South Pole to Kilimanjaro: Valerie Orsoni’s Peak Performance Playbook

That's big performance for me. You don't necessarily love every minute of it, but you project yourself to the end. You're like, "In that many days, I will reach the South Pole."

You start aging by age 20. As a matter of fact, you start aging as soon as you're born. But when it comes to hormones, skeleton, everything else, it's when you start getting to 20, 25. So your sleep is your first barrier to aging. The core things are sleep, diet, exercise, and cardio coherence. We are so incoherent these days because we're running around all the time. Taking the time every day to re-center yourself is not selfish. It's as important as going to the gym or eating well. So these are the fundamentals. If you don't do all of that, you can take all the magic supplements that are promoted by the big biohackers out there or big pharma or influencers, it's not going to work. You cannot out-supplement a poor night of sleep. You can't out-supplement a terrible diet. You can't out-supplement a stressful life.

Valerie Orsoni, let's talk about peak performance. Literally, she's been a biohacker since 1998. And oh my gosh, what a vast amount of information. I learned so much from her in sitting down. In this episode, we'll dig into all of it. Welcome to the show, Valerie Orsoni, a biohacker extraordinaire.

Thank you.

Been doing this since 1998, 55 books written, multiple platforms created, speaker at conferences all over the world, mountain climber. I mean, holy mackerel, what don't you do?

I don't host a show like you.

Yes. Yes. Maybe tomorrow.

Yeah, I think that's definitely on the list for you.

Maybe. Maybe. I don't know if that's something I could be good at.

I think you would be fantastic at it.

You'll coach me. We'll spend some time together.

Let's do that.

Fantastic. I think one of the things that is very interesting about you is that you do all sorts of different types of training.

Yeah. I don't like going to the gym, to be honest. The concept of having to exit my house to go in an enclosed square space to move weights just doesn't register. I go sometimes to use crazy machines for mountaineering training. They have crazy things. I'm like, "Oh, wow. This replicates the mountains." But I have my mini gym at home, my weights and everything. So the concept of either driving—which to me, this is crazy. You drive to the gym, you move, you go on the treadmill, and then you go in your car. I actually ride the bike in San Francisco. It's a 45-minute bike ride. Then I get my cardio in. Then I can use machines. But very often you're like, "Oh, I'm going to be late, jump in the car." And it's so much time wasted in the car. I know some places you have to have a car, but very often you can actually ride your bike or walk or jog or do something.

Yeah. I think in San Francisco having a car is almost ridiculous unless you want to take advantage of the things that are out there, but then you know all sorts of other ways to do that, right?

Exactly. So you live part-time in San Francisco. Tell us about all the different places that you go because it's pretty amazing.

Did you see my story last week on Instagram?

Yes, I did. That's why you're asking the question.

Well, first I have a lot of energy and I can't really stay in one spot for long. I don't get bored because I just like exploring. So, I spend about two to three months a year in Tahiti in Bora Bora, and then until this year I went twice a year to Nepal. Now I'm suffering from a very high level of mycotoxins that are linked to the wood fire we're doing over there to use old moldy wood post-monsoon, and this is really bad for my lungs and everything. So this year I'm not going to Nepal; I'm fixing that. Next February I'm going to scuba dive for a month, pretty much, in Papua New Guinea. Always dreamed of it.

Wow.

And next week I'm going to Europe, to Corsica and Germany. So I like to really move around. I might actually go to Saudi Arabia for a conference. I'm still waiting.

Interesting.

Yeah, I really love traveling, and I know people sometimes travel-shame me and say, "You shouldn't do that. It's a lot of pollution." I know I'm not perfect. I own it.

Well, you're probably not flying your own personal private jet, right?

Maybe I am.

Maybe you are. Maybe you are.

But you're right. The thing is if you are very wealthy, you owe it to yourself and to the planet to not waste so much energy just for your own pleasure. Sometimes you have to bend a little bit.

Yeah, I think that's important. It's funny, actually the best egg I ever had was in Germany.

Egg.

Egg. I think the food in Europe is just so much better.

You know, we're blessed here in Northern California. It's different here. It's almost like Europe.

Yeah. The food in Europe is just so... I know even people who have some sort of gluten intolerance, I'm not talking celiac disease, but they get bloated in the States and tell me, "Oh, when I'm in Europe, I eat bread and I don't bloat." No GMOs.

Wow. Yeah. Right. The wheat hasn't been adulterated by the GMOs.

There goes the saying GMOs don't do anything bad to you.

Yeah. I mean, it's crazy to think that, right? Yeah. So, okay, so you have this origin story of growing up in Provence, and you have this sort of notion that alcohol is not good. You have a constitution. You're very sort of set. You have a way of thinking that is definite, and it's showing up in everything that you're doing in your life now, right?

I haven't changed that much.

You probably have, but you have a definite—like there's a foundation to who you are and what you do, which is exciting. It's interesting. So, what is the pathway for you to peak performance? So, obviously the name of this podcast. What is your pathway to peak performance? What's the passion? Where does it come from? Tell us more about you.

You know, peak performance. I like it because I started climbing mountains eight and a half years ago. I was diagnosed at the time with multiple sclerosis, an aggressive form of it. I went somewhere to take care of myself and as I was there—and I'm not going to say anything, I don't want to give false hope to people—but my symptoms started to disappear. When I came back, we did an MRI, and it was all clean. So either the first diagnosis was wrong or it was okay and I fixed it. I don't really care. I'm here, got like a second lease on life.

But when I was there, we were doing a lot of meditation and stuff. And one day I remember the meditation leader, for lack of a better word or guru, asked a question: "If you were to die now, what would be your biggest regret?" And what's so funny, quote-unquote, was all the Americans had the same regret or thought: my wife, my husband, my kids. And I'm not judging, I'm just saying. It was interesting. All of them were like, "Oh my god, my wife, my husband, my kids." And I was not thinking about my family. I was very selfish. I was thinking, "Shoot, I always wanted to climb all these mountains. That's my regret right there, the mountains."

And when I came back, as I was coming back, I decided I would climb my first super-high mountain in Russia three months later, which is the highest in Europe, Mount Elbrus. In meters, it's 5,642, which is pretty high. And I went and I did it. It was the beginning of a long series of mountains. I'm at number 43 now, over 14,000 feet in less than eight years. And the path of peak performance is I don't listen to naysayers. They are all over the place. "You're too old to climb. You don't have experience." I did a record. I climbed 20 peaks over 14,000 feet in nine days. And I was told, "You can't do it because you're not a professional athlete." Professional... I don't care. I set my eyes on a prize and I keep my eyes there. I'm going there. I don't care if you think I can't do it. And I also don't care if I think I can't do it. Sometimes I kind of shut up this dark voice I call it that tells me, "Are you sure you can do it?" I'm like, "Shut up." I'm going to do it.

