Charlie Robinson (00:02.304) Well, I'm excited to talk to Sean Wells about a variety of things, not the least of which is that I've never had anybody on who's got the coolest title in the world, ingredientologist. Can we talk about a little bit about how you go from where you began to a world in which you are allowed to call yourself with pride an ingredientologist? Shawn Wells (00:27.79) Sure, I mean that's a scientist of ingredients, right? And I am known in the supplement world as the supplement guy. I'm a biochemist, I'm a registered dietician, I'm a certified sports nutritionist, I'm a fellow in the International Society of Sports Nutrition. I have formulated over 1200 supplements. I have patented 40 unique ingredients, things like... Tecreen, Dynamine, Paroxanthine, Dilucine, Dihydroverbarine, Exogenous Ketones. The list goes on and on. I have a best-selling biohacking book called The Energy Formula. And I speak on stage all over the world about supplements, about psychedelics, about peptides, and really any compounds that are potentially moving. productivity and longevity forward. Charlie Robinson (01:25.792) It's interesting that you mentioned psychedelics because when I was in college, the first time I ever tried mushrooms, I remember in the aftermath of that, having a conversation with my mother, I could have conversations with her about crazy things like that and it was kind of a benefit of the nice relationship I had, but I said to her, I don't know what it is, but I feel different in the after, in the after. of the mushroom trips, I feel better actually. I don't mean that in a bad way. I just feel a little bit, I don't know, a little bit more alert and sharp. And then 20 years or so go by and I find this article talking about how psilocybin tests were shown to reconnect neural pathways that had been disconnected over time. And I sent that to, I said, see, this is what I'm talking about. I mean, I know it's tempting to say, you guys are just twirling in the... parking lot of a Grateful Dead concert. Yeah, for sure. There's some of that, I know, but there's also these unusual benefits that go along with that. What have you found in your research over the years about the role of psychedelics? It's interesting that you're into psychedelics and biohacking. Some people might think those are totally different things, but I find that they go quite well together. So what have you discovered? Shawn Wells (02:47.064) they go very well together. Actually, that's what I talk about. One, it's very much a part of my story. I was fighting depression and suicidal thoughts. if it wasn't for psychedelic experience, in particular psilocybin, I believe I wouldn't be on this call with you today and doing this podcast. Like I wouldn't be here. So it very much is something that's near and dear to my heart. And I decided to apply my Charlie Robinson (03:08.606) and get it. Shawn Wells (03:17.442) biochemistry knowledge to this area and bring some scientific legitimacy as well as my story to it, instead of it just being some kind of woo quantum side of things like you're saying where people are just writing it off. The science around it are several mechanisms. We see increased ketone utilization to the brain, so an increased brain energetics. We see reduced neuroinflammation. we see increased neuroplasticity via a protein called BDNF as well as NGF and mTOR. So that means neuroplasticity means your brain's ability to learn new ideas. And as you were talking about those synaptic functions as well as connections like with areas of the brain that maybe haven't made those connections in a long time, if ever. You also see decreased default mode network, which is about the ego being online. Default mode network is about your identity and the ego. And that's tied into, believe it or not, a lot of your body's physiology. And so when you suppress default mode network, when you suppress the ego, when you suppress identity, then you're essentially open to Truth, you are in a state of truth. Ego is very powerful and we're constantly reframing and establishing what our identity is. And that can be done in a NLP, like Neurolinguistics Programming reframing way that actually can benefit you quite powerfully. And obviously it can be done in the nocebo negative way where we're reframing things like, this always happens to me. I guess I'm just screwed. And you know, all that kind of mentality, which actually affects your physiology, right? And when you're in this state of truth, there is no identity, there is no ego. And you're just left with what is. And now from here, with that neuroplasticity, and by the way, all of your neurotransmitters are turned up. Shawn Wells (05:40.568) We've found in depression, it's not just serotonin. That theory is actually very flawed. Multiple meta-analyses have shown that the serotonin theory is very flawed when it comes to depression. That's why most people don't get much benefits from SSRIs or SNRIs. It's all of the neurotransmitters are actually turned down because you're depressed and your body wants to experience less. We also see that your senses are actually turned down. And in psychedelics, your senses are turned up. You have better hearing, better eyesight. And all of these neurotransmitters like acetylcholine and dopamine and serotonin and endorphins and epinephrine, norepinephrine, all of these things are turned up. So you're feeling a lot. So now you're processing things that you've swept under the rug for a long time. You're in your truth, you're neuroplastic. You're able to, instead of following the example that's always given is you're skiing down the slope and you're always following the same ski tracks. What psychedelics can do is throw fresh powder over that ski tracks. So now it's just a wide open slope and you can find the best way down the mountain instead of the lowest energy way down the mountain that your brain kind of defaults to. And so you can create a whole new you in