking glasses were probably the first biohacking thing I did. There's something that I started doing them, I don't even know how long ago, six or seven years ago, and I never stopped. They are nonnegotiable. It's basically because our light exposure, it determines so many things in our health, so many things. Our energy, our stress, our sleep, and we are accustomed to as an evolutionary species, we would have been sleeping when it was dark, we would have been getting up with the light, we would have been outdoors in natural light, and those different wavelengths of light really determine our circadian rhythm of our entire body. Now, it's just all crazy. We're in artificial light all the time, which is really high in the blue spectrum and it's almost 24/7, we keep the lights on until we go to bed. Then when we go to bed, it might not even be that dark, so that blue light of the spectrum that I mentioned, it's what you think of when you think bright white light during the day. It's also from computer screens, electronics, and it's very stimulating. So, it keeps us alert, which is a good thing. That's the good thing about it. But beyond that, especially in our modern world with all of the chronic stress, being exposed to that blue light all the time is linked to anxiety, it's linked to insomnia, just all forms of stress. It's actually literally detrimental to our actual eyeballs. 

Mitigating that can be huge for stress levels. For sleep, for me, it's so huge. There are myriads of different types of blue light blocking glasses. I've used different brands before I've used TrueDark. I currently wear a lot of BLUblox. But what people-- it can be a little bit. I don't know how deep you want to go into this. But there's usually three different types of blue light blocking glasses. They're ones that are completely clear and they block some blue light, you wear them while looking at the computer, which I could be wearing them right now, but I don't recommend wearing them all day, unless you're literally staring at the computer all day. Then there's ones that are yellow tinged and those block a little bit more blue light, but not all of the blue light. I put those on normally when the sun is going down and then I leave them on for the rest of the night until right before bed when I put on the ones people might think of the most and those are the ones that are they look red, and they block all blue. Well, depending on the brand. That's why I really stand by BLUblox. They block all blue light and it is shocking. I remember the first time still that I put them on. You put them on and the significance of all of this is blue light actually stops melatonin production and melatonin is the hormone that tells our brain to wind down. 

When we have on normal lights after sunset, normally, our bodies will be producing melatonin telling our bodies to get ready for sleep and then we would go to sleep, but when we see light indoors at night, it stops the melatonin, it can push back our natural sleep cycle, add to that insomnia, add to feeling drained in the morning. I just interviewed Andy Mant, who's the founder of BLUblox and he actually said that, "If you look at some blue light at night, it stops melatonin production for 30 minutes," which is upsetting. 

Cynthia: Wow. [laughs] 

Melanie: I put on the red ones right before bed, and we're probably an hour or so before bed, and It's just a game changer for me for sleep. I actually instantly feel tired when I put them on, because they send that signal to your body. 

Cynthia: It's really incredible because I'm at the stage of life and I would say my N of a couple thousands of women that are middle aged, everyone starts to struggle with sleep as our ovaries are producing less progesterone and it can be a little bit more challenging falling asleep as you head into perimenopause. For me, my whole family makes fun of me, but I wear my BluBlockers as soon as it gets dusk out. Even if I'm working at my computer, and I'm not even on my computer, if I'm just sitting at my desk at night, my family thinks it's bananas. I'll have one light on that's in the far corner of the room, but I don't want to have all this. I don't want to be bathed in light at that time of night. For me, it makes an enormous difference. So, if you're listening in some of the brands that Melanie is mentioning, I also have used Swanwick, which is a pretty reasonable price point. Although, Dave Asprey, when I interviewed with them told me I needed to get the BluBlockers. The first thing he said he was like, "That's good, but it could be better." 

My children because they're teenagers and they don't necessarily take care of everything have Uvex, which at least I feel that's a monochrome better than nothing, because we have a whole generation of kids that are growing up just inundated by electronics, but I just wanted to interject that. If you're having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, definitely want to be thinking about blue blocking options and I'm sure there's a wide variety of companies that manufacture these glasses. If you want really cheap, inexpensive, want to just see how it works, Uvex is 10 bucks. I would say everyone can afford Uvex, but obviously there are better options out there.

Melanie: Uvex is actually the first ones that I bought-- Well, no, I bought TrueDark and I bought Uvex way, way back in the day. I actually also in the light world, while we're talking about that you're mentioning having the light just a little bit of light in the room, actually I use red light therapy devices, the Joovv brand. I'm looking at mine right now. I light my apartment with that at night, which-- [crosstalk] 

Cynthia: I've seen that on Instagram. If you follow Melanie on Instagram, you'll see the red light. 

Melanie: It's very red.

Cynthia: Yeah. 

Melanie: A lot of red going on. [laughs] I forgot to mention, because on the other side of spectrum, red light is the type of light naturally found in the rising and setting sun. It's the wavelength of light, we would be exposed to more even in fire light, so, we would have been getting the red spectrum. So, I love red light.

Cynthia: There's a lot of options for red light therapies and I feel people go back and forth about red-light therapies, and which brands are better, and do you have to be bathed in red light all day long? Do you feel it's more advantageous to be bathed in red light after the sun sets or are there benefits from using red light therapy throughout the day?

Melanie: Well, first of all, speaking to people debating about brands and things like that, the studies are really interesting, so that the spectrum of red light and near infrared light, because these devices often do, too. Red and near infrared, you can't see near infrared light, it's invisible. You can see red. They're similar on the spectrum for their wavelength, but they're not the same. If you look at the graph of the effective therapeutic dose, it's a very, very narrow range. It's really important to get devices that are tested to make that exact range that you need for all of the benefits. That's why I do love Joovv, because I have seen the research and everything. Okay, so, the question was a red versus near infrared or using it for just red versus all the other things. 