I also never question my path. And I never read self-help books. I don't believe in them. I think if you need one, you'll never achieve what you need to achieve. I have yet to meet someone who goes to all these magnificent conferences around the world on how to become successful. I have yet to meet one of these people who has become super successful. I think you have it or you don't. And if you surround yourself with people who are like-minded, they might help you go higher. Obviously, they will if you have the right surrounding. But if you don't, which happens, you might have no one around you to help you. You need to find it within and show the world that nothing will stop you.

You know, last October, that's a very interesting thing. I used to be called the snail. I was the slowest on all the mountains. I would always make it, but slow, steady, never stopping. Last October, I climbed a... I don't know, maybe 22,000-foot, I think, 6,500 meters. And between high camp and summit, the average is 6 to 7 hours, right? Because I'm slow, I was like, "Okay, at least 7 hours." The day before climbing, I meet two young 25-year-old French alpinists from Chamonix, the mecca of climbing. And I said to them, "Hey, how long did it take you?" And they said, "Three and a half hours." And I'm like, "Wow, I'm impressed."

Then I'm starting to climb at night with my partner Prem. Prem says, "Valerie's on fire these days. Let's start two hours after everyone." And I'm doubting, and I'm telling my dark voice, "Shut up. If he says you can, you can. Just shut up." We start two hours after everyone. We passed every single person on the mountain, and at 4:45 a.m., because you climb at night, I don't see any light in front of me. So I turn and I say, "Prem, are we the first on the mountain?" And he turns around. I can't see him really because he has his light in my face. He says, "Yeah, 'Didi' means big sister." Yeah. "Didi, we're the first ones." And I was like, I can't even fathom how I did it.

Okay. How long did it take me to get to the top?

No, I want to ask you a different question, but tell us that too.

Three hours.

Wow.

I was so... the guys from Chamonix. I was like, we got to the top. I was pissed. It was too dark to take photos. I'm like, we have to wait. Sorry, we're waiting.

How did you feel?

I felt... you know, first I couldn't believe it. That shows you that sometimes you need to have more faith in yourself. And actually, it brings tears to my eyes right now of joy because I was like, "Oh my god, oh my god." I kept on saying, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god." And the first videos of me, I'm literally saying, "Oh my god, oh my god, we made it in three hours." And it felt super empowering. Like I've never been drunk in my life or I have never taken any drugs. But the feeling I had at that time—feeling high and like my heart was exploding in joy—was also a confirmation that everything I had been doing, like adding creatine to my routine, helped me be super fast. And it was a confirmation of everything, a validation. I was like, "Wow." Even Prem, with whom I've climbed a few very high mountains, was even surprised. To a point where he knew we were fast, but to that point, he himself was like, "Wow." And he's a high-altitude mountain climber. He was impressed.

It's kind of like an external force. I don't want to say it's not thanks to me, but something was pushing me. It was a crazy situation. I felt a bit outside of my body. Okay. Lack of oxygen. Can't explain it. But I really felt on top of the world.

Euphoric.

Yeah, exactly. Euphoric too. I think it's one of the two or three times in my life where it was that high. I didn't want to go down. I was so good. I was like, "I'm staying here."

You just want to stay in it.

Yeah. But then you have to because you only have one way up and down.

So that must have been incredible. You're in a flow state.

Oh, and yes. And to that point, the last part is pretty vertical and you're supposed to hook yourself on a rope and pull yourself, you know, and help yourself with the rope. We didn't even do that. We used our ice axe and we just went straight up. I think he knew we had it in us. I might have doubted if I had been alone, like, "Oh, let's use the rope," which also added to our amazing time because we were fast.

It's like, don't look down, right?

Don't look down. It's not a highly technical mountain. I don't want to say it's not K2 or Annapurna. So, it's okay. I didn't put my life at risk either. It's just way more comfortable to be using the rope because, yeah, you can still fall. It's pretty steep. But yeah, amazing.

Yeah. So, that passion for climbing mountains, you did it and you continue to do it.

I take clients with me now. Next month, actually, exactly next month, I'm taking 10 clients to the top of Kilimanjaro.

Wow.

Yeah. They have never done anything in the mountains before. So, very exciting.

That's a good place to start, right, for people.

That's a good one. So you take 10 clients and they go have that experience, and then the bug is in them.

Exactly. I want to show them that their performance is way higher than they think. You know, when people say, "Write a business plan," I'm like, "Why? This is going to put so many limits to what I want to do." So I don't want to write a business plan. And I think very often our life is a business plan. Like, "Where do you see yourself in five years? In 10 years?" I don't know. I'll go with the flow, but I'm going to just roll faster so the flow is faster. But I don't like having limits. And I think by saying my first mountain is going to be Kilimanjaro for these women, it's huge. It's the roof of Africa, the highest mountain in that continent. Right. So it's really pushing the limits sometimes where it's still safe to do, but you're not starting small. You're going straight for the high.

Yeah. I remember I have a friend who did that and was just on such a high afterwards. It was so empowering.

And then you don't come back the way you went. You come from a different... it changes you forever. Yeah, it's addictive as well. I must admit, it's highly addictive. When you come down, you have this... I have read it also for drug addicts... this time where you feel almost depressed. It's like, "Oh, wow." And you cry, and it's okay. You acknowledge the sadness of the end of an experience, but it's very addictive.

Yeah. It's interesting because you have sort of the high and then the low in the physical sense of the term as well, and then trying to establish back to homeostasis, right?

Sort of like... it is interesting. That's why I also do not like when people take a helicopter from base camp back to civilization. I think you need to respect the mountains by not only going up on your feet but also down. It also helps you absorb this downtime as opposed to, "Oh, I made it to base camp. Now I'm flying to Kathmandu in a helicopter." No, it takes me five or six more days or whatever, but I'm walking my way back to civilization. And I think it's kind of a slower way to readapt to civilization and be less sad.

Interesting. Yeah. Very interesting.

It's just my perspective. I don't think there's any studies that prove that what I say is working. But mentally it makes sense, I think.

But it does make sense. Yeah. It's sort of like a decompression.

Exactly.

So, biohacking. When you have someone like you who has been doing it before the term really even existed. I mean, it became so trendy.

Yeah. I mean, and all of a sudden you see all these people who really commercialized it.

Yeah. But biohacking means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Ultimately, I get the sense from you that you're just trying to live the very best version of yourself in every moment that you have.

Exactly. Which I hope will be very long.

It looks like it. Yet to me, biohacking is pushing the limits of your physical and mental boundaries. That's also a reason why I don't really listen to young biohackers. If you're 30 years old and you tell me, "Do like me and it's going to be amazing," I'm not so sure. You're young. You're not aging that fast yet. So whatever you do, if you're eating super good and you're moving super good and you do the right peptides and everything, oh, it's amazing.

So, I really look up to people like Dave Pascoe. I don't know if you know him, right? He's a dear friend of mine. The guy is 62. His biomarkers are 38.

Wow.