psychedelics. You can rewrite and access that operating system in a way that's very special. And you don't have to just do like these high dose journeys. We're also finding that it's very effective in repeated micro doses as well. So you can kind of micro dose your way there or kind of journey your way there in a larger dose. Either way, we're finding incredible benefits. Charlie Robinson (07:38.537) Well, I'm taking the supplements provided by our mutual friend, Adam Schell over at brain Supreme. I've got the athlete, I've got the genius, I've got the black stack. Right. And so it just sort of depends on what I'm doing. If I'm going to the gym, obviously I'm going to take the athlete, but, and I, I tried to be, you know, I tried to kind of use my own little experiment. Like, is this really working? Am I just, you know, am I just making it work for, you know, and I, I And the reason why I knew it worked was because I took a couple of the athletes in the morning right before I was going to the gym, about 30 minutes before. And then I wound up at the gym and I forgot that I took them and then wound up going through this really long workout. And at the end I was like, I should have been done like 30 minutes ago. I just kept going and going and going. And on the drive home, went, I forgot, I took the pills. forgot. So I kind of convinced myself by accidentally forgetting about it, it opened me up to being a little bit more objective and I realized, yeah, I sort of got into this flow state, which was nice and I wasn't expecting it. so I'm now starting to really appreciate the micro dosing component to this. mean, don't get me wrong, I love a good heavy dose where you're trying to figure out the meaning of life, right? But on a day-to-day basis, if that can impact and improve the neuro pathways in my mind on a heavy dose, what about a very small dose throughout the day, throughout the week, or a couple of times per week? So what have you found with the results of this microdosing? I know it got kind of popular for a while and I... Shawn Wells (09:02.295) is. Charlie Robinson (09:19.742) And I hope that it wasn't just internet people saying, this is a covert way to get high during the day. But I was I'm really hoping that people with serious backgrounds can come out and say, no, this is a really beneficial way to treat your mind and to work things out. So what have you found about the micro dosing component of it? Shawn Wells (09:37.792) Yeah, microdosing is what, that means typically is that you're taking one 10th the kind of normal dose. So in terms of what we would say for psilocybin, we're talking about something like 75 to 150 milligrams of the mushroom. So, you know, this is supposed to be sub perceptual, meaning that you're You don't feel altered. You don't feel like you're experiencing a journey. You really shouldn't when some people talk about microdosing and they're saying, things are brighter and you know, all that kind of stuff, like things are more colorful. I feel like more happy. That's actually perceptual. So that's kind of on the larger side of the microdosing equation. And then there's maybe even like a mini dose that's like 500 milligrams. that maybe people might use recreationally. But this is a dose that you could take consistently. Typically, we're looking at three days a week, four days a week, sometimes five days a week across a series of weeks. Maybe it's six weeks, eight weeks, something like that. And you're potentially also taking other things that can help with neuroplasticity and rewiring. Niacin is often used because that increases NAD levels. It increases blood flow to these areas of the brain cerebrovascularly. And then also things like Lyon's Mane, which improves neuroplasticity. There's other compounds that I actually like that are even more powerful than Lyon's Mane, one called 7-8-dihydroxyflavone. I know that's a mouthful. Believe it or not, there's even a metabolite that's even more of a mouthful that's even more powerful called 4-dimethylamino-78-dihydroxyflavon. I know that's a lot. But if you go to like a place like Neutropics Depot, you can buy both of them. And Neutropics Depot actually sells on Amazon as well. But these are neuroplasticity agents increasing that brain-derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF. Shawn Wells (12:01.835) And so it's going to work synergistically with the microdosed psilocybin. That's going to not only improve that neuroplasticity and kind of reduce that default mode network and help you be present more, but it's going to be anxiolytic as well, meaning that it's going to reduce anxiety, help you be more present, which is quite powerful. Charlie Robinson (12:28.552) Yeah, absolutely. I'm always interested to talk to people who are in this line of work because inevitably there's a story behind how you got here. And it usually involves, I was sick. I was dying. I was at the end and I found something or somebody popped into my life or I wound up trying some something that that changed the way I looked at things and I wound up regaining my health. And not only that, I then made it my life's mission to make sure that I could make other people healthy. We know a few of those people. Do you have a similar story? I'm assuming that that that that for somebody to be as passionate as you are about this and to have this be their life's mission that there's something that happened along the way that sent Shawn Wells (13:06.466) Yeah. Charlie Robinson (13:14.178) you on into a new orbit and here we are. Shawn Wells (13:17.805) 100%. I was, it's absolutely like hero's journey, wounded healer, like a lot of the stories that you hear. And that is where the passion comes from. Like passion, you know, leads to purpose, but it's got to come from somewhere. And a lot of us that have, you know, been through these trials and tribulations, like it's quite powerful. It's the whole reason that we're so driven. And for me, I came from a very difficult