Cynthia: Right or just getting differing opinions about when during the day is most advantageous to get that exposure? 

Melanie: Yeah, so, the red light that you can see, the primary benefits for it are everything that we already talked about. The aligning your circadian rhythm, mimicking rising and setting sun, mimicking fire light. A normal person would probably want to use it then I think in the morning and evening, so when you would naturally be getting that red light spectrum. I actually keep my-- except for when I'm recording a podcast. It's not on right now, because the one I have is a little bit loud or the fan you would hear it. I actually keep mine on 24/7, like, one of my devices, because I feel the red counteracts whole of the blue and it helps my mood so much. So, I do have one on 24/7. When it's during the day, it doesn't flood the room with red light. It just adds a nice glow. 

As far as near infrared, that's the visible spectrum, which the Joovv devices, for example, also have near infrared. That is for more targeted treatment of physical health issues, so it can reduce inflammation. It's really good for skin, muscle recovery, they've done a lot. I was just reading the studies actually yesterday on how to best use to support muscle recovery and actually pretreating your muscles with it, I always thought it was right after exercise. 

Cynthia: That's what I thought.

Melanie: Yeah, but I was reading a lot of reviews and it seems really therapeutic to do it for about 10 minutes before intense muscle training or alternatively, some people do do it right after training. But it can support muscle growth and recovery. It actually changes the way or supports the way our cells have mitochondria, which are the powerhouse part of the cell that create energy and the near infrared light actually modulates how they create energy. That's why it can seemingly do almost-- they'll get touted as like, "Oh, it can fix your skin, and help your muscles, and recovery, and mood." It's like, "How can I do all those things?" But it's because it's helping yourselves function better, so, yes. As far as the timing and when to do it, I would suggest doing 10-minute sessions on any given body part during the day. 

I think the Joovv device, for example, only goes up to 20 minutes for a session and they just release-- This is a question I also get is, are we supposed to wear protective eyewear with it, which I had never, like, I was not doing, because the old Joovv devices didn't say that you need to do that. But they have new devices that are stronger and they actually do recommend that.

Cynthia: Interesting. It's really interesting, because we're in the process of building a house and my husband, I've got him into doing cryotherapy. I know we're going to touch on the cold therapies shortly and doing infrared sauna. Because I hate being cold and so, it means I just have to do cold therapy without question. He normally does Jujutsu, and Krav Maga, and all these very active things until he got COVID and that's a whole separate discussion that we won't dive down that rabbit hole. We've been doing cryotherapy and infrared sauna. In this new home, we are going to plan on having an infrared sauna. I feel I'm knee deep in trying to determine, what makes the most sense? Because in the part of the state we're moving to no one has basements. In Washington, DC, we're very spoiled and everyone has basements. You've got an extra thousand square feet of home, most people do, and so, I was like, "Oh, we'll just put it in the basement. We can't do that now." Trying to determine, figure out, which one has the lowest amount of EMF that comes off of the infrared sauna. You may already know the answer to this. So, I'm knee deep in that data collection mode to try to determine what makes the most sense. If we are going to have one in our home, where can we put it and where are my kids not going to mess around with it? Because I was trying to explain them. Of course, you could use it, but it's not a toy. 

Melanie: Yeah, I love infrared sauna. A question just really quickly, because a lot of people get confused between near infrared light therapy that we just talked about and infrared sauna. That might be like the number one question I get about light therapy or infrared. Infrared saunas, well, they can use all the different spectrums, but the main one that uses the far infrared and that light spectrum is what actually heats your cells up in your body from the inside out. In an infrared sauna, it allows you the ability to reach a high body temperature without necessarily feeling like it, because a traditional heat sauna, the way you get hot is the air is hot, it heats your skin, and then it goes deeper into your body. So, you have to get really hot to feel hot compared to infrared sauna. It's like how you can have a fever and not feel that hot. You might feel hot, but you don't. It's possible to have a fever and not feel that hot. Infrared sauna gives your body an artificial fever in a way, because you get all the healing benefits and all the mechanisms that go with that, which I can talk about if you like. 

But first your question about EMFs and which one to do. I did so much research and after my research, I only felt good about two brands, which was Clearlight and Sunlighten and I ended up going with Sunlighten. That's great for people like me in apartments because you lay down inside of it. That also folds up if you want. They have it at a lot of spas. I had tried it already and I knew that I loved it. But they had testing on EMF when I was researching. They actually just retested all of their devices by the main third-party EMF tester auditor and everything was very, very low. But it sounds you're probably going for a cabin unit in your house.

Cynthia: I decided that that would probably make the most sense and that's why I keep going back and forth, where am I going to put it? We have a third floor and I'm like, "You may go up there and of course, the kids think that's their man space." I'm like, "Let me explain something to you. You live in our house." 

[laughter] 

Cynthia: "This is not just your space." But trying to explain it that makes the most sense. I don't want it to be in my bedroom.

Melanie: Oh yeah, I would not. 

Cynthia: Yeah, I'm like, "We'll need to put it somewhere else and I don't think it'll fit anywhere else." So, that's the working thought process at this point.

Melanie: You're going to love it, though, when you do get it and decide where to put it. 

Cynthia: Yeah.

Melanie: I'm so jealous. I can't wait until one day if I have a house getting-- I love the unit I have, but it'd be nice to be able to walk into it, sit in a cabin unit, especially with somebody because they have two person, three person, four person.