You know, I admire his journey because he's proving that you can truly turn back the aging clock. For me, it's also fighting medical conditions like the ones I was born with with something else than a tablet or an injection, you know, like the regular medical system wants you to take. And if they don't have a solution, usually it's like super powerful Advil-type medicine. And for me, biohacking started in '98 precisely when after 28 years of being told there's nothing we can do against juvenile arthritis, which was extremely painful. I had the crooked fingers to prove it. I was like, "Hold on a minute. I just read something about a vitamin called vitamin C. If you take one gram a day, it's going to change your life. It's anti-inflammatory."

Today, you can laugh because it's nothing compared to what we take. But in '98, people were like, "Whoa, it's too much. You're going to ruin your kidneys. It's bad for your liver." I was going to die because of my vitamin C intake. But very quickly, I felt a difference because of course it's anti-inflammatory. Now I take two grams a day. But that was the beginning of it. I was already doing things without knowing, like exercising outside and going to bed early. I think it really helped. And then of course, early in the 2000s, when Professor Khavinson from Russia came up with not the first ones—because insulin was really the first medically used peptide—but the other ones, Epitalon and all these BPC-kind of peptides. I was already looking at it before it became this big thing that everyone wants to buy online on shady websites.

So, I've never stopped doing it to first take care of the conditions, and then I have so many other conditions to fix. Like I have a terrible case of SIBO. I was apparently born with it. I've tried every single conventional medicine. Nothing works. The only thing I have found which works—and if I'm a bit sniffly now, maybe it's because of it—is fasting 30 hours once every week. That works. But no doctor will ever tell you that because people want a pill. They want a one-mega-supplement multivitamin, which is BS. Never do that. They also want the magic pill to cure everything. And sometimes you have to take matters in your own hands.

Yeah. Good luck with one pill.

Well, you have Ozempic. I'm kidding.

Yeah. Well, and I think you made a great point about Ozempic or any GLP-1. And now we go all the way past tirzepatide into retatrutide.

And they have GLP-3, I heard. Did you hear that?

Yeah. So I mean, I think that's a very interesting time. And at the end of the day, I think the core things are sleep, diet, exercise, doing things like the water, right? Making sure that you're drinking.

Yeah. Oh, and also cardio coherence. That's big. Yeah, we are so incoherent these days because we're running around all the time. And taking the time every day to re-center yourself is not selfish. It's as important as going to the gym or eating well. So, these are the fundamentals. If you don't do all of that, you can take all the magic supplements that are promoted by the big biohackers out there or big pharma or influencers. It's not going to work. You cannot out-supplement a poor night of sleep. You can't out-supplement a terrible diet. You can't out-supplement a stressful life. So, you have to first take care of that and then add the rest.

I like what you said too earlier about so many people that have these, and you've said this before...

Am I repeating myself?

No, no, no. I like it when you do though.

Okay.

You've said that there are people that are on these protocols, but one of the things I love that you said was that the protocol that's working for this one person... you know, we're all an N of one. You have to figure out what works for you and really test and figure out how to make that work. So, that's pretty interesting.

I think one thing works for everyone, and these are the fundamentals: sleep, nutrition, all of that. This is one-size-fits-all for sure. But then as far as supplements, yes, vitamin C is good for everyone... but after that, you really have to do your homework. And please, please do not rely on AI for everything because it's terrible.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Like, I use ChatGPT, I use Claude and Perplexity, and I have a project where I put all my labs and I ask, "Claude or ChatGPT or Perplexity, help me improve my protocol." And what's very interesting is you have three probiotics which are known for having the ability to destroy the SIBO bacteria, right? So I put them in my protocol, and then all of them told me, "You should not have this. It feeds SIBO." And I was like, "This is bizarre." And every time I said, "Are you sure?" they said, "Oh, my bad. You're right." So, you have to know your subject. Don't think that an AI platform will spit out the perfect plan for you and it's going to be correct.

Yeah. And it can start hallucinating, too.

Exactly. Yeah. It's like you have to be very careful with believing...

It's like don't believe everything that you see on...

Exactly. Yeah.

It's interesting. You have so many years of experience.

But I'm only 25.

It's, you know, I was trying to figure out how you've actually done it in such a short period of time, but you know, clearly you have some sort of way of doing it that no one else has figured out yet.

It's my secret. I'll tell you.

Don't share it. Don't share it. Keep it to yourself.

Hold on a minute. I can share it for the right price.

Okay. Um, so we'll... I want first right of refusal on that.

Yeah, we'll talk.

Expensive. One billion.

What? It seems like a bargain to me. I'll get the checkbook, it's right over there.

To be honest, I do actually share a lot of things for free. I do have a platform called Val Biohacker where it's a membership base, but I still give a lot of free content on it because I feel it's my duty to share on Instagram and platforms and at conferences what I've learned.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you've been a creator. Look at all these books. I mean, 55 books before ChatGPT.

I wrote them myself.

That's the funniest part about it, right? Today, like anyone can just press a button pretty much.

Well, yeah, I can write a prompt. And I'm pretty good at prompt engineering, but I can write a prompt. I can write a book.

That is impressive. This is not easy work. This is really dedication.

And yeah, it's a lot of work. But, you know, it's interesting. This one, which is in French, is for women. It's the first time I have a co-author. She was doing a lot of research for me, right? And the book is a little gem. Like it's massively well-written. She's an amazing co-writer and the research is crazily deep. I was told by the publisher it was too smart. People are not used to reading well-written books anymore. They're used to the kind of ChatGPT, pre-digested content. And I was like, "But I love it. It's my number 55. It's magic."

That is a... Wow. To have somebody say that to you, "It's too smart."

I mean, I took it as a compliment.

Yeah, of course.

Thank you so much.

But almost sad.

Yeah. In a sense, right? That we live in this time when we're so distracted that people can't absorb something that smart.

The length of a caption on Instagram is pretty much how much people can take. I mean, I know sometimes I try to write longer pieces and people are like, "Uh, do you have a summary?" And I'm like, "It only takes five minutes to read."

Yeah. So, okay. So, we talk about exercise. You like to exercise outdoors. You train.

I like the sun.

The sun. Yeah. And how much sun do you feel like you want to get in a day?

Yeah. So, in the biohacking world, you have two groups. One that says you should never go in the sun. You should be protected or you're going to get skin cancer and wrinkles. And another group that says, "No, sunscreens cause cancer and you need the sun every day." I'm kind of in the middle. The first time in the morning when I'm going outside, no sunscreen, no sunglasses. I need my body to know, "Hey, sun is out. Let's produce melanin and everything." But then if I'm going out at lunchtime between 10 and 4, I wear my sunglasses unless I don't need them and I wear sunscreen. So, I'm kind of in between. If I am on a boat, sunscreen. If I'm swimming in Bora Bora, sunscreen, super harsh sun. I don't want too many wrinkles. We know sun causes wrinkles. I mean, it's proven. You have to know that. It is true. Now, some sunscreens are not super healthy. They contain a lot of endocrine disruptors. So, you have to do your homework on that.

Speaking of endocrine disruptors, fragrances.

Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?

So, I don't use deodorant. Don't tell me I stink because I showered before coming, but I don't use deodorant. I don't use perfume. Except if I go to a special event once in a while. I'm not an extremist, but on a daily basis, I've realized if you don't use deodorant at all for a few weeks or months, your armpit microbiome will rehabilitate itself and you will not have any body odor. It's a myth. And the more you use these products, the more you wash, the more you destroy your microbiome. And that's why we need all these things.

So, do you feel like you could go into the shower and just use water?

You can use some very light or skin-protecting products out of coconut oil, for instance. But one of my very dear friends, she was a microbiome specialist. She kept on telling me we should not shower more than three times a week. And I was like, "But I'm all sweaty. I just ran or whatever." She's like, "Yeah, but wait for two hours. See how you feel." And I remember being kind of shocked by that. I know French people have a reputation of not being clean. That's not true. We shower like you Americans, right?

But she explained to me and she showed me with microscopic images what happens when you wash your skin with water. It takes four to six hours for your pH to go back to normal. It takes over eight hours for your microbiome to go back to normal. So, if you shower twice a day, which is what a lot of people do, your microbiome is always at war. It's always trying to fix itself, and it's very tiring. But also it means there are important bacteria that don't have the time to be there. They're always destroyed, and that's why you have body odors—because you don't let your body defend itself. Again, I'm not saying if you go on a 20-mile crazy hike in the sun. I'm talking regular life. If you go to the gym and you lift weights, you might not need a shower right away. Wait for an hour or two. And by doing this after three to eight weeks, depending, you'll be surprised. Also, a lot of the brands out there, mainly for men, but also women, do test on animals, which is not good.

Well, I'm going to give that a try. I'll tell you next week or next time.

Well, that's amazing. The more you use these products, the more you create the problem that you need solving. Kind of like Bayer being in the same group as Monsanto: creates a product that creates cancer and part of the group has the drug to fix the cancer. Same thing, you know, you shower and everything and then of course you have a problem, so you need the deodorant. Guess what? All these products are part of the same conglomerates usually.

Yeah. The soap and the deodorant. Very interesting.

Yeah. And I found times where I actually didn't need deodorant at all. And I just kind of...

That's when you're all balanced, your microbiome is happy.

Yeah. There is one of the first companies to actually analyze your skin microbiome in San Francisco. The founder is French. I did a test. I was like, "Oh, my microbiome is happy." But yeah, I know it's hard because we have been taught to always shower, and that's the thing you have to deprogram yourself from.

You know what's crazy is like when you drink really filtered water that's got the right stuff back into it, just how amazing that it tastes so different.

It tastes like river water, which is the original water.

Exactly. Yeah. There's a company called Good for Co out of San Diego. Amazing CEO. She has this system you put in the house and that of course filters everything, but then there's this vortex that brings back the movement in the water as if it was coming from a river. And when you drink this water, it's not only filtered from chemicals, pharmaceutical residues, heavy metals, fluoride, everything, but it also has this movement in it. It's not stagnant water. I wish I could install that system here, but in San Francisco it's harder because my kitchen... I don't have the space. But if I had a house, I would install that thing right away.

Yeah, interesting. The Mission District is such an interesting... it's a mix. It really is. There's a lot of history there.

I love it because I feel to me that's America, the American dream. You meet people who are immigrants starting at the bottom of the ladder, people who are in the middle, second generation, billionaires, everyone and everything in between. And I like that.

Yeah, I'm a city guy. I've always loved the city. As a kid we used to always go across, and then when my parents got divorced, my dad lived in the city, so I spent a lot of time in the city. My childhood best friend was from the city.

Yeah. I love... I'm not a city girl. I'm more like a mountain and in-the-woods type of girl, but I love San Francisco. Everything is kind of low. I live next to two parks, including Dolores Park. I'm 20 minutes from the airport. I have this feeling of freedom.

Yeah. You can go where you want and do the things that you want to do.

And there's no pollution, so I can really train outside without thinking, "Oh, I'm going to breathe so much pollution."

It's great because you have the air that's just flowing straight off of the ocean.

Exactly. There. Sometimes it's too much, a little too cold.

Yeah. A little too foggy. So young people listening...

You mean young like us?

Young like us. Millennial, Gen Z, right? So, the people that are wanting to reach a level of peak performance. We know that we have to do the very basics.

Yeah. All right. So, that's sleep. Not enough emphasis on sleep.

I think we should put more emphasis. And you have to know that your deep sleep will happen between 9:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m., no matter what you do in life. Even if you tell me, "I'm a night owl," you cannot have deep sleep between 3:00 and 6:00 a.m. Maybe a tiny bit, but the vast majority will happen between 9:00 or 9:30 p.m. and 2:00 a.m., like 75 to 80%. So no matter what you tell me, if you go to bed every day at midnight, you are deficient in deep sleep. And that is when your body repairs itself. Remember, you're young and everything, but you start aging by age 20. As a matter of fact, you start aging as soon as you're born, but when it comes to hormones, skeleton, everything else, it's when you start getting to 20, 25. So your sleep is your first barrier to aging. I was thinking about it when I was already 16. Not that it was an obsession, but I knew it was going to impact me.

So sleep, yeah. Nutrition, the one big thing today is we have a higher rate of death now in millennials and Gen Z by cancer. And we're like, why? And some experts came out with a few solutions, but one of them is the takeout and all these foods they buy in black plastic containers.

Yeah. Because where is the black plastic coming from?

Right. Yeah, electronics.

Yeah, you know it's crazy, melted keyboards and you have your sushi on it. So, fat and heat. This is great for nanoplastics and microplastics. So, if there was one thing they should do on top of the fundamentals, it is stop takeout and stop buying food in plastic containers.

I remember back in the day I used to see people microwaving food in plastic.

Yeah. I mean, it's just like... they still do it. Some people still do it.

Yeah. And they just... whatever. It's invisible. And that's the problem because it's invisible. People don't realize there's a potential problem. You have to see it, to be sick, to realize, "Oh shoot, I should not have done it."

Yeah. I'm not saying that if you do everything by the book, you'll never get sick. Obviously, you're just pushing back as much as you can all the genes that you were dealt with, the cards that were not good. And that's called epigenetics. It's transforming the expression of your genes by doing the right thing or the wrong thing.

Yep. It's so true. I mean, this notion that, "Oh, if I do all of these things, nothing bad's ever going to happen. I'm going to be perfect."

No, you're doing your best, which usually should do something, but you might be unlucky. So, I don't want to tell people, "Oh, if you do everything by the book, you'll always be perfect." But one thing to be said is even if something nasty happens to you, your body will be healthier to start with. You'll have good habits like sleep habits, nutrition habits, fitness... it will help you face the vast majority of conditions that could hit you as well.

So do you find that you always have this much energy?

This is nothing. I have been fasting for 26 hours now.

So you're on the low side.

Oh, I am told by my people that I can be tiring at times, but I'm proud of it. So, that's a good thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, anybody...

