Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2307: How to Optimize Your Brainwaves for Improved Focus, Relaxation & Sleep

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

Try it, experience it, and feel the effects. (1:40) Nailing the first experience. (4:05) Profound personal experiences with the product. (5:16) The encapsulation of Brain.fm. (8:06) How you ...listen to different music based on what you are doing. (12:58) A more bioavailable thing than binaural beats. (15:18) Priming your brain. (18:10) How does Brain.fm affect an ADHD brain? (20:13) Focusing on what matters most. (23:41) Tales of intimacy. (27:13) Getting more restful sleep. (30:58) Tackling Alzheimer's and dementia. (35:25) What does the typical user look like? (38:12) The different ways of stimulating the brain. (40:54) The optimal way to use the product. (42:41) Human-made vs. AI. (47:26) Making music that people enjoy. (50:39) Your morning routine is making you less productive. (54:50) Future projects on the horizon. (59:53) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Brain.fm for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners. ** Promo code MINDPUMP to get 30 days of free access to science-backed music. ** Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP for 20% off your first order (new customers) and double rewards points for existing customers. ** April Promotion: MAPS Anywhere | MAPS HIIT 50% off! ** Code APRIL50 at checkout ** Our science - BrainFM Binaural Beats through the Auditory Pathway: From Brainstem to Connectivity Patterns Brain.fm's attention-boosting app gets $225K National Science grant Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

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Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind there's only one place to go Mind pump with your hosts Sal DeStefano Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews You just found the most downloaded fitness health entertainment podcast in the world This is mind pump today's episode. We have the CEO of Brain.fm on Dan Clark. So he gets on the show and explains how this how this stuff works. It is literally like magic. So these are sounds that you listen to that induce states of mind and they've done studies on this. They've proven it with fMRIs. It works. I mean the guys and I use them on a regular
Starting point is 00:00:41 basis and it will make you feel focused or it will make you want to relax, fall asleep. It's pretty remarkable stuff. He gets on, he explains it and then if you go through our link brain.fm forward slash mind pump you get 30 days for free so you literally try it out. See for yourself pretty wild stuff. Now this episode is brought to you by a sponsor Legion. They make high-performance supplements or pre-workout powders, protein powders, supplements that can help recovery, supplements that can help with sleep, Lunar, very effective sleep supplement. Go check them out, get yourself a discount. Go to buylegion.com. It's B-U-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump, get 20% off
Starting point is 00:01:23 your first order and double rewards points if you are an existing Customer for using that link also this month's sale maps anywhere and maps hit both 50% off if you're interested Go to maps fitness products calm and then use the code April 50 for the discount. All right, here comes a show Dan welcome back. Thanks. It's been a while 2018 over five years since we've had you on the show So you're running brain FM. I have to be honest. Mm-hmm. It when we first started working with you guys. It has to be No, it is. It was the weirdest product By far that I'd ever used I was more skeptic
Starting point is 00:02:02 I've there's been some products have been skeptical of and that have of and that have kind of blown my mind and have changed my mind. But your guys' company, your product, I was so skeptical. I'm like, whatever. Okay, let's see how this works. And it's really weird. It's actually strange how effective it is. In fact, we've talked about you guys probably more than almost any other sponsor without being paid, in fact. It was just us bringing you guys up because of its impact I want to know what's happened since over the last five years because a lot's changed and you guys have grown quite a bit Yeah, totally. So let's talk about that for a second. Yeah. Well first I just want to say thank you guys Because when I was here last the company really just started and since then we've actually grown significantly which we'll dive into
Starting point is 00:02:43 We've had more than four Four million people use brain FM since I've been on the show Wow and it really all started here and you guys really saw the potential for it you saw the wacky idea and It's so cool to be back here and you know talk to you guys about all the updates speaking of four million people using it What is the stick rate on something like this? I imagine, you know, like us, people probably are skeptical. They experience it and then they probably get hooked. Is it higher than a typical app or like how do you compare it to other apps that people would download and pay for? Like is it something that majority of people stick around or they only stick around for a little
Starting point is 00:03:20 bit? What does that look like? Yeah, great question. So our biggest challenge is getting people to try it because it does, like even when I tried it the first time, I thought it was BS, right? And when people do try it, during the trial we give, you know, someone a few days to do it without charging them, right? And the more they use it, the more their conversion rate goes up.
Starting point is 00:03:42 Of course. Right? So this is about three times sticky as a comparable product in that space. Wow. So if someone listens to an hour of trying BrainFM, then their conversion rate doubles. Wow. And it just shows that if someone actually tries it
Starting point is 00:03:57 and experiences it, how it's intended to, you can feel the effects on your first time. Now because of that, have you guys, you know, modeled it different or marketed it different because you're learning that, man, if we could just get these people to listen to an hour, the conversion rate's so high. So have you guys throughout the, since we've seen you last,
Starting point is 00:04:17 have strategies changed on how to encourage people to do that? A thousand percent. Yeah, it's really been about one, is making sure that when someone comes in, we're explaining to them what the music does, but more importantly is matching them to the music that's going to be effective for them. Right.
Starting point is 00:04:34 And there's so much stuff we can get into versus, um, you know, how someone has, um, extroverted or introverted, right? If someone has ADHD, all these kinds of different things. So we're really trying to nail the first experience because just to get them to that point can be challenging. You're like, oh, this is just music.
Starting point is 00:04:53 How is this going to be much different? And it's really hard to tell or show someone the science because we're trying to disguise the science in, right? And when you actually get to that point and you say, oh, wow, okay, I'm gonna try this for 30 minutes, I'm gonna have work in front of me, and all of a sudden it like clicks. And that's what we're trying to give,
Starting point is 00:05:15 that aha moment in the first session. Yeah, so I have two experiences with BrenFM that were profound and then I was like, so the first one, when we first started working with you guys, I put on Focus and at the time I was doing a lot of our writing, so we have marketing material that goes out, blogs and what we call white papers, 3,000 word, whatever, documents.
Starting point is 00:05:36 And I put it on and I played it and I remember it was about five or seven minutes in, I got really in the zone. And I remember questioning it, like was that really that, or was it just that I got in the zone? And then I tried it again, and it happened again. It took about five minutes each time, but it was like, oh my God, this is really weird.
Starting point is 00:05:55 Then the second big experience was one of the most terrifying flights I've ever been on in my entire life. We were flying from, you guys remember that one? Spokane, yeah. From Spokane to, I don't remember where, and we were on this propeller plane. Yeah, little puddle jumper. And it was, I get anxious on planes anyway, but this flight was like, if you didn't have a seat belt on, you'd hit
Starting point is 00:06:15 the ceiling of the, yeah like, that's scary. Oh yeah, people were crying and people were praying out loud and you know, it was really scary. Yeah. And I had my headphones on and I was playing meditate. Yeah. And I had my headphones on and I was playing meditate. And I was sitting there with my hands like this, listening to meditate and I was scared, but I didn't lose my mind. And if I didn't have that for sure, that would have been a total panic attack.
