[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the Heart Rate Variability Podcast. Each week we talk about heart rate variability and how it can be used to improve your overall health and wellness.
Please consider the information in this podcast for your informational use and not medical advice. Please see your medical provider to apply any of the strategies outlined in this episode. Heart Rate Variability Podcast is a production of Optimal LLC and Optimal HRV. Check us out at optimalhrv.com Please enjoy the show.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Welcome friends to the Heart Rate Variability Podcast. I am Matt Bennett here back for a solo current event episode. So we tried this out a few months ago and yeah, it was fairly well received so I thought I would throw another one out there.
You know, again based on a documentary.
Last time we looked at some very fraudulent and scary instances of wellness culture really harming people and how easy that can be, especially when folks are experiencing hopelessness due to a medical condition.
The one spoken about last episode we did was around cancer and forsaking traditional health care for alternative health care and the cautionary tale that that involved. So you can go back and listen to that one if you like this one, I suggest you do so.
But I was watching the Liver King on Netflix and I thought it would it just brought out so many good aspects of Again, another cautionary tale and a cautionary tale for I believe us in heart rate variability work as well, you know, because whether we like it or not, sometimes when people are looking for health solutions, a Google search for heart rate variability might be followed by something looking for liver supplements.
So it's the world that we find ourselves in. I know for a lot, if not all the listeners to this podcast, we really err on the scientific side as we do here in the podcast as well.
Sometimes it's not as sexy, but you know, I will take a meta study and run with that way before I'm going to do something that makes me a dollar or two. So.
So just if you haven't watched it yet, I you might want to pause this and watch it. It only it's only like 70 minutes long.
It's a pretty condensed story but a pretty powerful one and it revolves around this gentleman called Brian Johnson. He is the Liver King. I'll just kind of read the description here from a bullied fatherless kid in San antonio who to 100 million brand built on raw organ, shock value and nine ancestral tenants. The camera follows Johnson on his Texas compound, intercutting archival clips, family interviews and marketing meetings to show how the cartoonist Persona was engineered.
Now he spends a lot of time without his shirt on that's the first thing that struck me.
I don't know what he has against shirts.
I, I don't know. I guess he thinks he looks good.
I think a lot of people kind of like this guy's juicing from right from the beginning. But, you know, I guess if you don't want to wear a shirt, don't wear a shirt. He also had a lot of guns. I don't know. I, I don't understand people with, you know, a gun or two, but when you have hundreds in your house, I don't know. So a very cartoonish character, I think is a good description.
Here's where I think it starts to cross over with our rate variability, though. So those non ancestral traits, in other words. And it's always the story with these wellness folks, oh, I was near death or I was miserable or I was suicidal. And then I found this one thing and honestly, right there, I start to get very skeptical. And, you know, I guess the algorithms on, you know, Instagram and YouTube, because I'm so digging into heart rate variability, I get some of these as well.
And as I always like to say, if somebody tells you one thing changed their life, be very, very cautious.
As you listen to this podcast, you know, it's work to be healthy or to use things like HRV biofeedback to, you know, help you with anxiety or depression or irritable bowel syndrome or chronic pain.
It's 20 minutes a day of practice or more to really get there along with other things as well.
There's work that needs to be done here, and that's according to a whole bunch of research. If you just do one thing, but maybe participate in nine or 10 other ways that make you unhealthy, those are going to outweigh the healthy thing. It's still probably good to do the HRV biofeedback, but at the same time, you're going to be limiting your impact. I've often used this example on the podcast. As somebody who did trauma therapy earlier on in my career, I've realized that, yeah, I had a bunch of skills that could really help people, but because I wasn't talking about things like sleep, movement and nutrition and healthy breathing, there was really a ceiling that I had because they were doing things most of the time, I think unintentionally, to dysregulate or inflame the systems that I was trying to help heal. I have those simple conversations with people and all of a sudden we're supporting that healing process.
But it's not just HRV feedback.
You know, it's also, you know, sleep consistency, it's, you know, trying to integrate more anti inflammatory foods. It's zone two activities such as walking or wheelchairing, you know, and it's, it's healthy breathing. And so, you know, this was a great example of the two things that honestly just drive me crazy in this world that, that I seem to be in, even though I don't want to be in.
And if you call me an influencer, it must be day one on Instagram for you because I don't have enough followers to be called.
