Tim Gray | Mitolife Radio Ep #202

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
supplement, mercury, day, emf, good, liver, test, minerals, people, peptides, body, put, aminos, eating, great, find, years, hours, feel, grounding

Matthew Blackburn 00:18
All right, Mitolife Radio - I'm your host, Matt Blackburn, and today, I'm interviewing Tim Gray. He's known as the United Kingdom's head biohacker, and the organizer of the health optimization summit every year. In the show, he shares his journey, healing from mercury poisoning from dental fillings. We talk about hair tissue mineral analysis tests, Dr. Andrew Cutler, which has a completely different view from Lawrence Wilson. So it was really interesting to talk about that since I've been looking into Lawrence Wilson's work. I asked him about chelation, is it safe? He did 98 rounds of it and he's a very smart dude, so apparently, it is safe. We talked about lithium, his favorite intravenous treatments that actually aren't vitamin based. And he answers the question, "Where do I start with health?" and that's kind of his overall message with helping people is where to start. So you get both in this interview, you get the basic starter stuff, and the advanced stuff and everything in between. So enjoy. Here is Tim Gray.

Matthew Blackburn 01:44
All right, we're here with Tim Gray. Welcome to the show.

Tim Gray 01:48
Thanks for having me, Matt.

Matthew Blackburn 01:49
Yeah, yeah, this is, I could say overdue or perfect timing that we've been talking for few years now. And yeah, I think we're kind of in the same space of biohacking, or whatever you want to call it, human optimization, it's probably a better, better way to say it, and just appreciate all the information that you put out there. Yeah, it's been really, really fun to watch.

Tim Gray 02:14
Thanks, man. Yeah, I mean, I guess we're on a very similar path, sharing very similar things, you're a little bit more in the deeper in the science, and I kinda like to hit the beginners a little bit - bring all the beginners in and tease them in. So it's really nice, obviously, because the type of content that I appreciate is your level of detail, but the type of content that my followers like is much more abstract - from my followers, anyway. So it's really cool learning from you and seeing the things like your copper journey recently.

Matthew Blackburn 02:43
The controversial copper journey. Yeah, they're both important and maybe the foundational stuffs more important because I think when - it's easy for guys that are level, not to say that in an egoish way, but just experienced level to forget like the basics. And there's so many basic things that what 99% of humanity aren't following or the people in the, "civilized world" aren't doing that are just, low hanging fruit, easy things to do, the basic stuff. I mean, I have conversations here in Idaho with just people on the street and I'm just shocked at how they live their life and like, "Wow, it's kind of working, I guess. Must be kind of rough, though." But anyway, how did you start your journey? Like did you have a health crisis that happened that got you and all this?

Tim Gray 03:40
Yeah, yeah, basically, I was a typical busy entrepreneur, running a company, actually, I was running two companies at the time. Waking up, sticking some cereal down my mouth, getting out the door or driving to the office. Working all the way through to 6pm and then going on to the next company from 6 until 9, getting home, throwing some food in my mouth and go to sleep immediately, as you know, pretty much all of the wrong things. And then probably watching Netflix or the equivalent or downloaded some torrent, probably back in those days. And had blue light device in my face until 2am and I'd wash rinse and repeat and then on a Saturday night I just get wasted. And that is what you think life is, I guess, when you don't know better. And eventually I just started getting sick. I went to Bali, had a month in Bali, came back - I started getting kidney stones, urinary tract infections, and obviously, three - six months of antibiotics, various different ones. And then I stopped digesting food properly. And the usual liver stress, digestive stress, lack of bacteria in the gut, more kidney stones, forming them like crazy and only to be told to drink more water and it's If you're going to have to live with. It got to the point where I was so chronically fatigued, peeing 30 to 50 times a day, no exaggeration, like I'd have a cup of water or something and I would be straight in the toilet five minutes later, peeing out. And I was dehydrated, even though I was drinking loads and it just got ridiculous - to the point where I was - I feel like it's so disingenuous saying this because I've said it so many hundreds of times, but I was in the doctor's surgery every single day in a row - one week, and I got to know the receptionists by first name basis. In fact, I could call them on their mobile instead of going through the reception and say, "It's Tim, I need to come in." and the doctors shrug their shoulders one day and just say, "We can't find anything wrong." It's just like, there's definitely something going on. And when you're in a, I guess, if you're an entrepreneur, or the typical biohacker mindset of, there is a way around everything, it's just a matter of finding it. I didn't accept it. So I got home, and my mom drove me home because I couldn't drive, I was just so poorly. And I had a pack of post it notes and I was writing down all the different symptoms and I was mapping them out, sticking them on the wall, figuring out what the root cause was. And that's before the term root cause was a thing, I guess. And we didn't have Instagram with all the health influences like us at that time. And we had forums where you can see people asking for help and never getting an answer but you could kind of piece together bits of data from that and figure stuff out. So yeah, I started popping loads of supplements. And kind of this was, 10 - 11 years ago now, so around the time biohacking was beginning. And fast forward 4 - 5 years - someone told me about Bulletproof Coffee. And I heard the Bulletproof podcast and heard about hyperbaric oxygen therapy, tried it out, loved it, couldn't find a clinic anywhere near my home, so I opened a clinic, and then I kind of stumbled properly into biohacking and became known as a biohacker. Fast forward another eight years, and here we are.

Matthew Blackburn 06:59
Wow. So with the clinic, was it purely hyperbaric or you had all the different things?

Tim Gray 07:05
No, this is just a hyperbaric clinic. I mean, it was just so fundamental for me. I was so adrenally fatigued, I was starved of oxygen and even though I didn't know it. I wasn't exercising properly, I mean I didn't have the energy to do so. Hyperbaric was a massive win for me. Massive, massive win for me.

Matthew Blackburn 07:19
Yeah. Wow. That's incredible. Yeah, I interviewed Dr. Scott Sherr and I've spoken with him a lot. And he got me on the soft chamber and that was - I did that 1.3, 1.4 atmospheres for a couple years. And then I moved on to the hard chamber, and besides the massive power usage, being fully off grid here, it's kind of rough, like, people that know about electricity, it's like roughly 4000 Watts, which is a tremendous amount of power to run those things. Like two oxygen concentrators, the cooler and then the control unit. But yeah, my experience has been incredible with it. I mean, the stuff on COVID too is incredible with like, long COVID. And there's new articles coming out all the time on the power of hyperbaric for people that had COVID once or multiple times and recovering. So, yes, that's awesome that you like that therapy.

Tim Gray 08:14
Yeah, I mean, Scott's good friend of mine, I had met him, many years ago now, actually at a hyperbaric conference in Denver. And someone connected me - actually, my friend connected us a while before that and that's when I first met Dom D'Agostino and actually and had the idea to create the Health Optimization Summit, which has obviously become my big part of my career. But yeah, hyperbaric is a fundamental thing for many people. I think when you see the profound effect it has on people with the wounds that won't heal, for instance, or - I mean I had surgery that's supposed to take three months to heal, and it was insane, insane surgery, and I healed in three weeks by red light therapy and hyperbaric at the same time. I did an hour and a half at two ATA every day for three weeks and basically healed and the doctors just said, or the surgeon said, "It's a miracle Tim, just a fast healer." Yeah, it's good stuff, so yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 09:08
That's incredible. Were you combining like strategic supplements, like I know Scott talks about how like Methylene Blue synergizes with the (unintelligible). That was around back then, or?

Tim Gray 09:09
That wasn't around then actually. I mean, Methylene Blue now is very widely spread, obviously, just because of Scott and Dr. Ted's work with Troscriptions and it's pretty much off the radar in the health space before that. But I mean, I use it when I'm flying. When I'm doing cardio and things like that, Methylene Blue is great for that. But I actually stepped it with hypertonic so the hypertonic, before and after, obviously, because the minerals and your oxygenation is synergistically powerful. So that's one thing I would do. And what else, what else?

Matthew Blackburn 09:39
Would you say loads of supplements too, are you talking like, Joe Cohen's style? Like a hundred a day, or?

Tim Gray 10:06
No. I mean, it works for Joe. It works with Joe. And I think, my opinion on the loads of supplement things is, as Liver King would say, more and more is not always better. It is not. And, you know, how many medicines have contradictions and how they will cross counteract and have side effects that cause side effects of other drugs. And if you've ever taken psychedelics or stack different recreational drugs, you know how vastly different it is on the experience. So imagine what it's like when you're taking 70 different supplements, all that coincide with each other and have different effects and how stressful that is to the liver. So I think personally, if you're not Joe Cohen, and I say that because he is, one of the ultimate testers in biohacking, for sure. And I respect Joe and his work and his approach very much and he's a dear friend - I think if the general public do that, or a beginner biohacker, then it is a beginner's error to do too many. And I think less is more. And if you think about how a guided missile works, it shoots, it has its destination, and it kind of like sidewinds all the way until it hits the destination. And I see supplementation as something to keep us on the path and you might veer off, and you have another supplement to bring it back on. But not to just keep on taking it and then off, somewhere into - in another galaxy. And I think this is what too many people do with too many supplements and instead of getting the basics right. The absolute fundamentals right.

Matthew Blackburn 11:44
I love it. Yeah and I think knowing why you're taking what you're taking, right? Like I've gone in people's kitchens over the years and opened up their cabinet, and they show me their supplements, I'm like, Well, why are you taking this and that and they have no clue. It's like, well, why are you taking it, if you don't know why you're taking it? It doesn't make any sense.

Tim Gray 12:04
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's funny, because at the moment, I'm taking about seven different supplements, including one pharmaceutical that I'm testing, and someone said, "You just don't need all those." like, yeah, but when you test and you see your deficiencies on a cellular level, you know what to supplement with, and that's the pro move. And I think, really, it's going to be the future of - I think it's going to be the future of the biohacking space or health spaces - individualized supplementation based on blood works. And what those blood works are, I don't know, because there's so many different data points, but I think it's going to be the future. And you're right, I mean, the amount of people that message me and say, "Tim, what's the best supplement for me?" Like, dude, like, what have you got going on? What do you want it for? Do you want better back brain power? Do you want to lose your fatigue? Do you want to work out better? What is it? "Like, just recommend me a supplement. Just I hear it's good."

Matthew Blackburn 13:02
Yeah, there are some things like that, like for COVID I would go for oregano oil, Methylene Blue, things like that. But you bring up an interesting point about individualized supplementation, because that seems to be an up and coming thing. And it makes sense to me. At least, when you get more advanced, and you're not just just getting into this, which I think vitamin E, vitamin K2, cod liver oil, those basic things could help most people. But I know like Joe comes from the genetics side, my friend Tyler Panzner, where it's like, genetic supplementation based on your genes. And then recently, I've been diving into like HTMA, Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis, and I thought it was invalid until I got my test back and it was really accurate with what I had been supplementing and symptoms and stuff. And what's interesting is Dr. Lawrence Wilson, who bases his work on this guy, the late Dr. Paul Eck, who kind of popularized HTMA and revolutionized it. They do supplementation to recorrect - it's called nutritional balancing. So to kind of basically detox metals by raising the connecting mineral, so for cadmium, it's like zinc, or for mercury, selenium, or whatever. And so, kind of strategic supplementation there. But I was shocked because they put you on 10 to 12 different supplements a day. And you supposedly can't take anything else, except for these approved supplements. And it's pretty strict, and I could see someone doing that for like a chronic ailment. You know, they're desperate but it doesn't seem very practical to like cut out everything and only - you know.

