Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Wellness Creator Podcast is your go-to source for expert insights and actionable tips in the evolving world of health, wellness, and spiritual-based business. Join us as we explore proven online growth strategies, chat about current trends, and interview fellow wellness creators who’ve managed to turn passion into profit by helping people live better, healthier lives.
Jeni (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Creator Podcast. Today's episode is all about what's lighting this up, literally, figuratively, and maybe psychotropically. I don't know, Sandy. First up, we're diving into the red light therapy drama that's blowing up online after a recent Huberman Lab episode claiming LED lights might be doing more harm than good.
Sandy (00:12)
You
Jeni (00:25)
Not surprising to some of us. Is your ring light wrecking your cells? Don't toss your skincare mask just yet. We've got the real story. And then we're going to jump into a conversation that's actually the talk of the town. Well, the talk of the online wellness community town. Brian Johnson's live streamed magic mushroom trip. Yes, he did five grams of shrooms on camera in the name of longevity.
but by the end he was questioning his entire anti-aging empire and life choice. So you'll wanna hear what went down. Finally, we're turning the lights off and slipping under the covers. We're talking all things sleep maxing, the latest wellness flex that's replacing hustle culture with sleep scores and magnesium mocktails. All right, Sandy, let's dive in.
Sandy (01:14)
All right, so first up is Huberman's latest podcast episode about LED lighting. ⁓ So it seems like every wellness trend eventually gets its turn in the hot seat and this week it is definitely red light therapy. Andrew Huberman recently hosted neuroscientist Dr. Glenn Jeffrey to talk all things light, how different colors or wavelengths of light impact your health at the cellular level and it lit up the internet.
So here's what went down. Dr. Jeffrey explained that long wavelength light like red, near infrared and infrared can enter the body and energize your mitochondria. That's the powerhouse of your cells and when they function better, so do you. He linked this to improved metabolism, better blood sugar regulation, sharper eyesight, boosted mood and even hormonal balance. But then came the moment that set off a full on digital meltdown.
He warned that short wavelength light from LED bulbs, the kind in your home lighting, your ring lights, office spaces and screens could impact mitochondrial health over time. And then he dropped the line that LED exposure may end up being our generation's asbestos. That line ricocheted across Reddit and Twitter and other skeptical forums in no time. Some folks are applauding him for speaking truth and others think it was needlessly alarmist. The vibe?
split between, wow, we need to rethink our lighting and okay, now we've really gone too far. So I listened to this entire episode and ⁓ I don't understand the controversy, but I'm gonna share with you my takeaways. ⁓ One is they both recommend, Huberman, if you've listened to any of his, ⁓ recommend getting outside, getting full spectrum sunlight, like real natural thing as much as possible, especially in the morning.
They share studies that talk about just even having a lamp with an incandescent light bulb on your desk can improve. ⁓ And if you are venturing into red light therapy like the masks, just to make sure that they are therapeutic wavelengths, like they're actually the therapeutic ⁓ right kind, because there's really cheap ones on Amazon that probably don't do anything. So I loved this episode.
don't understand the criticism as I was telling you earlier at all. The studies they cite are solid. He shares so many like ⁓ the whole – every point he made, he talks about his study that he did mainly with architects which is fascinating. But yeah, I am really definitely rethinking the lighting.
Jeni (03:38)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I've sort of been on this bandwagon for a while when it was more controversial even before we had kind of the science to back it up. I've just always felt kind of sickened by really intense environments with a lot of LED light. I also felt that way with compact fluorescents. And so I'm just so grateful that we're finally getting the science to back some of this stuff up so that people who have been more skeptical
are going to hopefully start to take this more seriously. And I think it's a fine balance, right? Between like energy conservation and public health. mean, every, as someone, as an environmental lawyer and with a background in all of this, like these are the, this is the balancing act that we play. And I've always felt like this sort of like energy efficient light bulb brigade was very misguided since the very beginning. And so I'm just, anyway, so grateful. And I mean, anyone,
Sandy (04:39)
Mm-hmm.
Jeni (04:51)
who walks into an airport feels, I mean, I don't know how you don't feel sick by being in that environment. And so, ⁓ you know, some people are obviously more sensitive than others, but I'm just so grateful that this is getting more mainstream attention.