Starting point is 00:06:36 So those were some of my first experiences where I was like, okay, this is pretty insane. Now you started as a user and that's what got you to work with the company. So what happened there? Did you have a similar experience? Yeah, so the first time I tried BrainFM, I remember taking my headphones out at the end and saying, holy shit, like what is this, right?
Starting point is 00:06:57 And to give you context, my background, right, I always struggled focusing, I always struggled getting work done in time. And what happened was I was always looking for that edge. I was looking for that flow state, right? Which we call it now, right? The zone. And for me, it's this magic zone
Starting point is 00:07:15 when it's like two in the morning, you've had two cups of coffee, and you have a project due tomorrow, and you just like, it's just effortless. You can feel like you can work forever, right? And I remember coming into BrainFM, having similar feelings like, this probably isn't going to work, but I'll try this in the stack of all
Starting point is 00:07:32 the other things. And I remember taking my headphones out and being like, whoa, I thought I worked for two hours. It was only 30 minutes. And I got so excited. I was like, all right, this, like, actually, almost like you, I was like, this might be too, this may not work, right? Let's try to break this.
Starting point is 00:07:52 And I remember staying up for like 24 hours, I remember changing my diet, I remember trying to, like, see if I could make it- Disrupt it. Yeah, exactly, not effective anymore. And it worked every single time. And from then I was like, I just need to be part of this rocket ship. Yeah. So let's take a step back for a second, because
Starting point is 00:08:10 to someone who's not familiar, this does sound like, if I'm listening right now, I'm like, what do you guys think? It's magic. Okay. But here's now, if we go with the logical side, we know that music has, or sounds have profound effects on the human brain. We know that music can improve a child's ability to learn. We know that we memorize things far more effectively through music. If you were to say the ABCs right now, you'd sing it, because that's how we learned it and that's how we ended up remembering things. Music lights up the entire brain, improves our ability to do math and to
Starting point is 00:08:40 comprehend things and to think abstractly. So it's not out of the realm of what we already understand in the sense that, yeah, sounds can definitely have a profound impact on how the brain operates. You guys took that to the next level. What are we dealing with? Are we literally trying to induce states of mind that we've identified as this is what Delta waves look like when
Starting point is 00:09:06 someone is focused. This is what it looks like when somebody's asleep. Is that what you guys are working with? Because we found this in classical music forever. You've heard that and this is why we've played it for young kids and it's done something significant in terms of them remembering things and being able to study more effectively. But somehow like you guys were able to figure out the science behind that and really like hone in and, and get to a level that we hadn't seen before. And what, like how did, how did originally,
Starting point is 00:09:37 how did they get to that point like where they could really fine tune it to where your brain responded even more aggressively? Yeah. So there's a lot to unpack here, right? First is, why does music exist, right? And obviously music, like Rihanna or whatever is entertainment, but music in the beginning was actually functional only. Teaching. So it was for lullabies, right?
Starting point is 00:09:59 It was for war drums. It was to accomplish something, right? And then as music got more accessible, or war drums, it was to accomplish something. And then as music got more accessible, it started going into an entertainment focus. And then now merging this with the studies of the brain, we're able to recognize, like you said, brainwaves, beta, alpha, theta, and understanding that when you're in beta,
Starting point is 00:10:26 you're having, that's what a focused mind looks like, right? So what we started doing is seeing all of the science that exists in the world, right? And different attempts of trying to elicit that. You may have heard of like binaural beats or isochronic tones, right? Which we can get into later. But it's really, BrainFM is the encapsulation
Starting point is 00:10:49 of taking all of this stuff with functional music and all of this neuroscience, this bleeding edge neuroscience we have today and combining them together to elicit this really strong response. And what's happening is we're able to apply not only things that sound like you're focusing, right? Like basic stuff like no lyrics and music having no salience
Starting point is 00:11:10 Which is the the difference of noise like loud bangs and stuff, right that are distracting but we actually go to a Second level or a third level where we're actually adding modulations to the music, right? And modulations are these patterns that when your brain is decoding music from sound to electrical impulses, what's happening is your brain is reorganizing to those patterns, delta, theta, all those, right?
Starting point is 00:11:38 And what's happening is blood flow in your brain is responding, right? So for work, for example, what you need to have to be more effective at work is have more blood flow in your brain is responding, right? So for work, for example, what you need to have to be more effective at work is have more blood flow in your prefrontal cortex, right? It's pretty well known. And what we're doing is we're putting patterns inside of the music that then turn into patterns
Starting point is 00:11:57 in your brain that redistribute blood flow in your brain. Wait, so this science is based off of brain waves and blood flow? Correct, yeah, so brain waves and blood flow are the same, right? So if you have a certain brain wave pattern, you have blood flow as a result, right? So a lot of the times in pharmaceutical medicine, they're doing things that change blood flow,
Starting point is 00:12:23 so it changes electrical. and we're changing electrical. So it changes blood flow. Wow. Yeah. And how are you, how are, how was this looked at? Is it FMRI technology? Is it just, yeah, so it's FMRI EG, right? Um, we actually have this really cool paper in pre-publication and a
Starting point is 00:12:39 leading academic journal right now. Um, and it shows what happens when people are listening to Brain FM versus Spotify versus white noise, pink noise versus all of these different kinds of things. And you can see the brain in real time start redistributing and realigning to this effect. So what are some of the similarities that it has with some of our favorite music? Like what's the same and what's different?
Starting point is 00:13:03 Like is there, obviously there's things that you guys have added to it because you've enhanced it or whatever, but what are some of the things, are there direct correlations? Like is there a reason why there's certain music that I listen to? Is it also because it's also subconsciously getting me more focused or? Yeah, it really depends. So first it depends on the function. Like what are you doing? Are you working?
Starting point is 00:13:24 Are you working out? Right? You probably already listen to different music depending on what you're doing. Right? We're aware of that. So some of the starting points are like no lyrics, right? Because what's happening is it's kind of,
Starting point is 00:13:38 it's energy management. So let's say we're working out, right? What we want is we want to distract ourselves from the pain we're putting on our body, right? We wanna create like high salient songs. So a lot of people when they work out, they listen to like rock and roll or heavy metal or EDM, right?
Starting point is 00:13:55 Because there's a lot of structure to that music that's taking, that we're not in our mind, we're kind of like out of it, right? But when you're working, you kind of want the opposite. You want to have things that are less distracting. So no lyrics, right? You want like a steady beat. A lot of music today is three minute tracks
Starting point is 00:14:14 because they're not made for extended sessions of 90 minutes. They're made for really still entertainment purposes. So, you know, on one level, we're doing all the, the more obvious things where all of our, all of our songs are 30 minutes plus, right? Um, we're no lyrics in the songs. They're, um, they like fold into each other. So they sound similar, but they have, you know, these qualities that bring you into focus, right? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:14:43 Yeah. Like heart rate, for instance, like an excitement level and all that. So you kind of factor that in, in terms of like which one works best for, like you said, working out versus like trying to be calm and focused and study. Yeah. So like, you can kind of think of sound to have all these different characteristics, right? One of them could be, you know, BPM, which everyone knows is how fast the song is moving, right? But then you also have other things of texture, right? And I'm not a musician, right?