Cynthia: Yeah. That's what we've been like our thing as we'll go to a solid core class, and my husband and I in Saturdays will go to cryotherapy, and then we'll do infrared sauna. You probably are going to tell me I should be doing it the opposite. But for me, I end up warming up in the sauna, because I freeze and the cryotherapy and then I walk myself over to the infrared sauna. So, let's-- [crosstalk] 

Melanie: So, you do that cold?

Cynthia: I get cold first and then hot.

Melanie: And then hot, I honestly don't think it's a huge deal, either way. I'm trying to think what I do, because people debate it or people will do back and forth and back. If you can do back and forth and back and forth, and it says to me, maybe the order doesn't really even matter.

Cynthia: Yeah. It makes me feel reassured, because I thought for sure if anyone was going to tell me that I was doing it the wrong way or that there was a more advantageous way to do it, I was like "Melanie, for sure is steeped in the research. So, she would know." Let's pivot and talk about my love-hate relationship with cold cornices and cold therapies and I'll be completely honest. I hate being cold, I really don't like being cold, which is why I feel I need to do more cold therapies and really focus on getting a little uncomfortable, because that's really the basis for all of this hormesis or these a little bit of stress that it's always this fine tune balance between a little bit of stress and not too much. Even for me during COVID walking outside in the cold weather when it's 20 degrees where we are and I'm like, "Put a hat on, put a jacket on, put your big girl pants on, go walk your dogs for an hour." It's really good for them. They love it. But it's also good for me not to be warm. Not to be warm all the time. This comfort level that we have gotten conditioned into embracing all the time, whether it's just being in bathe in blue light all day long, snacking all day long, never getting cold, never getting hot, because it makes us uncomfortable, and isn't that the purpose of life is to challenge ourselves, right?

Melanie: Yes. I'm really grateful that I love being cold. That's how you and I actually are really different [crosstalk].

Cynthia: [laughs] 

Melanie: I just feel it doesn't matter if I'm not feeling completely energetic, if I'm feeling puffy, or inflamed, or brain fog, if I go on a freezing cold room, that's just gone. I think intuitively I always sense that, but now, I know all of the science behind it and it really makes sense. Did you [crosstalk]? 

Cynthia: I have. I do. 

Melanie: Yeah.

Cynthia: It's like riding a bucking bronco. 

Melanie: [laughs] 

Cynthia: You don't know what's coming, but there's so much incredible, positivity, and enthusiasm, and absolutely one of the most enjoyable conversations I've ever had. But it's like riding a bucking bronco. You just don't know what's coming.

Melanie: I know. We're talking about Wim Hof. I think that is the most inspiring conversation I think I've ever had in my entire life. 

Cynthia: Yeah. 

Melanie: He's just crazy. He's so inspiring. You walk away after talking to him, you're like, "Wow, I'm inspired."

Cynthia: Would you like [crosstalk] midway through our conversation. I got him talking about his family and he got so excited that he disconnected his Wi-Fi. 

Melanie: [laughs] 

Cynthia: I was just sitting there and I was like, "Is he coming back?" I'm like, "Wim Hof, I can't leave." I guess, someone came and hooked it back up, and then he popped up again 50 minutes later, and he was like, "Where were we?" He's hilarious and he's just [crosstalk] joyful, happy, inspiring, as you said individually. 

Melanie: Yeah. His thing for listeners that are not familiar is called-- Well, it's three things. It's cold exposure, breathing, and he has a meditation practice. The Wim Hof Method is those three things and I really recommend this book. It's really short, it's easy to read, it covers everything. The Wim Hof Method. It's what the book is called. In any case, so, the cold, the reason or what the cold is doing is, it does a lot of things. Well, I guess, we'll talk about what you asked me about way in the beginning and again now, which was the hormetic stress. So, what is that? It's basically the idea that when our bodies are exposed to stress-- Our bodies are made to deal with stress. As a species, we've experienced things like cold, and hunger, and exercise, and these all create stresses on our body. Our bodies are adapted to recover from them. When we recover from these physical stresses, it actually makes or the stress actually encourages our body to make genetic adaptations, so that we can better deal with stress in the future, so that we can recover from that stress and then deal better with stress in the future. Things-- that is what hormetic stress is. It's a level of stress where we adapt and grow stronger.

Today, the problem with stress today is that mental stress. We perceive things happening to us that are not actually happening. It's so interesting to think about people, especially if you have anxiety, or depression, or panic, or anything like that. If you're stressed about something, you could be sitting in a room, nothing is happening to you. You are completely fine, like, you are safe. If you have anxiety or stress, you can be completely freaking out inside. That dichotomy is just really interesting to think about. When we are living in that chronically stressed state all the time, it is really hard to recover from that, because it's just constantly tearing us down and we're not building up from it. But that said, on the physical side of stressors, so, on the one hand, we have way too much mental stress, but we actually have way less physical stress. We tend to eat a lot, [giggles] eat throughout the day, we tend to be sedentary, sitting, and then when temperature control, everything's coming full circle. We tend to live in air-conditioned environments, where we keep the temperature exactly the way we like it and we don't experience those extremes of heat and cold. 