Sandy (05:06)
Yeah. So what I found interesting was that he really, by the end they were trying to figure out like, okay, what do do? Like, what do we change? And he was really emphasizing, the doctor, the guest was emphasizing that it's a balance. Like if you are all the time in a room with no windows under fluorescent, which are very blue light heavy or ⁓ LED lighting, yeah, it's going to affect you if you're all day.
you know, in that environment all day long. But if you can balance it, so that's why I get outside in the morning, get some sunshine on your face. He was even talking about, like the argument didn't read like, do we use incandescents? Could we go back to high energy incandescents or do we stay with our LEDs? It wasn't an either or like that. It was more like there's so many things like windows, like putting more windows in our buildings, in our hospitals to help people heal.
getting natural sunshine even through a window, but a lot of windows have UVB blockers, UVA blockers, I've already forgotten. They have blockers to get the bad out, but it's like that's what we need on our skin, right? He also talked about plants and ⁓ that plants, you like any of the red, infrared, far infrared or near infrared are...
Jeni (06:07)
Mm-hmm.
Thank
Sandy (06:25)
are hot, like if you go in the sun, your skin is warm, right? But if you touch a plant's leaf, it's not warm because it reflects that light. So he was talking about putting plants outside your window so that it bounces that light into your home or putting plants in your house, right? Like there was all these other ideas. So it was really, really fascinating. He has a friend that has an infrared camera ⁓ and he takes pictures of homes and stuff and they noticed in one home
Jeni (06:49)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy (06:54)
that around the bottom of the curtain was all like sparkly and they realized it was all plants out there that were like reflecting the good light back into the house. So open the curtains.
Jeni (07:07)
Yeah, I mean, it just makes sense that we've evolved over, you know, many, many years to meet the environment that the earth provides, right? So the lights and the, like, makeup of the air, like, we are just like every other creature, living creature, like, we've evolved to thrive in a natural environment. And so you take
Sandy (07:14)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Jeni (07:32)
you take that away and of course it's going to have an impact. It might not be immediate. It's just so obvious to me. Like, I don't know, cause I went to graduate school, you know, for environmental science and there was a professor and that was a long time ago. It was like 20 years ago. And there was a professor in my program who was kind of like one of the world's experts on biophilia. And he would, he would actually work with bringing plants into.
Sandy (07:36)
Yeah.
you
Jeni (07:57)
buildings
and urban environments and things like housing projects. And there's so much data that just having a more natural environment in an apartment community or a living space or an office does so much for mental and physical health and wellbeing. Like this is a pretty tried and true concept. So of course it makes sense that the science is supporting this. And I think that this matters most, like as you said, it's a balance. This matters most for people who work.
Sandy (08:06)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jeni (08:28)
sort of traditional nine to five jobs or full-time jobs in those artificially lighted environments. like hospitals, airports, malls, you think of these places where there are no windows and there's just tons of bright artificial light. I think this is more alarming for people in those environments and they maybe need to take more precaution.
Sandy (08:28)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.
Yes.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And ⁓ he is working with architects so that they understand the buildings that they are designing like hospitals and any office buildings, whatever. It was so interesting that because he said that lighting is usually the last thing that goes into any build. so that's often where, you know, it's always over budget. So that's what gets cut is the ⁓ lighting budget. So they put cheaper, you know, LED lights in.
Jeni (09:15)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sandy (09:16)
And so the architects that he's been working with are now going to the building owners, the people building and saying like, how many days have you lost from sick leave? And they're sort of flipping the economics on it. Like we spend the money now on lighting. You're going to have people feeling better, more productive, sick days and stuff. So that was interesting. I did want to touch upon Jenny the, because when I first heard this, I'm like, my God, I have a red light, like LED mask. my God.
Jeni (09:29)
Yeah.
Sandy (09:45)
And those are fine because of the wavelength. So I just wanted to reassure. there's lots of cheap ones and it's the, know, JOOVE, ⁓ Cala in Canada is good and then Omnilux. They all are in that medical grade level. So we're not killing our mitochondria with those face masks.