childhood where Things were difficult at home as well as at school. I was dealing with abuse and bullying. And it led to me being a junk food junkie. It led to me being morbidly obese and severely depressed and having extremely low self-esteem. And like I said, at later points, even leading to me questioning whether I should maintain my life on this planet. And there also was a number of health issues along the way because I think no one was more abusive to me than myself. I was quite abusive, quite difficult on myself. And while I did well academically, it was only through severe self abuse, like just telling myself that I was never good enough. And that, you know, that was... A ton of immune issues. had Epstein-Barr fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, Hashimoto's. I was in bed for six months and literally could not get out of bed. And that led me down a path of saying, okay, if I'm going to be here, I am going to work on diets, exercise, supplements, and try and crack this code. And absolutely that was the game changer for me is just going down the path. In particular, I did keto, intermittent fasting and extended fasting, paleo. I looked into a lot of immune supplements. I started moving my body and exercising and that all led to the passion that you're seeing right now. Charlie Robinson (15:35.426) Yeah, it's always something like that. You know, it's always something that really has to put a foot up your ass and get you going in that direction. then it's self-reinforcing. It's a feedback loop. You feel good. You're in the right direction. You're going there. You're making progress. then just in the same way it cascades on the down slope, it also can help on the way up. You start to notice these little improvements and it inspires you to keep going. Shawn Wells (16:02.061) and I'll at the end of the talk. Charlie Robinson (16:05.599) So you go about, but what, do you have a science background? I mean, this turn you, were you interested in science or did this kind of pivot in your life and you say, no, I need to focus. I need to learn everything there is to know about health and wellness and molecules. You mentioned you were academically inclined, but were you academically inclined in terms of chemistry or was this the catalyst that got you interested in these topics? Shawn Wells (16:35.593) It was the catalyst. I was in school. I was at the top business specialty school in the country called Babson College and I was doing quite well. was magna cum laude and cruising along and just believing like that's what I should do with my life because that's what everyone told me to do is just do business. And then when I started stumbling into supplements and getting my health back and getting my body in shape and feeling completely different. I ended up talking to a physician in between my sophomore and junior year at Babson. And I was telling him all about my dreams of potentially becoming a supplement formulator. And this could be really cool. And he drew out a lifeline for me and said, why not be happy between here and here? And his words shifted my whole life path. Like he basically told me that what you're dreaming of is possible and not only is it possible, you should go pursue your passion. And I owe, I owe like my whole career. Like I'm considered the best at what I do really because of someone's words that were seemingly random at the time. Charlie Robinson (17:50.847) Wow. When were you at Babson? Shawn Wells (17:55.981) 92 to 96. Charlie Robinson (18:00.276) Any chance in hell you know a guy named Sandy Corazine? Cause I- friend of mine f- Shawn Wells (18:04.564) That does sound familiar, yeah. Charlie Robinson (18:07.903) We played baseball together. He might have been a little older, but he's the only guy I know that went to Babson. We've stayed friends over the years. Which is fine. You never know. I I went to school and I did the thing that everyone does, which is you go to school and you're like, what are you going to do? Well, I'm going to be in business. I want to be a business major. OK, and then what are you going to do? like, don't really know. It's sort of winging it, right? And by the time I came out of college, I really was like, I don't know that I even really want to start in the business world immediately. I'd kind of like to have a little time to see what else is out there and see what I want to do. When you wrapped up with college, did you have a pretty clear idea of what you were going to do? I mean, was this like, boom, I'm doing it and this is the path? Or was it a bit of a zigzaggy road to get here? Shawn Wells (19:01.216) When I wrapped up with college, my undergrad, I did finish up my undergrad in business and actually got a minor in chemistry, but then I went back to school to get all the undergrad or sorry, the post-grad work that I needed to get into my master's program at Chapel Hill. And I had to do two straight years of, I think it was like 28 credits, like a semester. It was a lot and labs and it was. going through the winter and the summer classes just to get almost like a full degree to get into my masters of all the prereqs. And I did get into Chapel Hill and that's where I studied nutrition and biochemistry and exercise, sports science. And I became a registered dietitian as well as a biochemist. Charlie Robinson (19:52.245) Did you work with athletes at UNC? Shawn Wells (19:56.311) I did, I did. And I also worked with the School of Public Health. I worked with med school. It was really an incredible opportunity when you're at a school that size that has resources like that. I worked with Duke Medicine as well and Wake Forest and it was really a cool experience. yeah. Charlie Robinson (20:18.174) Yeah, that's cool. I spent a lot of time with pro athletes over the years. And there's a facility called the IMG Academies in Bradenton. Bradenton, are you ready? Yeah. Shawn Wells (20:30.475) yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Charlie