Can you believe someone telling you, "You're so boring at times"? I was like, come on.

No. Oh my gosh. That'd be the worst. Right.

Yeah. I had a lot of energy and I used to use adrenaline for that because I claimed all my life that five hours of sleep was enough. And then one day I got that thing, the Oura Ring, and I was like, "Uh oh, I'm so damn wrong." So now I'm sleeping better. So I have even more energy.

It's funny. I've struggled with sleep my entire life. And for years, traveling millions of miles on airplanes and in hotel rooms and never sleeping well the first night in a hotel room, of course, and jet lag. You know, I also came from that generation of, "Hey, we'll sleep when we're dead."

I do say, "I'll rest in my coffin," but not in comparison to work. More like because I'm always active and people say, "Slow down." I'll rest in my coffin because I want to enjoy life to the fullest.

You want to maximize.

Yeah. But also take time where I do nothing. Like the past two days I was feeling a bit under the weather. I don't know if I was mentally tired or physically. It was a presign of pre-burnout, like very much in advance. So the past two days I did pretty much nothing except riding my bike in the city and breathing and easy stuff. It's okay to be able to pull back from life and just contemplate a bit.

It's nice to give yourself permission to do that.

Exactly. It was interesting you earlier you talked about that centering. Just this morning as I was getting ready, I was like, "Okay, I'm just going to take a few moments just to kind of get to that centered spot and kind of let go of everything, come to that place." And that's important.

Yeah, it is so important, isn't it? Like the nap, you know, earlier you asked me to be here an hour and a half earlier than what we agreed today. And my nap is sacred. I just said, "Hey, guys, I need to have a nap. I'll come afterwards." And that's also... you need to have boundaries in your life.

So true.

Sometimes you can't... I'm not saying if you had told me there is no other possibility I would have made it work, but sometimes you just ask. It doesn't hurt. You already have the 'no,' you might get the 'yes' by asking.

If you don't ask, you don't get.

Exactly. And I think the boundaries are super important. It is important for you to establish what is right for you. Lately I have compromised on some of my things that are my absolutes.

Which ones, for instance?

Well, the gym, but that's also coming back from...

But that's because you got hurt. It's different.

Yeah, and I really, you know, but just showing up and doing a little bit helps me. So tomorrow is the first day back after a long stretch without it and I'm so looking forward to it. It feels so good to me.

I also love walking.

Yeah. So, walking to me and being outside and seeing nature is super important. I'm so impressed with the hiking and the mountaineering, the mountain climbing with you. You were on ABC. Like there was a whole thing about you.

Yeah, they did a lot of things because I also skied to the South Pole on a 100-pound sled.

Speaking of peak performance, that is peak performance.

And then did I do it before or after? No, before that I climbed the highest mountain in Antarctica and then I skied to the South Pole, just because why not?

Well, these are just little things, right? And it's like you're not breaking a sweat to do that.

Actually, I did sweat the first day because I did not listen to my guide who told me, "Do not wear your parka. It's minus 40, but trust me, wear just a little tiny rain jacket." And I'm like, "But it's minus 40." He says, "Listen to me." I'm like, "I'm too cold." So, I put the parka on and you ski, right? And people don't know, but the South Pole is at 8,000 feet. It's not flat at zero. So, you kind of go up a little bit, and you sweat. So if you just have a little layer, you will be a bit cold but not too much. You're perfect. With a parka, I was sweating like a piglet. And so within 10 minutes, I'm sweating and I feel good. And then 15 minutes, I'm like, "Oh, this is not good." And then you never stop for 45 minutes. You have a very precise schedule when you are on the ice sheet. You have to, because as soon as you stop because of the wind, you get super cold. So I was like, "Ryan, I am all sweaty." He was like, "Well, I will teach you." And so when I removed the jacket after 45 minutes, I was drenched and the sweat actually was frozen on my skin. I listened to him after that. Never wore that parka anymore when I was skiing.

Yeah. It's really... that's interesting how people can give us information and then we choose not to listen to it.

Yeah. And then we have to have our...

Because I was wrong. I wanted immediate comfort. Like I didn't want to be cold right away.

There's something in that too, isn't it? Like to not always have comfort.

So when you do these crazy things like skiing to the South Pole, which I think is my achievement really, you are cold constantly. There is no hotel at night whether there's a blizzard or not. You have to build your tent. You have to dig six feet deep to make your makeshift toilet. Whatever the weather, there's no one to do it for you. There's no sherpa or whatever. It's just you. No one carries your stuff. No one does your job for you. So, it's very much a different thing than a regular expedition when you have people doing everything, cooking for you. Here, no one does it. You cook for yourself and you do everything, right? And yeah, some people say I'm a masochist because of why I do that. It's just that's big performance for me. You don't necessarily love every minute of it, but you project yourself to the end. You're like, "In that many days, I will reach the South Pole." So every time... it's 10 hours a day, you can't listen to music because the batteries freeze. You can't talk to anyone. It's too cold and you're like this in a line. So you're just with yourself 10 hours a day, sweating a little bit but not too much. And you have to find the goal. You have to find something to pull you towards your goal. Because on a mountain you see the mountain, you see trees, you see rocks, you see things there. Sometimes you don't even see the person because it's a whiteout. So that's where... I think to me that's the hardest thing when it comes to peak performance is to ski to the South Pole. There is nothing to relate to.

That's the most intense thing that you've done.

Yeah. Mentally, physically maybe, but mentally it's hard. It's like you are alone and you can't really complain. And there's no one to say, "Oh, I'm so sorry. You're cold?" Nobody cares. And it was only three girls and two guys. We were a small group with two girlfriends. We ended up sleeping three of us in a tent for two because we were so cold. We were like, "We're going to save some weight," because no one pulls your sled. You pull your own sled.

Wow. Yeah, that was something.

Wow. That is really something.

I think that's my craziest performance.

When did you do that?

Right after COVID, 2022 I think. And I reached the South Pole December 31st.

And do you know what happens at the South Pole at midnight on December 31st?

What happens?

They change the marker from one spot to the next spot because the magnetic pole itself changes. So I was there when they did it. It was crazy.

Wow. That is...

Yeah. So I have the two photos of the two markers.

That's so cool. That's wild. You've helped a lot of people.

I do my best. I have a passion for sharing.

You do?

Yeah. Like people tell me I have a problem. Like, "Oh, how can I help? What can I do for you?"

You derive an immense satisfaction from that.

Yeah. So, I'm not a saint. I also do it because it makes me happy.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe you're a saint.

You're a saint that actually enjoys what you do.

Exactly. Right.

So this space is hot. We know that we're operating, especially in the United States, in a sick-care model.

Yeah. Europe as well, to be honest. It's becoming the same.

And I think people are waking up. I think more and more every day it seems like people are sort of like, "Hey, this is not working." You mentioned it before, more and more people are getting cancer, etc. Where do you think the whole biohacking world is headed?