Cold can do really amazing things. It activates sirtuins in our body, those are basically, genetic messengers that go out and fix things. When there's damage done, they go and they're in charge of taking care of everything. If you're really interested in this, I really recommend David Sinclair's book, Lifespan. It is actually my favorite book in the genre. I think about that a lot like, what is my favorite book and that is it. Cold activates sirtuins and one of the amazing things that can do for people concerned with body composition is, it activates a certain type of fat on our bodies called brown fat, brown adipose tissue. The majority of our fat is white adipose tissue, white fat, and it's a storage form of fat. It's what we think of with fat. It stores energy, it can be hard to burn especially if our bodies are not hormonally wanting to burn that fat. Brown fat is actually a different type of fat. Its purpose is to keep you warm. It actually creates heat and it burns calories. When you are really cold and you're shivering, the shivering is not the brown fat. The shivering is actually trying to warm up by physically moving. 

On the other side of shivering, you'll notice it, especially if you have been doing cold exposure that when you start doing it, you shiver more in the beginning and then you start shivering less and less. That's because your body starts creating more brown fat and that brown fat actually burns energy, helps you burn other fat, it's linked to a myriad of health improvements, like you want brown fat. We have a lot of it when we're born like when we're babies, but then we lose a lot of it and it actually activates really fast. They do studies where they put people's hands in cold water and the brown fat, because we have a lot of it around our collarbone area. Actually, within 10 minutes, the white fat there can start turning-- they call it beiging. It actually can start turning brown. My favorite way to do cold exposure that you mentioned cryotherapy-- When it comes to biohacking, cryotherapy is like the bio hack. I've actually only done it once, but you do it a lot?

Cynthia: Yeah, well, I got my husband into doing it first. The listeners know this. My husband is an engineer, and he's an MBA guy, and he's a big finance geek. For him, and he's going to listen to this podcast, so, he'll hear this loud and clear. He tends to be the one, like, when I have these extraneous expenses, he's like, "I don't understand that." I'm just going to get him obsessed with it, and then he'll love it, and so now, he loves it, and so, we do it together, and it's just one of those things we can do together. But for me, it's absolutely one of those things, I have this love-hate relationship. I don't love being cold, but I will do that and I'm happy when I'm in there, and it's not a lot of time commitment, and then it's over with. I just say, "Okay, it's important to challenge your body much like my house is really cold when I sleep." I don't know if that's part of where I am chronologically, but I like being cold when I sleep. So, my kids were remarking to a family member, "Oh, my God, my mom likes the house to be really, really cold at night." I was like, "We all sleep better." That's so important. Sleep is so important. I know. That's another bio hack piece. But that's my roundabout way of answering your question that yeah, we definitely enjoy it and definitely prioritize it for sure.

Melanie: How long do you go in for? Because like I said, I've only done it once. 

Cynthia: Yeah, three minutes. I'm up to three minutes. 

Melanie: You're up to three minutes. Okay. Wow. 

Cynthia: But what's funny is my husband will do these little videos of watching me dance in the cryo tank, because if I keep myself moving, I tend not to think about how cold I am. Each time you do it, you're not nearly as cold as you were the last time. That's the beneficial stress piece. But I'm curious what you said. So, you've done it?

Melanie: Yeah, it's funny. There's actually, I think two cryotherapy places very near to me and I was about to go, because I moved back to Atlanta a year and a half or two years ago. I was about to go set up, and get the membership, and then COVID happened. I don't know if they're open again right now, but I had gone in LA. For listeners, I guess, we didn't define what it is. It's this tank that you go in-- tank, well, sort of like a tank that you stand in-- [crosstalk] 

Cynthia: Contraption. 

Melanie: [laughs] Contraption thing. What temperature does it go down to? 

Cynthia: Oh, I think 225 if I were-- 

Melanie: Negative? 

Cynthia: -225. It's definitely, you see [crosstalk]-

Melanie: Very cold.

Cynthia: -thing, and they give you gloves, and they give you socks, and I always wear my hat, which will probably make you laugh, but that makes me feel better. The only thing that's covered, because you're naked in the tank is you have your hands covered your feet, and then I wear my hat.

Melanie: Yeah. Well, I'm very impressed you do three minutes, because like I said, I did it once and it was the starting one, which was probably 40 seconds or a minute. I was like a minute or something. It was not that long. It's funny. I am also the host, I think you've mentioned that the Intermittent Fasting Podcast and it's really funny, because my cohost Gin and I were completely opposite on pretty much everything which we bond over, but she hates cold and I love cold. My apartment right now, during the day I like to keep it 67 and at night I like to keep it 60. I keep breaking the air conditioner and they're like, "You can't keep it this cold." I'm like, "What do I need to do to keep this cold?" I'm like, "I want it this cold. Can I buy a different air conditioner unit?" Right now in here, I try to keep it in the 60s and I like to wear, like, it's still winter technically and I like to wear my summer clothes. I think what's really approachable for a lot of people, because the cryotherapy might seem-- we were talking about the spectrum of biohacking cryotherapy. Well, cryotherapy and ice baths are-- [crosstalk] 

Cynthia: Ice bath is a whole other level. 

Melanie: Ice bath. [laughs] 

Cynthia: Let me be clear. That's terrifying to me. I'm like, "Oh,"

Melanie: I have actually not done one. But the most approachable thing I think is cold showers, because anybody can really do that. If you can get into the habit of doing it, it makes such a big difference for me and I think people who started. It's really easy. I'm not saying, you don't do the whole shower cold, but in the morning, have your shower and then blasted on cold at the end, and you can slowly work your way up to two or three minutes of cold water. But even if you just do 10 seconds, it clears any brain fog that I have. It wakes you up like caffeine, you'll go from being-- It wakes you up. Try to be asleep in cold water, you can't.