But you think about the two things. One is there's one thing and I can't call him the liver King. That just doesn't fit with me. So, you know, heck, I will call him Brian here. Brian loved to again, shirtless, eat like raw liver.
There was a ridiculous, you know, and as a vegan, yeah, you can call me out or whatever you want, but they shot a bull and then they went and ran and they were with the bull during the final press and then they cut out the liver and ate the liver raw. Or, you know, they also ate a lot of testicles.
I don't know. Is there benefit to liver? Is there benefit to testicles?
Maybe.
Will you catch me eating raw testicles and olive oil? No, I don't care what spices you put on those testicles, I don't want to eat them, you know, and so a lot, you know, again, as someone who eats a plant based diet, so many testicles, so much liver.
But then there was the, the, the influencer side of this. So this is what he did incredibly well. One again, he never put a shirt on, as I could tell.
But he was very engaging.
Yeah. Was he extreme? A. For sure.
You know, pretty much every video they showed, except for the earlier ones where sometimes they actually had a shirt on.
You know, we're over the top and hey, that's how you get noticed. And it seems like for, for some of these folks who get stuck in this, that there is this momentum of getting noticed and attention becomes a drug for people and they take it. One additional step. One additional step. One additional step. Usually as a student of history, when you see terrible things done by countries or groups to other countries or groups, it usually doesn't start out of, hey, we have this idea to do this horrific thing to other people.
It starts out small and then grows into something horrific. It doesn't mean it's not horrific and we shouldn't judge it as such.
But look at anything terrible done in History and there's usually a smaller step towards that horrible end outcome from it.
So the other thing that really strikes me and is always my thing when I hear this and oftentimes I will read an entire book and then the final chapter is here is why you should buy my supplements.
Now I'm going to out myself. I have before I take supplements, I will list those supplements if anybody's curious to it.
I pay a decent amount for some of those. Most of them are fairly, you know, like dha, not, not all that expensive.
I can tell you why I'm taking each of them.
Do I think I probably get as much placebo effect as actual benefit? Yeah. From some of them maybe. But you know, there's just enough holes, especially only eating plant based. There's some things that I don't get from food that I feel like I need to cover my basis with supplements. And you know, I could have probably a range of scientific guests on to probably debunk why I don't need, you know, a DHA supplement if I'm getting that through Flexseed and, and other things. So I will own that turmeric. Try to put a lot of that in my hummus. I still take the supplement. I feel like it helps me sleep. Does it like said, placebo effects not doing any harm. I'm making sure I get good quality. However, with that said, boy, do I start to get skeptical when I hear and you can buy my supplements.
You know, we've talked about, Dr. Dave Hopper has talked about on this podcast. We talked about it in our book Heartbeat of Business.
The supplement world. Just do it at your own risk, even if you do good research is what's in your supplement, what's being said to be in your supplement really there. And if it's not there, there can be some scary stuff in its place. So he was, you know, Brian was again eating a lot of, you know, raw liver, sometimes just from animals he just killed and then beating their testicles as well.
It made for great, I guess, great videos if you're into testicle eating personally. Again, not judging, but just not my thing. So, you know, it's this cautionary tale again with the last episode we did of pushing false treatments, not just like pushing alternative treatments. I understand that. Hey, if you've lost hope, that might be the thing. It might work for somebody. No judgment there, but kind of discouraging that in place of maybe what your physician is telling you. Again, we get into some real gray area here. What I love about heart rate variability and Heart rate variability. Biofeedback.
HRV biofeedback should not replace anything.
If you're taking an anti anxiety medication.
I would never encourage anybody to quit that medication just because they started a HRV biofeedback practice. Now talking to your physician and keeping an eye on your symptoms, you know, you can measure, maybe you can cut back, but that should be done under the person that prescribed you the medication and the dosage or which they did. I would never encourage that. Maybe somebody who's feeling anxious, they could try HRV biofeedback. But again, if those symptoms don't proceed, you know, it could be a supplement to larger treatment, especially, you know, something like cognitive behavioral therapy. HRV biofeedback can be a great potential alternative to just going to a primary care physician and getting anxiety medication or, or maybe anxiety medication is the right thing for you. So this, this sort of mentality of I was sick and this, and in the liver king's example, it was eating liver and testicles made me healthy and now I'm living this vibrant life that I don't have to put on a shirt anymore.