Robinson (20:33.73) Um, I opened a division of our company there in 2003. were the media training component of that Academy for many years. so, so we'd, we'd, we'd have the, the pro guys and some of the amateurs too would come through and they'd get the sports psychology guys, you know, they'd be in that office with the, it mental conditioning, which I always thought sounded a lot like brainwashing, but you that was there. So they'd have the mental and then they'd, they'd come to us for the media training. Then they'd have the nutrition guys. And then they, know, you'd, you'd be able to see them out. working out. so yeah, I spent a lot of time. I'm curious, then, have you have you looked into at all, or heard them talking about what's going on with the San Francisco 49ers practice facility that happens to be right next to a massive EMF station in Santa Clara? Have you what do you what are your thoughts on the well on the EMF as possibly a contributing factor to injuries? Shawn Wells (21:30.19) I mean, their injuries are market like several fold higher, not percentages higher, several fold. And at that point, when you're 300 % higher than every other team in the NFL, you have to question what's happening there. And I think having that exposure to the EMF at the degree to which they have it, this isn't just kind of normal levels of EMF that we're all experiencing in the world right now due to wifi and Bluetooth and 5g. And, know, this is like, again, orders of magnitude different that these, NFL athletes are experiencing. And it does seem to be having an effect on, I believe at the, at the mitochondrial and cellular level, leading to a greater injury, leading to endocrine disruption, leading to hormonal disruption. So that is a legitimate concern. mean, the data is like so powerful. You would question, you might like say like, maybe we should look at this if it's like 20 % higher, right? I would, that like, let's maybe let's look at this. This could be a contributing factor. It's interesting. There's some kind of correlation there. It's statistically significant. But when something's like, Charlie Robinson (22:44.61) Yeah. Shawn Wells (22:57.294) 3x higher like compared to every other team 30 plus teams in the NFL At that point I would literally stop I would not I would close down that facility and say they're practicing somewhere else until we can get further data and really understand this and studies that we have Even with antioxidants originally we believe the antioxidants at all times were health but in cases of cancer, maybe even undiagnosed cancer, it's protecting cancer cells, and that is not ideal. So there's certain studies where they were giving high dose antioxidants, and people were developing more cancer in these older populations, and they'd have to stop the studies and say, what's going on here? And so this is the same thing. We're talking about elite, highly trained athletes that have access to the best diets, the best trainers, the best equipment, et cetera. know like my nephew is the star D1 athlete for Kentucky baseball right now as a sophomore. And the things he has access to is wild to me. He's leading the teams and batting average and home runs and all of this, but like he gets... know, steak and lobster every night. They're on private jets. They're like getting like crazy trainers and nutritionists and like equipment that's like, you know, the same thing that NFL athletes are using. So, I mean, these guys have it all. And definitely there is something to question here and I'm upset that it's not a case of more people being upset. Charlie Robinson (24:48.29) I just thought it's crazy that I look and John Lynch, the general manager of the 49ers is talking to Dr. Jack Cruz. Dr. Jack's been on this show. We've talked about this before. That when I watch my two worlds intersect with each other, go, wait, what's happening? There's no universe in which Dr. Jack Cruz should be talking to John Lynch unless he's lecturing him on Bitcoin or talking to him about, I don't know, putting in some sort of new form of governance in the 49ers organization. but this is wild. wonder, you also sort of on this same thread, have you heard anything about the uptick in cancer for people who are, athletes who spend a lot of time on artificial turf with the rubberized petroleum based black dots that people see if anyone watches football and they see, you know, on a turf situation, you'll see maybe a guy dragging his feet. You'll see the little black dots pop up. That rubberized tire. Shawn Wells (25:43.747) Yep. Charlie Robinson (25:47.395) petroleum based is starting to impact people. seeing situations where soccer goalies in college are getting these unusual cancers and cases like that. What do know about this? Shawn Wells (25:59.949) Yeah, it's again like a carcinogen and endocrine disruptor in particular. The biggest concern is when it's under high heat, it's highly traveled, meaning like a lot of that's getting kicked up, scuffed up and like little micro and nano particles are in the air and the heat can make it kind of exacerbate the situation. And then even worse is a lot of children. have parks and school fields like this and children in particular, those that are immunocompromised or those that are growing or whatever, they're particularly susceptible to this. So it's absolutely a concern. I would not have my kid near one of those artificial turf fields. Absolutely not, especially with things like cleats. where cleats again are kind of digging up that material and it's in the air and now you're breathing these whole particles. And yeah, they're particularly carcinogenic. that is a concern. And then a lot of school properties where they get these big swaths of property are also next to transformer and power stations, right? And so they're getting exposed to incredibly high levels of EMF again, so it's actually a double whammy a lot of times at schools and then again you're talking about kids that are that