Tim Gray 14:55
Yeah, I mean, the thing is it just because you're not supplementing something doesn't mean that you're not necessarily having too much of something from your foods as well so it's pretty - but I think the hair mineral analysis is a really interesting point and I'm really glad you brought this up because this is a big, big part of my journey. So when I said that I use the post it notes and I mapped them out on the wall, we had figured them out to a root cause it came back to mercury poisoning. And I had super high levels of mercury and this is because I had seven metal fillings, metal being amalgam being a large portion of it is mercury. And they say, it's safe to have mercury in your mouth, but if you drop a thermometer in a school, it's evacuated quickly. But you can have it in your mouth when - mercury vapor comes off whenever you eat, whenever you brush, whenever you drink. And it can be measured nowadays, like science has evolved, it has grown and we can see this stuff now. But people and standard dentists are still convinced that it's safe because it has always been there. Well, it's not. And that combined with me being at the time, a sushi addict, and eating a lot of sashimi, nearly every day for breakfast, nearly every day for lunch. I mean, I had a good three or four years on it. And my levels were sky high. And this is from my hair mineral analysis test. Interestingly, it gave me an indication that I had metal - high mercury, but it didn't show high in the hair mineral analysis test, and I'll come onto that in a second. And then when I did the NutrEval test, the metabolomics, or cellular test, from Genova, it showed I had high levels. And then when I did various other tests, it showed I had high levels. And then I did the Quicksilver Scientific trait test, and it showed I had high metals. The interesting thing was all of the symptoms - pretty much all of the symptoms I had, whether the viral gut, immune, all traced back to the high levels of mercury. Because the analogy is, if you have, imagine a cruise ship, like a thousand person cruise ship, there's still one key, one key that makes the ship start, and it can't be started without this one key. Mercury has the potential to block that key hole up. So you have this beautiful cruise liner, and you can't drive it properly, it malfunctions or can't even start because of mercury. And it competes with the cells it ruins the cell membranes or nutrients can't get in or out of the cell and if you look at Patricia Kane protocol, Patricia Kane's work, where she actually did scans of cell membranes and you can see how they're rigid and non flexible so nutrients can't get in and detoxification can't happen, can't get out, then your - it makes sense. And so not only that, is mercury lines the digestive system so that also stops sporting pairs, should I say certain bacterias from working. For instance, oxalobacter formigenes is one of those, which breaks down oxalates. So therefore getting kidney stones as well as the leaky gut, which then would cause oxalate irritation in the bladder, which would then cause frequent urination along with the mineral issues that combined with the dehydration from drinking so much crappy water when not enough minerals, and then you have a perfect storm. So mercury is so synergistically brilliant at destroying the body and the function of the organs. So this is why I think it's important to get this tested and then to take it back one step because appreciate I'm going super in detail here. But when you look at the hair mineral analysis test, this goes back to Dr. Andy Cutler's work, PhD, who, he's obviously passed now, but I had, luckily enough I was in contact with him before he passed, and also read all of his work, studied it inside out, back to front, did his chelation therapy protocols, stacked it with multiple different types of chelators. And then got to know Dr. Christopher Shade as well and learn from Chris, directly, and whatnot, as well. So I've really ventured into the mercury detoxification world very heavily. One of the things Andy Cutler says, in his book, is that, when you have hair mineral analysis test, it - if you have low mercury, doesn't necessarily mean you have low mercury. Because mercury can mean that the body acts as a magnet. So it could be that you're just not excreting it in the hair. And if you have high mercury in your hair test, it doesn't necessarily mean you have high mercury in your body. It could be that you're excreting it like a motherfucker and your body is going, "Get out" and so therefore it's really high in the hair. The way you can tell if you are being affected by various minerals or metal -- I guess utilization in the body is, if you have more than three to seven deficiencies or three to seven excesses in any one of the metals, and that can be the toxic or non toxic ones. So by looking at him in our analysis test and Andy Cutler, you can Google this, Andy Cutler, mineral counting rules, I think it is. And then you can see actually, so people have had a hair mineral analysis test, and it shows low arsenic and low mercury, you can actually figure out if you actually do have it, and it's a - false negative. So yeah, so it's pretty, it's pretty cool stuff. So when it comes to you, with your copper, for instance, is it that you've been supplementing way too much, or eating way too much liver or whatever it may be, and you're excreting and your body's going get out, get out, get out? Or is it actually that you are -- not holding onto it for whatever reason? So it doesn't - just because you're excreting lots doesn't mean that your body burden is actually high, it might just be super efficient at going "Get out" quick. So that's just one thing that I would look at into is the the counting rules by Andy Cutler.

Matthew Blackburn 21:10
That was awesome. That's fascinating, it's really cool that you've looked into that. When you said three to seven deficiencies or excesses, you said per - I'm just trying to wrap my head around that part.

Tim Gray 21:19
Yeah. So for instance, I wish I had a test with me printed out with me, is, so when you look at your hair mineral analysis test, and the various different labs have different formats, but generally, they're the toxic or dangerous ones, and then the non dangerous ones at the bottom. And if you look at your - on the non dangerous ones, you'll have a baseline which is zero in the middle, and then you'll have deficiency or excess. So almost like a volume from too low to too high. And usually the line is down the middle saying you should be zero or above, in some form to have the right levels. Now, if there's some excesses like three to seven that are super high, or three to seven that are super low, like deficiency or excesses, then you know that you have one or two of the counting rules saying that mercury is messing with your mineral distribution.

Matthew Blackburn 22:16
Interesting, interesting. It's funny how everyone has their own view, like the people I've been working with, they're super anti-chelaters and anti-chelation therapy that, "It'll kill you. Stop all chelators. They're super harmful." And it's like these polarizing kind of opinions with-

Tim Gray 22:33
Well, I've done them all, man, I really have. Like I went gung ho, I've gotten - I've got a notebook where I've done 96 rounds of mercury chelation, and when I say rounds, they're three to five days ago. To start with it was alpha-lipoic acid at 25 milligrams every three hours around the clock for four days. So basically, you're building up a constant flow of alpha-lipoic acid in the bloodstream, which means that you're picking up and chelating mercury and excreting it. And then when you stop taking it, your blood levels come down based on the half life and then you have one, what you call mercury redistribution, so basically, it drops the metal wherever it may be in your bloodstream, your body. Instead of taking one alpha-lipoic acid, 200 milligrams a day - picks up the mercury and drops it, redistributes it somewhere in the body, maybe in the brain, which some people get neurological issues. So this is why it can actually be quite dangerous. And then you've got things like DMPS, or EDTA and they have different half lives. So for instance, I think DMPS is six hour half life so what I eventually did, that's after doing like 30 rounds of alpha-lipoic acid at three hours, I then started doing alpha-lipoic acid every three hours, and DMPS every six hours around the clock every day, waking up during the night with alarms for four to five days. And then that's the three hour alpha-lipoic acid is the Andy Cutler protocol, which is the gold standard. But the problem is people's find that they take years to increase their dose from two milligrams of alpha-lipoic acid up to 50. And a lot of people get issues. Now, the interesting thing here is is that, Andy Cutler has a lot of advocates that will fight to the death that Andy Cutler was so right because he's the God of mercury chelation, and they're so afraid of the, the traditional mindset of doctoring with mercury because they just don't understand it, that they go, "No, Andy is right." But the thing is, they become so fixated on Andy being right, that they're not open to any other thing and they go, "Nope, not going near anything else. It's dangerous. You know, this is all you should do." But then Dr. Christopher Shade, I was introduced to, and I looked at his work around the PushCatch protocol, actually, which is using liver bitters to speed up the liver and support it. So you're actually creating more bile, which means that you're actually dragging out more mercury. It also includes some alpha-lipoic acid, so you do that twice a day and you can do up to four times a day with -- bitters. And then you have the catch, which is silica and activated charcoal base and you push and then you catch it and then you do that for a few days a week. And I found that that was four or five times faster than doing the Andy Cutler protocol and get addressed the gut issue, and I found that bloating vanished within a week of doing the Quicksilver protocol. And my kidneys weren't hurting like crazy from such a high burden and all this stuff, taking it around the clock. So, I've explored this deep, I've done, 96 rounds of mercury chelation, stacking various different ones and tested what my body's done. I've got like 15 hair mineral analysis tests along the way of all of this as well. And I can see how it's changed in terms of my levels and different minerals as well, for instance - and I'll round off on this point, because I feel like I'm going on a bit too much but, lithium is very common in people with bipolar disease, and the expression mad as a hatter, it comes from the guys that used to make hats, and they used to use mercury in the lining of the hats, and that as a hatter. People that have bipolar or are known to have emotional disorders are often extremely low or very deficient in lithium. Now, the interesting thing is, is when you look at people that are truly mercury toxic, properly, they have a lithium deficiency. So when I chelated across the, across these - the years, I never supplemented with lithium, I only ever chelated the mercury out. And my lithium levels came up naturally. So, it shows that as you become less crazy and I became less erratic, less risk taking and things like this as I chelated more mercury out - for sure, I've noticed my personality change. I'm less OCD, even though, talking about it in this level of detail may seem like I still am. But the point is that then I realized that actually lithium is an amazing supplements for me specifically and I find it helps me keep stoic, very stoic, I sleep better as a result. So if anyone does have mercury in their test, in any form, I would really recommend supplementing with lithium and trying the PushCatch protocol for sure. Drops mic.

Matthew Blackburn 27:14
That was awesome. That last point was perfect, because for a couple reasons -- So one of the theories, like Dr. Wilson talks about is that the metals substitute for mineral deficiencies. So for example, if you're deficient in, selenium, zinc, copper, whatever it is, these metals will step in as surrogates to support those enzyme pathways and enzymatic function. And so their theory is that when you chelate, say, mercury, whatever mercury was substituting for, you pretty much switch off tons of enzymes, which would cause more problems. And it's an interesting theory and it made sense to me, but I imagine there's more context at play, right? Like what someone's eating.

Tim Gray 28:02
Yeah, many, many things. I mean, mercury competes with the self and magnesium. And I mean, you just have to look at the periodic table to see what goes where and what - and it kind of goes, "Well, this will fit" in that type of way. So I completely agree, but the thing is, is if you think about yourself for a second, if we, we use a very, very layman's way of doing it, but if this is - if a cup is a cell, and it gets filled up with mercury, having the mineral will not displace it, it won't dig it out, it won't - eventually, like the tide, wash it away a little bit but it's not going to completely replace it. You do need a chelation agent that is almost like it has a double hook to basically chelate it out. This is why chelators grab them, pull and excrete. So I think these minerals do help, for sure. But it's almost like, washing away mud with a hose pipe, opposed to actually just scraping it away. And the other thing that plays into this actually is, you can go gung ho and chelate very heavily with the chelators, you can do methylation, increase your methylation, if you're an under methylator, and help excrete this out over a period of time without getting any of the neurological - negative neurological issues that you can from chelation, if you go too hard -- and also speed up various other processes at the same time, and supplement with the right minerals. In fact, I don't know if you do know Barton Scott.