And so we follow his rise and one of the thing that you can really look at this is got very rich and very famous in the episode, you know, a hundred million dollar brand.
You know, he was living in a mansion in Texas with a lot of guns. But you know, I guess people were out to get him because they had to have guns in every room. But you know, he, you know, it's his right. So you know, big mansion, probably as much money as guns is in the house.
But for him to live bought off this idea that he was sick. He started eating liver. He now is a he man sort of character and made him, made him and his family incredibly rich and famous and build off that and brought other people to work off that as well.
His claim, which turned out to be a total lie, was that it was all natural that he wasn't taking any steroids.
And so he claimed that he lied over and over and over again that this was all liver and testicles was how he was living this life.
And lo and behold, someone got a hold of emails between him and his provider about his, you know, $11,000 a month steroid growth hormone habit.
So that to me is like, there's the moral of the story. Not saying he's a bad guy. I'm saying he may have got addicted to that attention.
And that attention led him to, to maybe fib a little bit. Again, I don't assume everybody sets out with the big lie.
You know, he was who he was and he got asked the question the first time. And here's the kicker. If you lie about this, then it's not the livers and testicles that made you this he man looking person who never needs to wear a shirt. It was the steroids and the growth hormones that made you that way. I'm not saying he didn't work out in the gym a gazillion hours, but he was saying that this body that he had created and this life he had created was all natural, was all liver and testicle based.
And obviously in the end, I don't, some people seemed hurt and surprised, but again, you got somebody trying to sell you supplements who eats a lot of testicles, let's be honest. And so here we are again, my friends. We're back in this influencer world now. You know, as I was reflecting a little bit on this just in my own life, like, you know, because it's a hard thing, I'm just going to talk about me. So I apologize if you don't care. You can just fast forward through this part. But it's an interesting thing being, you know, for lack of better because there's better looking faces than mine on our team, but sort of the face of optimal HRV and the one that's asked to do the videos and to do the podcast and to be on YouTube and be on Instagram and all this stuff is would I love to have a million followers?
You know, in some ways the answer is yes, because I could introduce a million people to HRV and HRV biofeedback, which I think is such a critical part to overall health and wellness. Again, part, not, not the whole, but the part. And so a million followers would let us allow us to get our messages and hey, let's face it, I'm selling an app, I'm selling a reader. So, you know, would that increase my wealth? I don't know if I get to $100 million empire, but you know, it would help support the work that we're doing.
If you know me, you know my history, money is not my main motivator by any stretch of the imagination.
I'm here to help people. But you know, I've also, you know, in the tech world got to make some money along the way. So that would just allow us to help more people.
If I had those million followers that were die hard fans, maybe I just should take my shirt off more. But you know, I'm not going to do that to you on the podcast with it. But I think that it puts these wellness influencers who again, may have started out in a decent, ethically solid place to keep their story going, to get more extreme and more extreme and more extreme and then talk like they're an expert on a subject that they're not. That's what I love about this podcast because I, I have the world experts talking about hrv. We don't need to make a jump. We need to talk about the meta studies and the studies that are out there.
So the liver King. This is what I love about this episode or the documentary. So he gets caught.
You know, he gets caught and I find it ironic his wife wanted him to keep lying about it.
I guess if you're living in a mansion with a million guns, you want to keep that lifestyle secure.
But, you know, am I going to buy your liver and testicle supplements if that's not what's making you a he man? Right? If, if he's walking down and there's, there's, you know, video of this, he's walking down the strip in Vegas without his shirt on, there's a lot of other buff dudes taking their shirts off. If you think that is natural, if you think that is because of his supplement.
Understanding that, not because of his supplement. It's more so because of the steroids than the testicles and the growth hormones and not the raw liver.
Are you going to spend money on the supplement? And so towards the end, this sort of made me smile as a plant based eater. His revelation, and he was almost grossly making out with these fruits and vegetables. It was really disturbing.
Yeah, I'll say that. Been plant based for decades now, or decade and a half, if not, you know, around that time frame, you know, vegetarian for longer than that. But I've never really made out with a fruit like he makes out with some of the fruit in his garden. I don't know again, but if it's not extreme, is it going to get watched? So he ends up realizing that, you know, in his garden of vegetables, because that's where he finds health. Now, I think he still might be eating a lot of testicles, but, you know, it is with him understanding the value of plants.