are young and susceptible and It's scary again. We should We should be angry about this Charlie Robinson (27:41.828) Yeah. So when you're working, I think... When people think of steroids and they think of performance enhancing drugs, I think they assume that these will make you stronger and that that's the reason why you take these drugs is to make you stronger. And then, you know, if you're anybody that followed Lance Armstrong, you look into what EPO and these things, what you find out is that, well, it's not always necessarily to make you stronger. Actually, depending on the sport, trying to make you recover faster. So if somebody came to you, if an athlete, a pro athlete came to you and said, I need help, help me out. What would you be looking to do for him? Would you be looking to give them something that makes them stronger or would you be looking to give them something that allows them to recover faster? What's the benefit or is it sport specific? Shawn Wells (28:16.899) Yeah. Shawn Wells (28:38.304) It is absolutely sport specific and that's why you're seeing people train that way. And by the way, that's led to probably more injuries because it's like, it's led to better performance, but also more injuries because they're so highly, not just sports specific now, it's position specific. You know, it used to be like, okay, like if someone played football, you know, 50 years ago, they were going to like, play all positions, they were playing with their friends, they were filling in as a backup here and there. In D1 college football now, if you are a defensive linebacker, you're not ever kicking the ball, you're not ever doing anything else other than lining up and maybe occasionally there'll be something like where you're trying to catch a ball on occasion. But this is so rare that Charlie Robinson (29:19.331) Nice. Shawn Wells (29:34.415) we're getting athletes that are, it's interesting, like at Chapel Hill, I had a professor say, it's not over, it's not over-trained, it's under recovered. And so that's kind of the point that you're making, is a lot of these PEDs, these performance enhancing drugs, are helping with that recovery and helping athletes train more often. and with higher levels of intensity. And that's where the difference in adaptation and performance enhancements are made. It is from training more and training harder. And so sometimes strength can be a factor in that, and many sports strength is a factor in that, but it could be endurance is more important to that sport or flexibility or. you know, cognitive resilience, potentially there's a lot of factors here, but certainly as you're pointing out, there's so many different substances that you could point to that could enhance performance. and I've researched many of them, certainly supplements and peptides, and even like we talked about psychedelics, nootropics, biologics, things like, PRP, exosomes, stem cells. you know, think of V cells, things like that, hormone replacement. You know, there's a lot of these things out there that could lead to performance enhancement depending. I mean, even for someone that's like highly prone to anxiety, just an anxiolytic anxiety reducer could be a game changer for them. You know, there's a lot of cases of things like this where the athlete actually should be able to have access to some of these things and they can't. Charlie Robinson (31:23.905) yeah. Charlie Robinson (31:33.316) If someone's hiring you to help them, what's your strategy? Are you gonna talk to them about sleep? Are you gonna talk to them about getting in a routine? Are you gonna talk to them about their diet? Are you gonna talk to them about their... mentality, how they view a diet, or maybe they have some dragging in some bad juju from their childhood about their relationship with food. Where do you start? Where's the priority when working with someone? Before you start to load them up with a ton of peptides and things like this, I'd imagine you kind of have to figure out where they are and start them off. So how would you start with somebody like this? Shawn Wells (32:19.246) Yeah, this is a great question and I love that. And I would say yes to all of those things. All of those things are important, but like you're saying, and I think you're alluding to is how do you prioritize it and how do you start? And obviously that can be bio individual, like meaning different case to case, but I do believe. That mindset, and I go through this in my book, energy formula is experiment, nutrition, exercise, routines, growth, and your tribe connections, actually maybe one of the most important factors to longevity. But like you were saying, what rises to the top when we look at elite athletes and even elite entrepreneurs is going to be mindset. And this is where we admire the Kobe Bryant's, the Michael Jordan's, the you know, Peyton Manning's, the Tom Brady's, Tiger Woods or whoever, because of their elite mindset. And we see the most successful people are reframe-ers. We talked about that early with the ego and identity. And you can twist things to say, like on the woo side of things, we would say, the universe is always working for me. And everything is a lesson. So no matter what comes up, you say, isn't that interesting? I'm a creative, curious explorer. I have no such thing as failure. You can translate this over into the business world or the athletic world, where now that mindset is serving you of it doesn't matter win or lose. I'm always winning. Everything is a lesson. I'm always getting better. I'm going to take this and synthesize this and be even better next time. It's like when I'm exposed to a virus or a bacteria, my immune system is upgrading and it only upgrades through the idea of hormesis and adaptation where that difficulty is making me stronger. Constant lack of ease would be something that results in dis-ease, but Charlie Robinson (34:25.091) Thank you. Shawn Wells (34:41.322) Acute amounts of unease is going to result in greater ease consistently because you're stronger, you're leveling up, and you can stay in ease easier. If I can jump into a cold plunge without going, my God, my God, my God. If I can get into a hot sauna and stay in there for 30 minutes, do you think I can deal with more mental stress? 