Matthew Blackburn 29:29
No.

Tim Gray 29:30
So he runs a brand called upgraded formulas.

Matthew Blackburn 29:33
Oh yeah. Yup, yup.

Tim Gray 29:35
So Barton is, probably the most knowledgeable guy in this whole space on this actually, and I heard him on a podcast with Tara Garrison, two years ago, actually, and how he works out the hair deficiencies and which supplement - which minerals to take to displace and all the different ratios and things. I really recommend you get him on the podcast about minerals specifically, because he can touch on this area. I feel like he's a -- biochem? So, he talks about it in super detail. I feel like he would be a great guest to dig into the mineral side of that for you, if he wanted to do so, I'm happy to introduce you to him.

Matthew Blackburn 30:12
That'd be awesome. Yeah, that's great. I've taken, I forget what it was it was copper or something and it tasted, it was horrible, but I took it straight so that could have been. But it's funny you bring up lithium because I -- I supplemented that years ago and then recently, I got back on it, from going down a B12 rabbit hole, so I realized I was low in the transporter for B12. So I was like, "Oh, lithium could push the B12 into my cells." I started taking it, felt amazing, but that it came back super high on HTMA. So I'm like, alright, I'm gonna back off of that for a little bit. But I mean, it's super low dose. It's like what, 5 to 10 milligrams is the usual? Kind of daily dose of it.

Tim Gray 30:53
Yeah, it's very low. Yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 30:56
Lithium orotate. But yeah, that's an incredible supplement. I was thinking of coming out with it under my brand, but it's just, it's a little scary because you can take too much and that could maybe make someone bipolar -- tricky supplement. I want to ask you too about suppositories, did you ever use those? Because I know those are up and coming, NAD, EDTA. I know Luke Storey is really into those.

Tim Gray 31:22
I'm not really into putting things into my butt too much, to be honest. I'm just kidding. I know (unintelligible) I've tried the EDTA actually. And it was actually very good. I mean, I had a history. Previously a prostatitis and I had whole mouth of metal, nickel, and retainer and braces and things when I was younger. And you know, prostate issues are quite common after you'd had nickel in the mouth, actually, is an affinity to the prostate and nickel. So I thought, well, I'll try EDTA suppositories to see what it does. And it really did work very well, I think to the prostate. And I found that I would get evil headaches from being dehydrated because the EDTA is so efficient at chelating minerals as well. I felt like obviously, it bypasses the liver, when it goes into the - when it goes into the butt. So I felt like it had a significantly more potent effect than when I took it orally. But to be honest, I think, I did coffee enemas yesteryear, five years, six years ago, and I probably went a bit too hard with that. And then I had IBS, or should I say, like, urgency too much. And I think you can mess around with the ecosystem by putting too many things in there. But it is a nice way to do it. I just, I would prefer IV, straight in the vein, to be honest than sticking it in your butt.

Matthew Blackburn 32:48
That was my next question about the coffee enemas. So you nailed them. Yeah some people recommend them daily and I - that's overkill. I think, especially, HTMA practitioners for that and -- that and sauna is different. But daily coffee enemas is really intense. I know Ben Greenfield, he does once a week coffee enemas, and that makes sense to me. That seems like a pretty good maintenance.

Tim Gray 33:15
I still think that's too heavy, to be honest. But it depends, I mean, I had really bad guts for a long time and it took me a long time to reverse my IBS and issues and urgency is not good. So I kind of steer away from that. I ended up doing probiotic enemas and things like this, but you know, it's just, I think, if you're supporting your liver and you want some more glutathione and you want to produce more bile, I like - I like a liver flush once a year, and a liver flush, the Andreas Moritz style. And it's controversial whether or not people believe it works or not, but I've had amazing results from it. And also I like castor oil packs with a hot water bottle on the liver, which I find actually is fantastic and my best heart rate variability, my best sleep score and my best readiness score came after BPC-157, TB-500 peptides and -- castor oil pack on the liver for two hours while chilling, watching something - chilled on Netflix, and then it was fantastic and then bile flow after that was significantly better as well. So I think castor oil pack is a big win - you don't have to put stuff up your butt. You increase your liver enzymes, your liver bile significantly and have a good clear out afterwards, as well.

Matthew Blackburn 34:34
That's great. Yeah, I have a bunch of castor oil here and I I've never done it, so you're inspiring me to finally try it out.

Tim Gray 34:42
Dude, get yourself an organic cotton flannel. Soak it in the castor oil, leave like absolutely drenched - it's dripping everywhere. Put a hot water bottle on the top of it, make sure you put it in like a clear bag so there's no - crap on it. And then just sit down for an hour, an hour and a half. And just tomorrow you'll just - the day after you'll feel great for it and you'll notice,

Matthew Blackburn 35:07
Wow. Oh, that's awesome. With IVs, do you usually go for the Myers cocktail? Or do you - have you tried a lot of different ones?

Tim Gray 35:16
Myers cocktail is a multivitamin, and we know what we think of multivitamins, in general, like, if you're - I think, the tailored approach, is the best approach. And why is Myers cocktails good for a lot of people, and I think it's, it's not the best, I like to be very specific with what I do based on what I'm working on. So at the moment, I'm having seven and a half grams of DMSO, two grams of carnitine -- 5000 milligrams of taurine, 2500 milligrams of NAC and 10 milligrams of biotin. And for me, that is, beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And I do get a detox the next day from it, but I feel fantastic. And it's working very, very well with the things I'm working on at the moment. I also like procaine IV with magnesium sulfate, and administer cobalamin as well, because I find that that's my favored - my body prefers that form of B12.

Matthew Blackburn 36:17
That's awesome that you're on the procaine. I've been playing with that for, I don't know, five years now. And it's really uncomfortable to inject in the glute and so I don't do anymore. But someone sold it to me by saying it takes the edge off, because it's such a good stress buffer.

Tim Gray 36:35
You know what, it's fantastic stuff, actually. So I wouldn't do it in the glute, I actually do it IV. I just do it straight IV at home, so push, and I mix 50% magnesium sulfate and 50% procaine. That's not 50% procaine, it's 50% of the IV is procaine. By the way, it's 2% procaine before anyone tries at home, don't. And I do it - push over five minutes because you can't go too fast with magnesium because it will stop your heart if you go too quick. So it's a little bit nerve wracking when you're, when you're a beginner, so I wouldn't recommend doing IVs at home. When I was taught obviously to do so and I have a medical professional with me, etc. So, but the first time I did procaine IV was around a surgeon friend of mine's house, where I was staying. And he was like, oh, you know, just try this. So of course IV -- IV procaine, and I was stoned, it was the - I was at the family home, the kids were in the lounge running around and stuff and there I am in the kitchen, just had IV procaine injected and I'm just like I'm - I felt like it was Trainspotting, the movie. Like I was high for a few minutes and just twist tilted, I think the word would be, like you're coming up on ketamine or something -- some very strange feeling. But in terms of why it's called neurotherapy in Germany because obviously, it triggers the parasympathetic state in people and in when it's used for a therapy setting, such as in dentistry or trauma in the body or something, actually, almost resets the body and says, "Chill out" and puts you into parasympathetic. And often when there's a trauma or say for instance, you've had a surgery on your arm and it's still got the memory of pain there, but the actual pain shouldn't be there. Having neurotherapy with procaine can actually obviously help release that memory. And so it's very, very well known and used in Germany, in specifically locally to the ailment -- is commonly used in dentistry. In fact, it's - cocaine was used by dentists back in the day, wasn't it? And they got addicted, they got addicted to this stuff. So they put it with an ester and then it became non-addictive procaine, not cocaine so it's brilliant stuff.

Matthew Blackburn 38:49
Have you read the book on procaine hydrochloride? What was it called, GH3 the miracle molecule or something like that the - the history of it's fascinating. Like Ana Aslan in Romania, supposedly she inspired C. S. Lewis to name their lion Aslan and the Chronicles of Narnia because she saved his life with procaine.

Tim Gray 39:13
Wow. I did not know that.

Matthew Blackburn 39:19
I'm a big Chronicles of Narnia Fan.

Tim Gray 39:20
I was brought up on that, yeah, actually the whole series of the books, actually. Dawn Treader and all those things I remember those.

Matthew Blackburn 39:34
That's amazing. Yeah, my favorite - my best lucid dream in my life was with a lion. So yeah. So that's really cool that you're into procaine. So yeah, we can go so many different directions from here. What are you studying lately? Is there any - are you onto new rabbit holes like me all the time? Like, right now I'm with copper and HTMA.

Tim Gray 40:00
I think, it's actually been a really interesting journey for me because I'm quite a dopamine dominant and acetylcholine, obviously, dominant type. Very driven to find out new stuff. If someone dangles a carrot, I got to find out immediately, I'm one of these types. And I think that's quite normal for us biohackers. But I think one of the things that I found, the most stuff I've worked on, the more I realized that you need to take it back to basics. And it's actually, I have every day so many, so many people now and it's insane. How many people say, "Where do I start?" And I used to say, the Bulletproof Diet, or boundless, or one of these books that for a beginner, it's pretty, like, everyone's into rabbit holes, and I find that it's a difficult thing to navigate. And some people just want to help and I can't give everyone my help on a one by one basis. So I'm always talking about the fundamentals. And really, I've gone deep in the fundamentals and what I consider to be the fundamentals and thats during COVID, and we couldn't run the conference. So I pivoted, and did a digital course on the fundamentals for health, just like four or five hundred people on it now, and I've never marketed it other than sticking it in my stories on Instagram. And it just runs through like optimizing your sleep and grounding and hydration and relationships and community and movement and light exposure, just all the basics. But explaining the science, why you've got to get these fundamentals right, before you dig into any of the deep rabbit holes, because it's so easy to go, new supplement, let's try it or, new carnivore diet, got to do that, or keto - got to do that, like, but are you actually sleeping properly? Or are you actually filtering your water and remineralizing it or whatever your view is on that, I know that we often have slightly different views on some of these things. But people, like for instance, whenever I speak on stage, I always say, "Who here has had your shoes off and been in the garden, grounding in the last week?" I probably get three or four hands, out of five or six hundred people, every time. Obviously, now, I'm talking at some of the same events, again, it's going up because people are integrating it. And the awareness is growing around it. But if you're not getting your shoes off and grounding at least once a day for at least 10 or 20 minutes, there is no point taking vitamin C. And many people pop this - no point taking vitamin C, there's no point taking your antioxidant, acai bowl, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if you're fatigued, or you're stressed, and you have high cortisol, or if you have low cortisol, and you're not grounding, and you're doing everything else and taking pregnenolone or whatever it may be, you're crazy. And so it's like get the fundamentals right. So I've really dove into those areas as far as I can, I feel, and now, I get new devices sent to me every week, I've got 50 of them around me. And all these different supplements and they are all great for a .1% improvement when you are 99.999% optimized, then brilliant, don't get me wrong, I mean, like these glasses, I just had blue light glasses to optimize your circadian rhythm. For me, yeah, sure, it might give me the .1% improvement, thank you - to the general public it's not going to work. And I think it's too easy to get caught up in that. And again, it comes back to my strategy or mindset is like, what, what is the 20%, I can get 80% from - and most people focus on the wrong priorities. And I think that's where, obviously your audience differs to mine, I know that does actually because I have friends that follow you that talk about the things that you talk about and the level that you talk about to your audience is far more educated than mine. Mine are - don't use laundry detergent from personal because it's got chemicals in it and then they reply, everything's a chemical. This is the level I'm dealing with, whereas you're talking about metabolic pathways and copper toxicity and things like that. So it's - so I really think that the fundamentals are important and the new devices and new supplements are great, but I think one thing that I have integrated more so recently that I would like to, to bring up at this point is, liver bitters. That's one thing that I really am enjoying exploring and reading into quite a lot. You know, Swedish bitters are typical everywhere around the world, pretty much. But it's so underrated and in fact, a friend of mine, I won't mention his name, he's one of our speakers though, said that a friend of his, reversed cancer, by using just Swedish bitters on its own. And I'd already been using them and Chris Shade, particularly, Shade had been using them for a while -- selling them for a while and things like that. So I've been using them and I found that they really helped with my digestion but I didn't realize the profound effect that it had. And it's very simple, there's - we are eating, most of us, food without the enzymes in it, but it used to. But our taste buds aren't getting the things that we should do to trigger our liver to produce the bile. Therefore, our gallbladders aren't getting flushed on a daily basis, which means our livers are downregulated for multiple reasons including toxicities -- bitters, Swedish bitters are so bitter that it triggers, when it goes onto our tongue, triggers our liver to start producing bile ready to digest the stuff that we're supposedly eating, upregulating the liver, flushing the gallbladder, helping the digestive process and helping kill SIBO, or - move SIBO down to where it should be, and actually helps darkened stools and so many other processes. So one thing I'm really enjoying digging deeper on is, Swedish bitters, for sure.