And I don't think you've probably ever heard me on this podcast even advocate for a plant based diet, because I don't know if it's right for you. I can say it's right for me, but I don't even know if that's right for you. But here he is again.
And it was really sort of scary at the end because I'm all for redemption story where the hero falls from grace and learns a lesson and comes back to the world smarter and wiser and humbler, ready to serve. He's talking about basically creating a cult where people would move into a compound and live like he lives.
And I'm like, dude, like, what, what, what are you doing? Right? It's like, you know, why can't you just be genuine for a second? And maybe it's not in him. He shared that he's kind of been, you know, we called this criminal thinking in a few industries. I worked in a criminal thinker his entire life. And you could almost see his wheels turning again of, you know, I got away with this as when he shared a story how he ripped off GNC as an employee, you know, for seems like a lot of money. Then he ripped off everybody through selling his testicle and liver supplements. And he's already got another plan and he may be successful with that plan. He's an incredibly engaging, you know, if you like kind of steroid muscle looking you, you know, he's attractive in that, that sort of way.
Guy. And so here he is again.
Is he pushing again?
Plant based is right for me. I'm not saying it's right for you, but now he's kind of pushing my lifestyle, or at least part of it, and wanting to make a commune of people that will live the way he lives.
And here we go again. And so I, I'm assuming, you know, as somebody who sort of tries to hit the positive side of things, that people won't follow him this time or will at least google him before they move into his compound.
But you know, I'm a hopeful guy and if anything tells us about humanity, probably wrong about this. So here we go again. And there always seems to be this again thing. So probably knew that you needed to not just live off livers and testicles, that you needed vegetables to live a healthy life. And guess what? Now he's found the thing that truly brings him joy, truly brings him health. And he wants to share that with you.
Be careful, right? Like I said, I use supplements. I always like. I almost skip now to the end of the book to see are you going to sell me a supplement?
Doesn't mean I won't read the book because I do understand that, hey, there's a lot of bad supplements out there and maybe you want to sell good supplements, but how do we know that about you, right?
Do you give enough proof that your Supplements are legit, or are you just in an industry like, pretty much all these people fall into?
Supplements are an easy way, an unregulated way to make money.
And I'm not saying everybody's doing that by any stretch of the imagination. Like I said, even if you're selling me a supplement, I've read some books that are really good, really backed by other science I get from other place.
I just don't want you to sell me a supplement as part of your book. Right.
Explore it, put it in the epilogue, whatever. But, you know, all of a sudden, now you've sold all this to sell your product to make money yourself. Like, making money is not bad, but we just have to be upfront that, hey, if I write a book on heart rate variability, you're going to know really early on. You know, in fact, it's the introduction to my two books on heart rate variability that I have an HRV app. And while the books are a lot about HRV and HRV biofeedback and way less about optimal hrv, you know where I'm coming from. And, you know, you know, if you want to call it a disclosure, it's right there. It's right there in the introduction. So, again, it's just a word of caution.
You probably won't see me with a million Instagram followers. I can't. I was joking with my team today.
Maybe if I. If I dance during what I say on Instagram, people will watch. But you, you know me well enough. I don't have that in my soul to do. And if you ever catch me dancing on Instagram and selling supplements, you have permission to start your own podcast and bash me. Also, if I show up one day without my shirt, I'd say that would be a good hint as well. Not ashamed of my body by any stretch of the imagination, but. But, you know, not everybody wants to see that. So. Anyway, thank you for joining me. I hope this was kind of a fun cleanser. We got some great guests coming up soon, but I think it's worth a watch. If you haven't watched the Liver King, I'd love to get your thoughts on it.
I had my. You know, I kind of wanted to.
I kind of was vomiting in my mouth during the whole episode. But, you know, and then we find out he was a fraud.
You know, if my. My gut response was triggered. But I love to get what you think about this subject and the Liver King in general. So, as always, you can find show notes
[email protected] I thank you for joining us again. If you like these episodes, let me know. You can reach out
[email protected] if you just want me to stop these episodes. You can also email
[email protected] I want your honest feedback so we can make this podcast for you. And hopefully my thinking, you know, combined with maybe some of your thoughts coming back would be great. YouTube is a great place to put in comments as you know, as I usually see those and get alerts to them. Where there are so many podcasts in so many places, I don't often get those. So I love to have a conversation with you. And until next week, take care and I will see you soon.