Cynthia: It's harder for me in the middle of winter, because we're still in winter, we're heading into spring, but for me, I can go from a minute or two in the summer to 15 to 30 seconds in the winter. Because for me, there's nothing better to me than a hot shower. [crosstalk] wakes me out, makes me happy. In fact, my husband said, when we first met, he is like, "You would scald your skin with how hot your water is." I was like, "I don't know. It makes me happy." At the very end of my shower, I will do 15 to 30 seconds in the winter and then I'll go back to longer periods in summertime when it's warmer.

Melanie: I've noticed that as well. Yeah, it actually bothers me, because it bothers me that it is that big of a difference and I always wonder if it's because the water itself is so much colder or if our bodies are just-- Because like I said, we're living in an air-conditioned environment and I tend to keep the temperature always the same year-round and by the same I mean very cold. Yeah, it's definitely in the summer much more approachable. They make really cool shower. I have a waterproof shower timer, which is fun to turn on and you can see how long you go.

Cynthia: [laughs] Of course, you do.

Melanie: [laughs] On Amazon, it's pretty cheap.

Cynthia: Tell me a little bit, because this is not something I'm as familiarized with. When you talk about soundwave therapy, and you talk about the Apollo, and things that I'm actually less familiarized with, but I know that you've interviewed Dave Rabin, which I have as well, but we didn't spend as much time talking about the therapy. Talk a little bit about that, because I think that would definitely be of interest to listeners. 

Melanie: Sure. The Apollo Neuro device, do you have one?

Cynthia: I do not. 

Melanie: Oh.

Cynthia: A lot of these things I do have though, let's be honest. I got all the Lumen, and CGM, and all those fun things.

Melanie: Yeah, so, the Apollo Neuro device, I love it. I love it so much that I bought one for my mom for Christmas or her birthday, and she texts me about it once a week and is saying how much it's changing her life. But basically, it's a wearable. I wish I had it right here, but it's a wearable like a watch thing, black with this little-- Listeners can google it and they'll see it. I guess, do you have show notes, it'll probably be in the show notes. 

Cynthia: Yeah.

Melanie: It uses sound wave therapy, which is basically gentle vibrations and Dr. Rabin, who Cynthia mentioned we both interviewed. He found in his work that these vibrations stimulated the same sense of peace and calm that we get from human touch. When we are touched by other humans, it helps our stress a lot. It helps shift us into the to-- The nervous system of our body has two states. It has the sympathetic and parasympathetic. The sympathetic is the alert, active, often called the fight or flight response. I like to clarify because the entirety of the sympathetic nervous system is not the fight or flight response, but the fight or flight response is the sympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system is rest, and digest, and relaxation. We need a healthy balance between the two. I'm still trying to understand completely. I've asked so many different experts this. I've asked Dr. Rabin this, I had on Ami Brannon, who makes a device called Xen By Neuvana, which is a vagus nerve stimulator. I'm always trying to figure out exactly, because people will say that we're in one or the other like we're parasympathetic or sympathetic. I don't think it doesn't really work like that, they're kind of both going. 

Cynthia: I guess, maybe that one is predominant because I think when I talk to people about how sympathetic dominant most of us are, we're a byproduct of the environment we're in. 

Melanie: Yeah. 

Cynthia: When people are having digestive issues, I tell them, "Okay, we need to focus to be more on this parasympathetic, because you're not digesting your food properly, and you can't go to the bathroom." Whereas I feel that most people, whether it's a byproduct of being connected to technology, the news, fear mongering that goes on, there's a multiplicity of reasons why I think most of us are just on the go all the time. I agree with you that there's probably no study that represents like here's the point at which you go into one and not the other. I think it's a balance between the two and most of us are not well balanced. We are more in the fight or flight mindset and mode most of our lives and that can be detrimental on many, many levels.

Melanie: Yeah, extremely detrimental. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier with the chronic stress. Our bodies aren't just not equipped to handle with that sympathetic state on all the time. It's what people think of when they think of being overly stressed, and burnt out, and all of these things. There's a lot of modalities people use to mitigate stress, a lot of biohacking modalities, just a lot of things. This Apollo Neuro device is literally the perfect example I think of a biohacking device. The really cool thing about dealing with stress with human touch is if you get a massage, for example, you don't have to do anything to actively feel less stress. You just receive the massage compared to something like meditation, or a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy. or mental techniques, or even exercise if that helps your massage-- If that helps your stress, you have to go do exercise. These things can be hard to implement. Very effective, but a little bit hard to do, and require skill and practice. 

But touch, it just turns that on. Sound wave therapy, what Dr Rabin found was that, it activates the same state that basically getting a massage does. When you wear the device, I don't want overly market it, but it's turning off stress with the touch of a button in a way, you put it on, it has different programs with different sound wave. I don't know exactly how it different, but it's the vibration, and the intensity, and all of that. They do it by goal that you have. One's for relaxing, one's for a meditative state, one's for sleeping, one is actually to help wake you up. It is more stimulating. But it's interesting. Well, the initial work that he did on the device was I think the first studies they did was support people with PTSD. It helps all stress conditions, but the fastest benefits we're seeing in PTSD patients which is really interesting. The way I wore it, the programs I use the most is when I first got it, especially I always use the relax and lying down at night, so I would play that at night while I'm winding down, and then I swear, I myself I should probably stop identifying as an insomniac, because I actually am pretty good now with my sleep, because I do so many things to support it.

Cynthia: [laughs] 

Melanie: So many. I'm the craziest person, but the Apollo Neuro, I probably use the sleep one for the first few months of using it and it put me to sleep every night. Now I don't feel the need actually to use it for the sleep anymore. I just use it for relaxing. But this device, it's amazing. My mom, like I said, she has a lot of anxiety and she just is adoring it. I'm excited for you to get one and see if you like it.