Matthew Blackburn 46:01
That's awesome. You could put that in an enema. No, I'm just kidding. That's awesome. I used them years ago. I think I use Chris Shade's formula, the pump bitters that he sells. And I would take that before I ate sushi, ironically enough with your story. That's a really good tip and I like that you focus on the on the foundational stuff. And it's funny that people will even pick that apart, right? Like, I had a guest on -- on the Stetzer. You know, they invented the Stetzer, dirty electricity filters. And he's talking about how sometimes it's not good to ground, like there are farmers that have gotten prostate cancer because there are power lines right over. But it's like, you can't control for every variable, right? Like for most people, grounding and discharging, even if it's for a few minutes a day, is going to be a net positive effect.

Tim Gray 47:01
For sure. For sure. Yeah. That's interesting about the power lines, I once heard on TV years ago, before I got into the space that there was a kid that didn't know that he had his bed head up against the power board, fuse board in the house and ended up getting brain cancer of some form. And it always stuck with me, this is before I knew anything about health that I'd always be careful about electricity, potentially. And I moved into house actually during COVID, and there was something that wasn't right about it. And I always felt too energized, stimulated but weirdly so and I actually started getting loads of colds and not feeling good. When I got an EMF reader -- everywhere *makes alarm noise* there's a wiring fault in the house and it was basically just EMF hotspot, and I literally got out of there within 48 hours, it was so bad. And so it's also like, actually, Joe Cohen did a test recently. So he put his eternal Wi Fi off, blocked all the EMF and his sleep did nothing different. So he's like, "Well, I'm gonna flip this." and he put the Wi Fi router next to his bed -- and had as much EMF as he could near him. And it made no difference to his sleep. But the difference is here, I find that people that have mercury or metals, often get affected by EMF significantly more.

Matthew Blackburn 48:32
Right. That's a really accurate theory. I overdid the blood donations, and that was just doing two, this year. And that wrecked me, I believe I was already iron deficient. But after the first blood donation, whole blood, my EMF sensitivity definitely went down. And I don't know what mechanism it was. If it was offloading copper, which it could have been. I mean, when you donate blood, you lose everything, not just iron. A lot of good stuff, but I definitely became less EMF sensitive. Like even holding my phone, my hand like felt less sore after just donating blood once. So yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, it was funny Luke on my podcast, we were talking about grounding while you're sleeping. And he's kind of against grounding sheets, because the theory is the electric field goes out to the center of the room and the grounding sheets gonna pick up that electric field, if you have wires in the wall. I sell grounding sheets, I believe in them. I use them. I always recommend people to Rod-to-Earth connection, out the window. And to me, I don't know if it's because I'm off grid living rurally but I sleep better when I'm grounded for sure.

Tim Gray 49:44
I - Luke was scarred by jet crews, I think testing near his house and it - but when he lived in Hollywood, I think, in his old house. So I think that he was scarred by that and he's very paranoid about dirty electricity. And Luke is a lovely human, he's also hyper alert with these things, as well. So I think with the dirty electricity filter and I think with when you're grounded properly, and with the right grounding bedsheets or whatever you use at nighttime, I think you'll find - I find that I sleep much better when I'm grounded properly - and actually I use the Samina, they call it the Sleep System Samina Bed. And I find that their bed sheets actually work significantly better in their whole system, but it's really, really, really expensive to have the whole kit. That's, why I do like is that that the dirty electricity filters are included, which I don't think a lot of them do. I don't know, I don't know about your product - whether or not you do those.

Matthew Blackburn 50:46
Yeah, no, I mean, it's great to combine them, I like that idea. I recently tried a Faraday canopy, while traveling and it didn't work. I was surprised, I mean, I put it under the mattress and then it was completely, 360 coverage, and I can still receive a call on my cell phone, I just lost one bar in it. And it was a super expensive EMF blocking canopy that was for a hotel. That was the purpose. It wasn't just to be extreme. It was an Airbnb. It was like, 59th floor in a hotel really rough environment. And I don't think it did much, I mean, it was kind of cozy. It felt like sleeping in a tent when you're a kid, but I think that was the only benefit.

Tim Gray 51:32
I had the same experience, exactly the same experience. It's almost like the feel like - felt like a princess going into a shiny, metal layered nylon tent. I agree and that might signal was fine, actually inside. Like I don't quite understand that either.

Matthew Blackburn 51:52
Yeah, I have Mercola's tent, that might be better, because I know that I tested that and that worked. It was complete. I couldn't make a call in Mercola's tent. But yeah, the EMFs I've been worrying less and less about them. It's funny, you bring up Joe Cohen, because I know, he's big into his air pods, almost every video, he's wearing them and I'll buy everything from Apple for now, except for the air pods. It just doesn't make sense to me to like bounce a signal through your brain back and forth. Like that can't be good. Maybe if you have no heavy metals, I don't know. But it's, it seems like a risk.

Tim Gray 52:29
Well, I spent from 18 through 35, putting a mobile phone against this side of my head, and to the point where it would be hot on the ear. And I would have phone calls, you know what it's like when you're younger and you're on the phone, before text messages and WhatsApp and all these things. You'd be on the phone, I'd be on the phone for like two hours to a girl or something or other at one point. I remember my phone getting popped against my head never thought about it. All my problems and my sinuses and my dental issues have been right here where my phone had been ear to my face. So if you look, I think it was Dave Asprey actually, that once talked about this was a bone density of the phone in the pocket of where bone density became less as a result of having the phone there the whole time, and how he obviously messes with the calcium channels and bone formation and all these things, how they all interact. So I would say it's not worth risking it. And I think the air pods are particularly bad because they sit inside pretty much inside the head. And I've tested multiple different devices like the air pods were really bad, the standard corded headphones are still - give off EMF obviously. I actually like for instance, I'm using my rebounder. From my morning exercise room in the gym, I will use Bluetooth for half an hour, 45 minutes tops, and that's Dr. Dre Beats -- Flex and the EMF's off of those is so low compared to anything else. Like I couldn't believe it when I tested it was like a fifth, maybe a quarter, maybe a quarter of the air pods. And it's a cable that sits around the back of your head sitting on - off your shoulders instead of in your ear. And they don't beam to one airpod and through to the other one which is the significant difference. So I don't get headaches with these ones. And I use them minimally anyway, the rest of the time as I mentioned before I stoically unknot them, and very happy with how my stress levels are significantly lower these days. I don't just pull them apart.

Matthew Blackburn 54:36
That's interesting, you brought up the Bluetooth headphones because I was thinking about that yesterday. It has to be better than the air pods because for one it's not in your ear like you said. But it's also not - it's because the wires going up around your head right?

Tim Gray 54:52
Yeah, it goes round it goes round behind.

Matthew Blackburn 54:57
Okay.

Tim Gray 54:58
Yeah, but for a lot of the ones, they go over and actually the receiver is like in a piece of plastic further out from the side of the ear and it goes into one part opposed to one headphone then beams through the head to the other one. There's the big, big difference. So I think, people say, "Well, I can't do without bluetooth" as Darren Aryan says, fatal conveniences, like the microwave, it's brilliant, because it saves you a lot of time, but it also cuts your life length as well. Choose your poison, running with Bluetooth headphones in the gym. Fantastic. If you like that, you can get away with the cord - I mean, I carry both around, like, for instance, with my laptop, I can't put headphones in it, unfortunately, so I use Bluetooth sometimes. If I'm in the gym, I use Bluetooth If I can get away with the cable one, I will. It's just like, don't always just do it to death, because it does come at a real cost.

Matthew Blackburn 55:48
Right, right. Have you experimented -- I think I've seen you wearing it, like EMF blocking clothing, because there's -- speaking of nuances, there's, a theory that you don't want silver touching your skin, like I sat down with Brian Hoyer, you know, Shielded Healing, and I was all decked out in my silver embedded clothing, and beanie and everything. And he said, it's potentially not good, because you're creating harmonics. Once the radiation hits the silver threads, it creates a different frequency and we don't know, the effects of that, you know, penetration and all that. But it's an interesting thing that I've been kind of meditating on for months with the EMF blocking clothing, if it's worth it to do - I mean, I all I wear is the silver embedded underwear. You know, that's all, my briefs. But I don't have normal at this point-

Tim Gray 56:45
Well, I mean, it just depends. If you're talking about the underwear, and you're protecting your plums, then it's going to protect your plums, but the rest of your body is not necessarily going to do much. And I think it's like with these beanies, they look cool and if you feel like it's helping you, great, it's covering half your head. Does the EMF come in and bounce up inside and then bounce around a bit? Is it actually doing more harm than good? I don't know, is the honest answer. I think, wearing - there were some EMF pants that Andreas Brightfield, from Germany used to do, which Dr. Mercola used to talk about quite a lot actually. And I used to wear them and they had an earthing strap where you can clip them to the back of the chair when you're flying, and things but I always thought it was a bit overkill, I think it's probably better to to mitigate it in other ways. Like, for instance, in a plane, for instance, which is the classic EMF, some microwave, if you sit - actually, I mentioned this yesterday, quite funny with Leo, if you're sitting in the middle aisle in the row, then the EMF is almost zero. If you're sitting near the window, it's super high. So it's like there are things you can do to mitigate EMF when you're flying, and you can turn your Wi Fi off at night, or turn the power off in the house. Or get EMF blocking paint for your bedroom, which is fairly cheap these days. But wearing EMF clothing, I just think that's probably well, it's almost a tinfoil hat extreme approach. And I think, is it gonna take you more of your life, always putting these clothes on and doing all this stuff than the amount of life that this extra small amount of EMF will actually take from you. And it's like, which are you gonna go for?