Jeni (09:47)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's important to know that and to know that that's also a powerful healing modality. We should have a whole other podcast talking about red light therapy for skincare and general wellness. Yeah. Okay, that's awesome. Thank you, Sandy. And I would just encourage anyone who's interested in this to go listen to the Huberman podcast. Yeah. Yeah.
Sandy (10:12)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Next up.
Yeah, it's worth, it's definitely worth a listen. Yeah, I really
enjoyed it.
Jeni (10:31)
Okay, so let's switch gears kind of entirely and dive into Brian Johnson's big second magic mushroom trip, which was live streamed as the time of this recording. I think it was on Sunday and we're recording on a Thursday. So it was a few days ago. And if you've ever wondered what happens when Silicon Valley biohacking collides with psychedelics and live stream culture. Backup, hold on Brian Johnson, who, if you don't know, he's the tech billionaire who sold Venmo like
Sandy (10:33)
Haha
Jeni (11:00)
That's kind of his claim to fame best known for his ultra structured anti aging protocol blueprint Just took five grams of magic mushrooms and live stream the entire experience across Instagram YouTube acts and he had like people like famous people like joining the live stream doing DJ work like it was really like a party and ⁓ Yeah, so the live stream lasted over five hours and it wasn't just a camera in the corner. ⁓ It included
Sandy (11:15)
Yeah.
Jeni (11:28)
Like I said, commentary from other tech figures. So Mark Benioff made an appearance and he's like the founder of Salesforce. Visual overlays of his biometrics and an AI generated version of his younger self popping up periodically like a metaphysical clippy. And here's where it gets even weirder. Johnson said this wasn't about self-discovery or trauma healing. His mushroom journey was about exploring the limits of human optimization, pushing into new territory for longevity and consciousness.
In his words, we wanted to understand the feeling of life and death as one and see if psychedelics could play a role in radical life extension. And there's some science to back that up. You can dive into it. There's a lot of speculative science linking psychedelic mushrooms to longevity. So that's really where that came from. But then after the trip, he posted something very un-Brian-like on X where he said, maybe this whole anti-aging obsession has gotten out of control.
We don't know if you said that tongue in cheek or not, but ⁓ critics are calling the event digital narcissism and biohacking as performance art. Others see it as brave or at least interesting. What's clear is that we're witnessing something new, the merging of wellness experimentation, social media spectacle, and personal branding in real time. And I think that that's why we wanted to talk about this story with all of you is the sort of the backstory here is that Blueprint has
Sandy (12:49)
Mm-hmm.
Jeni (12:56)
supplement companies, longevity supplement company, which has the motto, don't die. You know, they essentially sell protein powder and vitamins and like, like some food products like olive oil, their olive oil, the way, is called snake oil. And it's like the best olive oil I've had outside of Europe. like highly recommend just as an aside. So he's like, and they just took a huge venture investment. Like, I don't know, is it like 30?
million. It was a pretty big investment into the company. And then it was just like, I don't know, a week or two later, he like live streamed himself doing like five grams of mushrooms. And so I think it's kind of a brilliant marketing strategy, right? Like what other protein powder company gets this kind of attention? Right? And they're like, yeah.
Sandy (13:38)
Yeah, that's what I say.
Yeah, yeah, right. Like this
biohacking as performance art, that's what this is. And I think it's a sheer genius, because everybody's talking about it. Yeah.
Jeni (13:48)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, he is a genius or whoever's
advising him. I think it's probably a lot of his own kind of ideas just based on following him on social media. But the other thing I just want to pull out that happened here is that ⁓ in the last few days, he announced that he's actually in a romantic partnership with his co-founder, who's the woman he founded Blueprint with. And he met her in one of his other companies like five years ago.
Sandy (13:58)
Mm-hmm.
Jeni (14:20)
And I think like it's hard to tell if his mushroom trips, like he's now done two out of three of these experimental ones. The last one was the only one that was live streamed. ⁓ But it's like unclear, did that cause him to have a realization that he no longer wanted to keep his relationship private or was this all part of some like performance art strategy to get more attention? Because like the internet has blown up about his relationship now too. So I think it's just, anyway, it's an interesting.
thing to follow if you're in the wellness world because it's just he's really pushing the envelope and you always want to see like where are those outliers that are behaving differently and getting sort of an unfair amount of ⁓ visibility and publicity for what they're doing.