Cynthia: Yeah. No, I think that's a fantastic option and let's just briefly touch on sleep, because I know there was one other area, I wanted to make sure we touched on today. Sleep for anyone, who knows me is at an art form. There's a whole chronology of things that I do every night. It starts with the BluBlockers, it starts with getting light exposure in the morning without sunglasses on, it starts with exercise, and the way I eat, and when I stop eating, the whole chrono biology piece. I'm curious for you, you mentioned that you are a reformed insomniac for which I'm grateful to hear that. But what do you feel has been the biggest net benefit to your sleep quality other than you're obviously in a cold environment? So, you've got the cold environment piece down, it sounds you were using the Apollo Neuro for a period of time, blue light therapies, wearing your BluBlockers. What else has been really helpful for you?

Melanie: Yeah, so, I'll just briefly say my routine. It's similar. I love what you said about it. It's so important. Good sleep at night starts with when you wake up in the morning. It's actually really good that we're emphasizing that. You do want blue light in the morning to wake you up. I know I said in the morning, there's red light, but when you naturally get bright light, you do want that. I actually use a daylight device during the day that it's actually on right now that creates really bright light to wake you up, even though I know it's afternoon, but I-- 

Cynthia: [laughs] 

Melanie: Then active during the day, and movement, and all of that, but then when it comes to winding down, so he talks about the blue light blocking glasses, talked about the red light that I have on at night, the Apollo Neuro, and then sleep environment. Yes, I want it cold, but you actually do want it cold. The body to fall asleep requires a lower body temperature. It's hard to say which one has the most benefit, because the most might be the blue light blocking glasses, but the very close runner up, I don't know, this might be the most is my ChiliPad.

Cynthia: I have an Ooler and I had [crosstalk] 

Melanie: An Ooler, yeah. You are not a fan?

Cynthia: I want to [crosstalk]. Well, I think it's because it makes noise. For me, I'm the kind of person like I like complete silence when I sleep. Not as a weirdo. It's not like if I hear an ambient noise, I can't sleep. I'm not like that. But it makes a noise, it's like a hum. Both my husband and I were like, "This is really cool, but it makes noise." [laughs] That's what I've struggled to get it with, I think otherwise it's a fantastic way to support your sleep in a very benign way. But that's been my sticking point.

Melanie: I think because we talked about this, because you're like, "It makes noise," and you don't use the earplugs? 

Cynthia: No. 

Melanie: Earplugs. I use especially if you're a small female or if you have small ears maybe-- 

Cynthia: Yeah, child size. 

Melanie: Mine, too. There's this brand, Howard's and they have Howard's Leight spelled L-E-I-G-H-T, like women's pink earplugs. Every night of my life, they block out--

Cynthia: Really?

Melanie: They're really small, they're pink, they block out all noise, and I don't hear the Ooler, because yes, the Ooler does make a hum. What it is for listeners is it uses water to cool down. It keeps your body at a cool temperature. It doesn't feel you're sleeping on ice or anything like that, but it's a game changer for my sleep. It's funny. There was a new company called Eight Sleep and they make an entire mattress that does this. It also measures your heart rate variability, and all these things, and they sent me one, and I was so excited, but they don't have the ability to turn off Wi-Fi using it and I was like, "I can't." That's because I turn off Wi-Fi at night and I was like, "I can't use it." I was like, "I'll send it back, they're like you just keep it." It's sitting there not being used. But the Ooler, yeah, huge for me. Then keeping it really-- Blackout curtains and that's actually something that-- Gin on the Intermittent Fasting Podcasts, I always talk about all my sleep stuff and I'd be like, "Get the curtains, and keep it cold, and all the stuff." It took a year and a half of me saying this, and then she got the blackout curtains, and she said that she was like, "I can sleep now." She didn't realize that tiny bit of light. 

Cynthia: [crosstalk] 

Melanie: Yeah.

Cynthia: I actually wear a sleep mask. 

Melanie: Oh, me, too. 

Cynthia: I know it's super sexy, but it's funny. 

Melanie: Did you too.

Cynthia: I just got a new one, but it's massive. 

Melanie: Where did you get?

Cynthia: Oh, it's the enVy. It's just so big. I'm like, "Whose head does this fit on?" They're like, "Well it's guaranteed to block out all light." I was like, "Most of my face covers." It's an enVy COPPER. I have their sleep pillow which I love. I actually bought two of these sleep masks. I have to sleep silk masks, which have worked really well. The brand is enVy. It's a COPPER powered silk sleep mask.

Melanie: I use I mentioned BLUblox earlier for the glasses. They have their remedy sleep mask and they just-- I'm really excited, especially since you're talking about that one being big. They just released a new version. I don't even know if it's out yet, because they sent it to me to promote it. I don't know if it's out yet. It's amazing. It's a lighter version. That's why they made it. Okay, so, it has two eyepieces that you move on Velcro, so you can put them in perfectly over your eye. There's no eye pressure. It uses cushion to go around your eyes, so, your actual eyes. You can open your eyes completely and it'll be completely black. The first night I used this new one, it also does feel super light. You can barely feel it on your face. I needed to check the time before I went to bed. I forgot that I had on the sleep mask. I guess, I'm still woken up. I turned on my phone, and I kept pushing it, and I couldn't figure out why it wasn't turning on. 

Cynthia: [laughs] 

Melanie: I was like, "It's broken." Then I realized I had the sleep mask on, but my eyes were completely open. 