You know, sometimes I wake up and I have a lot of hope, but then I realize that you need to be educated to be a true biohacker—like not just fundamentals, but peptides and exosomes and plasma exchange and all these things. But you also need to have your basic needs satisfied, the Maslow pyramid, right? You need to have enough food on the table, college paid for the kids, a house, a roof, and everything. And so in America right now, considering the state of the economy, I wish we could say in 10 years everyone would do some sort of biohacking, but I think so many people are just making do. And they're the ones who need it the most usually because they eat poorly, they work crazy hours, and it's a vicious circle.

I have this dream that yes, everyone will do it. But you have to know that you and I, we're in this field. A lot of people around me either mock me, make fun of me because I'm crazy with my biohacks, or don't even want to believe it. They believe the white coat all the time over whatever I say. Except my dad. My dad is my best guinea pig. He was given six months to live 18 years ago. He's still alive and he swims 3 to 4k a day, hikes 10k a day. I went crazy. But he does everything. All the Epitalon, the BPC, everything I give him, he does it right. And he's 84 years old. But if you see him, you're like, "Wow." And then you have my mom. She loves me. She listens to me. But the white coat is always right. Even if I'm like, "Mom, don't do that. It's bad for your health." There is this culture where if it's a doctor who says it, it's always right. And I'm not saying it's always wrong, obviously. And you have to be careful who you're listening to. But I wish I could say that, but I'm not sure the market is there yet.

There's too much money to be made by selling drugs. Look at Ozempic. As a biohacker, if you take a microdose of it, it's amazing. Now, if you take the real stuff... I know some people will argue, "You're not a doctor. How could you say that? It saves people's lives," whatever. I don't agree with it. And I think that by doing this, we are even more in the sick-care vicious circle because now we need another product to actually give you muscles, which is coming out very soon. And so in the future, I'm seeing people eating poorly, injecting a GLP-1, GLP-2, GLP-3, all these things to have an artificial way to get to where they should be. And I'm not sure that's healthy.

I wish I could evangelize more people about just the easy stuff like daylight, simple exercise, snacking, which I do constantly. Like I'm talking to you, contracting my glutes, tucking in my tummy. Little things like this. I wish I could do that. That's why I also give a lot of conferences and talks, because I want to share. And so many people come to me and say, "Oh, you changed my life just by saying this." I relate, but I can't touch that many people. And thanks to you and shows like yours, I can reach more lives. Maybe give them something. Right now I'm helping a guy to be healthier and he really listens to everything and I'm like, "Oh my god, he's my great project." And maybe by coaching his life, he told me someone else saw a story of his and now he's doing the same. So we can get into a virtuous circle, but you need to have people who want to do it too.

Your community becomes very important.

Yes. You need the community.

Yeah. And your life is so enriched by that community. One of the things I feel is so important is staying away from... you also have to guard yourself.

Yes. You need barriers.

Yeah. I have found that I have to be very selective about who I spend time with.

I agree 100%. It can destroy you more than a bad night's sleep. All the people saying... I created a group on Signal called the BPC group for BPC-157, but it means the Best Performance Crew. And we are meeting actually Saturday night once a month. I organize a biohacker dinner and everyone brings some food and we exchange. And that's my crew. That's my team. That's my people. Not all my friends are like this, but this Saturday is our Saturday. And as good biohackers, it starts at 5:00 and ends at 8:30, because at night we're in bed at 9:30, we switch off the light. But you need to create your own crew so that you don't feel alone. In San Francisco, I often feel alone in what I'm doing. A lot of my friends are scattered around the States. So kind of gathering once in a while, either at my house or at conferences around the world...

It really is interesting to feel sometimes alone in that. Right.

Yeah. And that's when you need to be super strong and never lose track of this peak performance path. Like, "I want to go there." Some people will say, "Don't do it. It's ridiculous." Some people will say, "There's no way it can work." Just push them like insects on the windshield of your life. Push them to the side and just go straight.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. You're such a determined person. You've created so many things. You've accomplished so much. You're really living a life at a level that is so far beyond what many people ever feel that they could achieve. If you're giving advice to anyone just listening to this, they've never heard anything about peak performance or sustainability within the performance, what are the things that you could say? How do I start? What are the things I start with?

Wow. I like to say that when you're born, you have this ability to be a better version of yourself. And usually parents, school, family, environment will kind of put a lid on your power. And very often when people say, "What should I do?" they know the answer already. They ask permission for doing what they know they should be doing because of the lid. So, it's acknowledging that you've been smothered or whatever and that you need to get this lid off to let yourself come out.

It starts with cardiac coherence. I would do five minutes of cardiac coherence every day. I use HeartMath. I don't know if you know this sensor that helps you connect your cardiac activity and your brain activity. It's only five minutes a day, but it forces you to re-center yourself and understand how your body works. Five minutes a day, that's nothing. If you are even more motivated, twice a day. And you realize when you do that how much your thoughts impact your heart coherence. It's direct. You see your coherence go to zero if you think about something negative. And when you think about something positive or happy or a performance you want to reach or whatever, your cardio coherence will go up.

Wow. This neurofeedback will help you stay on course.

I've never heard about this before.

Oh, it's amazing. Wow. You should come to one of my dinners and we'll talk about it.

Oh my gosh.

You're invited.

Oh, thank you.

If you want to start from scratch? Cardio coherence. And I'm not talking fundamentals. We've talked about it, the sleep and everything, but cardio coherence would be number one.

I don't believe in self-help books. I talked about it. I think you waste so much time reading when you could do something else. But reach out to people who will take you out of your comfort zone. I have a friend one day, she said, "Do you like dancing?" And I love dancing, but she says, "How about ecstatic dancing in a decommissioned church?" I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." And I went, and for like two hours you dance and there are no cameras allowed and you kind of let yourself go. And I was like, "Wow." I kind of pushed the boundaries a bit. Nothing crazy, but I did it. So if you are shy, it could be, "Today I'm going to smile at five people on the street." Anything that you do every day, a little something that pushes you. It doesn't have to be an interview with you, which is maybe too much for some people, but just smiling at someone, sending a message to someone you hurt or who hurt you, writing on a piece of paper what you want to become and putting the stickies everywhere so that your brain has no doubts, because your brain hears you.

So if you say, "Oh, I'm so stupid. I made this mistake,"—I'm guilty of doing it sometimes—but as soon as I say it, I'm like, "No, no, no." The brain hears you. Don't say that. If you keep on saying, "I am smart. I can do it. I will do it. I will achieve it. No one can stop me," you will do it.

Oh my gosh, it's so profound. That inner dialogue.

Yeah, it's amazing. It brings you down. There are things I'm saying to myself, I'm like, "Holy mackerel."

The power of the mind. And this has nothing to do even with spirituality at that point. It's really just the words you hear. And if you do the cardiac coherence I talked to you about, you will see it with a number on your phone. Neurofeedback right away. Right away you see how your thoughts impact how your heart feels and beats.