100 % I can. And guess what? If I'm really good with mental stress, do you think I can stay in that cold plunge or sauna longer? Yes, I can. So mindset is very powerful and I would say is the most foundational. And after that physically, and probably most importantly, and most underappreciated across our population is what you mentioned is sleep. You mentioned recovery, health and hormones. It is foundational. We are the only species that denies ourselves sleep. Animals sleep when they need sleep. We deny ourselves sleep all the time and we're trying to caffeinate our way through it and we're trying to stay up late and watch the game. We're getting exposed to blue light, junk light all the time. We're not sleeping enough and then we're not getting the quality of sleep that we need. Another big problem with men our age is going to be sleep apnea and this is a killer and I can't say this enough if any men are listening right now or any women that that are with a man listen to me right now this is so serious snoring is not normal and especially snoring that's apnic what is apnic it's going to be dysregulated breathing so Shawn Wells (36:38.018) waking up, choking, gagging, dysregulated breathing, meaning that there's, you know, going 10, 20, 30, 60 seconds without breathing and then breathing again. This is a huge problem and that's leading to men in their 40s, 50s, 60s dying because of cardiovascular disease, heart attack, myocardial infarction. or stroke, cerebrovascular accidents. Those are the reason people are dying of the heart attack and stroke is you take that back one level and it is the sleep apnea. And guess how you feel when you wake up in the morning and you've been gagging and choking and not breathing well all night and your system's been in fight or flight, your sympathetic nervous system's been active all night, you feel like you've been. literally being choked and you're like fighting for survival and you haven't had enough air, oxygen going to your brain. You feel tired. Your hormones are trash. You were not able to work well. Now you're caffeinating and using more sugar and a bad diet and you're taking prescription medications because you're sad about it and your relationship isn't as strong with your partner anymore. mean, this is a downward spiral. And then you wanna talk about athletic performance? I mean, come on. You're not going to be recovering like that. So anything that you can do to diagnose sleep apnea and use like an oral device, CPAP machine, potentially there's some surgeries that you can get, but this is a real serious thing. And so that's just a little. public service announcement that I wanted to put forward, but sleep is absolutely foundational to recovery. And what's sad is most people think six hours is normal. And there is a lot of data to show once you get below seven hours, you're starting to see 3X the level of heart attack, 5X the level of type two diabetes, increased neuroinflammation. Charlie Robinson (38:34.263) Yeah. Shawn Wells (38:59.626) acute insulin resistance that actually looks like Alzheimer's. And you know, this is a real thing. They call it type three Alzheimer's when your brain cells are insulin resistant, type three diabetes, sorry, that Alzheimer's is really an example of being insulin resistant in the brain cells, the neurons. And so, you know, when you don't get enough sleep, you essentially have Alzheimer's. And this is a real thing that like you're not able to get enough energy into your brain to cognitively function like you should. So yes, get sleep. Charlie Robinson (39:38.755) I mean, I can understand it if you eat bad foods and you're stressed out and everything, that you would have heart disease and issues with your body. It's so crazy to me that the one thing that could fix this is sleep. Everybody wants it. You don't have to twist somebody's arm to tell them to go to sleep. know what mean? We're all dying for it and we desperately need it and it's just a matter of time. We're just over-scheduled to. busy or our lives are going you know a million miles an hour and I don't think people ever would connect the dot that the one thing that you could do to improve your physical health would be to just sleep a little bit more that seems like no clearly it has to be harder than that right I have to go into the gym and do this for you know X number of hours, but no, ultimately it's just sleep. Nobody gets enough sleep in the US, right? Is this a US-centric problem or are we seeing this in other countries or are other countries doing this better than we are? Shawn Wells (40:40.984) Very nice. Shawn Wells (40:46.476) Other countries do it way better than we do. We are absolutely denying ourselves sleep. We're over caffeinated. There's a lot of alcohol in our population and alcohol disrupts quality sleep. I would tell you I'm testing three different rings right now. I have an Aura, I have an Ultra Human and a Samsung ring and I will tell you, you just need one of them. But just get a ring or a watch or something that you can track the quality of your sleep with. deep sleep, REM, et cetera. And you can also look at heart rate variability, which is a great measure of how well you are recovering, which goes back to what we were talking about, is how well you can perform cognitively, physically, et cetera. And so this is very important. And once you start looking at this data, you'll stop drinking later at night. You will stop eating later at night. I would not eat after it's dark. You can look at Dr. Sachin Panda's data around circadian rhythm. And once it's dark, we're not supposed to be eating and it's really a sleep disruptor. And certainly exposure to, as