Matthew Blackburn 58:40
No, that's a great point, it's kind of where I'm at right now. And I've been really into Doris Loh, more so recently, but for years, I've been following her work on high dose melatonin and ascorbic acid. And both of those are incredible for EMFs. But then you have of course magnesium and there's molecular hydrogen, and we have so many mitigations we could do, just things we could take while we're flying or whatever. It doesn't even have to be a megadose when I fly, take some ascorbic acids, hydrogen. But yeah, it's a good point. Kind of not not stressing about it.

Tim Gray 59:19
But yeah, I mean, there's also that the - this is one of the things actually, with a lot of biohackers they stress so much, and stress is far worse than a lot of these things. It's like, "Oh my God, I didn't take my supplement midday. Oh my god, I can't believe that I'm so (unintelligible)" It's like "Dude, do you realize that stress is actually killing you more than missing that supplement?" There is an element of letting go. I mean, actually, this is why I like ketamine therapy actually, low dose ketamine therapy. And I'm actually trying 10 milligrams a day, every day at the moment. So I'm finding it's working fantastically, actually for reducing stress and finding I'm much more stoic and calm as a result of it. And there are things like for instance, procaine, which also helps with this as well. But it's harder to do procaine IV, than it is to do ketamine subcutaneous, which is nice. So I think, managing stress levels from lifestyle and changing your environment and doing various therapies along the way, in the meantime, is a fantastic approach. And I think, more people should pay attention to this, for sure.

Matthew Blackburn 1:00:31
Totally, yeah, the pattern I noticed on social media and the health communities, that the stress levels, always elevated, maybe going down too many rabbit holes. For me, it's fun, because it's, I'm interested in like researching and earning about mineral balancing and all these things, but it can get to be too much for most people where it's not their profession. And so-

Tim Gray 1:00:57
This is our career. And it's slightly different, I think, and I hate to say professional biohacker or professional health optimizer or whatever. It's slightly different for us, because we're testing out a lot of the forefront things for other people and filtering out what's good or not. So I think it's slightly different for us. And that's not just an excuse to say, it's alright for us to do it - it's not for you, it's really not the case. It's like, really, my career to test out these things to talk about them. And weed out the rubbish.

Matthew Blackburn 1:01:28
Right, I love it. Let's see, Tim, do you want to get into a few of the questions, because we had some listeners send in some interesting ones here?

Tim Gray 1:01:38
Yeah, let's do it. This'll be fun.

Matthew Blackburn 1:01:44
Let's see, "How does he feel about fasting?" Let's start with that one.

Tim Gray 1:01:47
I'm hungry. I like fasting -- I like intermittent fasting, for sure. And I think we, I truly think biohacking and health optimization in itself is using technology to mimic a natural environment in an unnatural world. And so if we're not seeing sunrise sunset, we use red light devices, if we're not getting clean oxygen or not breathing properly, we use hyperbaric oxygen therapy. If we're not getting our shoes off and standing in the grass, we have grounding mats, etc, etc. I think anything that mimics what our ancestors did, is good. And bearing in mind, our ancestors would sit around a campfire, and eat their food at the end of the day, before winding down for an hour or so and then dropping off to sleep without all the fake light around, they would then wake with Sunrise, they would probably not eat for 12 or 14 hours. So I would think that that's a great thing for everyone. Fasting in itself, for a two or three day reset every year. I think that's fantastic. I mean, it really gives the liver a chance to catch back up and recuperate and cleanse the body and the digestive system. I think, I'm a skinny dude, I'm an I'm an ectomorph. I'm not an endo, or a mesomorph. And I think, if we talk about, for instance, Dave Asprey, who's written a book on fasting, and the fasting way and everyone jumps on the fasting bandwagon. The thing is, is one thing I've learned recently is, I respect his work very much a lot of the things that he's done, that he was a big dude, and he needed to lose weight, and he is good at fasting and likes fasting because he needs to keep the weight off. A skinny dude does not need to fast too much. In fact, you end up becoming catabolic, way too much. Because your gut bacteria or liver or whatever it is, don't process nutrients or foods or fats or carbs, the same way that an endomorph does, for instance, and an endomorph being someone that puts on weight very, very easily. And ectomorph being someone that doesn't put on weight very easily at all, and a mesomorph that kind of sits in the middle. And you can see this in bodybuilding world when someone's big and fat, and then they turn into a huge Incredible Hulk very quickly, or a skinny dude that gets super lean and muscley. You can see that the differences. So I think fasting is fantastic for the right person -- selectively. Intermittent fasting should be utilized by everyone and eating in for a man eight to 10 hours for a woman 10 to 12 to 13 hours.

Matthew Blackburn 1:02:10
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, yesterday I was under slept. And it's interesting always noting my stress level want to get less sleep and I think that's related to the liver being able to store less glycogen when you don't get a full night's sleep. So yesterday, I just took more essential amino acid tablets throughout the day, just to kind of even out - cuz I was less hungry, but I wanted to stave off, you know, muscle catabolism and so -- that's kind of my strategy. But yeah, I like that. I've heard women in this pro metabolic community gaining weight the last couple years because there's this kind of Ray Peat kind of pro metabolic message to eat consistently every two to three hours, every day all day forever. And I think yeah, if you lower your stress, if you if you get better sleep, then you don't necessarily need to do that.

Tim Gray 1:05:26
I mean, I love a lot of Ray's work, actually, you know, Peatarians. I'm a big fan of a lot of his work, but some of the things I just really don't agree with. But I mean, it's the same - actually, this is quite funny because it takes me on to a quick point of when someone's been following me for two years, and they go, "I can't believe you think this Tim, I'm unfollowing." It's like, dude, if you're going to expect to follow someone that you agree with 100% of the time, you're not gonna have any accounts left, because everyone has different opinions. And if you only want me to have the same opinion as you, I'm going to be you. So why don't you do your own account? Like, just so dumb, so, I can appreciate people for what they're grateful and disagree on some things respectfully, and I think actually, I have this balance with you. There's a few things where I'm like, not quite sure, dude. Sometimes I learned actually, he was completely right on that one and other things, the jury's still out. And, but I think there's something that's charming about that, because it's like, we can disagree and still be friends and I think that that's great. You posted a, "I don't agree with you so you're a dick." Which, I think this with Ray actually, I really do appreciate a lot of things about his work but somethings but just like -- Nah.

Matthew Blackburn 1:06:38
You're not going to pour white sugar in your milk, or?

Tim Gray 1:06:42
No, I just, I just do an IV instead.

Matthew Blackburn 1:06:46
Yeah, it's a sign of maturity. Absolutely. And yeah, the older I get, just the less energy I had to put into disagreements and I'm just like, Okay, I'll just move on. I'll walk this way. You walk that way. No big deal.

Tim Gray 1:07:03
For sure.

Matthew Blackburn 1:07:05
Someone asked a good question here, "Curious what he knows about biohacking homozygous VDR attack?"

Tim Gray 1:07:17
No, I mean, it's funny, I just kind of went in my head, I went, "What the hell is that?" I have definitely researched it because it's one of my snips. I can't remember off the top of my head. Specifically, to be honest, I have a databank with it but it's not relevant.

Matthew Blackburn 1:07:37
That was actually a question from the Iron protocol, Caitlyn that I had on the show. So it's interesting. But yeah, my friend Tyler Panzner he's like a Selfdecode practitioner, he helps people can analyze their genetics. And I guess there's like multiple vitamin D gene mutations, it's not just - VDR attacks are the most well known and then I think less well known as like DHCR7, but then there's like three or four more that are really important. So it gets complicated really quick with those gene mutations.

Tim Gray 1:08:12
It does, yeah. I remember when it first started getting popular, and I was using forums and Googling things, and just hoping I can find anything and more and more things come up these days for you to dig into but unless I'm actually - it's actually I was saying this with Joe the other week, is that he's like, "Have you got this?" And I was like, "No, because I would know details about it if I did." because I research, self interest and then talk about what works for you. So yes, that's - I don't know enough about that one, to be quite honest, at the top of my head.

Matthew Blackburn 1:08:45
Okay, let's see. "Where on Earth is he living now?"

Tim Gray 1:08:57
That sounds like one of my followers. I spend three months a year in London, and the rest of the time getting the hell out and following the sun and grounding. And I built my life that way. I left an office after 20 years, in various offices in central London for nearly 20 years and decided I wanted to have a flexible approach. So at the moment, I'm in London, but I will be in Croatia again very, very soon.

Matthew Blackburn 1:09:24
That's awesome. You can you can travel more than me, I'm good with like, just going to see my family for birthdays and stuff. But I never want to leave here the little paradise.

Tim Gray 1:09:35
But that's the thing. Do you know what I'm actually very envious of what you feel like it's actually looks like the proper, proper paradise. It's like, it's actually the goal, the dream and I know quite a few biohackers over in Europe that actually say the same. You've got a really good setup there and it's admirable for sure. I think I'm spending half my life optimizing the things that happened to me because of being in London. And being in an environment where you are, it's very, setting you up for the wind. So congratulations, dude on what you built.

Matthew Blackburn 1:10:09
I appreciate it. I mean, it's definitely romantic, I don't show the hard stuff as much. And you know here and there my generator keeps breaking down, actually the generator tech, he was here right when we started the interview, and I'm on my third generator, because, so pretty much my whole house is solar powered. But going into the winter, like now there's, sometimes one to two weeks will just be overcast, and the sun will come out once. And so at that point, I'm reliant on a generator, usually it's 20,000 watts, 20 kilowatts, and it's fed by propane. So that kicks on and runs for four to six hours or whatever and that charges up my battery bank. And that'll get me through the day. But, yeah, it's definitely not for everybody, I think going fully off grids - It can be super stressful, and it has been, I've noticed, like, Okay, I gotta, I didn't take my magnesium today, I'm feeling it because of the stress. But to me, it's worth it. It's just, it's quite the learning experience. I mean, it's like with any technology, stuffs gonna break, which is another argument to go (unintelligible) a lot of the time. But, yeah.

Tim Gray 1:11:30
That's a good set of problems to have. I mean, if they start doing worldwide, or should I say UK power outages for two to four hours a day, like they were talking about, then, there's a energy crisis coming up apparently they're not manufacturing enough electricity, and we can't get enough of it. Someone was telling me last week about it. I think off grid is awesome especially with what's you know, might be coming up in the world? Who knows? You never know what's gonna happen next. But, no, no, it's awesome, you've got an awesome setup. And I'm very lucky to be able to travel nine months in a year. I enjoy being in London for a little while, but then I love getting back out and getting to nature being near the sea.

Tim Gray 1:11:34
For the win, Croatia sounds pretty cool. Is that - is it super rural when you go out there? Or?