Starting point is 00:15:11 But it's more of the complexity of how much music is going on. So how many instruments are playing at the same time? Yeah, exactly, layers, yeah. I was gonna ask about that because you've heard, and we brought up classical music, but too, you guys have like a section four focus which has that classical music on top
Starting point is 00:15:29 but there's underlying layers. I'm wondering if the- Those are the modulations. Yeah. Yeah, so what's happening, the modulations, you know, maybe it makes sense to take a step back and actually talk about like the first time this was attempted, right?
Starting point is 00:15:44 And those are binaural beats or isochronic tones. So in I think the 70s, right, they started becoming very popular where you could listen to this music and zone in. It was basically what we promised with BrainFM today. The challenge or the way it works, right, is you play one frequency in one ear and one frequency in the other, opposing frequencies, and what happens is when you're listening to them in your brainstem, they combine and they make an amplitude, the difference of those frequencies, right? So if you have 150 in one ear and 140 in the other, you'll get a 10 hertz amplitude in your brainstem. Interesting.
Starting point is 00:16:23 And then what happens is that their process of entrain hertz amplitude in your brainstem. Interesting. And then what happens is that, through a process of entrainment, goes from your brainstem throughout your brain, right? And hopefully that helps you get into focus or relax or sleep or whatever. The challenge, though, is your brainstem is like one of the reptilian parts of our brain, right? And it doesn't have, like, the highest resolution, basically, right? And it doesn't have like the highest resolution, basically. Right? So what happens is that could take 30 minutes to work sometimes, or maybe even weeks
Starting point is 00:16:52 to start using this to get into that. And then when it's studied, it has sparse results, right? In double-blind studies. So it's a placebo plays an effect, et cetera. Right? And what we're doing is we're taking the same idea where we're adding like delta waves or beta waves or something like that. But instead of doing it through binaural beats through those different tones, we're actually pre-processing it. We're
Starting point is 00:17:16 doing like a monorail beat and then we're hiding that beat in a bass frequency. Right? So what's happening is it doesn't go to your brain stem throughout the whole brain. It goes right into your prefrontal cortex when you start listening to it in 10 seconds and it starts ramping immediately. It's like more bioavailable. Correct. Than binaural beats.
Starting point is 00:17:36 That's a great metaphor. Yeah. So it works immediately and it's as fast as, you know, you hear your favorite song and you start wanting to dance to it. that's the effect. So we're passing a lot of the ancient technology. Can you guys patent that? Can you patent that? We have it patented.
Starting point is 00:17:52 Okay, so that formula is patented, so somebody else can't come and figure, wow. Yeah, it's the production of music. So we have like, I think we have like 14 patents today. A lot of them are in production of music. A lot of them are on biosensors and things that we're working on in the future, which we can get into later.
Starting point is 00:18:10 But yeah. So here's a question I have. Memory and experiences plays definitely a role in how music affects us in the sense that I can listen to a certain soundtrack of a movie. Yep. And because I have, uh, Immediately thinking Rocky. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:27 I talked about Rocky. Immediately. Um, and it can, it can get me motivated like nothing else because of the memory of the movie when I watched it as a kid and I have this kind of like experience that it kind of brings up on me. The reason why I'm bringing this up is I noticed that when I listened to a BrainFM track and I find one that I like and then I listen to it again, I listen to it again, it works better and better and better.
Starting point is 00:18:49 Whereas it might have taken me five to seven minutes to induce the effect that I'm looking for, whether it's meditation or sleep or focus, and I literally have them on my phone, save it, I can pull them up. There's certain ones that I might go to and it's like 30 seconds. Is that effect, am I describing the effect
Starting point is 00:19:07 that I'm experiencing, is that what's happening? Yeah, so what's really cool is you're actually describing a psychological effect called priming, right? So some people before they go on stage, they'll smell like cinnamon to get them pumped and to get them into that zone. And what happens is you're basically cueing your brain that you're about to work.
Starting point is 00:19:27 You're about to do something. So what's cool about when you use BrainFM, you're actually, you can prime it two ways. One is the same track, right, playing. But then also if you're always using focus, you're always having the same pattern. So now you're more sensitive to that pattern, that focus pattern that we put in all of our focus music. So you're much more sensitive to that pattern, that focus pattern that we put in
Starting point is 00:19:45 all of our focus music. So you're much more likely to get into flow state and to get into that zone quicker and then stay there longer. So in essence, you're training your brain both ways, both psychologically through experience and then maybe even neurologically. So you're developing new neural pathways that can respond a little faster. Yeah. And then there's a physiological response because of listening to music and how your brain is responding to the environment that you're in.
Starting point is 00:20:12 Wow. Now, are you able to, you know, ADHD or ADD is a big topic these days. It's quite common, you brought a statistic, I think you said one out of four people might have ADD or ADHD. So not ADHD, but like attentional disorders. So either like ADHD or subclinical ADHD.
Starting point is 00:20:32 Got it, got it. So it's quite common. It's very common in entrepreneurs, I don't know if you know this. Oh yeah. But it's something like 80% of entrepreneurs, everybody in this room, to some extent, I'm the winner by far, I would say.
Starting point is 00:20:42 I probably have the worst case of it. Can you see an ADHD brain or can they identify it through the brain waves or are they able to identify it without having to test you for your focus and then how does BrainFM affect an ADHD brain? Yeah good question. So I'd have to chat with our science team to figure out if you can see it from a brain scan, but I do know that we do a lot of studies with people that have ADHD, right? And the, you know, the stat is basically 5% of people have clinical ADHD, where it actually affects their life negatively.
Starting point is 00:21:18 So they have to go get prescription drugs to manage it. Then you have 15 to 20% of people that have subclinical ADHD. And one of the telltale signs for that is you ever see someone bouncing their leg? Yeah. Right? Does anyone do that here? All the time.
Starting point is 00:21:34 So you're probably in the subclinical setting, right? It's not a bad thing, but what's happening is your brain is seeking stimulation, right? So what you're trying to do is you're trying to figure out how can I do the things that I need to get done, but give it stimulation. And the magic of BrainFM is that you're able to actually provide that.
Starting point is 00:21:56 That Hertz tone that we're adding to the music, the modulations, it's an on and off pulse that's kind of like both entertaining and distracting your brain. It's kind of like both entertaining and distracting your brain It's kind of like a fidget spinner in in the form of audio Yeah, the way I've heard it explained is you're you're you're an ADHD brain or distracted brain is looking for Something to keep it present. So this physical feeling, you know is keeping me present. Are you are you guys working with? is keeping me present. Are you guys working with schools or with parents? Yeah, last time you were here I thought you said that you guys had been able to
Starting point is 00:22:31 have a breakthrough in terms of being accepted as an alternative to medications. Is that true? So we definitely are used by people that are trying to like lower their medications or use us before they're going on medications. We were going to go down the FDA route and get approved and try to look at that. But as you can imagine, it's very expensive. And we said, hey, you know what? We can definitely go down this route. We have some really great scientists on our team and we've done a lot of studies. But it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of money. some really great scientists on our team
Starting point is 00:23:25 of ADHD-like tendencies, but our users have like 60%. And then what's really cool is not only is it good for ADHD, but actually people with like autism or people with anxiety or all these other kinds of things that they are trying to normalize, they use this a ton. And it's really recommended by a few different organizations to support that. So, you know, focus, meditation, sleep, relaxation,
Starting point is 00:23:47 deep sleep. Have you guys delved into looking at creating a anti-depressive state or a happy state or anything like that or is that are we getting too close to things that we don't necessarily want to touch because regulations and all that? No, I think we're open to anything. To be honest, and this is kind of, or better words, be blunt, right? The thing that the BrainFM needs and the thing that I need is to focus, right?