I've mentioned a few times, blue light. You're looking at devices, looking at TVs, laptops, VR glasses would be the worst possible thing ever. This is going to... disrupt your pituitary's ability to release melatonin and initiate sleep. So we're not feeling tired because we're exposed to all this junk light and then we're watching things that are aggressive, whether it's sports or violence and these things at night that are kind of winding us up. We have our arguments late at night and then we're eating late at night and we're drinking late at night. And all of this adds up to very poor quality sleep and then leads to sleep apnea. Charlie Robinson (42:47.385) Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about your book because your book is called The Energy Formula and we're talking about energy and we're talking about the lack of energy, right? And people who experience, well, if you get old enough to remember how much energy you had when you were younger versus how much energy you currently have, you'll notice that things have changed over time. But I'm of the belief that That might just be temporary, that if you're aware of it, you could fix things. If somebody's aware of the fact that, know, boy, I just don't have the energy I used to have back in the day, what would you advise them to do? Besides obviously buying your book and getting to the heart of it, but six critical energy pillars, right? I'm assuming... We talk about some of those and how people can, I guess my point is, if you're feeling like you're low on energy, it doesn't have to be permanent, it's fixable. Shawn Wells (43:41.155) Yeah. Shawn Wells (43:53.441) I, in almost every case it's fixable. And I do think that mindset's important. And you talked about, you know, getting yourself in the right situation, like away from bad situations. Just like if I was to give you psychedelics, but you're staying in an abusive situation, that's not going to help you. Right? Like you need to let, or if you're like getting exposed to mold every day in your house, but then you're taking vitamin C, you're like, you're not going to see the benefit. Right? So. You have to take yourself away from the things that are causing you harm. This is really important before you focus on the diet, the supplements, the peptides, biologics and all the other cool things that I could talk about. Get yourself out of a toxic relationship. Get yourself out of a toxic job, a toxic house. Our exposure to microplastics, nanoplastics, glade air fresheners and perfumes and colognes and a lot of these things that are endocrine disruptors and we're putting plastics in our body like the cookware we're using. Clean up your house, clean up your environment on a mental level, on a spiritual level, on an environmental and chemical level. Clean up your surroundings if you wanna have a healthy life. Obviously prioritize sleep, get a wearable. I think that's really important. have some kind of spiritual relationship. This doesn't mean you have to become a Christian or whatever it is. I just have a relationship where you're talking to yourself, inner voice, and connecting with nature, with God, with source, whatever that looks like. Meditate, pray. What are some of the things we do? The idea, like when we used to pray at dinner. You would gather around the table, families together, family union, which is rare now, right? Like the nuclear family together over the food, you're blessing the food. You're putting positive energy into the food. You say, dear Lord, thank you for the food we're about to receive. You're acknowledging that you have food. There's gratitude there. You're connecting with source. You're thinking about who provided this food and you're thankful for this food. You're also Shawn Wells (46:18.796) saying, I'm present right now, we're all present together and you're slowing down. This is changing your nervous system into parasympathetic. And then you say, for the food we're about to receive to the nourishment of our bodies, you're now using placebo effect and maybe something beyond that, maybe it's quantum as well and all the things. You're telling yourself what this food is going to do and it's going to nourish your body. And I guarantee when you tell yourself with affirmations what the food or the supplement or the exercise is going to do for you, the outcomes are better. So we've gotten away from these things and no matter what your faith is, it's powerful to do these things. And no one can tell me it's not. And then we can talk about the supplements, the peptides, the diet, the biologics. Certainly start with moving your body. That's a really important one. Your body's meant to move. And then we can talk about cool exercises and certain training protocols and all those things, but moving your body. There's incredible data around getting at least 7,000 steps a day. Your body's meant to move. This helps you be more present. It helps change your nervous system into again, more parasympathetic, which is rest and digest. Helps you be more present. Walking. also has been shown to reduce blood sugar. It's very powerful. It's called a postprandial stroll. After you eat, go walk for 10 or 15 minutes and it'll have a powerful, very powerful effect on your blood sugar. It helps blood sugar get into the muscle cells and not linger around in a kind of diabetic way. So just walking right after you eat, very powerful. Just some simple things that don't cost money like sleep, pray, meditate, healthy relationships. And then we can talk about all the cool stuff. Charlie Robinson (48:23.373) Yeah, isn't it funny how hell that, you know, you go into it, everyone knows the supplement industries, there's a lot of money in there. And then somebody pulls you aside and says, you know, there's about five things you could do right away that cost you zero dollars and it will improve your life dramatically. And so I'm always interested in, in, know, reminding myself about that. guess you can