Sandy (15:01)
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree. It is so fascinating to watch. His co-founder is the lady that was with him during when he took what, okay, yeah.
Jeni (15:17)
Yeah. Yeah,
yeah. So she was like the one who was like, yeah, she was there and she was holding this phone. I can't remember her name right now, but like, and then he released a video that's like a minute and a half long. It's actually very heartwarming of like announcing their relationship. And it's like these beautiful videos, like just put together in this little montage of like their love story. It's very, very sweet. Like,
Sandy (15:24)
Yeah, I don't remember it either.
Mm-hmm.
Jeni (15:42)
I don't know, he's kind of, think starting to really change. He's kind of been this like hated, despised figure because people call him like vampire man. know, like how self-indulgent is it to want to live forever? And it's, you know, like it sort of goes against like all of like human spirituality to want that. And then like he releases something like this and he puts himself vulnerably on psychedelics in the public eye. And now I think public opinion over him.
Sandy (15:49)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeni (16:10)
and maybe his company is starting to shift. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sandy (16:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Her name is Kate Tolo and she's 29 years old. Yeah.
Yeah, it's like a story I can't stop watching because you just don't know what he's going to do next, right? Which is the point. So I think it's completely, completely brilliant. We watched, my husband and I watched, there's a Netflix special on him. ⁓ And his first reaction was like, this guy's doing it to sell supplements. I'm like, yeah, but also like, I think he's legit. mean, he's doing, it's not, he wouldn't do all that he's doing just.
Jeni (16:21)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sandy (16:46)
to sell supplements, like that is a huge amount of money and there's like 2 million a year or something and then the time it takes to do all the things, it's like his entire job is like taking care of himself. So anyway, it's very, very interesting to watch.
Jeni (16:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, and I'll just add as the caveat to that is like, he sold Venmo Braintree for more money than he would ever need, like any human would ever need, right? So he's like invested so far his own money into this project until now. And I think it's like his, it's his kind of like life's work or mission more than just like a business. And so anyway, I think
Sandy (17:13)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jeni (17:24)
that makes it a good business, right? Like it makes him very investable and a great business because that's exactly the kind of thing that people want to invest in and get behind is someone who is like ride or die for their mission and their vision. Yeah, 60 million. Okay. Even more than.
Sandy (17:36)
He raised 60 million, Jenny. 60 million
investors included Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Naval Ravikant, and the Winklevoss twins. I don't know who those twins are, but that's a lot of money.
Jeni (17:49)
It's a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah. So interesting story. We'll obviously keep following. And he has been sort of dripping out as the data from his first mushroom journey has come out, like the brain data and the mitochondrial data. He started to like drip out the findings of like how it affected his biomarkers and stuff. And it's been pretty interesting to see. Like the question is, are these things like long lasting or are they just a temporary blip in sort of good numbers or good metrics?
Sandy (18:14)
Mm-hmm.
Jeni (18:16)
But I mean, who else is looking at this, right? Like this is kind of amazing. Like there's lots of very wealthy people who have sold companies or inherited money or whatever, but most of them are not sort of like taking on a mission and then making all of the findings of that mission public for everyone else to have.
Sandy (18:36)
Right. There's a criticism that it's an n equals one experiment, which has lots of problems with, but at least he's moving things along. Like, yeah, it's got to start somewhere. So yeah, I think it's very cool. All right.
Jeni (18:45)
Yeah.
Okay,
our final story, Sandy, you want to jump in?
Sandy (18:52)
Yeah, so we're talking about another TikTok trend. I think these are helpful to clients as to know what is trending and how you can use it in your own business. The new social currency right now ⁓ is how well you sleep. So there's a fresh wave hitting TikTok and Instagram and it's called sleep maxing and it's exactly what it sounds like. Optimizing your sleep like it's your next startup. Think magnesium mocktails, red light wind downs, silk everything, mouth taping, EMF blockers.
and sleep tracking wearables with more data than a Nassau shuttle. And it's not just about getting more sleep, it's about getting smarter sleep, deeper, ⁓ more restorative, ideally ⁓ REM rich with the HRV stats to prove it. So the Vibe is a little biohacker, a little bougie, and a whole lot of bedtime content. It's part of a larger cultural backlash against burnout, revenge, bedtime procrastination, and the glorification of overworking.