Starting point is 00:24:15 And when I came on here last with you guys, I was trying everything. I was like, this is going to change the world. Let's do this, let's do stuff in medicals. So we were doing things with anesthesia, we were doing things in enterprise, we were doing things all over the place. And unfortunately, you can't do everything at the same time.
Starting point is 00:24:34 So it's kind of ironic, right? We're doing a focus company, right? And at the same time, we need to focus. But we made the strategic decision to say, hey, you know what, let's make a consumer product first, let's help a lot of people. Right. And then let's grow this thing so we can invest more resources. But along the way, we found some really cool things. So we did an anesthesia study with people getting colonoscopies and endoscopies. And we found that by playing relaxed music beforehand and wake up music, which is like a very much more intense focus mix, we actually found we could wake people up and discharge them 15% faster. Right?
Starting point is 00:25:16 And I was there experiencing that, like watching people get these surgeries, right, with their permission of course. And they'd wake up and they're like I've had this done once a year every year because I have you know something that has to be watched and every year I wake up and I'm crying or I'm like have you guys ever got anesthesia it's a nasty experience it's crazy yeah right and people would come up out of surgery and be like completely fine and they'd be like what is what is this this is'd they do? Just put headphones on them while they're asleep and then turn it on and let's see what happens?
Starting point is 00:25:46 Yeah, we would put on bone conducting headphones on them, right, and put it on when they're getting like the propofol, the anesthetic, and then they'd fall asleep to it. And then when they're done surgery, they would switch it and turn on the wake-up music. Whoa. And then what's happening is during anesthesia,
Starting point is 00:26:04 your brain waves are basically separating. Like they're not commu during anesthesia, your brain waves are basically separating, like they're not commute, your layers of your brain are not communicating, right? And when you're waking up, what's happening is you're kind of like loopy. You have to reintegrate, right? Yeah, they have to reintegrate. So what's happening is we're giving it a leading pattern to basically like, yeah, to follow, you know, and we help organize the brain so it can be more coherent faster. So you're not drunk for like 30 minutes. So that was really cool. And we found a lot of opportunity there. And we're still in the process of that.
Starting point is 00:26:35 But obviously there's tons of red tape and we want to make sure we do the right way. Yeah, if you've ever, I mean, for parents who've ever had a kid that's gone under, it sucks when they come out because they're just inconsolable for a while. And it's the integration of the brain waves, which I didn't know, I thought it was just, they're just disoriented, but I guess of course that would make you feel. Well that's interesting.
Starting point is 00:26:52 It makes me think about coming out of like an ebriated sort of state, like in terms of anything, like if I'm drunk or if I'm under the influence of somehow to kind of bring me back in, I wonder if there's something there. There might be. I've never personally tried that, but I'm sure some people have. Obviously, I'm not like, I'm just saying. Yeah. Have you guys, have you, have you guys done anything with like intimacy? Have you, have you experimented with that or done any studies on that? Because Adam has.
Starting point is 00:27:20 Well, I mean, I don't know if you know this or not, but not long after we had seen you last time, I shared on the podcast one of my experiences with it. Well, it's become, I've done it many times now, but one of the craziest, coolest things that I've done is put focus on with my wife before sex. And it's like the intimacy level is like, and what I attribute that to, and maybe you, you can add to it or whatever, explain it better is I think we all are, we live in a very distracted time with our phones and TV and stuff like that. And I think it just kind of drowns all that out. And then it becomes just her and I having great conversation. And then,
Starting point is 00:27:58 and then when you're in the moment, it's just, I don't know, it helps. It helps with that even tighter and closer. Have you heard anything or know anybody? Yeah, yeah, so you nailed it. That's exactly what's happening. We're so distracted. What's happening, it's making you present. And you know, our primary focus is for work, right? But there's a lot of these really unique experiences.
Starting point is 00:28:20 And for a long time, one of the highest referrals for BrainFM was actually a tantric sex blog. Ah, I see. Because, because. Wait, a blog that would send people to you because it said listen to this. Yeah, they were their number one resource for helping people like connect, right?
Starting point is 00:28:38 And there's a lot of, again, there's so many things, that's the hard part, you know, leading the company is there's so many things that, like this story, yeah, let's help you. Let's help all the people like you. But for right now, we're like, okay, let's have this primary focus first. Exactly. And then grow into it. That's that, you know, that's a really cool story. This other really cool story we have, and this is more on the focus front, but there's this one woman that contacted us and she's like, hey, I just want to thank you for the last five years. And her story was that she was a student trying to be a lawyer and she couldn't focus.
Starting point is 00:29:12 And she was in a, we're worldwide, right? So she's in a country, she couldn't get Adderall. It wasn't legal for her, right? And she said she found BrainFM and all of a sudden, she could get her work done, right? And then she became a lawyer. And she was a lawyer for several years. And she's like, but then I wanted more. And she, she's like, I'm writing this to you as a judge in my country and I owe it all to
Starting point is 00:29:36 BrainFM and the thing that you're able to give me. Wow. That's remarkable. Yeah. It's, it's really cool. It's, it's, it's something that I never imagined. And then on top of that, that's remarkable. Yeah, it's really cool. It's something that I never imagined. And then on top of that, what's also really cool compared to like nootropics or all these other consumables that are like coming up is that a lot of those you can become normalized to.
Starting point is 00:29:58 Yeah. Like you drink coffee and all of a sudden you need two cups and stuff. But because this is a by a lot, like your blood flow and how your brain works, you can't normalize to it. It's something that actually just strengthens in time, rather than gets weaker. That's my experience.
Starting point is 00:30:13 Yeah. You know, when you use a stimulant or a supplement that helps induce focus, your brain down regulates receptors and changes its own catecholamine production to bring it back to where it was before. And like you said, you need more and more and more. This, the more I've used it, and I've used it now for years, it works faster and easier every single time. It's almost like, I think it's strengthening and creating neural pathways through that process.
Starting point is 00:30:39 We've been mostly talking about the focus, but I feel like the most profound one is the sleep. I mean, what's going on there? Because that's something that I use that more consistently than anything else. Because we travel so much or we have speaking engagements where my adrenaline's going like crazy, one of the hardest things to do is to be away from home, in a hotel, after a long crazy day of work, to be able to settle down and actually go to sleep, nothing works better than that. I don't care what supplement, I've tried all kinds of great supplements that help or aid,
Starting point is 00:31:11 but I think nothing helps more than the brain. What is going on there? Is it mostly helping with deep? Is it helping with REM? Is it helping with all the above? What's going on that's helping me sleep? Yeah. So it's similar process where we're taking music that sounds, you know,
Starting point is 00:31:27 slower, is bringing your heart rate down, things like that. There's all these wonderful studies to show that you can take regular existing music and change someone's heartbeat, right? And you're not changing it wildly, right? Not 100%, but you can change 5 to 10%, which is a it wildly, right? Not 100%, but you can change 5 to 10%, which is a significant difference. So we're doing things that sound peaceful, right? And then we're adding in our technology to it, right?