Cynthia: That's so cool. It is cool that you have that option because when I have the silk sleep mask on, I can't open up my eyes.

Melanie: Yeah. That's why [unintelligible [00:50:55] on my head at night, the sleep mask, the earplugs. In the past, I have tried the mouth taping [crosstalk]. That's something that James Nestor talks about in his book Breath, which also one of the most amazing books I've read and interviews that I've done. Ideally, we should be breathing through our nose at night, and a lot of us are mouth breathers, and it's linked to so many health issues. It's shocking. During the day, we're supposed to be breathing through our nose. Something people do at night, which sounds-- sounds strange. But it's not crazy like duct tape or anything. It's just putting a little piece of tape on your mouth to train your mouth to stay closed at night, so keep your mouth shut and to breathe through your nose for sleep.

Cynthia: I'm manifesting that I'm going to interview him this year. I think I got [crosstalk] off at the end of 2020 and I was like, "Okay."

Melanie: Because I think I emailed him. Because he had just finished up, I think interview, and now-- Yes, it's just going to happen. It's going to happen. 

Cynthia: It's going to happen.

Melanie: Yes. 

Cynthia: Let's talk about supplements for biohacking. You mentioned a term called the 'mitochondria,' which are the powerhouses of our cells. With a lot of research that I'm doing, I'm doing a talk for a Nurse Practitioner conference on Friday talking about the anti-aging benefits of fasting. You hear a lot of discussion about NAD and I think I've heard you've mention how much you are a fan of NAD. Let's talk about some supplements that can be helpful for biohacking before we talk about blood sugar, which is the other big enormous topic that everyone was like, "We have to ask Melanie all of these questions." So, I'm trying to be mindful of your time to pick your brain, because it's just an endless-- Melanie hasn't it just an exhaustive memory for research and anyway, I'm excited to have you on. So, [crosstalk]

Melanie: So many things.

[laughter] 

Melanie: So, supplements. Yeah, so, NAD is N-A-D. I always like to [giggles] it's funny how you pronounce it, not you, how people do, because it's written capital NAD+. 

Cynthia: Yeah.

Melanie: I've heard it said so many ways. The way you say it is NAD+, the plus is silent. I don't know why, but I was actually just listening to an audiobook yesterday, and they kept calling it NAD+ and I was like, "It's not NAD+." [laughs] NAD+, it's a master-- I don't even know what to call it, compound in our bodies? I don't know, I haven't really thought about this before. It plays a massive role. The NAD+ to NADH ratio in our body plays a massive role in producing energy. I won't go deep into the rabbit hole of all of it, but just know that high NAD levels are so, so important for generating energy, recovering. The levels tend to go down as we age and we're more on the NADH side of the spectrum. So, supporting NAD+ levels can be really, really important for longevity, specifically anti-aging. A lot of things that people do anyways to support health, so, intermittent fasting, cold exposure, healthy diet, those do support NAD+ levels, but you can actually supplement for it. You can't supplement with NAD+. You can in the form of patches, I think which I actually haven't tried. But the most common way to supplement is there are two precursors available in supplement form that get turned into NAD+ in our body. So, those are NR nicotinamide riboside.

Cynthia: Yeah.

Melanie: Yeah. [laughs] That one. Then NMN, nicotinamide mononucleotide. Those can be taken in supplement form and they boost NAD+ levels. I will actually say, this is another question I ask literally everybody, who even might remotely know about this. I'm like, "Do you prefer NR or NMN?" I'm currently taking both. It seems the consensus is NMN. I think it's technically a more direct precursor to NAD+. For the longest time, they thought there wasn't a transport for it in the cell to get it across the cell membrane. It had to be NMN to NR to NAD+ and I'm getting really granular. But now, they know that there is a transport mechanism, so, it seems NMN is probably the way to go. I will say that I had a septoplasty surgery last year. I actually after reading James Lester's book, I was like, "I'm going to fix my deviated septum." Recovering from that with the anesthesia and everything was really, really intense and you can't do anything after getting that surgery. You're supposed to just sit on the couch for two weeks and not lift anything heavier than iPad, you can't do sauna, you can't do exercise. I was dying. I was like, "What can I do?" Because I just felt I've been hit by a bus. I started high, high dosing NMN and NR. Have you ever met James Clement.

Cynthia: No. 

Melanie: He's amazing. He wrote a book called The Switch, but he knows a lot about all of this. I started high, high dosing it and I started feeling so much better the day I started doing that. It could have been just a coincidence. But I asked him, I was like, "Do you think it's possible that this literally was the thing that really, really helped?" He said in his studies, they've seen that high dosing with it does radically NAD levels go up pretty fast. Supporting NAD can be very, very important. The brands I personally use for the NMN, I use is I use Quicksilver Scientific, which you know Chris Shade. The NR, I've been taking is Elysium Basis. I've been thinking about maybe starting a supplement line and I would love to do an NMN or an NR. So, sorry, I could talk about all that for a long time, but-- [laughs] 

Cynthia: No, I'll be happy to support that venture. I think more women need to be getting into this, but in terms of biohacking, what are a few of the other like more-- When I say accessible, maybe things people have heard of or maybe they're more familiarized with. I've mentioned at the beginning, when we first started talking, there not a lot of women in the biohacking space, it's really a very male dominated environment. 