Tim Gray 1:12:22
Yeah, yeah, it's like, it's post communist so the culture is still finding its feet again. It's beautiful, like it's not been ruined sea. It's actually very, very high rock coastlines, so when - obviously when the rain hits the rocks, the alkalinity basically means that the sodium and chloride goes into the sea so it's super salty, super salty, so you float very well. And I find that if I have a 15 minute swim every day, I need to hydrate significantly less. And my heart rate variability almost doubles when I'm in Croatia, and I've been swimming every day. So it's a big win for me on that, the coastline is very natural. It's not commercialized everywhere yet, hasn't got a lot of infrastructure yet. If there's some way you can go off the grid, it's pretty easy there. Europe - also got residency there now so I applied for it before Brexit. So I can I can live there -- just in case, pandemics happen again. I'm able to get back over there because of my residency. So I'm very grateful for having my solution. Focused mind, and preparing ahead.

Matthew Blackburn 1:13:31
That's smart, yeah. Have you gone scuba diving there?

Tim Gray 1:13:35
Yeah, I - well actually no, I've done a lot of snorkeling and diving, but not scuba. But there is actually the president of Croatia actually sunk his yacht and it's a big one, so that it became a diving like tourist attraction. And it's like, yeah, it's insane. So if you Google president of Croatians, sunken yacht, you can see it as a diving experience. So I'm really looking forward to doing that one day.

Matthew Blackburn 1:14:01
That's super cool. Yeah, I really miss scuba diving. Before I got into health, or, I think it was while I was fruitarian and heavy experimenting, I worked at a dive shop. And I was opening up tanks and inspecting them got really deep into it. And now that I don't live by the ocean, I just have lakes, but I'm thinking of getting back in and even if it's diving in lakes, you can still look at wreckage and stuff, it's pretty fun.

Tim Gray 1:14:26
Yeah, it always baffles me in what is under the sea that we don't know what's there, like all the crazy stuff that's been sunk for millennia.

Matthew Blackburn 1:14:33
Right?

Tim Gray 1:14:33
So, yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 1:14:35
Mermaids or crypto creatures.

Tim Gray 1:14:40
I think all the crypto creatures have vanished right now.

Matthew Blackburn 1:14:45
I'm getting off this rock. Yeah, they're going somewhere else. "Best way to increase stomach acid?", someone asks.

Tim Gray 1:14:54
Very good question. Number one is reduce stress. Number two is make sure that you're having plenty of salt. Salt obviously turns into hydrochloric acid, which, obviously, is for stomach acid. So a lot of people that are actually stressed often have acid reflux, and I'm sure you are very familiar with the acid reflux issue. Everyone thinks that they need antacids because they're having acid reflux. So they take an antacid to stop the acid, but in fact, all they're doing is they're damaging themselves more because low stomach acid actually causes acid reflux. So people actually start adding salt into their diet, proper salt, not table salt, and reduce stress in their life, maybe even meditation and grounding, then do it, then stomach acid increases significantly. And I think if you've got a history of parasites or gut issues, low stomach acid means that parasites or bacteria from your foods can get into your system easier. So long term stress actually means that people have more parasites and whatnot. So increasing the stomach acid is good in the long term, but not necessarily just taking HCl, as a supplement. Although you can do in the short term, but really, it's better to fix the root cause. So, yeah, hydrate minerals, de-stress. Would you add anything to that?

Matthew Blackburn 1:16:12
No, that's a great, great list - digestive enzymes. Those have been pretty helpful for me, but if I don't take them, I'm okay, it's just, I try to remember to just take just one not a handful, just one with every meal.

Tim Gray 1:16:28
I love the digestive enzymes, I think that's great. And it's good for the digestive process, all in all, to break down the proteins that actually, Biooptimizers talk about how you can get 40% more protein from your current food, just by adding in the right proteolytic or digestive enzymes. So I'm a big fan of them much. And I brought one out under my brand, a couple of years ago, and it's one of our best sellers, actually, but they're really expensive to make. And I think that's the, helps with the second part of digestive process opposed to the stomach acid, that's the first part, the initial, kill everything off and burn it, in the gut before it goes into the digestive process. And I think the enzymes are definitely a good one. Actually, one of my team loves digestive enzymes so much because all of the foods that would affect her and she would get a rash or long term issues with the right digestive enzymes or where that goes and she can add those foods back in. It just shows how her liver is struggling and I think that's probably from Accutane when she was younger, or the contraceptive pill, stressed the liver and it's not quite got over it. It's why the enzymes support that.

Matthew Blackburn 1:17:38
Let's talk about your your supplement brand for a second. Do you have a carnosine supplement? Is that right?

Tim Gray 1:17:46
No, I don't have carnosine actually, I recently brought it and added it to my daily stack.

Matthew Blackburn 1:17:52
Okay, that's what I saw.

Tim Gray 1:17:53
Yeah, I love carnosine actually, it's always resonated with me and especially around there's a heart rate variability test that mitochondrial therapy -- one of our exhibitors from year one, talk about carnosine and how it's good for heart rate variability and heart health, and they do a whole scan. So I supplemented it with it, but it didn't feel like quite enough. And then recently, I read something about carnosine about how amazing it is, and the good for mitochondrial health and upregulating your energy production and whatnot. So I thought I'm gonna try it. So I've actually got my own aminos stack, which is branched chain and essential aminos and creatine and glutamine and taurine and magnesium in one. So it's kind of like the core things that a lot of people that go to the gym, or even vegans can actually use because it's from fermented sweet potato, so it's really bioavailable, is pretty much predigested, it's ready to be in the muscles within minutes. And we put a little bit of Beta-Alanine in there so it gives people just a little tingle, like a nice and mini flush from it. And I find for instance, a session in the gym, I'm significantly better with cardio when I do it, I have more stamina and energy. But we're not as interesting when I give it to vegans or plant based people I know, the aminos they come alive, the energy is significantly different. And I like playing around with it and stacking different things in there and carnosine is the trial of the week and actually I've found it to be such a good hack like such a good addition for me. So it's interesting you raised the carnosine question. What are your thoughts about it? Have you have you played around with it?

Matthew Blackburn 1:19:37
I've been playing around with zinc carnosine, that complex, and considering integrating that into myMitolife brand. But yeah, same experience, I mean, definite increase in sleep quality taking it right before bed. Like you, I wear the Oura ring and put it in airplane mode and I don't wear it all day, I just put it on when I sleep -- just to see. I just don't like having a ring on all day. But yeah, I feel like it's improved my sleep and the amino acid therapy in general, I've been playing with taurine based on a guest I had on the show that was really big fan of taurine supplementation. I just don't take it before bed because it keeps me up, gives me too much energy to take that one. Played around with lysine recently because for a while I was having cold sores coming up. But lysine also does a whole lot of other interesting stuff besides just stave off those - But yeah, doctor, Dr. Minkoff, I read his book, and I've listened to some of his lectures and just using amino acids therapeutically is really incredible and I think overlooked, people don't realize the power of taking isolated amino acid - you can't take essential amino acids but I think it's another level to like, maybe take those plus isolated amino acids too, which is kind of what I'm doing.

Tim Gray 1:21:02
For sure. I mean, they're fantastic things and it's so underrated. I mean, people say protein, and they don't realize that, protein breaks down into peptides, polypeptides, amino acids, and obviously, peptides are stringed amino acids together. And different peptides specifically give different messages to the body to do different things. You know, I'm sure, I'm not teaching you obviously, I'm just saying for the listeners benefit right now. And I think, different peptides tell the body to do different actions. So for instance, BPC-157, that was isolated is for healing, helps healing. And then there's melanotan, which obviously tells the body how to tan so you can have small sun exposure and tan beautifully. So it's basically like, secret little codes, these are all processes the liver creates based on the proteins that we're eating. And if people are deficient in proteins, and therefore they're deficient in amino acids, and these amino acids, the liver can't work to actually make them into the peptides or into the things that actually signal things to do to our body. So like, really amazing little hacks. And that's why people are injecting peptides because they work so well. And I actually think it's part of the future of medicine, peptide therapy, actually. And I'm a big, big fan, I'm playing around with KPV at the moment, which is one for killing off Candida and systemic yeast and things. And it's far more subtle than taking nystatin or any of the anti fungals. And especially for if you've got Candida and had antibiotic therapy, so KPV is a good one. That's just one example of them. There are those deep sleep inducing peptides, which is fantastic, I find that really does help me sleep very well. But the point is, is vegans or vegetarians don't get enough protein. And they say, "Well, I get it from my plants, or I eat chickpeas" or whatever like that, but it's not so bioavailable, the digestive system can't cope with it, and they're not getting enough proteins. And that doesn't mean eating loads and loads and loads of meat just to get the protein and it's like doing the right thing. So that's why, actually our biggest seller is the aminos. We have branched chain, and essentially it's like three, four to one of any other product, just because people feel so good on it, and vegans or recovering vegans - now once they add that in, they then finally get it and they say now I understand why aminos are so important. And it's not necessarily for the muscle building, it's more for the signals for the body to do the right things to repair properly. Hair growth speeds up with it. Skin repair is far better. Mental clarity, obviously aminos and neurotransmitters, it's our basic brain chemistry. And people that can be depressed often are super deficient in amino metabolites, when you check their organic acids test, actually, my ex girlfriend was quite, quite a depressive type sometimes. And when we looked at her organic taxers test, amino metabolites were non existent. And adding in the aminos, all of a sudden becomes a happy bouncy character. It's crazy. People underestimate it and that's why these plant based diets and all these plant based meats and stuff like that just haven't got the aminos or the proteins in to feel good. So it's so so important.

Matthew Blackburn 1:24:20
Yeah, I love that I was vegan vegetarian for at least two thirds of my life, I'd say it was slightly more and thinking about that is kind of scary. Not only amino acids, but zinc, iron, selenium, B vitamins, who knows what I was deficient in for decades. And I don't think you can correct that with the carnivore diet or with whole foods. You need a combination of nutrition and targeted supplements to kind of bounce back -- so. Funny, too, you predicted the next question, which was BPC-157. So someone asked, "Is it safe and how to take it?" I have a few brands the oral BPC, and I haven't felt anything. Some people said it healed their gut in two weeks so that's what inspired me to take it. I haven't noticed anything miraculous. Interesting.

Tim Gray 1:25:18
Actually, it's funny because I had a friend messaged me before COVID, just before COVID and said, "Tim, should I give my girlfriend BPC-157 for her gut?" And like, "What peptides should we be injecting?" And I said, "Okay dude, so if she's still vegan, yes. What else is she doing for her gut health?" "Nothing." So you want to start with peptides, which is the last one to 2% of the journey. You can't out supplement a bad lifestyle. And I understand if you're vegan for ethical reasons, although that is completely debunked, because it's not actually more ethical, or, you're just dealing with a trauma of fear, in my opinion. But I respect if people think that that's the best thing for them, but when it comes to doing these things, you've got to get the right things right. And this is what actually inspired me to do the fundamentals of health. This exact question from this exact person. There's like, if you're not doing the basics, right, why are you supplementing with BPC-157? But to not digress?, I think BPC-157 is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And if it's a good source one, and you can trust injecting something into your, into the area you want. For instance, I damaged my knee where I was a runner, and it started clicking, so I landed on it, in an angle. I did that for way too long. So yeah, to not digress, BPC-157, I think is fantastic. If it is a good source, and you're prepared to inject it into yourself in the area. And as I saying, I damaged my knee from running and landing on it funny for too long. And I injected BPC-157 into it, and I did red light therapy with it and I reversed the pain and the damage. So I could run again within like two or three months of using it. I also landed on my wrist funny and really damaged it and I couldn't move my wrist properly. So I injected it and it's very painful into and around the joint for every day for two weeks, and it reversed it, it's good. Also, when I had my surgery that I mentioned earlier on, I did BPC-157 and red light therapy and hyperbaric, that's what helped heal it in three weeks. So I'm a big, big fan of it, actually. And I think these peptides are fantastic. And more and more of being isolated and brought out.