So you can give us the information. We can put that in the show notes.

Yeah, if you want. Okay. I'm a big fan of these products. It was invented in '91. Now it's all over the hospital system to help people who are depressed. It changed my life. It really did. And every morning in front of my red light panel, first I do my eye exercises, and when I turn my back to it, I do my cardio coherence. And if I have more time during the day, I'll do another session during which I read and pronounce in my head positive affirmations. Always positive. It can never be, "No one will stop me from..." No, it's, "Everyone will help me." It has to be all positive.

Yeah. The subconscious mind can't differentiate between positive and negative. So how you say these things to yourself is really important.

Yeah.

Okay. So we have two things. Is there a third, or should we talk a little bit about peptides?

The third would be peptides.

This is so easy. We're in a rhythm.

Epitalon is pretty powerful stuff. Putin is doing it.

What do you like about it?

To me, it's the fountain of youth as much as we've found today. I mean, if there is one today, because it promotes the production of telomerase, which helps with our telomeres so that they can even grow. You have two protocols, a Russian and a Ukrainian one, which I find very ironic considering what's happening right now. I created my own protocol for myself and for older people like my dad. I created a brand new protocol. The usual protocol is 10 days every six months, twice a year, pretty much. Intramuscular, I think, is the Russian one and the other one is subcutaneous. For my dad, because he's older, it's a very small micro-dosing unit every single day. I invented the protocol. You know, as my dad said, "Test everything you want on me." I read enough books on this. I believe today if you're a biohacker, you cannot not do Epitalon.

But a word of caution: do not buy this on any website. You have to choose the right website. You have to do your homework. That's why on ValBiohacker.com, I regularly update the links I share because I write to companies. I ask for their lab certificates. And not long ago, I was approached by a company that said, "Hey, we'd like to do white-labeling peptides for you." I'm like, "Yay." I said, "Can I see your facilities?" And they were very vague to a point where I realized they were supplying some of my friends. And I asked my friends, "But did you dig? Did you check where they are?" Because I did some investigation and they have a mailbox somewhere in Florida, and supposedly their manufacturing place or warehouse is closed because they're scared of... I'm like, "No."

And so that's how I do my homework. I write, I harass people to get the certificate, and you have to be careful. A lot of bad stuff on the market, right? And if you find a peptide that's already in its liquid form for injection, don't use it. It's dead. As soon as you move a peptide like this, it's dead. It's important. You are injecting this in your body. I mean, it's not just vitamin C. You put it in your skin, under your skin. So, you have to be careful. And it's not because it's a big influencer who says, "I created my brand," that you should go. And actually, I would go further. Do not go. It should not be someone who has a name that puts their name on it. It should be a specific manufacturing company that makes peptides in the States. Do not buy peptides from China. I insist.

Oh, you find them all over now. Even in beauty products made in China. I don't trust it. I'm not saying they're going to poison me or whatever. I'm just saying they don't have the same protocols and standards. So, I don't know what they're putting in their GHK-Cu in China. So, I buy... it's more expensive, but American-made peptides.

Yeah. When you think about more expensive, like the difference between price and cost...

And death.

And death, right? The cost.

So some peptides, to be fair, have to be manufactured outside of the States for some patent reasons and stuff, but at least at the end they come here and everything is finalized in the States. So I really look at the 99.98% purity level, that's very important. But if you find BPC-157 as a stack with TB-500 under $70, don't go. It's too cheap to be true.

All good. Yeah. So BPC-157, thymosin beta-4, thymosin alpha-1... that saved my shoulder from surgery. I dislocated my shoulder, which is extremely painful. And I was scheduled for surgery after nine months of PT, and at the time I was not using those peptides. But a friend of mine came back from Antarctica, three fingers black. He was about to get amputated. And I see him a few months later. His fingers are there, except he's missing just a little tip. I said, "What did you do?" He said, "Oh, I injected TB-500 and BPC directly." So, I started digging. Okay, I'm injecting my shoulder. Within three weeks, the doctor cleared me. The surgeon said, "You don't need surgery." No surgery.

Wild.

Yeah. And so, I use it in a very specific protocol. I do three months with a stack, one month off, three months just BPC, one month off, three months just TB-500, and then I go back. And now I add GHK-Cu in it. Very diluted because it's so painful at the injection site. I found a way now. I found a way.

Oh, you add extra bacteriostatic water to it.

The vial is full. It's like four milliliters or four syringes of bac water. And I inject two or three times a day, 10 units.

I know, because it hurts.

It woke me up at night the first time. I'm like, "What did I do?" Because I injected pure GHK-Cu the first time, because there's not that much literature on that, you have to kind of find your own path. Yeah. And so I was like, "Ah, this is so painful." And then I found this glow stack that has the three of them, but even so with two syringes and 20 units it was painful. So now with four syringes I can do it.

Pretty powerful peptide.

Yeah. I'm going to see what it does to my skin. Can't wait.

I mean, I think from a collagen production standpoint, supposedly.

Yeah. I mean it's pretty powerful.

So I always want to know from people that really know like you, what's another peptide people aren't really aware of or talking about that's out there that you love?

So be careful of the ones that no one talks about because either they're amazing and no one knows yet, or there's a reason. There is no study or we haven't found anything good about them. There are a few of them. The one I really love is Cerebrolysin. I think I'm going to start now, but I used it on my dad when he had a fall on his head. Amazing.

Wow.

His cognitive skills were better after the fall than before. But I think now I'm going to start using Cerebrolysin twice a year or three times a year as a short, like maybe three-week or four-week treatment, because of an ischemia in my brain from mountaineering and lack of oxygen, to help with the brain structure. We'll see. I haven't found amazing studies proving it works on that, but there are no terrible side effects that should make me not want to do it.

Now there are other peptides for which I sometimes read amazing studies and then the literature is not so great, and so to me, if there are too many doubts, I will abstain. I won't do it. I don't want to do things sometimes because I don't believe, like gene therapy and things. I'm like, sometimes I'm going to wait.

Yeah, for sure. On the gene therapy side of things.

But now I do... I don't do plasma exchange. I do plasmapheresis because I think it's...

What's the difference?

A plasma exchange is I take all your plasma out and I give you brand new plasma from a healthy individual. Except, what is in the plasma? Nanoplastics. So you get a healthy plasma that has plastic in it and you pay 10 grand for that. For me, I go to a place where I donate my plasma. Not all of it, 600 milliliters. So, a fourth or a fifth of what I have. They usually pay you for that. I don't take it because I'm like, "Come on, I just want to donate it." But then my body only needs 36 hours to reproduce what I just gave. It's brand new. No microplastics in it. And it's free.

Wow.

Yeah. Because that's a really hot thing right now.

Yeah. And what's the thing that they're also placing?