Melanie: Yes, it is. Supplements that people have-- Okay, so, I'm going to start this with a disclaimer. It's ironic because I just said I want to develop supplements, maybe. All of that said, I'm actually in the ideal world, we would not need any supplements. I am not a supplement junkie. I have the biggest supplement graveyard. I think I get supplement overwhelm and exacerbation, because I'm like, "No more supplement." I think I hit that wall, especially when I was struggling with some health issues and I just felt I was reaching and grasping at everything and I was like, "I don't want to take supplements ever again." [laughs] 

Cynthia: I think that's a very honest statement and one that most if not all of us need to hear, because all of us on our health journeys have gone through time periods, where we've been with a trusted provider, and they've made some recommendations, and then we add some things, then we start tinkering. I can say that there are definitely supplements that I take on a daily basis, which I know make a huge difference in how I sleep, and how much energy I have, and for that I am grateful. But I agree there is a lot of, how do I put this snake oil salesmen out there that will convince people that they need to be-- Because stuff just arrives. I'm sure it happens you do. Stuff just arrives every day, my kids are like, "What's in the box today?" I'm like, "I don't know." When I open up and I'm like I don't know what that is. [crosstalk] someone.

Melanie: Then I'm like, "Do I donate it because if I'm not going to take it," especially with the supplement ones. You are a practitioner. I'm very much in awe and jealous of the knowledge that you most likely have with bloodwork and knowing where it's appropriate to do targeted nutritional supplements and things like that. That's why for nutritional supplements, I have a few really important thoughts. One is that, I do think our modern diet in our environment makes it really hard to get all of our nutrition from food. People are often going to be off in certain nutritional supplements. I personally as a person don't have the confidence to-- I feel my body knows better how to get nutrients from food. I get nervous thinking, "Oh, I need calcium. So, I'm going to take a calcium supplement." I don't know that my mental mind has the wherewithal the knowledge to properly deal with that. When it comes to nutritional supplements, the only ones I take-- there are actually things that I do think really relate to longevity and are just so important, and that's vitamin D. That is something where you'd want to test your levels. But I think most people can see great benefits from that. The studies on COVID and vitamin D are shocking, shocking. 

The correlations between vitamin D levels and susceptibility to COVID or symptoms, as well as vitamin D therapy and the effects are-- I don't remember the stats. I wrote a blog post on it recently, a guest blog post on Sunlighten's blog. I could give you the link for the show notes. But we're talking-- I'm going off memory. But it's something 80% of people with either adequate vitamin D would not experience the COVID symptoms. It was a shocking difference between 0% and 80% with vitamin D levels being a key player. 

Cynthia: I would imagine without knowing the data right now is a recording that susceptibility to COVID in terms of severity of complications, I'm sure there's a direct correlation with metabolic inflexibility and low, and I would say suboptimal vitamin D levels. I can't tell you years ago everyone's vitamin D levels were 40, or 30, or 20, and we just were like, "Oh, in cardiology or whatever, go back to your primary care." But now, I've been telling my kids all winter, everyone's taking vitamin D, and my husband after having COVID, I was like, "Oh, by the way, I don't care you had the most mild case ever. You're taking vitamin D, because we don't want there to be around too for sure."

Melanie: Yeah, I think it's so huge. I know this is controversial. I actually, especially during the winter, the tanning beds, if you go-- I think it's very beneficial for a lot of people to go in, there's UVA and UVB beds, and this is actually very much in our favor, because the UVB beds are typically the cheaper beds, because they don't give you a tan. They're what people go in for the base tan for the base before they start actually tanning. So, they're cheap. That is the wavelength that stimulates vitamin D production. Yeah, not the A [crosstalk].

Cynthia: So, burning. I always remembered UVA is aging and then the UVB is burning. Now, that was my old school [crosstalk] the way I remembered it.

Melanie: I've never heard that. That's so interesting. Yeah, that's really cool. Well, I go in for a minute literally. They look at me, they're like, "You want to go in this bed for a minute." I'm like, "Just getting my vitamin D," because the most efficient and healthy way to make vitamin D in our body is through naturally with the sun. Actually, so, the fact, when vitamin D is created ourselves through sunlight, it's the only time it becomes water soluble. This is a fun fact that I learned this week. It is the only time it becomes water soluble, and it's able to go all throughout our body, and penetrate certain cells differently compared to taking it from diet. It isn't some fish and seafood. So, compared to diet and taking it as a supplement, when it's fat soluble. So, it has more therapeutic potential from the sun.

Cynthia: That's amazing. Well, that's why I tell everyone during the summer I have my poor dogs, they've been walked more in the past year than they've ever been walked, but it was like, every day outside with a tank top on and a short tennis skirt walking my dogs, I was like, "I need the vitamin D." There's no question. My levels in summer versus winter are half.

Melanie: Yeah. There's an app called D Minder. Have you heard of it? 

Cynthia: Mm-mm.

Melanie: Actually, I learned about it when I interviewed Robb Wolf. I think you've interviewed him, too. I love Robb.

Cynthia: I think he is such an amazing resource and human. 

Melanie: The only time I almost started crying when I was interviewing, I was like, "Oh, my gosh, I can't believe this is happening." He talks about vitamin D all the time and he actually talks about the tanning bed stuff as well. He recommended D Minder, which is an app, where you put in your skin type, your ethnicity, your gender, all of this, and then it finds your location, and it tells you exactly when to go outside for the exact amount of time to get maximum vitamin D with minimum time exposure.

Cynthia: Amazing.

Presenter: Thanks for listening to Everyday Wellness. If you loved this episode, please leave us a rating, and review, subscribe, and remember, tell a friend. And if you want to connect with us online, visit the link in the show notes.

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