Matthew Blackburn 1:27:48
Yeah, I think the only one I did a full round on was the Pinealon. Have you tried that one?

Tim Gray 1:27:53
No I haven't, no.

Matthew Blackburn 1:27:54
I wanted to see how many about it - I wanted to see how it affected my melatonin production. I didn't notice any big change in my my sleep. But I just did 20 days of daily injections of that one. And I think I bought them from, I can't remember the website. My friend, Victor, blindbiohacker, he referred me to one company. Like 15 or 20 different peptides and that was just randomly, "Let me try this one." And I was just drawn to the Pinealon.

Tim Gray 1:28:33
I wonder why. It is, I mean, there's also bioregulators these days, which come from Khavinson, Khavinson labs. Actually met him in England recently, but I like the pancreas and I like the liver ones, but you can also get prostate and various other bioregulators and I think they're fantastic as well. So I'd like to do a round of those every few months just to support these things. I mean, it seems to be seems to be working very well. Most of these most of these peptides but I don't want to go overboard with them. I've got very specific things I want to work on for sure

Matthew Blackburn 1:29:19
Might flag the show here but, "How to deactivate the spike protein?"

Tim Gray 1:29:31
No, lets not go there. That's definitely - lets definitely not go there.

Matthew Blackburn 1:29:39
Yeah, I recently had it for the third time and what I did, I was only down and out for three days, maybe four days - max. And it wasn't as intense as the first two times and I didn't even lose my taste. I just put the liquid Methylene Blue in a capsule and took that once a day, and that seemed to really help, as well as just loads asleep. I think one night is slept 11 hours or something.

Tim Gray 1:30:08
Yeah, I had it twice. The first time, I just got achy joints and actually, I did ketamine that night because I was on the way to a party and I was at the house, there was like, 15 of us so I did ketamine. Anyway, apparently, ketamine works very well, as well.

Tim Gray 1:30:22
So yeah, I got absolutely ridiculously high on ketamine. And it was with - I was actually with a neuroscientist at the, at the time, who has been researching it for a long time. So I was in a valid setting in a safe space, and it was great. And I just had a sore throat for two days, it was pretty, pretty brutal. And then the second time I had it, I just got IV, very, very quickly, 30 grams of vitamin C. Actually, like the moment I realized is like, that's it, I gotta get someone out now. So I did the 30 grams of vitamin C, I did (unintelligible) and hydroxyl. I'm not gonna say them for trigger reasons. And, and smash that and basically 24 hours was fine. So, yeah, there are ways of mitigating it moving on quickly but I think the people that I know, that have had the minimal reactions from it generally do the most things for their day to day life anyway. And there is the odd occasional person everyone knows, someone's uncles, cousins, brother, that was young, fit and healthy, that got hit hard with it, or whatever. But I think, it's about minimizing risk and not focusing on the exceptions, focusing on the rule. And I think, doing the things that we all do and talk about our - the best ways for the long term for sure.

Matthew Blackburn 1:30:22
Wow.

Matthew Blackburn 1:31:38
Yeah, I was talking to a guy on the phone last night about it and I was telling them, I've read -- some of the books I'm reading on on vitamins that vitamin E, and vitamin K2, I know zinc, as far as minerals, and there's a whole whole list; But those requirements go way up when you have it, or they get used up in the process of your body trying to clear it. And it makes sense to me. So I definitely upped my dose of vitamin E and K2, everything, B vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin A, all the vitamins. And notice definitely, definitely an increase in my energy.

Tim Gray 1:32:20
I actually, it's funny, you mentioned vitamin K, it's the second or third time you mentioned it today. It's actually one of my favorite things I think of all. I think everyone should be supplementing it. I like Life Extension Super K, personally, I really like that ratio. But there are other ones out there. I know your your views, and mine on vitamin D differ slightly.

Matthew Blackburn 1:32:44
I've opened up to it, actually. Yeah, I mean, I tested mine was pretty good. So because I thought I had a mutation that I wasn't making it. But, I think I'm good. But I think people do, sometimes. Some people cannot make vitamin D from the sun, which they have to supplement. And I've completely opened up to that recently.

Tim Gray 1:33:00
I mean, my viewpoint was why supplement if you can get it from the sun, but the the highest rate of prostate cancer in the world is in northern hemisphere for black people. And that's because they're just not getting enough sunlight, not enough vitamin D. And funnily enough, is when they start using vitamin D, the rate of cancer comes down significantly, obviously, within certain levels, calcification issues and whatnot, if the right vitamin K isn't with it, causes various issues. And I do think if it stops people from getting cancer and brings down the rates, there's an overall win. But there is a consideration of how high do you go, and does everyone use it, and is that actually going to be a poison long term for them? So, actually, I brought out a vitamin K and vitamin D stack synergistic dose. One drop is 800 IU, so it's quite, quite low. And after surgery, for instance, dental surgery, I had a ceramic implant, I went up to 30,000 IU's a day, five days - sky high, but for bone cleaning protocol and that's what the synergistic level of vitamin K actually. Obviously, vitamin K moves calcium around vitamin K - Vitamin D moves calcium around, sorry, vitamin K tells it where to go. And I think in the bone healing protocol, is fantastic stuff. If you're deficient in vitamin D, and you're getting sick, it's fantastic. But otherwise, avoid it. Avoid it the best you can.

Matthew Blackburn 1:34:30
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I recently had my first fillings that - I so much candy growing up, every Halloween I had the pillowcase that I brought with me with my friends and that sometimes get two pillowcases of candy, I'd eat it all. I mean, it takes me a few months, but -- I don't know how long I had cavities, but I went until a few months ago before I ever got any fillings ever in my life which is I think - even though I was mostly being a vegetarian, I must have been supplementing correctly.

Tim Gray 1:35:04
I wish I could say the same, dude. Massive dental history, like I must have spent, 50 - 60k on dental health actually over the years. I'm not joking, I've had sinus lift, ceramic implants. So actually, I got to know, Dr. Dom Nischwitz actually, if you ever want to talk about mercury, or our health starts in the mouth, but it's a dominant niche, which he's a good friend of mine. I got to know him through the conference and he's the world's leading biological dentist, like literally amazing. I had a lot of work done with him actually, nowadays, and it's really, it's crazy how much work I've had to do. But since I've optimized my minerals, and like up, and water intake, I haven't had anything since - touch wood, seems to be great but before that was forming cavities and whatnot left, right and center.

Matthew Blackburn 1:35:57
After dental work, did you notice your highly sensitive CRP go down?

Tim Gray 1:36:06
My CRP I do probably four or five times a year, actually. And it's always crazy low - actually, it's always just right. And I but the thing is, is I think some of my dental issues have been such chronic issues. And I had four cavitations, where my wisdom teeth were - CRP doesn't necessarily get affected when it's long term things. So it comes back down again. But when it's short term, or medium term things, and the CRP gets affected, so chronic things don't necessarily get picked up by that. So it's always been super low. Except for once, once it went from 0.12 - 0.89, which is when I had an infection from the operation - had to+ get in quick, it's pretty, pretty crazy.

Matthew Blackburn 1:36:57
Wow, yeah, mine was stuck at 10 for like six years and I don't, I thought that was because of dental infection or gum inflammation. So I wonder, but after I got my fillings, it went all the way down to like less than 0.5. So interesting.

Tim Gray 1:37:16
Yeah. Awesome. SCRP is a really great test. I think, actually, it's something that is definitely worth doing on a regular basis, for sure.

Matthew Blackburn 1:37:23
Yeah. And for those that don't know, it's an inflammatory marker, one of the big ones. I found a really great YouTube lecture about it and they were talking about how it's directly correlated with or connected to heart disease. If you have chronic elevated CRP, you have a way increased chance for cardiovascular disease, add a lot of other stuff.

Tim Gray 1:37:46
Yeah, it's and it's widely accepted everywhere. I mean, pretty much standard test with all doctors these days.

Matthew Blackburn 1:37:52
Right. Let's just do a few more, Tim. "Favorite health gadget used at home?"

Tim Gray 1:37:58
Great question. Wow. Oura ring but I mean, that's an that's an obvious one. BrainTap, I like BrainTap device, very much. The flashing lights and the sounds, and the, almost NLP style hypnosis that they do. One thing in one ear, and one thing in another with the flashing lights. I was getting into alpha state and very quickly, actually, it was just fantastic. And so I have, I'm awake, but I'm dreaming, especially when I'm in the hyperbaric chamber, actually stacking the two is just insane. So yeah, I'm a really real fan of BrainTap. But I mean, I have 200 different devices to test out at any one time. I like also, the other one, I actually I use probably the most out of everything is actually the AiroFit. AiroFit, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's a respiratory training device. So it links to the app, you breathe in and breathe out different speeds and patterns and it strengthens your lungs and helps your lung capacity as well. So it's almost like quantifying your breath work improvements to like hold you on the out breath for like 10 seconds and you have to keep on going and then you'll hold for 10 seconds. And you can see it plot on a chart and then you can see how your respiratory strength and lung capacity improves over time. So it's like almost like quantifying Wim Hof breath work. So I love that really really really good device. I travel everywhere with it that literally it goes everywhere with me.

Matthew Blackburn 1:39:37
Wow. Yeah, it's funny in the hyperbaric you have a chance to -- like you said, you use the the BrainTap, I use the new Palm and that's what I've been doing for years. And I put like the CHI Palm device on my thymus, like my chest. And that's what I've been doing for the last couple of years but I think about like Mind Alive device which is kind of similar to Brain Tap, I guess -- maybe a cheaper version without sound. But yeah, you're just laying in there so you have a lot to experiment with.

Tim Gray 1:40:12
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I love that. I mean, I'm very productive in the hyperbaric chamber. Actually, I built, actually built a business in a hyperbaric chamber with sticking Post-it notes on the inside of the perspex and working for an hour, an hour and a half of time. Yeah, I love those things.

Matthew Blackburn 1:40:29
Yeah, yeah. It took me a while to learn that you have to have the mask on, I think Scott told me that, that you get much more of a benefit, because most of my sessions are without the oxygen mask. So I was just breathing the ambient. But he was saying it's a way different effect when you're having it on you.