Starting point is 00:32:00 And as an effect, you're getting these really long, slow-wave delta waves that we're adding to it, right? And when we started, we did a lot of research in sleep. Our main thing is really driving focus right now. But we saw that we were able to increase slow wave sleep, which is where you get, you know, the deep recovery and have spinel activity in the brain. So the idea is, you're actually getting more restful sleep. And you're listening to this in two ways, either one to help you fall asleep or the entire time you're sleeping. And we find that some of our most dedicated fans, they're using us for sleep every single day
Starting point is 00:32:39 or they're using us for focus every day. And it's really interesting that people gravitate towards one or the other. Yeah, you know, I want to just this conversation is make me want to go, Doug and I have been like really diving into our sleep and like with our aura ring and trying all these different things to keep improving the score.
Starting point is 00:32:53 And I actually, what I haven't done is actually consistently done it for my sleep at home. I always use it when I know I have my gun in need, like I have to have it because I can't. I use it on the plane. Yeah, like stuff like that. I'm using it where I actually haven't tried to see like, have to have it because I can't. I use it on the plane. Yeah, like stuff like that I'm using it where I actually haven't tried to see like,
Starting point is 00:33:06 oh what happens if I actually use this every night at home and see if I can improve my sleep score? I'd like to see what that would do. We've had listeners talk about using it on their pets. Yeah? So they'll play it in the room because their dogs are yippy or whatever and they're like, it works on the pets too.
Starting point is 00:33:22 Which is kind of weird, not that your product's made for pets, but. Yeah, we get a lot of really interesting use cases for that. You can also do some really cool stuff when you combo the activities together. So we're actually building this in our app because we've had so many people that listen to like focus and then relax and then focus again.
Starting point is 00:33:43 Or they do, they're listening to sleep and right when they start in the morning, they put on focus to wake them up, like a sleep and wake kind of thing. And it's very interesting because when you have maybe more depth of control over guiding your brain into certain states, now you can start playing with it. And personally, when I do focus and I'll do do relax, and then I'll do focus again,
Starting point is 00:34:06 I can reach a level that is entirely higher than I can normally do. So we find a lot of people will listen to relax first for like 30 minutes while they're like brushing their teeth and they're doing their thing, and then they put sleep on. And it's like a really nice downstate and then regulation into that.
Starting point is 00:34:23 That's interesting. Are you, these studies that you're talking about, these are, you guys put these together and fund them really nice down stay and then regulation into that. Yeah. That's interesting. Are you, these studies that you're talking about, these are, you guys put these together and fund them and say, okay, how are these working? So we are, we're not funding them all by ourselves because science is incredibly expensive. Yeah. That's why I'm asking, because I know what the cost is. It's insane.
Starting point is 00:34:40 Yeah. So like, so our study that we're doing right now that we've been working on for the last several years is actually funded by the National Science Foundation. So we got a very large grant from them, I think a quarter of a million dollars from them to help fund, so that was a huge chunk. What's that looking at, can you say? That's for, yeah, that's for ADHD.
Starting point is 00:35:00 Oh, I see. That's the specific ability to see, is this a, not a cure, but it's more of like, is this- Like a viable treatment. Correct, a viable treatment, yeah. And that's the thing that's allowed us to do fMRI and do partnerships with Northeastern
Starting point is 00:35:19 and really look at the brain on a level that you can't do commercially. Yeah, and off air you were mentioning something about dementia and Alzheimer's. Can you talk about those a little? Yeah, of course. So we're not doing these studies, but it's the same technology that we're using, which is modulations or amplitude modulations. And what's crazy is at MIT, Dr. Tsai, she's been doing a lot of studies on dementia and
Starting point is 00:35:46 Alzheimer's, right, and what they're doing is first they would do this in actually rodents where they would play a 40 Hertz modulation, they put light and sound, and they were able to show these rodents brains that are built to have basically Alzheimer's, it reverses, right? And then they did this on humans. And to be fair, they did this with only 15 people, right? It was a starting of a study, but they saw that 15 out of 15 people
Starting point is 00:36:16 that went through this and were listening to modulations like an hour a day were actually reversing Alzheimer's and dementia. And you know, crazy. And just today something came out where they are, for cancer patients that are going through chemo, a lot of them experience brain fog and disorientation. Obviously it's a very intense treatment.
Starting point is 00:36:37 And they're doing similar things where they're playing modulations to them and they're seeing that that reduces brain fog. I don't know if you know the answer to this, but are they testing the Alzheimer's and dementia and showing its reversal through symptoms or through looking at the brain itself and saying, okay, it's looking different?
Starting point is 00:36:53 Yeah, so they are doing, the reason why they're doing rodents and things like that is so they can actually dissect the brains, and they can see differences in plaque and all these kinds of things. It's really interesting because I believe the theory, and again, I'm not the scientist, but I believe the theory is you have these neurons
Starting point is 00:37:11 in your brain, right? And then underneath your neurons, you have something called microglia. And what happens is that microglia kind of gets blocked, right? And that's where plaque buildup happens and things like that. And the microglia, they basically, they function on a 40 Hertz modulation, they turn on and off, right?
Starting point is 00:37:32 Like from a wider thing, all of our body is just on and off our muscles, our brain, everything, right? And if you are playing a 40 Hertz modulation, the microglia kind of start activating and start pulsing at the same time and it will actually clean off that plaque, right? That's probably not as technical as it needs to be, but the idea. That's an interesting theory. Yeah, the idea is that this basically is kind of like,
Starting point is 00:38:00 almost like a plunger for a toilet. Well, it's like pumping a muscle or flexing a muscle. Things move in and out of muscle every time you flex and you know relax or contract and relax a muscle. Very interesting. What is your typical user look like? You mentioned one stat, you said about 60% of your people would say they have ADHD like symptoms.
Starting point is 00:38:21 Are there any other statistics in terms of what the typical user looks like? Yes, we have, I guess, two types of users. One are people that are trying to deal or not deal, but like better manage maybe anxiety or trying to perform, right? At a level where they're like, okay, I have, I'm anxious about all the work I have to do or I'm anxious for this, so I'm going to use this for planes. In addition to your story, we get stories like that all the time. So we have a lot of people that are trying to look for almost like a pain medication to solve an ail that they have. And then you have other people that are looking for pure performance. So they're like, all right, I'm already working eight hours a day.
Starting point is 00:39:06 How can I work 15 hours in eight hours? How can I stuff as much as I can? How can I lift 10% more? So we have these really two different archetypes of people. Some of them may have ADHD, some of them have anxiety, some of them have sleep problems. But in the end, we're able to be, it's really unique have anxiety, some of them have sleep problems, but in the end we're able to be,
Starting point is 00:39:30 it's really unique because whether you have ADHD or some kind of neurodivergency or you're more normalized, it works on everyone, right? To different levels, of course. alluding to earlier, we found that people with ADHD, that share that they do, this modulation is kind of like a dial. We can actually turn it up or turn it down. And if you turn it up on someone that doesn't have ADHD, it will give you a headache, right? Too much. It's too much.