get into the weeds of all these different supplements that are out there, but it's like, are you sleeping enough? You're not sleeping enough? Let's not even do with the supplements, man. You need to get that sort of under control first. So let's wrap up with this. If somebody's like quick, like a, you know, I want to talk about zone halo research, know, what are you consulting groups? So will companies bring you in and say, listen, we were, we're talking about, we're thinking about creating a new supplement that does this, but we need We need your expertise. mean, how does this work? Someone would bring you in to talk about this. Shawn Wells (49:25.272) Yeah, I have a full team. We have about 20 people where we are plug and play. We can help supplement companies scale and go to sale, which many companies are trying to do. But we do formulations, we do flavor work, regulatory work, quality control, quality assurance. We can help you get those supplements into new countries, do intellectual property and studies. We can really do all of the things. We do quite often. a two day breakthrough with companies where we work on all the kind of fastest and quickest fixes to get you to scaling and kind of get you out of a rut that you're in. Like we want to help you double year over year and get in a growth phase. And a lot of that's with innovation. But certainly this is the same idea that I was just talking about. It's no different. I see businesses all the time talking about like new customer acquisition, innovation, whatever. Meanwhile, money's going out the window. Like with all of these bad practices, you have to look at both. And a lot of us are sweeping things underneath the rug in our life and in our business. And I just want to bring it all to light and take a look at all of it. Like you can't, you know, keep you know, rowing the boat when there's, you know, water leaking out of the boat. So it's really the same thing that I'm doing with these other companies. And, and I love formulating supplements. Like I said, I've done about 1200 supplements to this point. And, uh, with some of the biggest companies in the world, I worked with many celebrities, uh, top, the several top 20 celebrities that you know of are coming out this year. Uh, and it's been an exciting process for sure. Charlie Robinson (51:15.544) You know, I don't know why I would assume that the process would be any different when working with corporations because they're just filled with people, right? You're just trying to get these people to change their habits and in their personal lives and then say, Hey, look, you know, the way you did that for your personal life, think about that for your company. Think about that for your entire team that's working on this. So, so you could, you don't need to get too complicated, right? Keep it simple. Like work on it, you know, take care of yourself, improve your, do what you need to do. You know, the things that you need to do to be successful. We lose sight of them, of course, over time. It's nice to have somebody on the consulting side who can come in, somebody on the consulting side who's actually done it, not some guy out of McKinsey who's just graduated from college, doesn't know anything, but somebody who can say, I've done 1200 supplements. Like, I know what I'm I know what I'm talking about and you can go in there and say, could help you with your business, but first I need to kind of help you with you because you are the core of your business. And if you're all screwy, you can't expect your business to be any better, right? I mean, so ultimately it starts with us on the individual level and goes from there. Shawn Wells (52:10.286) Yeah. Shawn Wells (52:22.528) And I've exactly and I've taken 11 companies to sale successfully some for $450 million and and but at the same time I've also taken companies away from sale where the company you know they say that they wanted to go to sale but the founder had fallen so out of love with their company. Charlie Robinson (52:30.703) Jesus. Shawn Wells (52:45.642) and I can help them find their brand again where they don't care about selling it anymore. And now they love their brand, you know, and that's exciting too. Like there's too many companies trying to go to sale from day one that they never fall in love with their business and they never fall in love with their customer. It's always just a means to an end to just sell the company. And while selling the company can make sense in certain situations, That mindset may prevent you from ever selling the company in the first place. Charlie Robinson (53:22.255) Where's the best place for people to go to find you, to support, to buy your books, to sign up for your work or to just find out more about you? Shawn Wells (53:32.652) Yeah, Seanwells.com, S-H-A-W-N, W-E-L-L-S, S-H-A-W-N. And I have working with me is Zone Halo or me speaking at different events or doing TV, podcast, radio, all that kind of stuff. Cool formulation stacks and what I recommend there. A lot of my social media links are all there. You can certainly go to Instagram and... see all my infographics and supplement stacks. And again, it's at Sean Wells, S-H-A-W-N. And I would love to follow all this content is free. I have a weekly newsletter that's free where I go through studies and all the cool stuff that's going on in science and supplements. And I just love it. And there's plenty of content that you can get for free. I think the only thing I charge for is the book. And I would say that's a pretty good value. I think it's... 10 bucks or something like that, Charlie Robinson (54:31.545) Fantastic. That's Sean Wells, everybody. Go check him out. You can go to seanwells.com. You can buy the book. can find all the free tips that he's offering. Get yourself sorted out or else you're no good to anybody around you. If you want to connect with me, macroaggressions.io is the website that you can use. Thanks, everybody. We'll talk to you again soon.