Even productivity influencers are now preaching wind down routines in eight hours minimum. And of course, the sleep economy is booming. Luxury bedding, sleep enhancing supplements, circadian friendly lighting, even AI powered sleep coaching apps. So Jenny, it's funny because I had the worst sleep. I have my data on my watch from my sleep. It was terrible last night.
Jeni (20:20)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy (20:21)
And so I totally get this. Like I need to know how to figure out how to get more deep sleep. So I'm all into this. I think this is a great trend. Yeah, what are your thoughts?
Jeni (20:32)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great trend. I actually listened to a podcast last month on Diary of a CEO with Dr. Matthew Walker. I just looked up what his name is so I could share it. That was really, really good on like, yeah, you should go listen to that podcast. was, it's like hours long and it's his second time, I think, being a guest on that show. But he was talking about like, what are sort of the things that really move the needle and matter and what things.
Sandy (20:39)
Mm-hmm.
I did that. Yeah, okay.
Jeni (20:58)
Can you let go of and why does this matter to your health over time? It was such a good episode. So anyone who's interested in sleep, I would encourage you to go listen to that diary of a CEO episode and we can make sure we include it in the show notes too. But ⁓ yeah, Matthew Walker. It was so good. Like I usually don't listen to a super long podcast all in one sitting and that one I did. And I mean, it kind of freaked me out a little because like I'm also not the best sleeper at this stage of life.
Sandy (21:12)
Is it Dr. Matthew Walker? Does that sound right? Okay. Okay.
Jeni (21:28)
And so I start getting, like, then you just kind of spin up in your mind, like, what is, I can't sleep, what is this doing to me? But one of the takeaways that I got from that episode was that going to bed at the same time every day is like incredibly important and meaningful. It's not really about supplements. it's really about like, like, like he was talking about things like melatonin and the reason you would take that is if you have jet lag, if you've traveled or if you had...
Sandy (21:33)
Hmm.
Jeni (21:54)
you know, some like very unusual event where you were kept up later, it didn't sleep for a night, then taking melatonin at an appropriate time the next day would make sense. But yeah, like morning, sun, going to sleep at the same time, like it's really about habits, like changing your lifestyle to like prioritize your sleep so that that is sort of the non-negotiable. And then I think the other piece of advice that I've just heard all over the place is like not to eat, you know, close to bedtime.
Sandy (22:14)
Mm-hmm.
Great,
great.
Jeni (22:24)
And ⁓ because he talks about in that episode how much work it is for your body to digest your food and how it really is taking away that valuable, like those valuable minutes that you need, your body needs to be doing other things in your brain.
Sandy (22:33)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think
this is a good trend for any wellness creator because this is so foundational, right? And so people are thinking about this, wondering how it's done. if your content in any way talks about sleep, I think this is a really good trend to jump on. Also, like I think we, a weeks ago, talked about fiber maxing and you were saying like, you could take whatever you teach and do
Jeni (22:43)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sandy (23:06)
blank maxing. And this is an example of someone like now someone's like sleep, sleep maxing. So yeah, it's great. It's great.
Jeni (23:07)
Yep. Yep.
Yeah,
I've also heard of sun maxing. Yeah, so like, I think that makes sense. And for those of you that do things like yoga nidra, like this is obviously in your wheelhouse, just talking about, like instead of just talking about what you teach and your methodology or when your next class is, like bring in some of this science and bring in some of the facts, put it into a slideshow on Instagram, a carousel, put it, you know, think about how you can like go dig and get some of this.
Sandy (23:16)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jeni (23:41)
Popular science and put it out there so that you're also educating folks about that and then making the case for what it is that you sell
Sandy (23:49)
Yeah, that's a great idea. Love it. Okay, those are the stories. So if you enjoyed this episode, please share and don't forget to subscribe. We'll be back in two weeks time and we are going to be talking about marketing trends for 2026. What's changing? What's new? What you need to know. So be sure to join us. Thanks, Jenny.
Jeni (24:07)
Thanks, Andy. See you all next time.