Starting point is 00:39:58 But if there's someone with ADHD that can handle more stimulation in their brain, you can dial it up even more and they can perform to a higher degree for longer. So actually in the product, we respond to that and we have like neural effect level and that's what that is. So you can engage it, right? Yes. You can pick your intensity of the effect, right?
Starting point is 00:40:17 Wow. Any sports teams using this that you know of that are implementing it into their training routine and stuff, do you know? I don't know about full sports teams. I know some athletes have reached out to me and said, hey, I use this all the time for an individual basis. I've had a lot of, I have had more conversations with billionaires than I ever thought I would
Starting point is 00:40:39 because people are like, I use meditation every single day to go on a walk, and it's the way that I can just focus and clear my head and do the things that I do. And I've had probably four or five people just reach out and they're like, I just wanna have a conversation with you. Is the technology being used, is it similar to, are you familiar with like Halo?
Starting point is 00:40:58 Did you know the Halo technology, it's like the headset that you put on for training and it's supposed to help with like training patterns and to help solidify. Do you know if that's similar the science that you're that they're using in that compared to what you're doing? Do you know? Yeah, so I'm trying to think of the acronym. I think it's like TCPS or something. It's basically like it's... Transperennial, yeah, like that, simulating something. Thank you, yeah. Little dyslexia on my side. But like, it is different. So what's happening is that is doing, that's kind of stimulating through electrical impulses in a different way, right? Where, you know, we're doing it, you know, through sound. There's
Starting point is 00:41:38 so many different ways you can, you know, stimulate the brain. You can do it through magnets. You can do it through transcranial stuff. you can do it through magnets, you can do it through trans-cranial stuff, you can do it through touch, through light, through sound. And the reason why we pick sound is because it's one of the senses that you can always... Basically, we already are already listening to things. It's the easiest thing to add to anything. It feels more organic to me.
Starting point is 00:42:01 Yeah, exactly. And the interesting thing, right, is that there's really no harm in it, right? If you put your music on too loud, it can hurt your eardrums. But when you talk about all the different ways, other ways you can stimulate, it actually can get dangerous. And even just like light, there's, I don't know what the exact number is, but I think it's like one out of 16,000 or something have epilepsy, right? So if we were doing this through light, which we can do the same effect, yeah, that's dangerous, right?
Starting point is 00:42:33 Plus it's also with sound, I can do other things. Exactly. So if I have to focus on something with my eyes, I can't write or read, whereas if I listen. By the way, last time you were on, we asked you if this worked through speakers and not just through headphones. And you were like, no, put on headphones. And I gotta disagree with you. I put on speakers and it works fine.
Starting point is 00:42:52 I have, well now I have an answer to that. Yeah, better, because that's what I thought. That's what I was told. Okay, because when you said that, I'm like, I wonder if he has to say that. Because all of us have tried it through speakers and it works just fine. So I think, last time we were here, He has to say that for you. Because all of us have tried them through speakers. And it works just fine.
Starting point is 00:43:06 So I think, last time we were here, I didn't have the five years of people telling me the same exact thing you did. And what happens is all of our studies are with headphones. That's okay. So I can say, hey, 100%, like if you use headphones, you're gonna have the optimal experience, but you can still use it over speakers.
Starting point is 00:43:28 And it actually just depends on if you're listening to Focus, Relax, or Sleep. Because Focus is really high, fast modulations, so you can bounce off things in the room and things like that, but Relax and Sleep are really slow. So a lot of people that use this for sleep, they just put us on their phone next to their bed, or they put speakers on, like a Bluetooth.
Starting point is 00:43:46 Yeah, exactly. And they have wonderful effects. It really comes down to your environment. Like if you're in a noisy environment, the best thing you can do is put sound canceling headphones on, put some focus on and go. But it's really for everyone. However you want to use it to get the effect
Starting point is 00:44:03 is how you should use it. So you are getting a lot of people who are saying it works with three speakers, not just us. I mean,, get the effect is how you should use it. So you are getting a lot of people who are saying it works with three speakers, not just us. I mean I did an experiment just with my kids, yeah, and putting it on while we were all kind of doing our own thing and they were studying and doing their homework.
Starting point is 00:44:16 And it was like, nobody was talking, everybody was locked in and it was just, it was humming and I'm like, there's no way that this is just coincidental, you know, and then we did it again in the same effect. So yeah, it was just broadcast over the Bluetooth. Yep. And we're used, a lot of like teachers reach out to us and they're like, we use you in our classroom
Starting point is 00:44:35 to help people study and focus. And yeah, there's a lot of really cool things. So with something that's this strangely effective, I'm always thinking to myself like how is this technology, how are people, are you know? Wielded for evil? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't Hitler do something with sounds in order to like, didn't he? I don't know. Didn't you know? He did everything. No, he did something like with the cadence of his speeches and music
Starting point is 00:45:02 that he would play. You guys never heard that? How did you guys, you guys are all historians here. Well, I mean, I don't know, but I do know that there are certain cadences and certain frequencies that we've identified as like, I know that the Catholic Church has identified certain frequencies. They have certain weapons and things that they broadcast into crowds of people to.
Starting point is 00:45:18 Even like preachers are known to have, like some of your best well-known preachers are known to have a certain cadence and so with that. My question is with this technology, cause this is like another level, do you know of any of how it's being used outside of this? Or is it because it's patented they can't use this? Cause I would imagine like an advertising company would be
Starting point is 00:45:34 like, we want to make people feel a particular way when they see our commercial or a movie or something like that. Has that crossed your desk? Has anybody asked you guys? I've had many interesting theories cross my desk. Yeah, so we, I mean, so one is, the technology itself is patented, right? So-
Starting point is 00:45:55 So they wouldn't be able to unless they went through this. I mean, yes, but people could do it anyway, and then we have to like, you know, police and stuff like that. But the interesting thing is this isn't an effect that is like brainwashing, right? Or anything like that. So this is kind of like, if you listen to an ad,
Starting point is 00:46:17 one, it doesn't work immediately, right? It takes, you know, a few seconds, but it's also like, remember that dancing analogy where it makes you feel like you want to dance when you hear a song. Can you still stop yourself from dancing? Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:30 Right. So it's more- It depends because footloose, this guy can't stop. As soon as it's on. I could see that. Yeah. So if you put it on, it's over. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:37 So, you know, it's, it's one of those things where, um, it's something that, uh, we, you know, it's, it's more of this continual progress. It's an aid. I think of it more as when you're running and you have a wind on your back and it just makes it feel easier and you're having a great run,
Starting point is 00:46:52 but it's not necessarily going to pick you up and carry you on your way. We can't play it and make you a zombie. Yeah, exactly. Subliminal messaging is actually something that started in like the 70s, this idea, and subliminal messaging has been largely disproven because you have to be a willing aid to like want to do it, you know, um, like some hypnosis that exists.