Ozone. The plasma exchange is good if you do it in a good place, like the Next Health clinic chain that Darshan Shah founded. This is different. Their plasma source is amazing. It's done in a clinical situation and they can remove 80 to 85% of your plasma and replace it with something healthy. And that's again like peptides; you have places that are pretty shady and it's going to be half the price. No, maybe you should abstain. So my technique is free but it takes longer because you cannot give away 100% of your plasma. So it takes five to six runs for your plasma to be renewed. If you go to a Next Health or equivalent and you do a therapeutic plasma exchange, it costs something but you get the entire plasma renewed within two hours.

So very interesting.

Yeah, I like yours better.

It's cheap. It's free and also it's yours.

Well, if you give red cells, it takes four to six weeks to replenish your red cells. White cells, it's even longer. But plasma and platelets, no more than a day or two. So, you can give it away.

That is fantastic. Well, my friend, we have covered a lot.

We haven't even talked about exosomes and stem cells.

We'll keep that for next time.

I know. You know what? Hey, when you're back, will you come back?

Yep.

And we'll talk about exosomes and stem cells. Obviously, I'm very interested in this.

Yeah, I can tell.

Yeah. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you, and I'm delighted. By the way, one of the things that we have decided to do with the show is make every bit of the profit from the show donated to charity, and the charity is the guest's choice.

I'm a big activist for mammal rights, so dolphins and orcas. I would love to give to Dolphin Project. Okay. It makes me cry. There are two actually, International Animal Rescue and Dolphin Project, because when I see what we put these poor animals through. So, yeah.

I have to say, it's so fascinating to me. I really think it is absolutely immoral that we have things like SeaWorld or we have orcas.

Did you see what happened in Abu Dhabi? That's why I'm boycotting Abu Dhabi. In Japan, they captured a beautiful oceanic manta three weeks ago. Huge. And it's on tape. Someone was filming it to bring it to an aquarium in Abu Dhabi. And the biggest company in the world that does this is from Florida. It's an American company. I couldn't help it. I sent a very nasty email to these guys. Like maybe I'm going to get a restraining order or something. But I was like, "How can you do that?" And I went on their website and you can buy a shark, you can buy a dolphin, you can buy whatever you want. They procure it for you.

And dolphins and orcas are extremely smart mammals. They lead a community. Did you see there's a dolphin, an orca that died last week? His name was Earth in Japan. He was born in a concrete tank. Never had any social life. He died at age 16. What a terrible life, right? Because they live to 80.

And they are social.

Social even more than us.

Yeah. I mean, that's their... they never separate. They're always together. The pods are like the basic of life.

So sometimes on my stories, once a day at least, you will see something from International Animal Rescue, mainly for the bears in Armenia, but also others, and the dolphins. And we won. I mean, this year Iceland will not go on a whale hunt for the first time ever. And Mexico passed a bill last month banning all concrete tanks, captivity breeding, dolphin shows, and everything in 16 months. And that's crazy. So it's a huge victory.

That is a huge victory.

I think it's good to be a biohacker, but don't forget the fact that so many things happen on the planet.

Sure. I mean, your awareness of that is phenomenal.

Yeah, I think all zoos... I'm against zoos. Like if you can't see a polar bear in real life, it's fine. I've never seen one either. It's called video. You can go on YouTube and find it or watch a show on the BBC. You don't have to see everything in a cage.

Yeah. No, I think it's absolutely unbelievable that we still have it. It's 2025.

I know. But people still go to SeaWorld. Now it's limited. But in Florida now, they have these fake rehab centers. They just put eight... what's it called... rough-toothed dolphins. They were rescued from a bad place to a new sanctuary. And I looked at the sanctuary. Literally the tanks are this size. And I'm like, "How can a dolphin live there?" And I thought it was temporary before releasing. So I contacted them and they said, "No, they're not available for rehab. They have been captive too long." I'm like, "Are you kidding me? You're using this to keep them in a small tank and now you have tourists paying to see them." So there's a lot of fake stuff also.

So I'm working hard. There's one last orca in jail in South America, in Argentina. He's been captured when he was 18 months old. Now he's 25, alone in a tank. It must be crazy. And he grew in a circle, so his spine is not even straight. We can't put him in the wild completely. But I'm thinking he could be in the wild and we would feed him every day. Like in rehab, they put the fish out. Why not? At least he has the freedom to go around.

I mean, the confinement. Think about that. These mammals are social just like we are. If you put people in solitary confinement, they go insane.

They go crazy. But look, during COVID in Europe, they were contained for 23 hours a day. We didn't feel it here, but over there it was very hard and people complained. So I kind of relate to what the dolphins go through. They don't even have one hour of freedom. But imagine all your life like this, taken from your parents as well. Because that's what happens now with the Japanese Taiji hunt.

Imagine the grief.

Yeah, the grief that they must... There was the first case of dolphin suicide a few months ago.

How did that happen?

Because they have these aquariums next to the ocean. So when the dolphin does a flip, the dolphin sees the ocean and then goes back into the tank. One of them became crazy and purposely, you can see on purpose, jumped into the wall. He's not dead, and that's very sad. I thought it would be better if he were dead. Now he's completely handicapped or hurt. But that shows you how smart they are. Like, "I want to end my days." Not only humans do it. So when these are next to the water, they can see where they were before. They can see. So it's just torture. I'm like, "We are monsters."

Do you feel like as a species, as human beings, that we're coming to some sort of point in time where... I mean, it's 2025. We're still fighting wars.

Yeah. And you have kids dying in Gaza, in Ukraine, women walled in in Afghanistan. People tell me, historians tell me we're living better now than in the Middle Ages. I don't know. I'm not sure. How do you measure that? I don't know. I don't think we have reached any enlightenment whatsoever. I don't want to be negative or anything, but I think...

But you have to question it, right?

I don't think we're doing great. I mean, the planet is getting warmer. We have less of a social life than before. Wars, animal conditions... I'm like, "Wow." Sometimes it's too much. And that's why I took my two days off. I was too much in my whole dolphin thing that I was crying. I was like, "Hold on a minute. I need to step back." You need to have this ability, otherwise it's very hard mentally.

Yeah. Because you can feel so powerless so quickly.

Yes. But the fact that we saw Mexico and Iceland... you know, I was like, "Oh, things are happening." Like the yearly hunt in Japan went down by 20% this year. I mean, it still goes on. So for instance now, in the States there's one thing you can do: every single salmon that comes from the Faroe Islands, it's usually written "from the Faroe Islands," do not buy that. That's easy.

Because why is this?

Because the Faroe Islands still do the dolphin hunt. They kill pilot whales by the hundreds and thousands every few months. They slaughter them for this piece of meat and the rest they just throw away. They kill mothers delivering the baby. It's just a nightmare what they do, and they have huge salmon farms. The only way we can put pressure on them is to stop buying their products.

Valerie, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you here. I've learned so much in such a short period of time. I imagine so many people who actually interface with you feel that way. And I hope you'll come back.

Oh yes, we have so much to talk about.

Yeah. When you return, I'm excited. So let's do this.

I am in.

Okay, thank you for having me.

It was my pleasure. Thank you for coming.

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