Tim Gray 1:40:47
Yeah, yeah. So if you have, these are approximate, if you have oxygen mask without the hyperbaric you get up to 3% more oxygen. So it's only a little gain, I think this is correct. Whereas when you're in a hyperbaric chamber, you can have up to 15 times more oxygen on the cellular level. So if you're in a hyperbaric chamber, yes, the ambient air that you're breathing is, around 21 - 23%, oxygen, I think, versus 99.9% oxygen. So you probably got three times the amount of oxygen in a hyperbaric chamber, without the mask and (unintelligible). I think those are very close to the stats, but I'm doing it from memory. So yeah, so there is a big difference between it. So when people, sick, go in the chamber at a conference and say, "Oh, I can feel the difference." when they haven't got a mask on, but they're in a hyperbaric chamber and like, you know, placebo, they just feel the pressure a little bit. But it definitely does have some benefit, but nowhere near than if you put the mask on, for sure.

Matthew Blackburn 1:41:55
Yeah. Did you ever try like exercise with oxygen at home and do that consistently?

Tim Gray 1:42:02
No, no, I haven't actually. I just like a hyperbaric chamber and chill out. Chill out in it for a while. It's almost like a deprivation tank for me.

Matthew Blackburn 1:42:13
Right, right. Yeah, I tried the (unintelligible) recently and didn't feel much, I think I'm gonna stop and just, I feel a lot better. You know, I live in the perfect spot to go on a walk even though it's 30 degrees Fahrenheit now. After breakfast, it feels so good, just going on a short walk. And I think that's, that's more of a benefit than strapping a mask on and breathing a bag of oxygen.

Tim Gray 1:42:39
How far do we go? I mean, the funny thing is, if people listen to this and thinking these guys are crazy, or how much stuff and they do, it's mad. The thing is, is like, with Ben Greenfield, some people said to me at the conference, "Wow, he just like, does so much, it's insane." But the thing is, in every space, everywhere in the world, you always have to have the people that are past the edge people that are always pushing the boundaries and the extreme ones because, if we don't know what is possible, other people can't get even 1% towards it. So I think, it can be an addiction, it definitely can be an addiction, and I think, biohacking or health optimization or Quantified self or whichever label you want to give it. It's like, for me, it's like sex. Okay. Sex is for reproducing. But it's great fun to. Biohacking is for my health, but it's great fun too, and I do it for both reasons. I also have it as my career as well. But, but the point is, it can be for fun, and it can be for health. And if you, like people that go to the gym, they say I just feel great from it, and I'm healthy from it, and I'm addicted to it. This is famous because the same as why I have been testing all these things, and enjoying these supplements and seeing how your body performs differently. So I think it's a really, really interesting, important point to hold on to, for people that are thinking, maybe these guys are a bit extreme. You got to have people like us testing this stuff out.

Matthew Blackburn 1:44:12
Definitely. And I'm sure you've had the same experience, Tim, before you got into this of just being around apathetic people -- that just don't care what they put into their body. They don't even question it. They don't care. And all the retail jobs I used to work at, my first job was like a pet store and then it was blockbuster. It was like a sporting goods store and just all these environments where all my co workers are just drinking and eating sludge and just totally - not even being apathetic, but being proud of it and making fun of health stuff. That that was part of my inspiration too, just seeing that over the years, especially teachers working with young impressionable children, setting bad examples. By just ingesting sludge and just being overweight or whatever it is.

Tim Gray 1:45:09
Well, you remember I said about my - I left my company after many years and my previous company, it's because I walked in one day, and it was a birthday party and they were drinking Coke and drinking alcohol and eating birthday cake with a thick layer of icing on the top, like there were bags of crisps everywhere. And some people smoking outside the window and stuff, and it was my company. And they're all 10 - 15 years younger than me, but I was just like, this isn't my environment right now. And this, this is affecting me even though I'm not partaking in crisps and coke and all that crap. It's - I was just like, this isn't for me and this is only reinforcing more who I want to be. And actually, I sold it and got out within a month. I sold to the other shareholders and got out, just because I just, again, as Dave says, "Biohacking is optimizing the environment inside of you, and outside of you to take control of your biology." Well, the environment includes the people, your work, the foods, everything. And if the waiter puts down the plate of bread, for you to snack on, while your main course is coming, most people actually pick that bread up, and it's like, if it's there, you're going to be tempted. If it's not there, you're not going to be tempted, and you have to go through a lot more effort to have it. So I think, this is why the environment is so important and eradicating these things.

Matthew Blackburn 1:46:35
I love it. Well, hopefully it's sourdough, because then I get down.

Tim Gray 1:46:41
That's the exception. That's definitely the exception, for sure.

Matthew Blackburn 1:46:46
Tim, this was awesome. What's the name your supplement companies so people could check that out?

Tim Gray 1:46:51
Health Optimization Supps. Very easy. And then obviously, the Health Optimization Summit is the conference that I do every year.

Matthew Blackburn 1:47:02
I love it. Yeah, well, I think you're doing great stuff. And yeah, it's really fun to watch your recent supermarket reels that you've been doing. You're wearing - you're wearing a shirt. I used to - funny story, I used to troll the supplement section in some of the stores around me and I stopped because they they started to catch on and they were like, "Why are you trolling us?" I was like pointing out the different supplements and stuff.

Tim Gray 1:47:38
I got kicked out of several recently, except when I'm in Spain, and they don't know what we're talking about. It's fine, I can film everything. But as soon as I'm in England, they're like, literally taking us out and watching to make sure we're not coming back in. So last time, actually, it was quite funny because I ran back in, I brought the products that we were going to critique. And then I stood outside on the street walk where it isn't owned by them, and filmed with their logo in the back, and there was nothing they could do about it. It's very good fun filming these things. Actually, I enjoy it very much, now.

Matthew Blackburn 1:48:10
That's incredible. That's awesome. Well, Tim, this was awesome, Health Optimization Summit, and then Help Optimization Supps. I'll put the links below where you guys can check out that stuff. And @timbiohacker on Instagram. Oh, and what about your, you said you have like a little Academy thing?

Tim Gray 1:48:30
Yeah, it's just I mean, it's the Health Optimization course so it's just the fundamentals of health, the basic things that we discussed through today. Yeah, hydration, sleep, sunlight, grounding, breathing, exercise, oral and dental optimization community. And it's basically 10 days of that. So that's if you go to healthoptimisation.com with an S not a Z, because we're British, and we're awkward like that. It will show you the conference dates and the supplements and the course and things like that if you want. But I mean, I don't care, if you follow me on Instagram and just check out the free continent and I'll be very happy to be honest.

Matthew Blackburn 1:49:10
I love it. Awesome, Tim, well, this was so much fun. And yeah, stick around as we close out the show. Thanks so much.

Tim Gray 1:49:18
Thanks, Matt.

Matthew Blackburn 1:49:24
I really love hosting this podcast because I get to go down so many rabbit holes after I interview people. So Tim really piqued my interest in Dr. Andrew Cutler, and his protocol and EDTA which I heard about over a decade ago. Ethylenediaminetetraacetic, it's a really long crazy name. It's a synthetic toxic metal chelater, but it's nondiscriminatory so it will actually chelate our good minerals as well. And so that's where the controversy comes in, of, maybe it's not safe because it's also ripping away essential minerals like magnesium and calcium. So after this interview, I went and bought a few, Andrew Cutler books. I'm gonna start diving in, I've never had mercury fillings, fortunately. But there's jabs that I got when I went to private university, I got the Tdap. And there's high fructose corn syrup, which is often a source of mercury, we're really getting hit from all angles. I've been listening to a lot of Dr. Gary Gordon, and actually prefer his written work more than the interviews. But in one of the many podcasts I listened to with him recently, he said that these contaminants are airborne. And I think people forget that, you know, the tic-tac-toe in the sky, the geoengineering, so called. Today, they were just spraying nonstop right above my house. And then you stack that with industry and these factories pumping out these pollutants, transportation, freight trucks, trains, boats, I mean, you just add it all up, and tons of material, literally, millions of tons are getting kicked up every year into our atmosphere, and what comes up must come down and it comes down on us and we inhale it, and it goes from the lungs, all throughout our system, and it gets lodged in tissues. And it does cause nutrient deficiencies, which is why I own a supplement company is because we must supplement in today's world. It's not enough to try to counter these things just with food, you need concentrates to counter the concentrates that we're mainlining in our lungs every single day, no matter where you live on planet Earth. So I'm going to look into that Metabolomics test that Tim likes from Genova. I have one Genova ion panel here, it's a urine blood test. But that's very impractical, because I'm just about an hour away from the nearest blood draw location. And so that's been kind of a hard one to do because it's, first mornings urine, and then a fasted blood drawn, I really don't like skipping breakfast. To me, that is the most important meal of my day. It's funny actually have a big crate of tests that I have to do, I found really interesting, mitochondrial function tests that use a mouth swab, so I'm going to be doing that very soon. So I'll put the links below where you can check out Tim's work and his supplements. The website is healthoptimisation.com. And if you want to check out my website, you can find that at matt-blackburn.com. I have my CLF protocol up there, you'll see a new tab called Podcasts, and so far, there's only a few up there, but the guys are working hard behind the scenes to transcribe my shows - so, write them out in text form. So that's pretty cool, hopefully, it'll help the message go further. If you click shop, you can look at all of my recommended products that I use and love. I actually just added a few to the website, both from the same company GETJO there's the Mood Daily, which is like a mood lift supplement, and Resistant Starch, which is really good for SIBO actually, but also any gut distress. It's a really great additive to smoothies, if you're dealing with gut issues. Oh, and one other one I added was the Spooky2 Rife machine. This is something I'll be talking a lot more about actually going to have a whole show on it. I've been using this for years, and the remote one, exclusively. And it's been incredible. It's really blown my mind how effective this really cheap devices is, I mean, $166 currently, for the Remote Setup is ridiculous for what it does. The software is free, there's no subscription model. It's incredible what these people are doing. So I'll be talking about that on my Mitolife Academy, probably first - that's kind of where you get first dibs on my new thoughts on things and behind the scenes stuff. And that's available on YouTube. It's called the Mitolife Academy and my brand is Mitolife. You can find that at mitolife.co. If you use the code BlackFriday, you'll save 20%. If you've been waiting on the vitamin K2 supplement called Purely K, there is a chance that it will be in stock by Black Friday. If it's not, by Friday, then look out for a Cyber Monday sale and it will definitely be back then. And I'm going to work on some vitamin C protocols, ascorbic acid protocols, been really meditating on that supplement and how powerful it is and how misused it is. So most people just take vitamin C once a day, and they barely get any benefit because it's a water soluble vitamin. And to keep your plasma ascorbate elevated, you need to take it consistently, it doesn't need to be every hour. Although if you're dealing with a chronic infection, it's probably a good idea, that's what I would do anyway, even every 15 minutes based on severity of symptoms, but just for overall resistance to psychological stress, emotional stress, EMFs; Vitamin C is so underrated for those I take two every hour when I remember. And I find it's a digestive aid, it improves my mood because it does affect the conversion of catecholamines. It just does so many more things. It's not an antioxidant. It's so much more than that. So I'll be writing articles on ascorbic acid very soon. So that's it. I will see you guys on next Friday's show and stay supercharged.