Starting point is 00:47:14 You have to want to be. They have to select actually. I've actually looked at it. They have to select, they take a crowd and then the see who's most susceptible. Yeah. And then they'll pick that one person Like this person's most likely for it to work on or whatever.
Starting point is 00:47:26 Are you guys using AI technology to fine tune the sounds and how it works, either to the individual or just as a general product? Yeah, so we're spending a lot of time. I mean, AI is really great. It still can't make music yet. All the music it makes, you can tell when I made it. So what we do, our process right now
Starting point is 00:47:48 is actually like humans that design all the music. They make it sound, like we have an amazing music team, right? And what they do is they try to find diverse sets of music that they can build and create like a soundscape. And then we put that into an algorithm and that basically helps us make a soundscape that is 30 plus minutes. And we actually have this really cool patent
Starting point is 00:48:10 that we just got and it actually can take any piece of music and loop it infinitely without it ever repeating. So we have seven hours of Backstreet Boys, bye bye bye. We don't have it on our platform. It's called my personal health. I'll send it to you guys. No We don't have it on our platform. It's called My Personal Health. I'll send it to you guys. No, don't. But the idea is, our thing is, how can we make humans focus
Starting point is 00:48:32 on art, and how can we have AI and all these different kind of algorithms focus on all the science, making sure all the things are tuned correctly, and then making the experiences match what you're looking for. Yeah, I had a question. So like in terms of like your data and user base and all that stuff, do you guys find that certain, I don't know, I guess different areas of the world or, or, or listening or prefer certain songs versus others and like, you know,
Starting point is 00:49:03 what does that look like? Yeah. So we have probably the most population density in the major cities. Before I told you that people are looking, what the person looks like as far as anxious or looking for performance, but how they look like, as a regular person is we have a ton of entrepreneurs. We have a ton of people that are really trying
Starting point is 00:49:26 to optimize their time and perform at their best daily because they need to, right? So as you can imagine, you know, tons of the major cities have that. As far as, you know, who's using Focus First, Relax, or Sleep, it's very interesting because when you kind of go into suburbia, you're finding, we find a lot more people
Starting point is 00:49:46 are using relax. And those are people that are, you know, relax or sleep. Those are people that, you know. Those are people that have kids. Those people have kids. Those people have kids. Yeah, most likely. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:57 You're gonna be relaxed. Yeah, we had this one woman actually that reached out to us and she's like, thank you, thank you, thank you. And she's recording a video for us and she's like, I haven't slept in like 15 years and I've tried Lunesta, I've tried Ambien, I've tried all of the things. And I'm actually really upset that I just found out about you guys last week,
Starting point is 00:50:17 cause I've been sleeping like a baby the entire time. She's like, thank you so much. And please like tell more people about you because I shouldn't have to find out after, you know? And yeah, I think a lot of people, like, you know, they have these struggles and they're like, how can I find something that's safe, something that's effective and something that like, you know, there's not really a downside. Do you know? So you guys have musicians that, because, because when people, when you listen to this, if you haven't experienced this, there's
Starting point is 00:50:44 music underneath that, or the modulations that you listen to this, if you haven't experienced this, there's music. Underneath that are the modulations that you're talking about that are inducing the effect, but it's music that's playing. And you can hear, you can kind of hear the modulations. But there's, so you have musicians that make the music, and then do you have musicians that make the modulations? Or is that computer-derived based off of a formula? Those are computer-derived, yeah.
Starting point is 00:51:04 So to dive into that, we have all different types of genres. Because the genres aren't really the important thing, it's actually the science. The modulations. The modulations, you got it. So we have like nature music, you know, like all the things you'd hear.
Starting point is 00:51:17 We have lo-fi, classical, like all that stuff. So what we look for when we hire musicians are people that just have obscene talent like most of these people toured the world with some of the greatest, right? And they're like, listen, I love being a musician, but I don't want to go on a plane anymore or tour bus. I just want to have a family, right? But I still want to make music that can help a lot of people, right? Or a lot of people enjoy. We have this one guy on our team, his name's Derek, right? And he's this guy, right?
Starting point is 00:51:48 He's an amazing musician, and he and I were just doing a yearly review, and he made this year over 150 tracks for Brain FM. Wow. Right, and he's like, this is more in this year than my entire music career ever, right? Because he's just like in the zone and creating these things.
Starting point is 00:52:07 So he and other people on the team are making these really amazing pieces that you would find like scored in a movie or something like that, like a really good quality. And then you're right, we're basically making all of the different kind of brainwaves and patterns that we're putting into it. It's derived from a model or derived from
Starting point is 00:52:26 You know fMRI data or something like that and that is Baked into the song so it's like a line to the beats per minute So it's disguised in there and you can still hear it a little bit you can kind of need to hear it still So you've got to find that balance But then basically we're we're checking all the boxes where it sounds good, it's something you actually want to listen to, which is really tough. And then it also has these effects that we know from all of our papers and all the science that we've done and other people have done that is going to drive that effect. So are the modulations then this like if I'm listening to sleep and I one day I listen to the rain yeah and then the
Starting point is 00:53:08 next day I listen to the ocean and the next day I do the forest one are the modulations the same on all those and it's just what's layered with it that's different or do they change also? They change too. Oh yeah so they have to fit inside of the sound right because sound is the carrier way for the modulation. Like for example, let's pretend that you have a deep sleep song and it's probably like, I don't know, like 100 beats per minute or something like that, right?
Starting point is 00:53:36 Maybe less. And what's happening is if you have the modulation for 100 beats per minute versus 90 beats per minute, it has to stretch, it has to stretch and it has to transform into that thing. Otherwise, it sounds distorted, sounds computery. So that's one of the reasons why we don't take like a popular song and just put modulations in it. We have to make our own music because otherwise it would sound choppy. Yeah, like you know when you know the
Starting point is 00:54:03 helicopter effect in the car? Yeah. Right, it's kind of annoying. That's kind of the effect that we're hiding and that's what's driving it. It's a little bit more rhythmic and pulsing, but if we do it wrong, it'll sound like that. It has to be palatable. Yeah, it has to be palatable.
Starting point is 00:54:18 It's something that like healthy food is healthy for you, but you can't force yourself to eat healthy. You have to find that balance, you know? And that's what we're really trying to do. Interesting. So where are you guys based out of, by the way? So we're remote, actually. Oh, wow.
Starting point is 00:54:34 Pandemic changed all of that. The whole team? Yeah, whole team, yeah. How big is the staff? We have 15 full time and a bunch of contractors, and that's made of developers, designers, musicians, neuroscientists, and marketing. Before we started, we were talking off air, and you said something I think is a really interesting fact,
Starting point is 00:54:53 I think it would be a fun, single topic episode for us, and that was that your morning routine is making you less productive. And I think that's a real controversial statement with all the books that are out there. I would imagine you get really into the science of productivity because of the product that you make. So what did you learn about these morning routines?
Starting point is 00:55:10 Yeah, so the whole study of flow is a really, it was like a new evolving study that, or a lot of interest there, right? And flow is this finding the zone, right? And there's this idea of flow proneness, right? Which is the susceptibility you have to switch into flow state, right? And if you look at your brain when you're sleeping
Starting point is 00:55:36 and you look at your brain when you're in flow, it's actually pretty similar. So this idea that your morning routine, you're doing red light therapy and you're having smoothies and you're going on a walk and all that stuff. The it's actually taking you further away from being able to drop into flow state. Instead of waking up and sitting right down and immediately. It's crazy how obvious that is to me that I never thought about that. Because I mean, you've ever seen too, like the studies on your super athletes, like Steph Curry, when he's at the line for a free throw,
Starting point is 00:56:12 the game is on the line. He's got two free throws. He's got to hit both to make it. Or the downhill skier who hits the jump and has to do six flips or something crazy, they measure their heart rate. And their heart rate is like they're sleeping. That's what makes, that's like the biggest difference between us and then those
Starting point is 00:56:29 super athletes is they have this ability in those moments to be so calm and so focused in flow state like that. And yet here we are doing all these things like cold plunges and we have all these things that jack us up in the morning thinking that's the better way to get us focused for a day of work, it's probably going the opposite. Yeah, I mean, I think the secret is actually finding the balance between them, right? So personally, I do that. I wake up and I grab a coffee, a protein shake, and I sit down and I immediately start working, right?
Starting point is 00:57:01 And the way I can do that is before, the night before basically, plan out my day so I can go right into it. But personally, if I do that every single day and I just work for eight hours and you don't have any recovery relaxation time, you're going to burn out. Sure. So I think the secret is actually starting immediately trying to get into the zone, immediately trying to work and then working for like 90 minutes, and then doing the cold plunges,
Starting point is 00:57:28 and then using those as recovery modalities to be able to then go back into it afterwards. Because if you don't have, you guys know this, like if you don't have recovery, you don't have anything. You know? Very, it's an interesting way to look at it. I know for me, that's definitely true. I can get
Starting point is 00:57:46 into a very quick flow state but then after that I'll go work out and then I'll come back and then I feel amazing versus just you know. I know what for one thing social media upon waking is a terrible idea. That for sure I've identified as not a good way to get the day started. There's also really interesting studies. I'm not sure if these are academic studies or just things, so I won't quote anything. But there's this idea that when you are adding anxiety to your system, what happens is your brain is starting to prepare for it. So if you wake up and you start scrolling social media and you're spiking your cortisol,
Starting point is 00:58:26 what happens is it's starting to train your brain on waking up earlier and earlier and earlier so that you can actually be prepared. Ready for that anxiety. Yeah, exactly. Interesting. So, a lot of people that are doing that are actually, you know, if you find yourself waking up earlier and you have that pattern, it's probably from the social media. What you do in the morning definitely affects what happens later in the day.
Starting point is 00:58:49 I mean, the data on consuming protein upon waking and how your blood sugar is affected later with the same foods, everything is controlled, is much better. Sunlight in the morning affects your sleep in a positive way. So this makes perfect sense. So do you think upon waking, playing, relax, and then focus, or focus and then relax? I think right into focus. So personally, I'll wake up, I'll, I try to, it sounds crazy, but I try to sit down in my desk in literally two minutes.
Starting point is 00:59:20 So I try to get out of bed, I go in, I grab water, I grab protein, I put headphones on, I put brain if I'm on, and I just trying to get out of bed, I go in, I grab water, I grab protein, I put headphones on, I put brain-fum on, and I'm just trying to get into it. And I think it's interesting because when you look at people that are really successful and they're doing this, they're not, you know, Elon Musk, love him or hate him, he's not screaming about his morning routine every day. You know?
Starting point is 00:59:42 He's getting stuff done, you know? And I think it's just interesting. So I encourage everyone to experiment, try it yourself. If it works, adopt it. And if it doesn't, that's okay. Any future studies you're looking forward to potentially conducting? So there's a lot of really interesting things
Starting point is 00:59:59 that we're doing with wearables. You can see I have two of them on right now. And we're still, I think, you know, when we first started here, we're telling you that workout music was coming, right? Yes. It's still coming, but it's, it's tough, right? There's a lot of things that have to do.
Starting point is 01:00:15 There's so many different people that have different kinds of workouts and different kinds of bodies, of things like that. Of course. Um, and we found that the only way to really effectively do it is actually hook up wearables. So you can see in real time what's going on. Yeah. So what we're actually trying to do is build better neurofeedback through music. So we'd actually change the music. Like right now,
Starting point is 01:00:34 the basis for music is all pitted in all this research for people across what all these brains look like and focus, relax, or sleep. But the next level of BrainFM is that we are able to look inside of you and see your HRV and your GSR. How sick that would be. And be able to, yeah, to change in real time. Imagine getting alerted from your aura ring that says like, hey, you should probably meditate for 15 minutes or. Or just adjust in real time.
Starting point is 01:01:01 The music just changes. We would change in real time. Yeah, that would be sick. Yeah, so we've been playing with a lot of that. There's some really cool stuff that we've been able to do that is probably too early to say, but it's something we're still working on, and I'm really excited to see that turn in,
Starting point is 01:01:21 because the vision is being, imagine someone that they want to perform at work. They have kids at home and they're like, okay, I want to get this done. And they're trying to sit there, trying to work, and all of a sudden they click Brain FM and they get in the zone. They have a great day between on time and relaxing,
Starting point is 01:01:40 and they're heading home in the car. They put on relax. And we are knowing this person needs to be down regulated and we're looking at your HRV and your GSR and those are all really good indicators of your mental state. They can all be determined from that. And then imagine that you arrive home and your kids come out and you're fully present and you're recharged
Starting point is 01:02:06 and you're there or you're with your wife and you wanna be intimate and it's so hard to shake off all the things that happen in your day and you can actually just be fully present and fully aware and enjoy all the different parts of life that we're here for, you know what I mean? That's the vision that we're trying to do. So you said over four million people have used Red FM.
Starting point is 01:02:30 How many are currently active? Are you able to say that? So we keep these numbers kind of, like as far as current subscribers and things like that, but we have more than 300,000 people that are using us per month, and it's all over the world. How do most people find you guys? Is it through marketing or word of mouth month. And it's all over the world. It's just really cool. How do most people find you guys?
Starting point is 01:02:45 Is it through marketing or word of mouth? Right now it's word of mouth. And we're transitioning into marketing. And that's why we're back here. We started here with you guys. And now that we're jumping into marketing, the first people we wanted to sponsor was this show because of where it all started.
Starting point is 01:03:01 That's awesome. Yeah, well, like I said, I wouldn't, if I didn't try it, I wouldn't believe it. It's really weird, but you guys have an option where people can try it out. Yeah, totally. It is, it's, it's not effective. It's strangely effective. And I say strangely because you're in disbelief when you use it the first few
Starting point is 01:03:18 times, like really, is it really that? Oh my gosh, what's going on? So we definitely advocate for it. And like I said, we've talked about you guys so many times even without being sponsored. So appreciate it. Yeah, love it. Thanks for having me back.
Starting point is 01:03:30 Yeah, thanks for coming on, man. Awesome. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com.
Starting point is 01:03:45 The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love
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